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?

If nhs staff can return after negative test so can schools
These are the rules.
If you have a symptom either get tested or isolate for 10 days. If you have get a negative test, you can come back.

@Hercwasonaroll what are you on about then? So if my children are at school and start with a runny nose how can it be guaranteed they won’t be sent home incase it’s covid? Made to isolate for 14 days even if it isn’t?

@Hercwasonaroll well that needs to be agreed across the board as a lot of info is saying even with a negative test you’ll be asked to isolate from school

The thing is, the situations in which schools would close to your child - ie your child would have to go home and stay at home - are nothing to do with teachers, and everything to do with Covid:

I would hope that everyone would agree that your child SHOULD be at home (whether for a day or for longer) if:

• They have symptoms of Covid, and have not yet had a negative test
• They were a close contact of someone (an adult or a fellow pupil, whether at home or at school or out of school in another setting) who has had a positive Covid test. during the time when that person was infectious.
• There has been a significant outbreak of Covid within the school (including where too many adults are ill with Covid to allow classes to be there safely).
• The overall level of Covid in the community is too high to allow for the safe opening of settings where large numbers of people meet indoors.

Under those circumstances, it is obvious that the child will need to be looked after at home (or similar), and also obvious from the new guidance coming into force from September that the school should be providing an education to those pupils remotely.

NONE of the above circumstances are within the school's control, or within individual teachers' control, so I am not sure why there is such antagonism?

The rational part of me knows this but as I'm stressed and exhausted I can't help worrying.

About one child who will pretty much 100% be back.

I've got a 3yo on a phased intro to nursery, no wrap around and no fixed start date yet. School want me back 1st September. I have a spreadsheet with childcare for each day on it. It's stressful but nothing I can change about it so just have to crack on. There's certainly no plan B.

@AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii

If you still have active symptoms you should be isolating. I missed that part. However for most people temperatures don't last very long, nor does a dry cough so once your test results are back your symptoms have probably gone.

www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing-and-tracing/what-your-test-result-means/

The probability of close contact ( a function of number of close contacts and proximity) and likelihood of there being a significant outbreak within a school amongst adults or pupils can all be reduced, however, with significant mitigation measures....which it would be sensible to be allowed to put in place, as they reduce the likelihood of your child spending time at home.

I work in children's mental health.

As a service we came up with a plan B, which is an online/telephone psychology offer. Not as good as face to face but better than nothing.

I'm not sure how it would go down if we simply withdrew our taxpayer funded expertise and put it onto parents to sort out themselves.

It sounds like this is what some teachers at least are envisaging?

We do have basic ppe (surgical mask, apron, hand sanitizer) and I would expect teachers to be offered this if they consider it necessary. And yes, our patients do some grim and unsanitary things!

[quote Tunnocks34]@WhereTheCrawdadsSing I agree. I live in Salford and I wouldn’t even be able to rent a house that fits us all in, and pay all our bills on on Salary if it was under 40k.[/quote]
Yeah, we're near London, which we need to be for DH's work. Some junior doctors make less than £40k here. If they only bought a house or flat they could afford on a single salary, and they had a family, I just don't see how that could be possible.

People in a position of privilege often seem to think they got there by making "choices" and "planning". There is usually a lot of luck to it and not much choice.

I mean, don't get me wrong, you do sometimes meet families who live in massive houses because they have two great salaries instead of one, but to assume everyone could afford to buy a property on one salary, 'because they planned it and made that choice', is quite ignorant.

I'm really not sure how saying that parents are going to have to have some sort of contingency for their children if schools have to close is any more provocative than insisting schools must stay open at all costs, when in fact that cost may be the health or even the lives of teachers.

Change parents to patients/residents and school to hospital/care home.

Still feel comfortable?

@SueEllenMishke
we're still classed as being at risk of a local lockdown... that worries me.

If it helps, my school is in an area that is already in local lockdown. We're still going to be fully open at the start of September.

Do you really think parents haven't thought about this? We're not stupid.

I'm sorry you're having sleepless nights, @SueEllenMishke. Yes there are definitely some parents who believe there's a 'magic ring' around schools or that Covid doesn't exist so everything will be fine and it's just a fuss about nothing. There are quite a few of them on here.

@WeakAsIAm

Schools and hospitals or care homes are not the same thing, do not run in the same way and do not serve the same function in society. Your 'what about...' style arguments end up just being strawmen that distract from making any real progress to a solution for the issues being raised. Unless that's your aim, I don't see the purpose of offering out those strawmen.

@Hercwasonaroll

The rational part of me knows this but as I'm stressed and exhausted I can't help worrying.

About one child who will pretty much 100% be back.

I've got a 3yo on a phased intro to nursery, no wrap around and no fixed start date yet. School want me back 1st September. I have a spreadsheet with childcare for each day on it. It's stressful but nothing I can change about it so just have to crack on. There's certainly no plan B.

Well, I do apologise for my stress induced anxiety not being entirely rational.

I've had no break from work, no 6 weeks holiday here just work, work and more work and I'm expected to deliver in person teaching from mid September. We have no childcare options, so nobody to add to a spreadsheet.
We can't even use grandparents at the moment due to local restrictions- but they work too anyway.

@Hercwasonaroll

Utterly ridiculous to think that you won’t even be allowed to go to school if you have a bit of a sniffle

You shouldn't be going anywhere with covid symptoms.

If you sent one person home. Everybody would need to go home right? As you have all been exposed potentially? I don’t understand how it will all work out in Sept.

@joan12

I work in children's mental health.

As a service we came up with a plan B, which is an online/telephone psychology offer. Not as good as face to face but better than nothing.

I'm not sure how it would go down if we simply withdrew our taxpayer funded expertise and put it onto parents to sort out themselves.

It sounds like this is what some teachers at least are envisaging?

We do have basic ppe (surgical mask, apron, hand sanitizer) and I would expect teachers to be offered this if they consider it necessary. And yes, our patients do some grim and unsanitary things!

Online (some live contact via Zoom, some using other platforms, including national tools such as BBC, some using other tools such as e.g. MyMaths) is exactly what we have delivered from the Monday after schools closed, and what we expect to deliver again at a moments' notice (including both teaching live and online simultaneously - which i did to two totally separate year groups from June 1st). Telephone doesn't work in a 1:32 scenario!

No PPE offered, provided or allowed, except briefly if dealing with an obviously symptomatic child.

I'm looking forward to going back, but am being entirely pragmatic in expecting us to have to switch regularly between education face to face and education remotely for some or all children

@WeakAsIAm

I'm really not sure how saying that parents are going to have to have some sort of contingency for their children if schools have to close is any more provocative than insisting schools must stay open at all costs, when in fact that cost may be the health or even the lives of teachers.

Change parents to patients/residents and school to hospital/care home.

Still feel comfortable?

The hospitals and care homes with PPE and without 180 different people a day coming to sit close together in confined and poorly ventilated rooms / wards? (And yes I realise many more than that that visit a hospital in a single day which is the next stating of the bleeding obvious. What about in one space though?)

[quote Iamnotthe1]@SueEllenMishke
we're still classed as being at risk of a local lockdown... that worries me.

If it helps, my school is in an area that is already in local lockdown. We're still going to be fully open at the start of September.[/quote]
Thank you.

I know the school will open but I'm so exhausted/stressed at the moment I'm not thinking completely rational at all times!

6 months of full time work, homeschooling and zero childcare has just about broken me.

I don’t think parents and teachers are on the same board here. It’s seems everyone for themselves. Everything is so negative, worst case possible imagined from the teachers POV. Assuming parents will send their child to school even with the Covid... it’s funny because not so long ago and I bet even in September some parents won’t be sending their child back to school regardless of a fine.

I'm sorry you're finding it tough. But don't think everyone else has it easy. I'm a teacher with no back up, no plan B. My spreadsheet is friends who will mind a 3yo watching cbeebies on the knowledge its a one off.

I want nothing more than children to be back in school. The plan needs to be sustainable.

I'm on plan B. I jacked in teaching 4 years ago and became a SAHM. In my final term, DS's class was hit by strike action, and despite losing out on paying for after school care, there was no way to bridge the class finishing at lunchtime until wrap around care started so I lost money on a service that I could not access. At 5yo he wasn't able to get himself to the train station or the airport to take himself off to family, and being FT working parents we didn't know any school parents or anyone locally not working in their own FT job. DH took the brunt of disrupting work with half days, and when he was on another continent, I had to go and get him and bring him to my classroom, fortunately fitting around my y13 gained time. Unfortunately it is not easy teaching y9 in a heat wave with a 5 yo with undiagnosed ASD hiding up your dress.

Schools must teach face to face unless there is a very specific problem. Pissing about with "blended learning" ultimately allows the advantaged to continue to thrive and disadvantages those with poor resources, learning difficulties and unsupportive families, those that struggle to reach their potential at the best of times.

The whole childcare system is structured around school. Even in normal times, it's awkward and expensive enough to arrange childcare. When gaps occur between school and chilcare provision, parental employment status suffers for it.

Not everyone has a luxury of a back up plan , a single mum with no family for example
Who doesn't get paid then cant put food on the table etc
It shouldn't be about a them and us as such we are all caught up in this , none of us want to be having to deal with difficult decisions and life as it currently is as planning for anything is all if's and buts
Plenty of schools are allowing masks etc according to threads and as a teacher you must know kids do need school but we can't magic up loads of new buildings and hundreds pf extra teachers tp reduce class sizes etc
We are following what lots of other countries are and o can very much see govermwnt doing a u turn and actively encouraging masks especially in secondary school
I also expect they are watching scotland very closely
But we shouldn't be against each other , all of us are doing our best tp het through this and everyone has different challenges and different perspective

If you sent one person home. Everybody would need to go home right? As you have all been exposed potentially? I don’t understand how it will all work out in Sept.

rationally, yes, of course. However, hw the guidance staes in in practice is that only the person with symptoms goes home. they are tested. If negative, they return [this should b the most common scenario][. If positive, the very close contacts of that person are likely to have to isolate [the evidence on aerosols is ignored, so it is only those people less than a couple of metres away for 15 of more minutes - so in a school, those sitting in the surrounding desks and depending on where they sit in the class, any adults within that zone]. The school notifies public health, who advise.

@Hercwasonaroll

I'm sorry you're finding it tough. But don't think everyone else has it easy. I'm a teacher with no back up, no plan B. My spreadsheet is friends who will mind a 3yo watching cbeebies on the knowledge its a one off.

I want nothing more than children to be back in school. The plan needs to be sustainable.

I've never said anyone has it easy but you seemed to suggest I was stressing over nothing.

It came across a bit shitty tbh.