#closetheschools is trending

[Allthestarsarecloser]

I work at a university on the front line seeing students 1-1 (I work in student support) and have continued to see students this term at a distance & with measures in place. ALL the students I have seen have been grateful for the human contact.

I also have 2 kids in primary and secondary. I want them to stay in school as my eldest had to have counselling after the last lockdown.

Aibu to say that schools need to stay open and I say that as someone on the front line.

YABU - they should shut
YANBU- they need to stay open

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@Sexnotgender

Didn’t they close end of March and reopen beginning of June? That’s 3 Months[/quote]
Not for some of the year groups. For year five for example it was 6 months out.

@MarshaBradyo my daughter was in year 1 but wasn't given the option to go back to school either.

Never yep they couldn’t fit all the years that were due to go back in our school either. So some years 1 and 6 were also out.

Didn’t they close end of March and reopen beginning of June? That’s 3 Months

They only reopened for certain year groups but the reality was that many schools couldn't even open for those groups.
My DS was in year group permitted to attend but the school couldn't physically fit his year group in school as they were expected to social distance.

My child had a full online education during lockdown. academically, he and his school are mow ahead of the curriculum (miles ahead).
Our primary school was also fully back by mid june (all kids, all year groups).
However, lockdown was incredibly damaging for their mental health - forced isolation is horrendous, and that’s what it is for children!

Didn’t they close end of March and reopen beginning of June? That’s 3 Months

Sorry I was talking about nurseries, should have made that clear

Thetwentbadly
Primary schools aren't covid secure either.

He needs his teacher.

Even more reason to be fighting for covid safe/secure schools then.

I don't know any teachers that have caught covid.......

I do. Me. Plus 9 other staff at my infant school. All within three weeks,

@SoloMummy your school seems to be a shitshow, but that doesn’t mean all schools have to close!
Of course windows are open
Of course they don’t sing
Of course they are outside for many lessons (year 3 and pre school)
Of course starting times are staggered, and parents don’t get close together. (And teachers don’t get anywhere close to parents).
Of course they don’t sit in big groups (ours have 1-2 close partners).
Just because your school is shit doesn’t mean others aren’t decent. So close all the “can’t be arsed” schools, but leave the involved, good ones open!

What level of input did you give your child educationally during the lockdown?

Well as my child is studying IT I really couldn’t give a huge amount of help. Last term was all about computer animation and I know nothing if that!

Plus as a school worker I was still working anyway. DSs college was closed but my primary remained open with lots of vulnerable children.

@SoloMummy Not all parents are able to have input into the education of their children. We have families at my school where both parents are illiterate... how would you suggest they ensure their children don’t fall behind?

Please look at the graphs I have collated below. All data from last 5 weeks. All info freely available if you google 'covid surveillance reports'. The graphs are all roughly around page 19 of the PDF documents.

Compare 'educational settings' against 'food outlets/restaurants' - why are we shutting restaurants but not schools?

Any other parents want to share how you will be explaining to your child that they can't meet with a friend/small group of friends outside of school or visit their grandparents but it's OK to be in school all day with hundreds of others?

Bubbles within a school setting don't keep kids separate - siblings in different bubbles are going home to the same household, secondary students are taught by a range of different staff and therefore in contact (directly and indirectly) with loads of people outside their 'bubble', they don't have to wear masks in classrooms but are in enclosed spaces for extended times (shown to be the main cause of transmission), and children don't socially distance. There was a case in my DD's school where the child had been completely asymptomatic but was part of a research project, so was tested - how many others are infectious without realising, spreading to others who will take it home to their families?

Lockdown properly or don't lockdown at all (I say this as a teacher who found the intensity and difficulty of lockdown learning absolutely horrendous (particularly with my own children's needs to consider) and is loving being back in school face to face with my students! I say this as a person whose spouse has been suicidal and taken a massive cut in income. I say this as someone with a teen whose mental health continues to degrade due to all the restrictions already in place, particularly in her school with the cancellation of co-curricular and the inability to properly socialise with peers). An ineffective lockdown just causes more pain for more people over a longer period of time. We can't control the fact that the virus is here, but we need far more sensible, consistent and effective measures to control it.

I share all the concerns of @Blondephantom Without really clearcut guidance and consistency, people will continue to ignore basic precautions which is only going to extend the restrictions and continue to negatively impact everyone in so many more ways - the potential to be seriously harmed by catching the virus is starting to seem a risk worth taking in comparison to the alternative (and I am a good, compliant citizen who follows the rules, no matter how inconsistent they are)

Like I said, there wouldn’t be a #closethepubs. And because keeping schools open benefits primarily children, people lose their minds as it doesn’t benefit adults.
People have heaps of sympathy for small businesses suffering and wouldn’t bat an eyelid if restaurants remained open. Partly for their own selfish gain too. But if children lose out on having a proper education, people shrug it off like it doesn’t matter.

And maybe we should be telling small businesses to operate their business from home then. Open a cafe in their living room maybe? If they’re that bothered about their business. Same concept of doing full blown homeschooling. If parents don’t do it they aren’t working hard enough to support their children’s education.

There is absolutely no point in lock down to reduce infection when in educational settings it is rife. More businesses going to the wall and people out of work for no reduction in the R rate?

@FlippinNoah

Please look at the graphs I have collated below. All data from last 5 weeks. All info freely available if you google 'covid surveillance reports'. The graphs are all roughly around page 19 of the PDF documents.

Compare 'educational settings' against 'food outlets/restaurants' - why are we shutting restaurants but not schools?

Do you believe the data for foot outlets/restaurants?. It relies on track trace actually working when we know it doesn't most of the time.

I might start #DONTclosetheschools

@Bluebellbike

There is absolutely no point in lock down to reduce infection when in educational settings it is rife. More businesses going to the wall and people out of work for no reduction in the R rate?

This is my concern. The consequences of shutting schools are horrific, both for working parents and for the children themselves - especially vulnerable children.

But the consequences of lockdown for millions of families are equally terrible, and if we are going to do it, it has to work. If we inflict hardship and misery on the most vulnerable by locking down and it doesn’t work sufficiently because schools remain open, that’s the worst of both worlds.

I sort of think if the risk is great enough that it justifies heaping a fuckton of the more vulnerable into poverty via lockdown, it’s great enough to justify the harm of schools closing.

What I hope is that lockdown works with schools still open but it’s a very big risk.

More evidence from ONS that rates are higher in secondary schools than in the rest of the community. This would strongly support in-school transmission, which authorities have been pretending doesn't happen.

The only way to keep secondary schools open successfully would be to put in the measures (as recommended by the WHO)- face masks, very small groups of students in properly small bubbles, ventilation, cluster identification and tracking with lots of testing, extra sanitation measures, social distancing.

Covid really can present as 'just a cold'. I'm guessing thousands, if not tens of thousands of children have had it without realising or parents think they've just got a cold. Add to that the asymptotic children who are also spreading the virus.

All the more reason to treat this like any other flu and carry on with life as normal

There needs to be a release valve somewhere and I'm afraid schools are not it. I watched my happy, outgoing, confident little five year old disintegrate into terrified hysteria every day in lockdown. She developed severe agoraphobia and was so unhappy. Then she became afraid of going back to school. We are just about back on an even keel but I dread to think what another lockdown would do to her. She's not alone, it was well reported that Infant and Primary pupils suffered psychologically in lockdown. You can't keep putting them back into that situation and taking them out again. You'll cause untold damage.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

I watched Kier S on Andrew Marr.

He was saying schools need to be treated the same as health workers. Continuous testing and PPE

I think that's entirely sensible.

If we expect teachers to put themselves at risk so schools can stay open, that should be the very minimum.

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@Sexnotgender

Didn’t they close end of March and reopen beginning of June? That’s 3 Months[/quote]
My son was off nursery March until September. It was actually nearly 7 months. I was broken.

These posts are such devisive nonsense. I don't think anyone on here against school staff being in any way protected are going to change their mind. All this vitriol. I think masks need to be made mandatory especially for adults in school, obviously exemptions will be needed.
And frankly I don't think I have it in me to argue with random angry fuckers on here who don't value what I and other school staff do every day. I personally love my job don't want anything to close but I do want to feel safer.