Our children have the right to an education.

[NameChange738676756]

So many posts about whether schools will be safe when they reopen but I’m not seeing this point made. Lots of discussion around the childcare that schools provide and the importance on children socially.

My 11 year old has lost all interest and I can’t get him to do anything significant. We’ve had one zoom social with his teacher and classmates. So pretty much zero learning going on.

We know children are less susceptible and there is some discussion around whether they’re transmitting less. The children of key workers (i.e. the ones more likely to catch and spread it) have been at school the whole time and as far as I know there haven’t been massive outbreaks in schools.

So I think I just want to loudly shout: our children have the right to an education.

*Let me take the opportunity to tell you all to fuck off!

Something I wanted to do on an almost daily basis when I was teaching when I or a colleague was harangued by a student, a parent or SMT about something that really was not within our control but had, for some inexpsicable reason, been devolved to us*

Begs the question, why did you choose that career? We ALL deal with deranged people in our work, granted some more so than others, but it isn't exclusive to teaching. Our department has been handed so much extra work that has become permanently ours while our grading and time frames remain the same too. I really hope you're not a teacher in our school.

we have the right to lots of things. We also have the right to expect to be safe doing those things which is currently a higher priority than some of those other things we all want to be able to do.

Nobody is saying we don't want education for our children. Its a huge issue - especially for those mid-way through GCSEs, A-Levels.

Surely most of Europe had a stricter lockdown and a lot of schools shut before we did so it's not comparable. We have the second highest death toll in the world. Just think about that for a minute. Then decide if it's still worth rushing children back to school

I'm a parent of a reception child. Home schooling in the sense of phonics, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, writing and drawing is going great. However that's not what EYFS is really about. It's about learning to learn in a group, co operate with peers, deal with adults other than her immediate family and do odd bursts of the stuff we define as educational. None of this is possible at home!

Even people who home ed habitually will be struggling with the social side - as none of the usual groups are allowed either!

As I've just moved to Scotland I know DC will not be back before August (in fact speculation suggests P1 might wait until January) so I have no real bias either way. Just concern that DC will have very limited access to socialisation with her peers (1 yo sibling is better than being an only but not ideal!) for the best part of 9 months!

I think it’s quite contradictory for the government to be saying that there is still so much danger from CV that:

Furlough is being extended through October because it’s not going to be safe for employees or the public to open up many businesses for the next 6 months;

The public is being encouraged to walk, cycle or drive to work rather than use public transport wherever possible because it’s not safe to be on crowded public transport;

People are still being constantly reminded to socially distance from other people wherever you go, and to not go anywhere that isn’t essential;

While you can now meet up and see two other people outside your household, those meetings must be done ‘separately’, even if the two parents (such a grandparents) live together themselves;

But it’s apparently somehow safe for schools to re-open in less than 3 weeks, with a goal of having all primary school students back in school for a month before the end of the summer term. And teachers should do that without masks or protective gear in their enclosed school spaces, too, because apparently not scaring or upsetting the children is more important than the safety and health of the grown ups who are in schools with them.

I was looking at a staff thread online here last night, and there were a number of Teachers, TAs and LSAs saying they were resigning because they feel returning to work under these conditions isn't safe for them. We already have a teacher shortage; our school has been struggling to feel slots. This won't help.

CuriousaboutSamphire

Well said.

I agree with Pinkydozzy.

I have 2 DC in 2 different independent schools. One school has done the most amazing job, the other school has done very little. They gave literally no work for the weeks running up to Easter and only turned this around when the parents threatened to not pay term 3 fees. I've not heard from our Form Teacher once and they have never asked my DC once if they are alright. I've heard this is across the school. Some teachers told the DC their subject was being dropped for the rest of the year. Basically they had down tools, despite the full pay and 3 and a half week Easter Holiday, the half term coming up and then the 8 week holiday happening from mid July. When I once contacted my Form Teacher with a question, it was as if I had phoned them up at 3am.

I was working up until a couple of weeks ago and will be back as soon as I am given the green light shortly. My DH is working form home 8am till late at night getting things done. It seems to me that SOME teachers don't want to go back until September and are not happy about having to do a bit of work for the students. I've already been told by this school to send in tech so my DC can still have lessons from teachers who are at home.

Teachers need to get back to the school now, like the rest of us who are ready to go and get on with it. You only have a short stint of teaching and then you can go have your lovely 6-8 week break that the majority of us only got to have once in a lifetime due to a global pandemic and will never have again.

If schools and colleges can see no way of opening before the summer, what is going to be different come September?

Exactly this. We have already been told that we are going to have to continue with socially distancing for the foreseeable so parents who think keeping their children off until September will mean school life will be any different to what they are currently proposing are kidding themselves. Children can't be kept at home indefinately.

I've asked the school and they say they're not engaging with students via video conferencing apps on the advice of teaching unions.

So what have you, as a parent, done about that?

@PinkyDozza I see someone else has asked and I'm sorry if I've missed your reply but can I ask your source/link about unions blocking discussions please?

I feel like I need to make a disclaimer to say that I am not a teacher, but I'm so sick of the teacher bashing on this forum, it's quite dreadful.

Workers have the right to safe conditions, too.

My DC is Year 1 and among the first ones slated to go back. DC needs interaction with friends and working with parents is no substitute for hte home environment. My own work isn't receiving my full attention and I'm concerned DC is being sold short too.

I'm not a disinterested party, but it sounds very much as though the teachers' union are up in arms about this and intending to fight it. Also if classes exceed 15, where are the other children going to go? DC attends a small village primary. If it means ferrying them round to unfamiliar schools, then in this environment I'm not too happy with that situation.

It's far from a foregone conclusion that they'll be going back in June.

FirTree31

I really hope you're not a teacher in our school.

Take a look at the first line of that post.

Then think about how stupid that line of your response is.

Up to O level standard (or whatever the equivalent is these days!) should be manageable by parents

Nice theory, but when I used to teach Year 1 (in a fairly middle class suburb of London) there was a sizeable minority of parents who struggled to grasp the maths and literacy/phonics content of the curriculum. These children were 5 and 6. I think we underestimate how ill educated much of our population is.

YANBU OP. The well-being of a generation of children is being sacrificed in all this and very few people seem to care or even realise. It seems already factored in that our children’s future has to be a miserable, debt-ridden, socially distanced dystopia. All that matters now, apparently, is avoiding Covid deaths, and no one is allowed to suggest that there might be an alternative way of responding to the crisis.

Schools are a lifeline and sanctuary for so many children, and that has all now gone. No amount of remote teaching can replace the human interaction and input that our most vulnerable kids need, and I’m shocked at how many people seem to think screen-based teaching is an acceptable substitute, let alone desirable, for any length of time. I’ve also found the dismissive language used by teachers on here towards both children and parents extremely depressing - and I say that as a former teacher who is usually fully on-side with the profession.

I can’t get him to do anything significant sounds like a parenting problem maybe you take responsibility for ensuring he gets an education while we have our little inconvenient pandemic. Your his parent if you have so little control over his behaviour it's a you problem not a school problem

I’m so tired of hearing teachers and school staff moaning, and I say that as a teacher myself. Maybe any teacher unhappy with their lot should go and work in the supermarket facing a large number or total strangers pushing by, giving them abuse and remaining open throughout rather then be forced to face a small group of realistically 20 extra people for twice the salary. Our children need education and social contact - this virus is not going anywhere and let’s face it 25 people on average die from chicken pox each year but no one seems to notice that. You were all happy to listen to the government when they said go home and get paid but now suddenly you’re all about knowing better.

This 100%! I’ve always been hugely supportive of teachers and think they often get an unnecessarily hard time but they are doing themselves no favours here.

The way i see it, we have all been cooped up in our homes for 8 weeks now with children having no contact with anyone other than their immediate household. So, no child going back to school will have the virus. If they do, the only place they could have got it from is their own household and if the adults are displaying symptoms then surely they would have the common sense to isolate the whole household for the obligitory 14 days.

Oh, and CuriousaboutSamphire - spot on, with you 100%

My child needs to go back for the social interation, the education side of it I can deal with but as an only child she is suffering quite badly with the isolation.

You never had to send your child to school.

The postion in UK law is that parents have the legal responsibility to ensure that their child receives an education, either by sending them to a school or by making other arrangements.

So it's all your fault.

No more than anyone else has a right to continue with their lives as normal. Personally, I find the constant rantings of parents who think their children have it worse than everyone else a bit tiresome and ridiculous. Normal life has ground to a halt, for everyone, and all the things that were previously thought important have had to stop. School is just one of those things. Kids just have to wait like everybody else.

You were all happy to listen to the government when they said go home and get paid but now suddenly you’re all about knowing better.

Well said. Funny how people are happy to follow advice when it suits them but always find 101 reasons not to follow advice when it doesn't suit them!

Well I feel sad that 52% of people think I am unreasonable to think children have a right to an education.

I’m hoping they mean “children don’t have the right to go to school” and haven’t RTFT where I go on to say I don’t necessarily think that education has to come from a school setting.

Also like to add that having a right to an education isn’t mutually exclusive to other rights, including that to live.

So educate them. Our teachers have the right not to be forced to risk their lives for that education. Schools have set up a lot of online resources and even retired teachers have been uploading lessons on YouTube. You are the parent. Your childs reluctance to engage is your problem.

Maybe any teacher unhappy with their lot should go and work in the supermarket facing a large number or total strangers pushing by, giving them abuse and remaining open

Every supermarket I've been in has a security guard, the check-out person is behind a screen and only deals with one person at a time, who then leaves the building. Soo like teaching.

Of course they have the right to education but a few months without is not going to hurt them. Far better than being ill!