Disappointed secondary schools are reopening

[wovengrass]

I'm hoping for a sensible exchange of ideas on this.
I understand the importance of children missing out on learning, but I can't help but feel that a full reopening of all secondary schools in the UK at the same time is madness.
I strongly feel that it would have been better to spend time/money on making home learning a realistic and standardised solution, as well as putting plans in place for the children that need further support. That way if any future outbreaks happen we aren't just hoping for the best and blindly following this idea that "schools must be the last place to close no matter what."

I also can't get my head around the logistics, locally. The local secondary that my nephew attends (there are several large ones near to me) has over 1000 students, many rely on public transport to get there. With reduced space on transport due to social distancing, I wonder how children will actually all make it to school on time? Many schools are also not allowing children who are late to enter, to avoid the crossing of year group bubbles.

Throw also into the mix that many adult will be relying on the same transport to return to work. I'm genuinely wondering how on earth it is realistic?

I think primary and nursery schools are a different thing entirely, and obviously childcare is a factor then also. But putting 1000 teenagers/young adults + teacher staff into a building with no masks and no country-wide home learning plan if things go wrong, seems absolutely nuts to me.

Just wondering what others think about this?

[Laiste]

@KnobChops i agree with everything you said but would like to point out that although i'm a SAHM to my youngest (6) i'm still desperately keen for her to go back to school for her sanity and mine. She has siblings and they love her but are way older and go out to work during the day now. So she's like an only child.

She LOVES school. She's missing her friends. I'm here during the day but she doesn't take kindly to focusing on work at home and my relationship with her suffered trying to do home ed. with her. Schools need to try to open as normal in Sept.

[Dollyparton3]

I'm confused by the question TBH. We're at a global economic level now where if we don't reopen schools, the whole economy collapses.

There's a generational and medical group who need to shield, for the majority of us it's just a question of keeping those people shielded, but for the rest of us the ramifications of sitting in limbo will screw 100's of 1000's of people for potentially the rest of their lives.

I've been on work calls today where we're trying to rally numbers to keep a company afloat that employs over 10,000 people in employment in the U.K. Some of these people can't come back to work in earnest until we segment the U.K. population sensibly and allow this who can "to do" And those who "can't" a break. And the same goes for our client base and industry as a whole.

Secondary school pupils have a teeny tiny risk of contamination, contagion and risk to their health. And so do their parents. I know a few now diagnosed with Covid and their response is "I feel like crap, I've got a temperature and headaches". So let's get the kids back to school, manage the risk with Granny who needs to isolate until we find a vaccine. Keep Grannie alive, suck it up and ride it out but for the love of god don't force working parents to struggle to work because they have no childcare or home schooling options.

The worst is yet to come when the economy ripples for years and people need to think of that rather than when they do or don't want their kids to return to the playground.

[LynetteScavo]

It would be great to have a plan on place should schools not be fully open. What do you suggest OP?

My DD actually fell asleep during an Oak Academy lesson. While I was in the room fully and enthusiastically engaged with the lesson. Afterwards she declared she needs the banter of the classroom.

I actually cried with frustration at one point during lockdown because I didn't understand the online demonstration of the maths DD was being asked to learn. DD didn't understand it and because I didn't understand the clam and reasonable online demonstration I couldn't teach DD. I have a GCSE in maths and was perfectly able when I was at school. I concluded online learning isn't effective for everyone. I'd rather have had my real life crap teacher from the 80s who didn't care if we passed or failed.
DD needs a real life teacher. She needs to see real life teenagers in her bubble. Even if she doesn't particularly like them it'll give her more than the four wall and TV in her bedroom.

[Crinkle77]

Who's going to stay at home and do all this home schooling? What about parents that need to go out to work?

[Vivalasjohnnyvegas]

40% of children in England received poorer A level grades than expected today because they missed school and were not given the opportunity to take exams. Most of these are from deprived areas. A lot of them will now miss out on uni places and tonight are probably feeling their futures are screwed.

13 people died of Coronavirus today out of 66 million. If you don't want to send your DC to school don't. I want my DC back in school preparing for their GCSE's.

[CallmeAngelina]

Are none of you reading posts on here?
Poster after poster keeps saying "schools need to open as normal in September," ignoring the fact that a rush back to full normality WILL lead to closures within a few weeks. It's already happening in America.

[ineedaholidaynow]

We are talking Secondary Schools here so not such an impact on working parents.

As stated above a Plan B needs to be in place. More work should have been done by the Government to ensure that all schools could provide a good level of remote learning if needed, but they haven't.

[WhenSheWasBad]

re none of you reading posts on here?
Poster after poster keeps saying "schools need to open as normal in September," ignoring the fact that a rush back to full normality WILL lead to closures within a few weeks

Totally agree. Send the (secondary school aged) kids back but in a far more sensible way. A rush back to business as usual just risks further closures.

[BadTattoosAndSmellLikeBooze]

I'm saying that it is concerning that the government have no put effort into finding a way to ensure that children can be taught from home, and exploring ways to overcome the safeguarding issues that surround doing that.

Maybe the government are making a back up plan. 😬 I don’t have much confidence in this government but surely they must be working on some sort of contingency plan. I’m (probably naively) thinking that they will have a plan in case schools close again, but maybe they don’t want to let the public know as many would assume that them having a plan means schools will be closing again. And they know people can’t face the thought of that. Maybe. Clutching at straws here.

With there being no masks, social distancing being impossible and the bubbles being so large, I can’t see how secondary schools will remain open for more than a few months.
I’ve familiarised myself with the curriculum for my children and also with various learning resources. I’ve also bought lots of CGP books from Amazon so I can teach my kids properly at home. I work from home part time so I’m fortunate this is an option. I feel so sorry for some parents and children. I really hope the government have a plan.

[loulouljh]

I have a 12 year old child going into year 8...I would not leave her at home alone all day! We work full time..how does that work then?

[wovengrass]

Perhaps the government could have invested in creating a secure online platform specifically for secondary children to access, and for their teachers to teach from? That way physical school attendance could potentially work on a rota basis, but 'learning' would be full time for all children and teaching could continue if a closure was needed. Individual plans could then be put in place by schools for the children who needed further support. No parental home schooling necessary and not just a generic online lesson like oak academy (but good on those teachers for stepping up where gov failed) and not using platforms like Skype and zoom which aren't designed with teaching in mind. That way children wouldn't have to listen to teacher just talking at them for a hour, but with a specific designed platform could be more interactive, children could be in online groups while 'working' after teacher input etc so the social element in still there.

I'm sure I'll be hounded for my suggestion but it's just an idea. I'm no expert on creating learning platforms, in my opinion that's where government should be stepping in...

Of course using technology has its limitations, but so does 1000+ people in a building at once during a global pandemic.

[BadTattoosAndSmellLikeBooze]

I have a 12 year old child going into year 8...I would not leave her at home alone all day! We work full time..how does that work then?

I think most people would leave a 12 year old at home all day. What choice would there be? 😔 I would do it if we both had to go to work, just leave them with schoolwork, food and phone home a few times I suppose. It’s far from ideal. I really don’t know.

[reluctantbrit]

Home learning could be better, I agree but it is not a replacement for face-to-face teaching.

The children, all of them, need to be in school, there is only so much remote learning you can do.

I have a very remote Key worker status but if schools close again I may use it as DD needs a teacher and not just the laptop,

Also, do you have any idea if the percentage of children who haven’t engaged with learning? I live in a leafy south London Borough but even DD’s highly successful secondary has between 8-18% of girls who haven’t worked in the topics provided. So bad that the school got these children into school when the year 10 and 12 came back. Reasons are party because of missing computer to no proper working environment to not being bothered and with parents out of the house working not supervised.

That is huge and a disaster for the next years to come.

I work from home, DH as well. We are fairly intelligent people with good resources but we aren’t teachers.

[WouldBeGood]

But you can’t leave a 12 year old alone all day every day?

[ineedaholidaynow]

@loulouljh so what are you going to do if schools have to keep closing for self isolation or lack of teachers if they are off sick?

[BadTattoosAndSmellLikeBooze]

But you can’t leave a 12 year old alone all day every day?

Why not? It’s far from ideal but you can. My daughter is 12, she’d be ok.

[itsgettingweird]

Of course government could have done more.

More than nothing is at least something!

They could have planned from March.

Using spaces available in independent schools as they often have spare classes.

Utilising the office spaces available because people are WFh.

Using libraries etc. Conference rooms in hotels.

Thinking about teachers require to do this and perhaps having some online curriculum students access from vulnerable teachers and these are overseen by support staff.

You can have a year group of 200 split over wherever if lesson is deliver technologically.

As well as this scheduled classes with their actual teacher - it maybe less face to face with them but that surely has to be better than 3/4/5 weeks face to face and then bubble isolating and school closing.

I'm not suggesting it would be easy or even cheap.

But if you can find up to £50 a family 3 times a week to eat out you can find the money for these schools we have a moral duty to open.

Remembering our current pupils are the economic prospects of the future not just the now.

[wovengrass]

@reluctantbrit This is exactly what I'm getting at. If school closures need to happen again, and there is no standardised plan from the government, it will mean more schooling missed and the learning gap will be widened. The rush to get all children back at once, in my opinion, has meant that there hasn't been any thought given to a plan/funding for actual home learning if it needs to happen again. (Not just emailing remote work, but actually teaching remotely)

[WouldBeGood]

@BadTattoosAndSmellLikeBooze

But you can’t leave a 12 year old alone all day every day?

Why not? It’s far from ideal but you can. My daughter is 12, she’d be ok.

Because it’s not right and not in their best interests.

[Madcats]

I really think it depends on where you live. Our neighbours either side of us were ill in late Feb and then a couple of friends of friends of friends..., but we're fortunate to have dodged Corvid-19.

There have been no flare ups here in April, May, June, July, August...

I like to think that families have been watching the stats/staying home if they plan a last-minute holiday before the schools reopen.

[OnTheFencePaint]

I do think there should be a nationwide home-school infrastructure put in place as plan B.

It was so inefficient that thousands of schools separately investigated and implemented different software, and put different lessons on when really, how different can each school’s needs be?

Could there not be 100 teachers running virtual classes for the whole nation, and the individual school teachers could just put each child into the appropriate virtual ‘set’ for each subject, and then focus their time on 1:1 or small group video teaching?

I think it could be great for the children education-wise as their work could be much more tailored to their personal level, and their teacher would have some time for 1:1.

That said, the social side is so important (probably more important than academic), so I hope it doesn’t come to home-schooling again.

[BadTattoosAndSmellLikeBooze]

Because it’s not right and not in their best interests.

What’s the alternative? Parents give up their job, lose their house etc. That would have a far more devastating affect on my child than being left at home alone for 8 hours.

In a situation like this, everything won’t be ‘the best’. Everyone will have to make choices. It hard.

[DumplingsAndStew]

Why are people talking about no back up plan? Why would there be no back up plan? If you think your school are stupid enough to not have a back up plan, why do you choose to allow them to educate your children at all?

[Mosseywossey]

Children need to go back but at the same time need to feel safe and confident. And teacher do as well. Teacher already are very undervalued and get a lot of abuse. My school has had a somewhat decent plan but has said they expect us not to wear PPE aless it is made a rule by the government. We are also not allowed to mark which makes sense but I am not entirely sure how I can develop my students if I can’t see what I need to focus on. (Student to take work home)
I do think we are jumping in half cocked. We do need to get back to normal but for those who are vulnerable there is no point saying to get on with it. If I get it I will probably be okay but my hod will not make it, my parents won’t. Hopefully we get clearer guidelines and maybe go part time to ease back in

[AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii]

I’m glad they are back full time. I have a 16 year old Dsis who was only going to be at school 2 days a week under blended learning plans and she said that she wouldn’t get enough of the curriculum to allow her to sit her exams again next year. One year of no exams is bad enough