To think the idea that schools won’t be back full time by September is an absolute disgrace?

[LovingLivingInLockdown]

The government and teaching unions need to pull their fingers out. There should be no excuses.

The effects of 6 months out of school is going to be damaging enough, both educationally and mentally for hundreds of thousands of children. Not to mention the unnoticed abuse and neglect.

Teachers should be wearing PPE with spit screens if they are vulnerable and this should be being organised now. Temporary classrooms should be being built in playgrounds and school fields. Random testing routines in all schools should be being devised as well as guidelines regarding children’s contact with others outside of school and home. Whatever it takes, it must be done.

Our society expects parents to work while their DC are at school and if they want to get the economy moving again, schools being back by September should be non negotiable surely?

"Rosebel

So do we let children miss out on education forever if it's not safe"

But it's not going to be not safe forever, is it,?

"Children are at a low risk of catching the virus."

Well, not all of them, no. And they are carriers.

Why is it safe for everyone else to go back to work?

Not everyone is going back to work, a lot of people will continue to work from home, because it's not possible to keep 2 metres etc.

"I'm disgusted by how our children are being treated"

Why? I've think theyve been treated pretty well. Schools needed to close. We have a pandemic on our hands. In that situation I would expect the Government to close schools, and open them when it's appropriate. It's been 3 months. Only 3 months. Why are you disgusted?
"They need to go back at least part time"

They might do.

"If they can't what's the point of sending them to school in the first place?"
I dont understand this comment. You must obviously know why children go to school in the first place?

can't Are you really telling me that we can't open secondaries because of transport? You can not be serious. You surely know that parents would move heaven and earth in the main, to get their children to school given the opportunity. Our school bus is already planning to operate in the autumn, and they are simply laying on bigger buses or more of them so teens can socially distance. It is not hard! Or difficult to come up with solutions if we want to.

The death rate does not support your conclusion that 14/15 year olds are at risk, we can see from the stats that they are not at risk.

Secondary pupils are far more likely to understand and adhere to SD rules whatever they might be.

The case for secondary schools staying closed is pitiful - really pitiful particularly for the those students taking GCSEs and A Levels, they have been badly let down.

casino classy

If the government tells them to stay closed, that is what they will do, private or not

And @pigeon999 if they were teaching the key worker children rather than babysitting while the key worker children do the same online work as everyone else, there would be an outcry over that - 'it is so unfair, these children are being taught, and mine aren't'

The curriculum has been suspended, there is no 'expectation' on parents to teach anything and really, most secondary pupils should be capable of some independent study. I doubt the parents of most secondary kids were still helping with all their homework every night before this.

pigeon999
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but education has never been a level playing field (and you only need to look at some threads on here to see that a good number of parents are all too happy for that because their children benefit).

Full marks for being goady and claiming teachers don't care about this.

However, as you do claim to care lots about educational inequality, I presume you're also in favour of some or all of the following:

• rolling out a huge network of childcare and early years to address the language deficit that exist between advantaged and disadvantaged children by 3
• reform to the benefits system and a living wage for all as poverty is a huge driver of educational inequality
• CAMHS to be properly funded so all children can have appropriate mental health support, not just those with parents who can pay privately
• large scale reforms to SEND support and assessment so that ability to get support isn't dependent on parental income to pay privately
• funding to complete all required repairs on school buildings and full rebuild of those that aren't suitable
• a u turn on Gove's decision to make classroom dimensions smaller
• ensure that all schools have appropriate outdoor space and the means to provide a full range of enrichment
• every child to have the right to be taught by a qualified teacher

Obviously this would require higher taxes, but that would go some way to making things more fair, assuming you do really care about educational disadvantage.

@LovingLivingInLockdown

Presumably you find it "disgraceful" that schools/LEAs/councils have faced a decade of austerity cuts which has meant loss of teachers, TAs, SEN services, resources etc for thousands of schools.

Your proposals re: building 2 x current classrooms, PPE for all staff, cleaning equipment/ services etc will not be possible with current school budgets.

So please contact the DfE and make your concerns known; they hold the purse strings

You don't know my background so I guess you should hold back about my contributions to children that live in poverty smile

What we can be certain of, absolutely certain, is that the independent sector will show their teeth and will not let their children down. They can not afford to. This will only further highlight the complete inadequacy of the state sector and all the years of trying to narrow the gap will be lost in less than a year.

There is something that can change that trajectory, and that is the full opening of all schools in September. Summer camps for those that have fallen behind and a cast iron will to make this up to the children that have already lost so much during the pandemic.

Now it is over to you. Our children are the future, if we let them down we will be paying the price for a very long time to come.

Tell me then, pigeon what has your contribution been?

Now it is over to you.

I’m a teacher, do you mean me? What are you expecting me to do that I’m not doing already?

Pigeon,

I live in an area where some secondary schools have lots of children travelling to them on public transport rather than on school-specific transport.

The question is whether the risk to the other bus / train users - who are all adults - from groups of teenagers who have been in non socially-distanced schools is considered acceptable by those adults.

You have not, I note, addressed the issue of moving between lessons and different teachers. A typical secondary school classroom contains 8 pupils, socially distanced, and without a bubble concept such as used in primary to get round the SD rules, cannot go higher.

Can you explain to me how e.g. a form / tutor group of A level or GCSE students, all doing different subjects and in different sets for each of these can be effectively taught by subject specialists, in groups that are no more than 8, over the course of a normal school week?

What we can be certain of, absolutely certain, is that the independent sector will show their teeth and will not let their children down.

Whereas, the state sector cannot afford to do anything but 'let their children down' - that's not necessarily, or in all probability from any lack of desire to do otherwise, but they have had funding slashed to the bone, and schools are running on fumes.

Putting on more buses, hiring more space, more teachers, more TA's - where's that money supposed to come from? I can tell you where it's pretty much ironclad that it won't be coming from . . . Government.

I would also ask - why is it over to schools, not the Government?

Something this important, this national, should be the subject of clear, national leadership and significant, national, targeted funding.

Is it? Schools stand ready to IMPLEMENT what the Government LEADS ON, especially if the Government has clearly consulted widely with those who genuinely understand what happens in state schools.

What we can be certain of, absolutely certain, is that the independent sector will show their teeth and will not let their children down
Really @pigeon999? See, it’s interesting. I’m in Wales and my last job was in an independent school. Currently work in a sesame secondary. The state school is opening to all pupils on a rota on 29th June, as per Welsh Government guidelines. The independent school isn’t opening until September, because their holidays start a week after 29th...

Schools stand ready to IMPLEMENT what the Government LEADS ON, especially if the Government has clearly consulted widely with those who genuinely understand what happens in state schools.

And particularly if they fund it.

There are two key differences between state and private secondary schools:

• Smaller class sizes
• Money

Given that all solutions to getting all pupils back in state schools require smaller class sizes and money, it is not surprising that private schools are able to achieve these MUCH more easily.

Demand funding for all state schools to have class sizes of 15, and the massive influx of funding and teacher recruitment this requires, and state schools will then be able to emulate private ones.

A state secondary No sesame involved.

I am going out with my children smile Checking out of the thread, and you can reflect on what you can do to make a difference to the poor children that have been utterly abandoned by the education system.

My conscience is clear, and I am comfortable with everything I am doing.
The question you really need to ask yourself - are YOU doing enough/anything to help this situation?

Spending hours on a thread shouting down parents that are desperate to help their children, those that can see the plight of children that have become invisible and are being hurt and abused the longer this goes on for, desperate to not see every child fail???

I know that the decent and right thing is to open our schools as quickly as possible but do you? It seems not. For every teacher that supports the continuation of school closure must surely need to reflect on the very real and painful damage this is inflicting on the children. It is not something I can help with.

I have nothing more to add.

Yep. Got it pigeon

That tells me everything I need to know about your “contribution”.

Who was it in The Simpsons, that was always wailing, while wringing their hands, 'will nobody think of the children?!'

I have nothing more to add

Thank fuck for that.

Maude Flanders?
I get those vibes alright?

pigeon999
You don't know my background

You are the epitome of the managers that were prevalent in industry in the 90s.

Coming in with big ideas and no knowledge of what they were doing, they would scrap methods that had been working well for years with half baked and ill thought out ideas.

They would give rousing speeches to the workforce full of this weeks buzzwords that meant nothing and then left proclaiming how they had done so much to improve and benefit the company leaving the workforce to deal with all the shit and a new manager who was exactly the same as the one that had just left.

Pigeon, you're arguing for the sake of arguing. There is nothing of merit in anything you've said so far because its all based on your low opinion of the teaching profession rather than actual facts. The majority of teachers and parents on this thread are both wanting the same thing- for schools to open. The problem comes with the reality. Teachers know firsthand what the limitations are (lack of funding, teachers and space, little direction from the government). They are trying to explain these limitations to you but you are so determined to follow the BS narrative of teachers refusing to work/schools being completely closed that you are not listening to what they are saying. Why not put more effort into campaigning for the government to sort this mess out and less effort into arguing for the sake of it.

pigeon99 is a first time poster, colossally goady, so someone of no credentials whatsoever.