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?

You think we should surrender our children’s education and wellbeing to keep people alive another couple of years?" fuck off

Yes. This. Just because someone is older or have a disability or chronic illness it does not make their lives any less precious than younger and/or healthier people. To think otherwise is disgusting.

I can only speak for the two teenagers I have here, but as much as they miss school/college and friends temporarily they would miss their grandfather even more if he died.

I can only speak for the two teenagers I have here, but as much as they miss school/college and friends temporarily they would miss their grandfather even more if he died

Sorry to sound mercenary but a grandparent dying is a fairly normal occurrence. It's not beyond the realms of normality.

@SecretSpAD

You think we should surrender our children’s education and wellbeing to keep people alive another couple of years?" fuck off

Yes. This. Just because someone is older or have a disability or chronic illness it does not make their lives any less precious than younger and/or healthier people. To think otherwise is disgusting.

I can only speak for the two teenagers I have here, but as much as they miss school/college and friends temporarily they would miss their grandfather even more if he died.

Exactly @SecretSpAD - there was an article in The Independent the other day about the treatment of the vulnerable at the moment. It was written by a Mumsnet user who had been shocked by those attitudes on here!

www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-lockdown-school-parents-vulnerable-children-mumsnet-a9558376.html

How about you do this. If you want your children to not isolate and have a normal childhood. Send them to school.

Fearful of your child - keep them at home.

Local school has one - five children in each class: this can’t go on people.

How about you do this. If you want your children to not isolate and have a normal childhood. Send them to school.

what does the school offers? It's all very well to pretend you only need to send them back to be back to "normal", but what is on offer is not always suitable, and definitively not consistent across the country.

My school has been giving first-class provision since Day One of Lockdown. If any of our parents start complaining that their child has had "zero education" for 6 months, then they will have to look to themselves for failing to facilitate what has been provided. They can't be that bothered about education if they haven't supported their kids doing their work. I've read way too many threads on here about posters who've given up getting their kids to work, and I'm not talking about front-line nhs workers after a 12 hour shift, (whose kids will have had the opportunity to complete their work on school premises).

Sorry to sound mercenary but a grandparent dying is a fairly normal occurrence. It's not beyond the realms of normality.

I think you just proved secret's point.

@SecretSpAD

Just because someone is older or have a disability or chronic illness it does not make their lives any less precious than younger and/or healthier people. To think otherwise is disgusting

Really? If you could choose that would kill only over 85’s or only 5-10yr olds you would find it hard to make that decision?

choose a virus

My school has been giving first-class provision since Day One of Lockdown. If any of our parents start complaining that their child has had "zero education" for 6 months, then they will have to look to themselves for failing to facilitate what has been provided. They can't be that bothered about education if they haven't supported their kids doing their work

Are you kidding? What about a single parent who’s terrified of losing their job working full time from home. They’re both bothered’. This is the issue with teachers they have no idea about the wider world, they are so cosseted in a ‘job for life’

Yes, because I don't have any family members that are aged 5-10 but numerous who are over 85!

This is the issue with teachers they have no idea about the wider world, they are so cosseted in a ‘job for life’

I’m a teacher. I’m a single mother and I had numerous other jobs before teacher training. Why on earth would you say I don’t have any idea about the wider world?

My school has calculated that at a 2mtr distance, we can have about 1/3 of students in school at any one time.

At 1mtr distance, the school can fit 1/2 the students in the school building at any one time.

Let's assume that we can go down to 1mtr social distancing by the time schools return in Sept. Where do you propose that the other 1/2 of students are housed?

Where do you propose the school finds 30 extra teachers and 30 extra classrooms from? Oh and don't forget you will also need a few extra to cover teachers who are self isolating at any one time.

This is just one standard secondary school.

Excellent read @TheSwanAndTomato though I find it devastating that that's what people have become.

"If you are angry about school closures, if you feel like your child has been "forgotten", remember that minimising the needs of one group does not create more space for you."

*some people

Yes, because I don't have any family members that are aged 5-10 but numerous who are over 85!

So do you think people live forever? People die of lots of things other than covid and many of us have tragically lost lost loved ones in all sorts of ways. Covid doubles the risk of dying at pretty much all age groups across a year (if you catch it).

And have you actually asked older people (who understand their risk of death better than younger people) what they think about it?

Anyway my dc don't have grandparents...so what you're asking is can my dc give up their education temporarily to extend the lives of others children's grandparents and that's not ok with me. It's really not strange or unusual for a child to lose a grandparent. In fact its preferable to the alternative of a grandparent outliving their children and grandchildren.

Thousands and thousands of teachers have their own children too so have also had to do their job as well as childcare/teaching their own children so they would absolutely know the struggles of a working parent.

A teacher knows just as much about the “wider world” as a plumber or a shelf stacker or a surgeon or car mechanic or a city trader or a waitress or a gardener or a fireman knows of the outside world outside of their job role. If anything probably more considering their entire career is based on education and having to “know stuff”.

Teateaandmoretea

Re the unions they have calmed down now, a few weeks ago they were completely out of order and weren’t helping the situation.

Well that is one way to rewrite history.

Isn’t it just, Fripp

@frippenos

Go on then, explain. Before dd went back they were telling teachers to refuse to engage with plans.

Are you denying this is true?

@SmileEachDay

So they didn’t tell teachers to not engage with reopening? Go on, you rewrite it

It’s even in the precious Guardian

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/12/plans-to-reopen-schools-on-1-june-in-jeopardy-as-education-unions-tell-staff-not-to-engage-with-prepartions-1

I would go further and suggest that teachers see more of this fabled "real world" than your average office worker. We see first-hand the effects of abuse, neglect and poverty of the children in our care. We see families desperately trying to cope with children with huge educational and health needs.
So fuck off with your "cosseted bubble" shit. It pisses me off that we have been acutely aware of the gulf in this country between the haves and the have-nots, and yet here we have a load of gob-shites who know NOTHING of what schools have been dealing with for years, coming along and trying to tell US "won't you think of the children?
Jesus!

They asked teachers not to engage until they had reassurances from government I think.

But not to just not engage. We've all been working in school if we can.

It's hardly not engaging with reopening when schools weren't shut and we were staffing them, is it?!