DC are going to have to repeat a school year

[bigbananafeet12]

They finished school in March, there’s more chance teachers (and frightened parents) might be willing to get back into schools by next March. I know some dc are getting full school days on zoom, but for most their home learning is no substitute. Universities are planning on doing online learning for the first term too so loads will defer potentially causing problems for the current year 12.
You might say you’re dc are fine now but if things carry on like this in September, October, November and so on enthusiasm for home learning is going to decrease massively. It’s just unfair on dc. They need a chance to learn properly in the normal way. I honestly see no other satisfactory solution.

@Zaradelorio schools aren’t using zoom or FaceTime. They are effectively self learning (secondary school) and only then if they’re motivated and have the sufficient resources.

Financially this would ruin people who would be counting on moving their kids into reception.
Where would all the additional nursery children go? There is no capacity around where we are (I had to go onto the waiting list for my daughters before she was born!)
Never mind the logistics, I know my dsc (specifically the 11 year old) would be bored shitless. He’s really bright and would struggle to be kept engaged.
My daughter is moving to school in September and I have no plans to keep her out.
Oh and we’re in London where infections are low relatively low at the moment but could explode at anytime.

Calm down. The hysteria will reduce over the coming month and education will be back to normal by September. Honestly. Bet you a million quid.

When I was at school in the 1970s, we had a lot of lessons in prefab buildings. I remember it was normal for there to be several classrooms made of wood, standing by the normal school building. When it rained, they were really noisy as they just had plastic roofs.
For just a single year it would probably make more sense to find alternative "classrooms" in a village hall or whatever. But I imagine something could be done if you really wanted. I guess the problem would be finding staff?

If schools are part time in September, and I don’t think they will be, then it will be up to schools to ensure that children still have access to the full curriculum. Some of it might be online and I agree that that wouldn’t be great for the students that have to learn like that, but we’re all making sacrifices. Those students will be fine, they’ll take their exams based on what they have been able to cover and life will carry on. I can’t understand why you feel the need to hold the whole education system back a year.

A high proportion of the people getting seriously ill with this are obese & overweight.

There is a solution. It's called a diet.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland tell that to teachers. I think they’ll disagree with you.

This will never happen but if anything was to be repeated my idea would be to carry on in their year from September to December. Then we just have a school year from January to December from now on. New reception would only have 4 months to wait and it will give students the education they have lost.

That won't happen, it's impossible.

Ds gets his gcse results on the 20th August. He can't resit year 11 as there would be nothing to do for the year.

He has school anxiety and additional needs. I've spent years worrying about his schooling and well being so I am understanding of parents concerns at the moment but repeating for whole year groups just wouldn't work.

There might be a lot of teachers that aren’t happy about going back, but there are also plenty that are very keen to go back. The only difference is that the former group shout loudly about what they want and the latter just keep quiet and get on with it.

Try finding enough teachers to repeat a year - there are major shortages now that £30000 bribes to train haven’t filled. And besides, we’re all shit at our jobs so why would want your children to spend more time being ruined by us?

Tbf teachers hide behind their unions all the time. Have we seen any other sector refusing to work ‘until it’s safe’? I’m not surprised one bit. They will be the reason children fall behind expected levels.

Genuinely I have always been on teachers sides, but this is getting silly.

Year 6s should have covered the primary curriculum and would be just re-capping/doing SATs prep, then they would have done SATs and for the rest of the year, as well as the fun things, would have carried on working, focusing on writing and keeping maths ticking over, but they have missed little core learning. Do you really think they would want to start the whole year again?

All the children are in the same situation. The teachers may have to modify their teaching for the next year group to go over groundwork to subjects that will have been missed this term but it is only a term missing seems unfair to add a whole extra year.

@fandajji that’s a great idea, but seriously ask any teacher on here about September. They’ll be part time then and some years still won’t be back.

I’m also not sure where we’d put a whole extra cohort of children at nursery either!

They can't repeat a year but teachers will do what they always do, in primary anyway, and teach the children starting from where they are. If that means starting from a lower baseline that is what they will have to do.

Plenty of overreaction and scaremongering here. Children are tested against the cohort. Grade boundaries will be lower next year as averagely children will be less prepared.
The real issue to look at is the differential in quality of learning provision between different schools but that is an issue that has been around long before a certain virus hit our lives.

Yeah I'm surprised school wasn't just paused for a year and let them pick back up next year, yes it'll be a tough year with a lot of logistics needing to be worked out but needs must. It's a pandemic, the kids are gonna do worse than they would of in a normal situation regardless so kids are being forced to take tests during a hugely stressful time where they're gonna under perform, it's not fair to them as these tests arbitrarily decide things like jobs and uni applications.

If unis are gonna fold cus they don't get a year of freshers (ignoring all the other students there as most courses are 3/4 years, and ignoring all of the mature students who will still be applying) maybe if unis are only functioning off of the student loan companys money then they're doing something very wrong.

Calm down. The hysteria will reduce over the coming month and education will be back to normal by September. Honestly. Bet you a million quid.

God I hope you are right. I keep thinking I really should stop looking at Mumsnet, because I really hope it isn't representative of most people's thinking.

@CarrieBlue they won’t need more teachers because reception won’t start.
If we’re not back until March the current Year 11 will need to get back into learning after being out for a year as they’ve had no home learning.

New reception won’t start and all the others will stay where they were. Makes complete sense to me.

What are you proposing to do about nurseries? None have space to accommodate a full extra year of children (particularly those who are the least financially viable for the nursery due to shortfalls in early years funding).

What happens to the parents who had carefully budgeted for the nursery years, but now have to magic up the extra £7k (annual cost of 4 days a week after 30hrs and TFC at ours)?

What happens to the women finishing their maternity leave whose children are due to start nursery?

What happens to all of them when the nursery folds because the suns no longer add up?

(Besides, let’s not bother about all the 4 year olds who have been prepared and excited to start school. Their lives haven’t been shit enough recently anyway. Let’s pile on a bit more.)

Not happening in Scotland. my DD has been moved up to S3 and is now only studying her picked subjects rather than BGE

bigbanana I am a teacher on here, but one of those who is desperate to be back full time! My year 10s could definitely do with an extra few months and the lower years would benefit too. But you're right, there's just constant shouting down of any suggestions at the moment.

I'm also a teacher who constantly hassles parents who take term time holidays so it would be wrong of me to suddenly say that time spent with a teacher is irrelevant to education!