Debate with friend about schools opening. Who was unreasonable?

[Freyaaaaaa]

I just got back from a walk with my friend. She is a secondary school teacher, I work as a HLTA in a primary school.

Friend thinks it's too early for schools to open and that she hopes they close again by October.
I said it's been long enough and children need an education. That will be almost a year off school which for many children will be absurd!
She thinks that schools opening just won't work and that she agrees almost a year off is bad but at the same time health is more important.
My opinion is yes health is important but we can't mess up our children's educations! And being in school one minute then closed again will do more harm than good.

The debate got quite heated as I said plenty of other people are managing to be back at work and so should we,
But apparantly I was being small-minded.
We changed conversations but things still seemed quite tense.

Also interesting as teachers on here are always saying “no teachers want schools to stay closed”. Obviously your friend is an example of only one person but it would tend to suggest there are indeed some teachers who do want that.

There is a difference between not wanting schools to go back under the current guidelines and just not wanting them to go back 'because you fancy some more time off'. Presumably the OP's friend thinks that re-opening schools is inadvisable because the measures in place are tokenistic. Which they are tbh.

"That will be almost a year off school which for many children will be absurd!"

Schools shut on March 23. Then there was easter holiday and may half term hols. It is actually about 10 weeks of home/online learning.

Let's not twist the facts!

The longer this debate goes on the longer children will have been without education.....

@TheSunIsStillShining

"That will be almost a year off school which for many children will be absurd!"

Schools shut on March 23. Then there was easter holiday and may half term hols. It is actually about 10 weeks of home/online learning.

Let's not twist the facts!

The longer this debate goes on the longer children will have been without education.....

I was trying to say this but you have said it much more clearly.

[quote Freyaaaaaa]@ConquestEmpireHungerPlague schools can't be restructured to online schooling without affecting working parents, with the most likely to be affected being the mothers, especially single mums[/quote]
Yes, that's true, but it doesn't mean it won't happen and pretending otherwise is just silly. Kids being off sick also affects working parents, most often mothers, but that doesn't mean saying 'kids must never be off sick' will have any material effect on whether or not they are.

In fact, many schools are already considering the need to provide parallel online lessons in order to cater for the many kids who will undoubtedly have to isolate at some point during the coming school year. I think - not that it does my family any good - that this is the kind of thing the private sector does very well, i.e. contingency planning in order to ensure they meet the needs of all families, and of course they're also more likely to have the resources for it. It would be better imo if all schools planned in advance for this kind of situation, and easier for them to do so if the government would pull their head out of the sand and accept it needs to be done (and fund it). Your friend isn't wrong to point out the flaws in the current lack of planning.

Neither of you is wrong - I teach secondary and agree with both, I think kids need an education but I don’t think secondary schools are safe with the full student population in them. I think primary can be safer (no classroom movement and less transmission / less serious symptoms for most children this age) and agree that primary schools should go back fully. I firmly believe that if secondary schools go back that there will be loads of closures in the winter when you consider kids getting public transport, mixing with their friends, movement on the corridors and the fact that older kids do seem to spread and get the virus more than younger ones.

Personally I think the government needs to stop treating primary and secondary the same, and think secondary should be a 50% timetable with blended learning and face to face learning so we can socially distance the kids properly with smaller class sizes.

I’m dreading going back and I love my job, so sympathize with your friend!

@RaspberryRuff

Of course *@CountDuckulasKetchup*. Teachers on here though frequently say no one wants them to remain shut. Clearly some do.

I don't want them shut. (I've been a teacher for 25 years - I wouldn't be a teacher if I didn't like kids, who would?!) BUT I want them to be as safe as possible for everyone in the buildings and ultimately for everyone in the community associated with school. This is vital.

@Elsa8

Neither of you is wrong - I teach secondary and agree with both, I think kids need an education but I don’t think secondary schools are safe with the full student population in them. I think primary can be safer (no classroom movement and less transmission / less serious symptoms for most children this age) and agree that primary schools should go back fully. I firmly believe that if secondary schools go back that there will be loads of closures in the winter when you consider kids getting public transport, mixing with their friends, movement on the corridors and the fact that older kids do seem to spread and get the virus more than younger ones.

Personally I think the government needs to stop treating primary and secondary the same, and think secondary should be a 50% timetable with blended learning and face to face learning so we can socially distance the kids properly with smaller class sizes.

I’m dreading going back and I love my job, so sympathize with your friend!

Spot on.

@Skyla2005

So if the virus is 21/100,000 do people really think that’s rational to wreck all of our kids education for. It’s madness

What was it in early March? Remember late March?

Friend thinks it's too early for schools to open and that she hopes they close again by October.
I said it's been long enough and children need an education. That will be almost a year off school which for many children will be absurd!
She thinks that schools opening just won't work and that she agrees almost a year off is bad but at the same time health is more important.

It is too early for schools to reopen, especially state secondary schools, and it quite possibly/probably/certainly won’t work but it has been long enough and children do need an education.

What was it in early March? Remember late March?

You can’t really compare the two situations though can you.
In early March there was no testing, no quarantining of arrivals from abroad, no social distancing, no track and trace, no self isolating for symptoms, no local lockdowns, no effective treatments as they had no idea what they were dealing with...

Oh and not forgetting that in March residents were being released into care homes with no covid testing.

I'm a teacher. Can't wait to get back to normal (well as normal as possible with all the bubbles and cleaning!)

She is a secondary school teacher, I work as a HLTA in a primary school.

You can’t compare your experiences, she’ll be around 270ish kids a day and you probably about 30 max. I would be happier going back into a bubble of 30 rather than 1,700 I’m about to go back to.

@Widowodiw

Kind of Irrelevant tbh Leicester schools are opening next week.... schools will open, think the debate needs to stop and we are just going to have to see what happens with the measures in place.

Personally I can’t see how people think it’s ok for pubs to be open, holidays to happen, shops to open and yet argue our kids can’t go back to school. I can guarantee they have been doing some of those things and not sitting in all the time since lockdown but for some reason schools can’t open. Blah!

Some will have, absolutely. We haven't. We were shielding. We're still not doing those things, but in effect are being forced to send our children into bubbles of 100 in primary school or deregister which shouldn't be the choice. Half classes, whether this means part-time hours or alternating teacher and lsa would be better and convince me more than force! I disagree with everything having reopened. If it hadn't been pubs, restaurants, casinos etc reopening it would be much safer for schools. Instead we're sending children to school with no precautions.

@Drivingdownthe101

What was it in early March? Remember late March?

You can’t really compare the two situations though can you.
In early March there was no testing, no quarantining of arrivals from abroad, no social distancing, no track and trace, no self isolating for symptoms, no local lockdowns, no effective treatments as they had no idea what they were dealing with...

I remember the no hand shakes /elbow knocking instead. I remember the hand washing and copious amounts of hand gel that pupils used in school.. tbh not that different from what it's going to be when we go back. With regards to social distancing that has practically disappeared hasn't it? We don't have a great track and trace system- certainly not up to it when all the schools go back. Community transmission increase will mean it will sweep through care homes again of course it will.

@ConquestEmpireHungerPlague there is a huge difference between a child being off sick and schools shutting.
I would imagine for children who are shielding, the parents will have sorted a situation out,
However, for the average family, schools shutting for more months is just not appropriate for them if they work away from home, and even those who work at home will struggle with their workload as well as homeschooling their children

I think she was being unreasonable to "hope" schools close.
I don't understand why people are betting she said "hope",
I was there, I can hear, and that was part of my debate hence why I told her she can hope because she won't lose her wage whereas a single mother who would struggle with working hours and having to homeschool her kids will not be hoping

It’s nothing like the situation in March. We were testing 100’s of people a day, now we’re testing hundreds of thousands.
Track and trace may not be 100%, but it’s better than the no tracking and tracing of any sort in March.
And until mid March absolutely no one was staying at home with symptoms.
Testing means than when areas are seeing an increase in cases, local areas are shutdown.
Now I’m not saying it’s all perfect, it’s far from it. It’s still nothing like the situation in March though.

March /care home fiasco and they still thought ventilators were the treatment.
Six months later -lots of more efficient treatment (ventilators hastened deaths-worst treatment) large part of population have antibodies and never asymptomatic,
children do not die of it snd go not spread it, deaths are old people and obese people NOT the general population.
This is an entirely different paradigm.

Are obese people not part of the general population?

I’m fat and there was me thinking I was part of the general population. What am I then?

Conquest, yes they need to think out of the box, look at where and why on line teaching worked.
I'd prefer and hope dds can simply go back to school normally but I can't have them totally abandoned by their schools again. I don't expect primary age dd could be taught in line, not sure however, secondary age definitely can, and if dh and I were at work, I'd feel much happier that she would be engaged and working on line at school.

Or old people for that matter. So do people’s deaths not matter as long as they’re not old and/or fat? That’s a lot of people to write off.

And your friend is BU.
Unfortunately there is an element of people who are love to catastrophise every situation.
Maybe she hates her job, hence hoping for school closures.
Some schools might close -luckily I teach in a school with leadership and staff who want to stay open - I really hope that most others will be like us and not succumb to the hysterical contingent looking for excuses to shirk their responsibilities with spurious ' safety mantra' excuses.

Calling you small-minded was unnecessary

Children do spread it. I think you mean symptomatic. Old people and the obese are part of the general population. Using a word like paradigm makes your comments no more accurate nor sensitive.