Yes, DahliaDay.
It is very little to do with education and a lot to do with childcare. If it was to do with education, year 5 would be back, making up ground before they do SATS next year. Or Year 10 or 12. What they’ve done is prioritised the children who make it hardest to work from home. The ones who can’t occupy themselves, unlike most Year 5s.
I wish the gvt would be honest. They’ve talked about the importance of education for early years but ignored the fact that most countries do not even have kids in school at this point. Other countries have their children in high quality play focussed settings. Which our early years was,but can’t be now because we’ve removed most of the toys. So this ‘education’ they will be getting will be ‘sit at your desk.’ Which is not how little children learn. We know that. It’s why we don’t do it normally.
They’ve talked about vulnerable children. Ignoring the fact that vulnerable children could have been in school all along. If they are not and the family is hiding something, they can continue to hide it because you will not be penalised for keeping your kids out of school. They can just be one of the parents who choose to keep their kids home. So that’s a nonsense excuse.
I don’t mind being childcare, as long as the gvt are honest. But they are letting everyone down by pretending it can be business as usual. It just can’t be, we can’t use the methods and resources which we know work best. Children may come to school expecting it to be as it was and they will get a horrible shock. I just don’t think it is fair on them. Parents might be expecting teaching. In our school at least, and I suspect in most others, with most of our children still at home, teachers have still got to prepare full home learning packs. They will still need to record the online stories they have been reading, and mark the work that comes back, and drive round checking in with the children we are concerned about, and delivering packs to people who don’t have printers, and I’ve sessions with children who need interventions....
They cannot do all that plus and teach good lessons for the six children sitting in front of them. We’re having two adults in each bubble to release the teachers from a lot of this (and also to allow us to be able to leave the room for a wee without leaving the kids unsupervised).
Added to which, our bubble is a mixed age group. We realised that although we had carefully planned the bubbles to prevent cross infection, we had a number of children who would have had siblings in another group, which could have effectively destroyed the bubble idea. So we’ve grouped siblings, which means in one bubble we have a reception and a year 6. Not conducive to great teaching.
Now we are in a very specific situation, so see exactly what your school is doing. We don’t have many kids back so it will not be a lovely chance to catch up with friends. Neither of my children will have friends in their bubble. Your school may be different. But the provision for early years will be broadly the same because we are all following the gvt guidelines to remove anything that cannot be cleaned quickly and easily.
Look at what your child plays with at home. If you had to be able to properly clean it, quickly, before it was given to another child, then your can keep it, if not, is has to go. What toys would they have left? That is what they will be returning to.