to say that working parents need a Plan B (and all parents are responsible for their children's Covid-appropriate behaviour)?

[SaltyAndFresh]

We're kidding ourselves if we think we really have the data to say that opening schools with no social distancing, no PPE (not through choice, it's not allowed) and in many cases inadequately ventilated and crowded classrooms is safe. We can't possibly know. Secondary teachers will be in standing in front of around 300 pupils a week, and there isn't the space for a 2m distance at the front of the room.

Teachers are not saying they don't want schools to reopen (not that they were shut) which has been said and ignored multiple times. I'm both a working parent and a teacher.

AIBU to say that schools don't exist for parents' economic convenience and that if too many school staff become ill, it's up to parents to have a Plan B if schools have to scale back their opening? If in the coming months, we as parents end up having to reduce our hours to facilitate blended learning, it will mean difficult financial times ahead but that will not be the fault of schools and school staff.

Please note the 'if'.

Furthermore, AIBU to say that parents of mainstream pupils who want schools open, come what may, should be accountable for their DC's Covid-appropriate behaviour, whether or not they believe the virus is a hoax?

What school nurses! There are TWO in the whole of my county.

Bananabread8

Some parents send their children in sick all the time.
Colds, flu, conjunctivitis, and vomiting and diarrhoea.

They will just dose them up and send them in.

@Parker231

@ Venicelover - your comments are not realistic. Why should anyone give up their careers for schools potentially closing for a couple of weeks. You’d soon be complaining when your GP, paramedic or hospital consultant has cancelled your emergency appointment as they have given up work to be at home during a school closure. All my friends and their partners both work full time in their chosen careers. Years at Uni, post grad studies and years to progress - no way are they giving that up.

If you choose to have a family then between you it is necessary to ensure that you have provision for childcare. If you outsource that and something such as this occurs then you have to face the issue that one of you needs to be there for the children if no one else is available.

We both have well paid careers and are university-educated but when our kids were small we worked our roles around the needs of the family. If necessary, in this type of circumstance one of us would have had no option but to put their career on hold to look after the kids, which were our first priority.

Perhaps other would choose differently, but my point is that we all have choices, some of which are not particularly palatable.

It would not be the fault of teachers if the virus spikes and schools need to close.

[quote monkeytennis97]@Bananabread8 parents may lie due to financial/work pressures/lack of childcare/fear of unemployment. I can see this scenario being played out in many schools across the country. Teachers have seen ill kids sent into school time and again.[/quote]
I agree your right. But with something more serious I suspect the parent would be in severe trouble if they did lie. There’s been a few causes where people have coughed in someone’s face.... a woman died days later. Police then were looking for the man.

@Bananabread8

Anyone with symptoms is supposed to get tested.

Children with symptoms either isolate for ten days or get a test. If parents lie and say they've had a negative test, the school has to accept them back. I think this is wrong.

[quote Iamnotthe1]@toohot200
What I meant was people doing the right thing...being honest...etc. Sorry wasn't clear.

Like everyone coming together to support everyone having access to the things they need in order to provide the education our children need?[/quote]
No. I was specifically talking about people being honest about their test results. Not sure why you are jumping all over what I've written to fulfil your own agenda 🤷‍♀️

Why is nobody concerned that it will be women that are impacted most by this. They will be the ones sacrificing their careers.
Why aren't more people angry about this?

@Bananabread8
I would not be lying about a Covid result as someone could even die.

I'm sure that you wouldn't. Unfortunately, in my time in education, I've had a number of parents saying that they've taken their child to the doctors or for tests or given medicine, etc. only for the child to tell me the truth in class 10 minutes later. For some, the impact of having to take a child for a test in the first place let alone isolate for a positive one, may cause them to suppress the truth. Especially if they believe the risk to children is very low.

@spanieleyes

What school nurses! There are TWO in the whole of my county.

Well perhaps this will be looked at. Because who is going to do the temp check on a child (it’s medical for a start).

@minisoksmakehardwork They are quite prepared to make the teaching profession their scape goat because whatever happens, they will be blamed. Schools go back, the virus spreads. Schools are not doing enough to keep the virus limited. Schools close, the economy tanks because many, many people rely on schools for the bulk of the days childcare and are now unable to work. It's the schools fault that people cannot work and earn their wage therefore reduce their spending accordingly.

This is a very good point. The government may be an incompetent shower of shite, but Cummings et al are just Machiavellian enough to have worked out they can use teachers as scapegoats. And the more militant teaching unions are walking right into the trap and functioning as "useful idiots" (as is OP).

I said something a bit along these lines upthread. The government is pitching it as an either/or choice of full schools closure versus schools exactly as they were pre-pandemic, rather than putting in the hard graft of coming up with a solution.

If for instance the "eat out for a tenner" money had gone towards some outside the box thinking on this...

Staggered school days, one day on, one day off, with empty office blocks re-purposed as "off-day supervised online lesson centres", perhaps staffed by people who would normally work in industries like holiday clubs/youth groups etc. (basically anything where they'd have the relevant safeguarding vetting in place, but where covid might have led to them being furloughed).

Or decent track-and-trace so that cases could be spotted early and affected "bubbles" quarantined before it spread to the whole school. (Some of the posts on here have led me to the conclusion that our local barber is operating a better track and trace system than many schools - through no fault of their own - are going to have access to come September).

And as to medical confidentiality, I know the medical conditions of every child in my school, the medication they take, the treatment they need, the symptoms they might have, the side effects and consequences. But I'm not allowed to know if they have tested negative for Covid!

But with something more serious I suspect the parent would be in severe trouble if they did lie.

Nope. They haven't done anything illegal. Just morally wrong.

@Iamnotthe1

Sorry but, again, could you direct me to one post where a teacher has said that schools should not open until therebis a vaccine? I'd really appreciate it - thanks!

Good a break through, so you're all happy then? End of thread See you at the gates in 2 weeks. Bright eyed and bushy tailed no doubt

@FrippEnos

WhereTheCrawdadsSing

I would love to be able to tell you the reasons why some posters are so vehemently against it, but the vast majority of the reasons IMO are spurious.

So I suspect that the main reason that some don't want it is because teachers do.

I await the pile on.

Remember some posters don’t want PPE in schools because they think the pandemic is a hoax and they want to prove this by sending schools back with no mitigation and seeing no rise in cases.

Other posters are the mad type who retweet this sort of thing on twitter:

“People throw around ‘anti-masker’ like it’s something to be ashamed of

I am anti absolutely everything that infringes on our freedom

Loud and proud”

To be fair, there is a real problem with the way schools are required to chastise parents after a certain amount of absence. Particularly in the current situation. Parents have a lot of pressure to send their kids to school if they're not broken or bleeding. Is that going to be changed at all? Because if not, then again, parents and schools are going to be pitted against each other.

I don’t know a single teacher who didn’t work during “closure”, and I don’t know a single teacher who is refusing to go back to work. None.

I know a couple. I dont recall this outrage for carers when there was no ppe for elderly care or vulnerable adults. Maybe we should have expected family to step in and stayed home.

WeakAsIAm

I'd like to think that's what my children's teachers would do before exposing them to a hostile adult for 6 hours a day.

Who in your bizarre scenario is the hostile adult?
Are Us4them coming in or something?

@SueEllenMishke. I really don't know. We may as well be in the 1950s. What message is this giving to girls? "If you have kids, don't bother with a career"? Feels like it.

I see a lot of teachers resigning on or before 31st October (last day possible for leaving at the end of the Autumn term.)
I heard a lot of talk like this both just before May half term and then again in July. All the emails we are getting from school are talking about full staffing, teachers that are leaving are those who retirement was imminent and it’s not a surprise they have left. Vacancies seem to have been Filled and not just by NQTs, so it doesn’t seem that teachers are leaving in droves (obviously I can only comment on the 3 schools my dc attend though).

@SueEllenMishke

Why is nobody concerned that it will be women that are impacted most by this. They will be the ones sacrificing their careers. Why aren't more people angry about this?

Why would/should it be women?

If you are in a partnership, it should be a discussion and decided from there. It should not be a given that the woman stays at home.

If you can't do that you picked the wrong man.

@Bananabread8

My hairdresser takes my temperature before I'm allowed in, I don't think she is medically qualified either!

@DianasLasso

Much like your name, that post was the real truth here.

[quote Reluctantcavedweller]@SueEllenMishke. I really don't know. We may as well be in the 1950s. What message is this giving to girls? "If you have kids, don't bother with a career"? Feels like it.[/quote]
It's really upsetting.
I'm furious on behalf of the 1000's of women who will have to sacrifice their careers if schools don't open and I fell like I'm a lone voice sometimes

Schools aren't routinely taking temperatures. They aren't allowed.

Sometimeswinning

I dont recall this outrage for carers when there was no ppe for elderly care or vulnerable adults. Maybe we should have expected family to step in and stayed home.

Really. I and others from schools and hobbyists made a fuck ton of PPE, Masks, visors and scrubs when the call went out for the NHS and care homes.

How quickly our efforts are forgotten.