If school cannot go back normally, they shouldn't go back?

[UnderReview]

Especially primary schools. Social distancing cannot be the new 'normal'! It will really fuck kids up. They'll be scared of normal contact and germaphobes for life. It's not OK. No school would be better than playing on your own in a chalk draw box in the playground or sitting on a table by yourself. It would be a nightmare for teachers too and is ultimately useless. If a kid sneezes on the way in to class or in the toilet and touches a tap or the wall, or coughs on a tray of pencils, etc... and they're sharing the same air in the classroom.... and the teacher cannot possibly stay two metres away, what if a child falls over or is in pain?! Or choking? I don't know what the answer is, but it can't be social distancing in schools. Or AIBU?

@ineedaholidaynow I can tell you honestly, many of the kids I used to teach had excellent attendance and spent the summer holidays waiting for school to start again. School was a haven for them. We ran free after school clubs several days a week because they liked staying later and it gave opportunities for them to play extra sports, games, use computers. A lot of them didn't want to go home. There is another world out there, I don't think a lot of people realise.

usuallydormant

Unfortunately your point will be ignored because it reflects what the teachers in England are asking for.

Can we just accept that some will send their children back and want to and some don't??
If you don't want yours to go back fine, some do and should be given that option, some teachers do want to return despite what you read on here sometimes.

The fact that public schools like Eton and Harrow are not going back until September is a bit of a red herring in this debate. They are overwhelmingly schools for boarders, with many pupils with families abroad all of which creates a different set of difficulties and challenges to a local day school. They have also put together formal on line learning to as closely resemble what would be taught in school as possible and teachers are very involved every day in supporting and coaching their pupils on line or by phone.

I work in social care and m staff, who care for older people, visit them every day with no social distancing but with PPE. I feel the risks to the children themselves are minimal, especially as the schools have been open for Key workers children throughout without difficulties. I feel appropriate use of PPE would make a big difference.

Puzzled

Bang on. There have not been any. Funny how the teaching unions aren't talking about that, are they.

Can't anyone see how if we directed resource to protecting the truly vulnerable properly and allowed every one else to get on, we would actually stand a chance at lowering death rates?

Children aren't the ones dying of this. At the moment it is predominantly sweeping through care homes, who have struggled for PPE throughout.

Forget wasting masks on young, healthy workers. We should be allocating money to protect the elderly and helping the obese/overweight to lose weight.

@upthewolves but a lot of these children aren’t attending now, and I know my local schools weren’t just accepting vulnerable who have a social worker, they tried to encourage other families to send their children in. SLT are delivering food hampers to families and doing welfare checks at the same time.

I am just wondering whether these families will send their children in on 1 June.

OneandTwenty, yes, about half of the parents have decided not to send their kids back yet and this seems to be the pattern across many schools. Some parents want to wait for two weeks to see how it goes. However, the vast majority of primary schools are open.

We are in a green zone, we have no health issues in the family and confidence that our school will do the best it can. It is not risk free and it is inevitable that schools will open and closed as cases are found. Families need to make their own decisions, but I don't believe the majority of children will be traumatised by the social distancing measures.

Fair enough - I can't say I know too much about this; just I dislike the rhetoric suggesting teachers are workshy, avoiding their responsibilities or general teacher bashing. Of course the pandemic is making the dearth between poorer and richer students ever more apparent; lack of wifi, laptops etc to say the least. But equally I don't think the right move is to declare schools open for business as 'kids are resilient' or some other nonsense.

They will not open boarding schools, hotels, cruise ships because of proximity not because they are posh. We have seen the chaos of cruise ships, hotels take coach parties, not a great idea just now. As for boarding schools, kids want to get together in the evening, they shower in blocks, you cannot keep them away from each other.

I agree OP. Making 5 and 6 year olds sit at seperate desks and stay apart from each other is unnatural and I think will cause more harm than good. Also I understand teachers have to remove any toys/resources that can not be wiped down it will be much worse for their education and their mental health than staying at home. I can't see how much or any meaningful learning can take place in those circumstances.

@ineedaholidaynow I'm really happy to hear those welfare checks have been happening in your area. As I am not currently teaching I don't know if that has been happening in the area I used to work in. I am friends with lots of the teaching assistants from the school I used to work at on FB and have seen the opposite to what you describe unfortunately. Lots sharing statements that they are putting themselves at risk looking after key worker children and that no one should be sending children in unless they have to. Really concerned me. Perhaps different in different areas.

I've said this before on here, and someone upthread has said the same - it's not the fact that schools are opening to more children on June 1st, it's which ones and in what form.

Target the deprived areas, target the kids already performing below age expectation or who have SEND that needs professional input that parents can't provide. Get those for whom this is a major disruption to their education back - and stop pretending that, for some kids, it isn't. School is their safe place and their only hope of a better future. Side by side, canvas parents for how many really need the kids back - those who need to return to working roles and can't. The crossover is likely, sadly, to be pretty high. There are, definitely, children in DD's school for whom this is the case, and who are going to be missed by the current system.

At the same time, though, start acknowledging that, for many others, this disruption isn't going to be the end of the world, and that the 'risks' of going into a changed, inefficient environment do outweigh the negatives.

@ginnybag I agree with you actually. I wonder if it is either too difficult to determine or too problematic from an administrative point of view (I don't know).

@Puzzledandpissedoff I'm not aware that any such large clusters have arisen - surely the unions would have told us if so - and wonder if this is perhaps some reassurance around more children returning to school?

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland Bang on. There have not been any

The average number of children being looked after in one school building at one time during lockdown has been 11.

There are 7 people living in my household and none of us have caught it yet, either.

When we return to 1500 children in the same building, we will have a different scenario.

They've 'compared' the number of teachers dying from this to healthcare workers too. But healthcare staff have been on the frontline and most teachers have been directed to work from home. Put everyone back, and it will be a different storyz not unlike the sectors with large outbreaks.

I think so many people have lost all perspective about this virus that they are blinded by fear and anxiety.

Imagine if in a pre-coronoavirus world you heard about a parent that was planning to homeschool their child. Fair enough you think, except they then told you that they would not be letting their children socialise with any other children outside their household, the children would not be able to go to any clubs or meetups and they would only have access to a very limited selection of facilities with no access to museums, libraries and even play equipment. They then continue to explain that they would still be working from home FT whilst trying to home educate their child and would have very limited capacity to concentrate on the child at all, let alone educate them. I imagine you would have some serious concerns and would be wondering about the effect that this would have on the child's welfare and development. I suspect many of us would consider contacting the authorities and look to intervene in such a scenario.

By default so many families have now found themselves in this kind of scenario and can recognise that it absolutely isn't in their child's best interest. Of course, we don't have the option of returning to normal schooling but many parents would choose to accept a compromised version of school over the highly undesirable alternative of keeping children at home for as long as the risk is completely eliminated.

Opening schools for specially selected children might work at primary level.

There is no way it would work at secondary level as it would create too much stigma - it would basically be highlighting the children who were struggling or falling behind.

Agree Bumpitybumper.

Eton had already announced they were finishing term on the 12th June anyway, among all the other reasons. Ridiculous comparison.

For those who say children must get their education back if school for 5 and 6 year olds is going to be as Mr Gove said on Sunday and as the email from GlitteryFluff s then the children will not be being educated at school because 5 and 6 year olds do not learn like that. Older children and teenagers may be able to cope and learn in those circumstances but not the youngest children.

I dunno, this seems pretty patronising. Of course there are problems to consider when reopening schools, but do you think that teachers haven't thought of any of this?! The teachers at my school are constantly discussing it, updating parents, then having to start over again when the government changes its advice.

I am in no hurry for the schools to reopen, and I don't trust the government to make anything like a sensible decision about this. And I also wonder whether those people who think it's possible to keep kids 2m apart have ever met a child. But there are other factors to consider here too, like the families of self-employed parents who have lost most of their income during the lockdown. 'Open as normal or stay shut' is not a realistic option, and there's no reason why it should be either - between those extremes there is scope for sensible arrangements as well as the problematic ones that you assume is the best that the teachers can come up with.

Children are at more risk getting to school than from covid......teachers are ok to clap the NHS for continuing working but many are trying their best to stop schools reopening on the 1st

"it occurred to me that most children currently in school are those of key workers, many of whom are in touch with the infected; therefore we might have expected to see large numbers of cases arising from this if the dangers were as great as some claim"

When my ICU parents finish their shifts, they strip off their clothes, put them in a plastic bag and shower. They leave work, then shower again when they get home and immediately wash their clothes.
They have twice had to self-isolate since March.

How many parents will be adhere to such strict hygiene precautions, I wonder?

I agree OP. Making 5 and 6 year olds sit at seperate desks and stay apart from each other is unnatural and I think will cause more harm than good.

I can't be the only one old enough to have been in a primary school classroom with separate desks. I don't know when group tables became normal, but I promise you, children managed perfectly well in schools with separate desks for years without being harmed by it.

If it’s okay for retail workers, NHS staff, people in key manufacturing industries etc then it does sound like yet more “special pleading” by teachers.

And yet, all these people are being told they should use PPE, and those going into shops should too. But teachers are actively being told they can't.

Bar NHS workers, who are clearly a special case, no-one else is being asked to spend large amounts of time in a confined space with 15 other people who can't social distance.

Working in a school clearly is different and needs different precautions, even the DfE advice states this. It's not the same as working with other adults.