To suggest Mumsnet users should sign a letter to a newspaper demanding that the government commit not to leaving us in the lurch with our children's schooling

[thecovidcabinet]

Am a regular but have name-changed so this isn't linked to my other posts.

A good, wise friend and I were chatting about how angry we are about what happened to our children's education and the impact on our ability to work during lockdown and were speculating about the likelihood that Gavin Williamson and his cronies would actually deliver on supporting our children in the event of a second lockdown (or regional lockdowns.)

We reasoned that as Mumsnet is probably the closest thing we have to a national union for women (as opposed to organisations for special interest groups of women such as Fawcett/Women's Aid/Gingerbread which are effective in their own way but don't have the breadth). Noting the survey from Mumsnet in today's papers showing that three quarters of users want their children to go back to school, not to mention the many threads over the past five months highlighting the impact this pandemic and the government response to it has had on women, its clear how this has affected us.

Should Mumsnet users write a letter to the government demanding that school openings be prioritised over all parts of the economy and, critically, if school openings are not deemed to be safe, that the government mandate proper online provision of teaching to children? I think it would be extremely powerful as a way of sending a message that the government can't just default to the time-honoured assumption that the women (who are mainly assumed not to have proper jobs anyway) can just pick up all the slack again.

I understand there's a difficult balancing act with respect to other parts of the economy and its a difficult line to tread. This also isn't about forcing teachers to put themselves in an unsafe position if infection rates pick up.

But I'm a lone parent with severely limited ability to home school or even care properly for my child while balancing the needs of my work. My child's mental and physical health has suffered significantly as a result of this and I am really angry and damned if I'm going through this again just because the government doesn't have the foresight or the nous to think about women's and chidren's needs.

I want to make sure that if schools can't reopen safely its not left to me on my own to provide all the schooling, childcare and everything else while I work 10+ hour days. If they can't provide safe schooling and childcare they need to invest in a proper online alternative and make sure schools are equipped to deal with the pastoral care that's required.

The government needs to be held to account on this, no matter what happens. Who's with me?

How is online schooling going to solve your childcare problem? Or the childcare problem of any parent, male or female?

I am a single parent teacher who taught online for a full term. What about my children?

I'm in Scotland and schools are opening next week. Nichola Sturgeon has already said (yesterday) that if it comes to a choice of schools or pubs then the pubs will close.

Whilst I understand that it is a choice of the lesser of 2 evils I can see that it will cause the loss of many jobs and most likely put many pubs permanently out of business. I do believe that this is the right thing for our dc, but I worry about the risk of a second wave this winter especially if schools are open, we all know children are super spreaders.

The Greek system is interesting I watched some YouTube videos on them after watching some College based movie and was surprised it costs ££££ to become a member, I thought the groups were individual to the College but they aren't there are Chapters of the same group at different Colleges. They have to keep to a certain academic level, must socialise, the sororitys seem to have very strict rules about dress code and makeup. It all seems to lead to greater levels of nepotism later in life as membership stays with you and seems very masonic.

There are some recruitment videos on YouTube which are enlightening! I'm glad we don't have it in the UK just seems a way of segregating the haves from the have nots.

I think things like this are perhaps ways the US elite try to install a British Class system on the country.

Ugh wrong thread, sorry

@Enoughnowstop

How is online schooling going to solve your childcare problem? Or the childcare problem of any parent, male or female?

I am a single parent teacher who taught online for a full term. What about my children?

This is not necessarily about online schooling. And its very clearly not about creating more work for teachers or putting teachers in a position they are not comfortable with.

I just want some sort of assurance from this government that they will plan for the impact of a second wave on children's schooling and childcare without simply assuming that women will do it all at home. And that they recognise what a huge burden this has been on women and children. Currently this barely seems to have crossed any of their minds.

It could mean government investing in better organised online provision managed through the state education system. This isn't a panacea.

But there was nothing approaching this in the first lockdown. We were totally reliant on the quality provided by each individual school and this was patchy to say the least. I just want to feel that the DofE has actually thought about this.

Schools are a priority. They’ve already said pubs may have to close for them to reopen (which was met with anger)

I am a single parent teacher so I want the same as you from a teacher and parent perspective. My school have been doing extra training so if we go into another lockdown we are more prepared to give remote learning.
There are many issues that come along with online learning - safeguarding, lack of everyone having their own individual computers, lack of other equipment that they may need like protractors, internet connection, parent’s work schedule (are they at home, do they need the computer to WFH) and many more.

The schools, unions, DofE, government and everyone in between have been working hard to try and reduce the impact on education, economy and COVID cases. But it is not easy.

I understand your worry but I don’t know what a letter would do.

@Sunrise234

Schools are a priority. They’ve already said pubs may have to close for them to reopen (which was met with anger)

I am a single parent teacher so I want the same as you from a teacher and parent perspective. My school have been doing extra training so if we go into another lockdown we are more prepared to give remote learning.
There are many issues that come along with online learning - safeguarding, lack of everyone having their own individual computers, lack of other equipment that they may need like protractors, internet connection, parent’s work schedule (are they at home, do they need the computer to WFH) and many more.

The schools, unions, DofE, government and everyone in between have been working hard to try and reduce the impact on education, economy and COVID cases. But it is not easy.

I understand your worry but I don’t know what a letter would do.

I understand this and I know schools in particular have been working on this. And I know there are no easy solutions.

I guess I just feel so frustrated with the lack of support and lack of consideration which has been extended to parents having to manage the impact on children and families. For lone parents its just been unmitigated hell, to be honest.

I know that the virus can throw curveballs etc. I just want them to acknowledge us and say they are thinking of us.

I can't help thinking that if there were one competent woman in the cabinet she would not have allowed this to have become such a mess. Looking at past governments there were women not all of whom I liked or even respected but who you could rely upon to at least think about our needs and make some noise about it in order for it not to slip off the agenda.

In this cabinet women and children and their needs are an afterthought: something you palm off to your wife and/or nanny to worry about.

I completely understand and I think every other parent would agree.

We tried a couple of different things but they all had problems:
There are online programmes that some schools use but it means the child has to read and answer the questions so there was no teaching involved and parents had to be involved more.
Then there are videos where the teacher just videos themselves talking about a topic and then having a quiz at the end but as this was a video the teacher couldn’t ask questions so they weren’t learning as much.
Then there are live videos where the teacher does a zoom meeting so the kids can ask then questions in real time but then there are safeguarding issues where some can’t be on camera. And a lot of parents who were WFH needed to use the computer at the same time. And if you have 3 children it would mean them needing one each.

It literally is so difficult. If the government could create an online programme that all schools use it would be so great but I don’t think it’s possible to get one that everyone agrees on, especially in such a short amount of time. I do think people are working on these types of things though as it is something that we can use in the future and I know a lot of parents are refusing to send their kids back.
I don’t know what the university’s did or are planning to do.

Sunrise234 thanks for the insight, this is interesting. I realise online teaching programmes all have their setbacks and problems and there are varying levels of supervision needed etc. Also that it creates lots of additional work for teachers.

I can't help noticing that the quality of provision seems to be very patchy. My daughter's school which in many ways is great, very supportive, pastoral etc has not been particularly great at the tech side of things. They've done very little more than email out a PDF every week. By contrast other schools with generally poorer academic and pastoral standards seem to have been better on this front.

Hopefully if nothing else we will have learned enough during this process that schools will have a bit more know-how and will have been properly supported by the government in getting things off the ground.

This was such an unprecedented issue, schools tended to cope on how they had set up their technology. Some were far better than others, but by that point it was too late to do anything about it as lockdown stopped everything.

Schools have spent the last few months addressing how they could improve if this happened again.

To put into context, we went through two world wars and exams still took place.

@Sunrise234 my son starts uni in October, f2f learning planned.

They've already said that all schools will go back full time in September and that is their priority.
I'm no fan of this government but I don't see what else you expect them to do.
And they can't predict a second wave or magic up teachers if schools have to close when staff become ill.

Yes I noticed that some schools were really strict on it and set loads of work and had daily phone calls and were strict with handing work in late but then you had other schools which were the complete opposite and set hardly anything and had hardly any contact. I think that is why a lot of parents are upset as they feel that their children are now behind compared to others.

CoRhona I’m glad the unis are opening too!

@Sunrise234

Yes I noticed that some schools were really strict on it and set loads of work and had daily phone calls and were strict with handing work in late but then you had other schools which were the complete opposite and set hardly anything and had hardly any contact. I think that is why a lot of parents are upset as they feel that their children are now behind compared to others.

CoRhona I’m glad the unis are opening too!

Agreed. I don't really blame schools for this. No one can really blame them for not having seen it coming. To be fair to my daughter's school they really went out of their way to make people feel that they weren't under pressure to deliver all the schooling that had been set partly because they knew many parents were also working from home and I think they were trying to strike a balance between setting work and not putting additional pressure on people.

I think that's an admirable sentiment but the problem with this is that in practice it has just had the effect of widening the divide between households where there's someone on hand to facilitate and support schoolwork and households where there isn't. And the resentment and anger felt by people in households without the ability to support is huge and the impact on the children significant.

But the difference is quite striking, just in my anecdotal experience, and I would like to think the government, having observed how this has worked over the past four or five months, might have had a chance to think about an objective standard for best practice and what schools should be aspiring to.

Its one thing to argue that a couple of missed months of schooling won't do the kids any harm. Its quite another when those few months stretch out into the bulk of an academic year.

I’m a single mum and I completely agree with the OP about the impact of an ill thought through approach to state education on women and kids. I run my own business which pays the bills. I’ve had to fight to keep it going during lockdown and faced a hideous trade-off between our financial stability and my children’s education and mental health. The schools did their best but my 13 and 14 year olds haven’t internalised school and don’t have the self discipline to do the work set without constant adult supervision which I couldn’t provide.,