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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To wonder how schools can realistically reopen when there is still a killer virus about with no vaccine?

706 replies

JustCantShakeIt · 14/04/2020 12:11

I’m not talking about them reopening now, in May or June or even September.

Who is prepared to send their DC into a school with hundreds of other DC, where social distancing and keeping a germ free environment is literally impossible, even with the best wills in the world, when there is a life threatening disease floating about which is highly transmittable and you have no guarantee it won’t make your DC severely ill or die.

Social distancing just between parents will be impossible at my DC’s school of over 500 where we all have to wait outside the main gates at pick up time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m desperate for schools to reopen before my DC turn completely feral, but I don’t see how that can happen until we have a vaccine. We’re being told to stay home and keep our distance now due to the risk, the risk will be the same next month or in 5 months won’t it?

OP posts:
TastyFingers · 14/04/2020 19:18

That’s not how furlough works. It’s not someone getting 80% and someone being paid to do the job...

No, I understand that. It's a hypothetical question. Asked to make sure that you understand what the rest of the country is being asked.

Again, if you clap for the bravery of NHS workers, and you understand the numbers that volunteered to work on wards, are you OK with saying it's not ok for you to work with the potentially sick?

I understand if you are frightened. But I think that you should be on reduced wages which eventually end if so.

SmileEachDay · 14/04/2020 19:22

Tasty

Did you read the rest of my response? The bit where I said I will go back when the schools reopen?

I have no idea why you’re imagining that I’ve said I won’t.

I want the decision to open to be done in consultation with people who understand schools. That’s all.

AlternativePerspective · 14/04/2020 19:23

Ah but, bear in mind that most expect parents to home-school without difficulty while holding down a full-time. Job at home

So how does that differ from volunteering in a school exactly? Bar the numbers of children...

Onceateacher · 14/04/2020 19:24

We are still working Confused
Well I'm not this week as it's a holiday and we were told to take it - but after this I'll be preparing and marking work, struggling to find out what we're doing re the exams and estimates grades, and spending a day in school on a rota. (And I'm only part time)
Why should I get less money? Are you talking about the hypothetical situation that the schools reopen but we refuse to return to work? What teachers on here are saying is let's make that return as safe as we can (within the parameters of life with a bloody virus around) so that all staff and students (and the people they live with) have a fighting chance.

spanieleyes · 14/04/2020 19:25

Teachers are still in school but even with the restricted numbers social distancing is impossible, 4 year olds don't really get the concept! When you have a school full, the problems will just multiply. All teachers want is a well thought out strategy to ensure, as much as possible, the safety of children, parents and staff.

Onceateacher · 14/04/2020 19:27

Bar the numbers of children...
Well that, exactly. And having to prepare the work yourselves and assess it and work out what levels they are at and plan progressive pathways of work and prepare for future exams and produce quality assurance documents and liaise with ASN departments about children with learning disabilities or other issues.

cantkeepawayforever · 14/04/2020 19:27

Tasty, I am not saying I won't go back. In fact, despite being in the 'vulnerable' group, I both stayed at work to the end and will go back when asked.

I would just like, as I said, there to be some evidence that someone who knows about schools has done at least some risk assessment, including risk for the wider school community.

As soon as schools go back, unless significant steps are taken that are very different from 'back to normal', every member of every household that sends a child into school will be linked in a way that allows easy transmission of infection.

In fact, since households often have children at 2 or more educational settings - nursery, primary, secondary - as soon as children return then thousands of households are immediately linked by a possible virus transmission route.

The modelling of the likely illness rates, not necessarily amongst the children at all, but amongst brothers, sisters, parents, staff, staff parents, grandparents, extended family is a critical piece of information that the NEU has rightly asked for in today's letter.

Each wave of additional adults needed to prop up the staffing (because it does seem that adults are both more susceptible to and more affected by the virus) involves aother wave of families, the elderly etc being drawn into that 'community pool' of transmission.

It's the risk to society as a whole, not specifically to me, that I would want to see modelled and mitigated.

CleanUpWoman · 14/04/2020 19:30

Just as a side, teachers are not a hive mind. We're not all work shy idiots all singing from the from the same hymn sheet.
Many of us are offended by the idea that women are of a hive mind and the belittling of opinions that that idea fosters.

So please don't apply the same thought processes to the teaching profession.

I would love to go back to work ASAP. I have a 6 year old who would love to go back to school.
But we really need to think VERY carefully about what the repercussions of that will be.

Children in EYFS and KS1 have zero concept of personal space and decent (in this case) hygiene practises. Its not a get out or an excuse, it's fact.
This virus will undoubtedly spread like wildfire if we were to go back into school right now.

Makeitgoaway · 14/04/2020 19:32

Why are people so animated about this now ? Look how much has changed in the last 4 weeks, we have at least another 8 weeks before schools will go back, probably longer. Who knows what the world will look like by then?

The Director of Education at our LA admits (to headteachers) she has no idea when or how schools might get back to normal so this all seems a bit premature.

HoffiCoffi13 · 14/04/2020 19:33

It's the risk to society as a whole, not specifically to me, that I would want to see modelled and mitigated

Which is perfectly reasonable and I imagine (hope?) is being worked on, as it will be in all the countries who have closed schools and are looking to reopen them at some point in the future.

0v9c99f9g9d939d9f9g9h8h · 14/04/2020 19:35

tasty

Your post reads like a self-regarding, fourth formers English essay. You may have given yourself goosepimples but it's sentimental and illogical. This is not a time to find a hill to die on and you're not Spartacus. Those working in ICU excepted, you're not staying at home to look after your own interests and you wouldn't particularly be risking your own interests if you returned to work. Or bring remotely heroic. You're staying at home currently to avoid catastrophic loss of life and an economic disaster that would be attached to it. When you go back to work, it will be the consequence of shrewd political and economic reckoning and will be packaged in a slightly less obvious version of what you tried to do in your post. It won't mean that the lockdown was wrong or fearful. Look at the bloody graph.

nobodyimportant · 14/04/2020 19:38

I wonder how far these perceived morals would stretch if they were being forced into unpaid leave

I've been in unpaid work looking after keyworkers' children through the Easter holidays! I'm not complaining, given I've had time at home paid (it's definitely not a holiday though, and I'm always on call).

spanieleyes · 14/04/2020 19:38

Does anyone know if schools in other countries have remained open for key workers and vulnerable families?

CleanUpWoman · 14/04/2020 19:39

Me too, been in work and teaching several times over the Easter holiday.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 14/04/2020 19:40

Of that 10% over 50% had Covid19 antibodies, ie had already contracted it and recovered.

Of that 50% over 90% were completely asymptotic and didn't even know they had it.

So it's likely that up to 50% of us have had this already.

That’s not the data I’ve seen. Do you have a link to that.

Everything I’ve seen so far suggests that random testing of 10% of their population suggested 0.3-0.4% of their population were infected. And 50% of the positive tests were in people who showed no symptoms at the point of testing. Which is not the same thing as 50% of cases being asymptomatic.
As far as I’m aware, these aren’t antibody tests.

Reliable antibody testing seems to be a way off for now.

SmileEachDay · 14/04/2020 19:41

Does anyone know if schools in other countries have remained open for key workers and vulnerable families?

Not in France. Absolute blanket closure. KWs who could not arrange childcare have been staying at home.

LetTheCabbagesDie · 14/04/2020 19:41

I've been in unpaid work looking after keyworkers' children through the Easter holidays

But your monthly income has remained the same, right?

In the post I was referring to a choice between returning to work or receiving no monthly income at all.

spanieleyes · 14/04/2020 19:41

Unfortunately I haven't been able to go into school as I have Coronavirus!

nobodyimportant · 14/04/2020 19:42

There have been some very sobering threads on cancelled medical appointments

Medical appointments being cancelled has nothing to do with schools!

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 14/04/2020 19:44

Does anyone know if schools in other countries have remained open for key workers and vulnerable families?

I don’t think so. Definitely not in Spain. And I think the same for France. Some of the gradual return to schools there might look very similar to what’s happening in the UK now.

Iwannabeadored20 · 14/04/2020 19:45

@AlternativePerspective

Because the parents at home are just with their own children

Not 29 other children with

statements for provision
confidential family circumstances
SEN
Educational Psychologists recommendations
Social Services intervention
Medical needs
Speech Therapy requirements
Occupational Therapy Requirements

You may look at your children's class and think ok, there may be 5 children in there that fall into that category but once you are privy to the confidential information you realise there are many more things going on

including

divorce
abuse
affairs
suicide
illness
unhappiness

that, particularly at primary, are known.

Also, and this may surprise some, the interesting amount of parents who are friends with other parents, socialise together, party together, spend every after school event together yet specify that on no account must their child sit/work/interact with other child during the school day.

Teaching ultimately is about relationships with the children and that is often the best bit - I still miss loads of children I have taught - from years back but it takes so much out of you that other areas of you rlife have to fit around teaching - thats the vocational part - short term volunteers aren't in a position to that without training - and even teacher training requires ongoing observation.

I would love it if more people tried - I really would. teh we could strat to really think about what kind of places we want our schools to be and how we could achieve that. Clue: it starts at home.

LaProfesora · 14/04/2020 19:50

@spanieleyes

As far as I know only in the UK have the schools remained open to key workers' children. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

BurneyFanny · 14/04/2020 19:52

Not in France. Absolute blanket closure

Not true. I live in France, my local school is open for key workers children.

spanieleyes · 14/04/2020 19:52

I'm sure you're not. I tried to find another country that still had schools open but couldn't, they just said schools closed!

HoffiCoffi13 · 14/04/2020 19:58

Some of the gradual return to schools there might look very similar to what’s happening in the UK now

Definitely. But all will be working towards getting all children back eventually, so hopefully there is a lot of work going into how to do that safely.