To say if you don’t agree with the way schools are reopening de register your dc

[whenthejoyreturns]

I’m sick of reading about people moaning about school reopening, lack of social distancing etc. What do you want? DC off school for years and all the long term implications that will cause /is causing.
If you don’t like it, don’t send your dc but stop complaining.

[quote notheragain4]@FrippEnos what could that "something" be?! Parents work in a plethora of environments, furloughing has been necessary but financially crippling, we have to move on and not starve children of their education. Education needs to take priority, children need to be in school, full time, parents need to be working. There is no other answer.[/quote]
Education needs to take priority,

Yet you talk of finances and parents need to be working etc. Which is it?

If you are going to prioritise education then we make schools as safe as possible we put in systems that keep schools open, teachers fit and healthy and education running,

Or we stuff the children in school, say fuck education, teachers welfare and schools staying open because parents need to work and fuck the consequences.

I have every empathy and sympathy for parents, but sticking kids in school with no thought to this virus, is going to have as many consequences as just keeping the schools closed.

If we do this right and I don't have all of the answers then the kids get their education and the parents get to go to work. There may have to be a compromise, but I don't see many parents wanting or willing to make any.

I agree. If you don't like the education offering in the U.K. (covid or otherwise) you have the right to withdraw your child and homeschool. Many kids have had no education since March because they lack the resources at home (computer, internet) and parents haven't encouraged it anyway - they need to be in school full time. The people moaning about schools reopening are mostly those who are able to homeschool, they aren't juggling minimum wage jobs, kids with sn, single parent etc etc.

I support the government giving a choice of either sending your child to school or having access to the national online school, an option which I think should be available for the long term in fact as some children will benefit from this option anyway, they don't do well in school (mh issues, remote areas with long bus journeys etc) in the 21st century this choice is possible through technology.

Not their all the protection small bubbles which prevention your child getting infected during the summer term will disappear in Sept. To think otherwise is ridiculous.

I teach and I am keen to get back to work, and to be with the children again.

However it won't be 'as normal' - it can't be right now.
We have to do what we can to protect the children AND the staff.
Included in those are the clinically vulnerable and the extremely vulnerable children and staff - all of who also deserve the chance to be at school and work, but safely.

If we have offices that have to be covid secure before they can open, then we should have the same requirements for schools.

It is VERY IMPORTANT that anyone with any concerns, especially once we are back open and running, is able to express those.

We can't just blindly open and hope for the best, regardless of what happens.

We can pretend all we like that schools abroad have reopened with no issues, but that isn't actually the case in various places across the world. Some schools have had to re close at least temporarily. And some regions have been affected as a result of school mixing.

We need to open carefully, monitor what is happening and make adjustments in response to that.

And we need parents, as well as staff, to be looking out for any issues - and equally - things that are going well.

Fingers crossed all will be well. But we also need to be prepared for the 'what ifs' too.

But it would of course need money to implement and the government has said no money to schools or education
Charming isn't it.
The setup in school in the UK is crazy when a budget is expected to cover stationary too.
What is the point of it being free education, teachers paying from their own pocket for tipex and white board makers. It needs a shake up maybe area's that can afford their own stationery could pay for it.

The OP is right. The current argument goes
"I don't feel (subjective) that schools are "safe" (despite evidence to the contrary) for my child and therefore they should remain closed to everyone elses children".

Why? Why does it have to be a race to the bottom? If you think it's "unsafe" and you thought it was brilliant before end of term when schools were closed you're within your legal right to keep your child at home and homeschool. Crack on. Why does everyone else's child have to suffer because you're not bright enough to understand and assess risk?

Just gonna be unfortunate for these children in years to come when they're unemployable.

There is hope if the saliva tests undergoing evaluation get the go ahead- children with usual childhood colds can rapidly be tested abd know if they need to isolate or not.

The issue here is are people scared their children will become very ill with it (unlikely, even for older children/adolescents) or is the fear of spreading it the parents/grandparents? If the latter, and you have someone vulnerable in your household, it’s understandable to be worried. Though child transmission does seem to be lower than adult to adult. And if you look internationally, schools do not seem to be a large driver of transmission. There will need to be steps in place (staff maintaining social distancing from each other, parents not gathering at school gates/keeping social distancing etc), but it realistic to expect schools to go back safely, and be among the last places to close if a lockdown is needed. This will require extra resourcing (in school and out- e.g. school buses) but is essential for the well-being and education of our children.

As a parent I really am not that worried (I’m a frontline NHS worker)- children unlikely to be unwell if they catch it, I see little evidence that schools are a huge driver of transmission (though does need to be managed).

I also find it odd that the only people I know who are extremely anxious re schools going back- to the point they don’t want their children to go- also took their children abroad on holiday, or fully intended to until quarantine rules came into force. I do think that in some cases the fears are becoming illogical.

Emphymy. Have you seen zmelbourne? They opened schools thinking it was safe. Look what happened. Just because you think it's safe doesn't mean it is. Maybe you should question your own intelligence before you question that of others.

@SmileEachDay

whenthejoyreturns

What would you like teachers who have concerns about the badly thought out schools guidance to do?

Their job, like every other sector in the U.K.

Most people can’t homeschool, that’s just a silly thing to say. People are allowed to be concerned about the reopening of schools. Deeply concerned, if they’ve read the ‘guidance’ or know anything about communicable diseases in schools. It still doesn’t mean homeschooling is an option for them. Which makes it worse and more worrying, not better.

What would you like teachers who have concerns about the badly thought out schools guidance to do?

Their job, like every other sector in the U.K.

Name all the other sectors that are not allowed Covid secure workplaces and that will spend 6 - 8 hours in small, poorly ventilated rooms with large groups of non socially distanced people, none of them wearing PPE and often not having access to (or sometimes ability to) appropriate hand washing.

@Marzipan12

Emphymy. Have you seen zmelbourne? They opened schools thinking it was safe. Look what happened. Just because you think it's safe doesn't mean it is. Maybe you should question your own intelligence before you question that of others.

Have I seen what exactly in Melbourne?

@Sistery

What would you like teachers who have concerns about the badly thought out schools guidance to do?

Their job, like every other sector in the U.K.

Name all the other sectors that are not allowed Covid secure workplaces and that will spend 6 - 8 hours in small, poorly ventilated rooms with large groups of non socially distanced people, none of them wearing PPE and often not having access to (or sometimes ability to) appropriate hand washing.

Name all the schools where this has been an issue up until now? I'll take world news, doesn't have to be U.K. let's not forget schools never closed in Sweden and have since reopened in many countries across Europe.

Is there yet a single documented case of a child giving a teacher Covid? Or of that leading to a negative outcome?

Marzipan

Is there direct evidence suggesting schools were the main source of transmission? My understanding having spoken with colleagues in public health (not England) that this is not the case- if you do have good, epidemiological evidence I would be interested to see it (and I’m not being facetious).

Melbourne is in lockdown. Schools are close. My friend lives thete, they thought schools open was safe, obviously not. Don't forget Boris also said care homes where safe, they where anything but.

I will be anxious about DS going back but he's starting his GCSE's so there is no way I would keep him off.

@Marzipan12

Melbourne is in lockdown. Schools are close. My friend lives thete, they thought schools open was safe, obviously not. Don't forget Boris also said care homes where safe, they where anything but.

Ridiculous comment. What's happening in Melbourne has nothing to do with the schools. It's not as though the cases originated in schools and spread from there is it? Or that children and teachers are dying in droves. They also thought it was safe to open shops and pubs and everything else, presumably. The fact is, Australia was patting itself on the back for "suppressing" the virus meaning there was little to no herd immunity and now they've opened up, it has sprung up again. As it will do. Until herd immunity is reached.

Look at Sweden where they never locked down for a better idea of how this will look.

Name all the schools where this has been an issue up until now? I'll take world news, doesn't have to be U.K. let's not forget schools never closed in Sweden and have since reopened in many countries across Europe.

Do you really not know how vastly different the school setup in Sweden is to what exists here (in terms of facilities, social behaviour, class sizes etc) and what is being proposed (in terms of Covid guidelines)? If you do, then you’ll know they’re in no way comparable. If you don’t, then you shouldn’t be expressing strong opinions. As for the rest of the world, most European schools have been off or had large sections off till now or very recently and no schools are going back with the kind of community infection rates and lax guidelines that we are.

There is no comparison. Even Scotland is in no way close to England on infection levels and guidelines, but will be hailed as a forerunner for our schools. Before we closed for summer, the outbreaks in schools were double the number in hospitals. But honestly I know that we are just going to sleepwalk into this and horribly screw it up the same way we’ve let the government sleepwalk us into every other shit decision since January. Not being able to homeschool doesn’t stop me seeing that.

Some parts of Sweden did end up closing in some areas. Dh's family live there. His cousins school did close temporarily, as did some businesses in the area.

Their job, like every other sector in the U.K.

So do I get the same protection as Dh and his colleagues do in their office? What about my sister in her office? My bil? My brother? And all the other friends and family I have who are only returning to their offices as and when the are fully Covid secure. And I mean properly secure, not school's version of Covid secure.

And if not, why not?

I think Sweden and some other places just had local closures so much less likely to have international based media reports. Especially as it doesn't fit the narrative we need right now, with Scottish schools returning this week.

epythymy

Their job, like every other sector in the U.K.

So don't teachers deserve the same allowances that other workers have?

Or are you an Us4Them shill

@SinkGirl

People can always home school if they like.

Is this a serious comment?

Plenty of people cannot homeschool and keep a roof over their heads. Plenty of people can’t effectively educate their children because their children have disabilities that make it impossible.

This is peak MN privilege right here.

People always say things like this, but I am very unprivileged (a member of 5 social minority groups) and poor (lowest income decile, i.e. poorer than 90%+ of the population) and I home educate (both myself and my daughter are disabled). Plenty of my home ed friends are in similar situations.

I know people in all types of family and economic and geographic situations who home educate.

Anything from a two parent family who both work full time, to a disabled self-employed single mother of disabled children.

Yes there are systemic barriers, but they can almost always be overcome on an individual level if that is your priority. It's quite patronising to imply home ed is mainly for privileged/well-off people and the plebs have more important things to worry about.

It's like all the people who insist they need to drive to live. The vast majority only "need" to because they have set their lives up around doing so. People who don't/won't/can't drive have set their lives up around not doing so.

It is perfectly possible to move from the first group to the second (and in fact people in the first group are more likely to have the privilege to make those changes), but people either don't want to, or they just can't imagine how to do it so they claim it can't be done.

www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/09/what-we-are-learning-about-covid-19-and-kids

This contain reasons why Primary and secondary need to be treated separately.

"Overall, she says that a combination of keeping class sizes small and asking older children to wear masks and socially distance appears to be the most effective way of keeping schools and communities safe."

Back in April, the French epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet found himself leading an investigation in the town of Crépy-en-Valois, a small community of 15,000 inhabitants just to the north-east of Paris. In February, the town’s middle and high schools had become the centre of a new outbreak of Covid-19.
Fontanet and colleagues from the Pasteur Institute in Paris were tasked with conducting antibody testing across Crépy-en-Valois to understand the extent to which the virus had been circulating. As they surveyed the town, they noted an interesting pattern. While the virus had spread rampantly through the high school, with 38% of students being infected, along with 43% of teachers and 59% of non-teaching staff, the same was not true for the town’s six primary schools. While three primary-age pupils had caught Covid-19 in early February, none of these infections had led to a secondary case. Overall, just 9% of primary age pupils, 7% of teachers and 4% of non-teaching staff had been infected with the virus.
“These results showed us that teenagers are just as contagious as adults,” said Fontanet. “But in the younger age groups, it’s a different story. They do not seem to transmit it to the same extent.”

Today's Guardian.

There is a difference between primary and secondary.

Having concerns is allowed. If your employer (and schools are also employers) says you have to go back, indoors with limited space, with no social distancing or mask wearing you have a right to question this. They can't say 'if you don't like the perceived risk you can always resign'. Parents also have the right to question safety measures taken. We don't have a binary choice of accepting unsafe practices or deregistering. Following the science and the research is an option.

Or you can say education is a 'moral responsibility' but refuse to involve the government in the responsibility or practicality in actually making it safe - delegating this (and funding this) to schools.

Just like delegating responsibility and funding to care homes to keep residents and staff safe whilst simultaneously having powerful government policies of discharging into care homes. How did that work out?

The government has positioned itself to resist responsibility because it has played the moral card, blamed unions and teachers and parents and delegated responsibility but not power.

The government has talked about fines but it just seems to be MN going further and suggesting deregistering - some kind of moral quasi-compulsory loss of state place in oversubscribed schools for the more deserving ex-private school D.C.?

You need to understand sociopaths and how they use power and delegate responsibility to begin to understand this cognitive dissonance. It's really not surprising that this leads to oversimplification in a complex situation. And the taking of false sides when really we are all on the same side.