#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

Keep the schools open but invest in supporting them ( No single answer but 1001 ways to at least help as per recent threads, mask wearing in secondary schools, possible blended approach for some secondary year groups to give space etc)

@ktp100

I agree that schools need to stay open for those who need it but there unfortunately some schools are doing considerably less than others in terms of bubbles/distancing etc and Ofsted really should step in to enforce tight rule guidance.

I also think Boris should permit those who want to keep kids at home to do so without off-rolling, particularly if they have vulnerable family members at home and they can show they have measures in place to ensure learning will continue at home (eg purchased online educational programmes etc).

I'd happily keep mine off and feel it would be helping but then I'm a teacher (currently sahm) so capable of planning and delivering. I know there won't be many in my situation but those who are should be given the choice, I think.

This.

As a teacher (secondary) my solution would be;

Year 7 in school full time
Year 8-13 on rota/blended learning.
Masks in classrooms too. Just like in Austria, Poland, Italy, some states of the US and other places around the world.

Sorry about lack of ideas for Primary- probably masks for year 6 and all staff. Better ventilation.

Teenagers do not socially distance, they can also remotely learn if they want to - I would shut Uni/College/Secondary and leave primaries open for social reasons and so parents can work.

I am a supply teacher and think that schools need to stay open.

I do however think that more could be done within schools to reduce the risk of transmission.

All of the schools I have worked in since September have had really good hygiene/hand washing procedures, but very little in way of minimising potential airborne transmission. Its no wonder that all of these schools have needed to close a bubble at one stage or another.

My granddaughters attend school in Dubai, they wear facemasks all day, have their temperature scanned on arrival and are spaced at least 2 metres apart with screening also up between tables. Teaching staff wear masks and visors all day. Additional cleaning staff are employed to work throughout the day in communal areas. Our schools do seem sadly lacking in comparison.

"The majority of working people cannot be in a situation where they are trying to homeschool and work again. It is not possible to do both simultaneously properly. If schools and nurseries are closed countless jobs will be lost"

Schools arent actually there just to provide free childcare to allow parents to work.......

@CouldBeOuting

Is *@SoloMummy* deliberately ignoring PPs questions about what key stage their DCs are in?

Or is SoloMummy quite simply a genius polymath with a masters in pedagogy?

Infants. But luckily for me, have a masters and have taught from nursery to adults.

So yes, I had to teach outside of my specialities on countless occasions. Including courses on brick laying which I knew f all about. Yet they all passed.

So yes if a parent wants to, they most certainly can support their children with the education when home learning and not use the usual cop outs that are in abundance on here!

PS I also provided GCSE support for subjects I have never taught for nieces via zoom.

@SoloMummy
Nanny0gg

Must stay open!

One of my DGC will never catch up if they close again. He needs his teacher.

What level of input did you give your child educationally during the lockdown?
My child has additional needs and made amazing progress due to what was bloody hard graft from me, despite the fact that I worked from home throughout.
Perhaps parents should take more responsibility for their children's educational achievement or indeed lack of?

How rude.
I did no input as it was lockdown and I'm a GP not a parent.
The school were brilliant and sent lots of resources.
His mother (my DiL) and my son tag-teamed the three children (inc one with additional needs) throughout.
But he struggled. He struggles with professional input, let alone untrained input and he badly missed the school environment, his teacher and his friends. He was also not able to go back when the others did as he was the 'wrong' year.

So they took plenty of 'responsibility' for all three of their children. But home schooling doesn't work for all for a variety of reasons and he's one of them.

I'm glad it worked for you

DEFINATELY keep the schools open!

So yes if a parent wants to, they most certainly can support their children with the education when home learning and not use the usual cop outs that are in abundance on here!

What classes as a cop out?

Keeps schools open and you lot need to chill out. Stop making kids suffer .
What does a rota of kids going in achieve? Please apply critical thinking to the whole situation. I’m amazed at the stupidity.

Oh! Now I see you are actually a teacher.

Such a shame we're not all as highly skilled (and blinkered) as you!

I think teachers who are calling for schools to shut should be ashamed of themselves. EDUCATION IS ESSENTIAL!

Home schooling was a complete nightmare - my kids were so resistant to it that it was just daily battles which wasnt good for any of us. Never want to do that again. I think the schools are probably better set up now - with Zoom calls, and online stuff which actually needs to be submitted, but still...

Plus the thought of childcare, homeschooling and working.....not sure I could cope!

One more thing...schools wouldn't actually be shut anyway, because the children of key workers (and "key workers") would still be going in presumably?!

From the Centre for Mental Health's latest report:

Nationally, in England, the model predicts that up to 10 million people (almost 20% of the population) will need either new or additional mental health support as a direct consequence of the crisis. 1.5 million of those will be children and young people under 18.

So @SoloMummy, do you still think closing schools and homeschooling is a good idea?

Do you have stats to prove that? Or does it just translate to wanting the free childcare to make life easier? @IceCreamAndCandyfloss
Posting in a rude manner doesn't exactly help get you argument across convincingly.

You seem vehemently against schools educating children. Are you a teacher? If you are unable to understand why children should be at school learning and why lockdown home schooling is hugely damaging to most families then you lack in empathy and insight. I hope you don't work in a school.

I am a teacher and believe schools should be kept open. However it does annoy me that so many people were pushing for another lockdown but not to close schools. A lockdown without closing schools makes no sense whatsoever. It just seems to be a tokenistic way of appeasing the press. The virus is either dangerous and we should have a proper lockdown or we need to learn to live with it whilst protecting the most vulnerable.

School is the right place for most children to be.

However, I find it disgraceful that there is no protection for clinically vulnerable teachers nor clinically vulnerable children or children from clinically vulnerable families.

I'd like to see a solution where shielding teachers were able to set and mark remote learning for children unable to attend school.

@BlueStethoscope

Do you have stats to prove that? Or does it just translate to wanting the free childcare to make life easier? *@IceCreamAndCandyfloss* Posting in a rude manner doesn't exactly help get you argument across convincingly.

You seem vehemently against schools educating children. Are you a teacher? If you are unable to understand why children should be at school learning and why lockdown home schooling is hugely damaging to most families then you lack in empathy and insight. I hope you don't work in a school.

Not a teacher, just getting fed up of schools being thrown under a bus because parents want their needs to come first. Never mind the children taking it home and losing family members... as long as the free childcare keeps going. Not to mention the unknown long term effects on all who catch it.

@TheRosariojewels Yes, I truly am so selfish for not wanting to catch a virus that might kill me. Wow, I feel told off thanks to your brave block capitals

But in all seriousness. I'm a primary teacher. We're sitting ducks in there, but definitely worse for my secondary colleagues. Shut them. The whole adult population has to sacrifice everything just to keep primary schools open because of politics, not because of science. Sick of it.

@bigvig

I am a teacher and believe schools should be kept open. However it does annoy me that so many people were pushing for another lockdown but not to close schools. A lockdown without closing schools makes no sense whatsoever. It just seems to be a tokenistic way of appeasing the press. The virus is either dangerous and we should have a proper lockdown or we need to learn to live with it whilst protecting the most vulnerable.

People who say that we need to learn to live with it whilst protecting the most vulnerable actually just mean let it rip through the population and stuff those who die or become very ill as a result as long as I'm all right Jack. Either that or they're too stupid to realise that a lot of the vulnerable are of working age and will include teachers and NHS workers.

It's not all nothing. The aim is just to slow the spread so the hospitals can cope. I don't think they're trying to stop it altogether. They may end up closing schools too but I can see why they would be slow to do it given how long they were shut for previously.

I teach in a secondary school and would like to say that my school never closed. As lockdown progressed, the number of students who came in daily increased from keyworker kids to students who were not engaging with the remote learning platform. Engagement and progress of all students was closely monitored at all times.

Since all students returned to school we have implemented significant measures to make the school environment Is as safe as possible. However classrooms are too small to accommodate social distancing and even with limited movement between lessons, the corridors are, at times, too crowded to facilitate social distancing.

All teachers are doing extra lunchtime and break time duties to supervise students and facilitate social distancing in their bubbles. However, supervising a large group of students over a wide space is like herding cats. Students touch each other, snog, hunch over phones in tight groups and this term there has been a significant increase in fights due to being cooped up over several days during wet weather breaks. On top of that, even though year group bubbles do not mix in school, this does not prevent the students from walking home together! Teachers do all they can to enforce the rules but there are more students than there are teachers and so a 100% success rate in student social distancing is not achievable.

All schools have followed the DFE guidelines to the letter to make the environment as safe as possible, from providing hand gel in every classroom to fortnightly fogging. But a school is a microcosm of the community and COVID will spread in schools in the same way it spreads in the community, human behaviour.

I worked all through lockdown and do not want schools to close. I have kids too, but we may have to accept the inevitable if student behaviour doesn’t change, if more space isn’t provided for teaching, if ventilation isn’t improved and If we continue to be under-funded.

@Firefin

There are several sides to this -

1. Schoold need to stay open for education, because teachers are usually trained in their subjects and how to deliver them - however, many of the more practical subjects (e.g. Drama, D&T, Science) are hardly running or being taught the way they should be, because the need for safety measures doesn't allow for practical work to take place, so huge chunks of those curricula are missed anyway.

1. Schools need to stay open for childcare purposes - parents with young children or those with more severe cases of SEND who are also working need schools in order to carry out their jobs, even if remotely. Yes, school id not the same as childcare, but those hours do make a difference when actual childcare is so expensive and hard to come by (in my area I had to register my child during pregnancy in order to get a place).

1. Schools are a contact point for Child Protection cases and goodness knows there have been a huge number of families needing that support, be it from a monetary perspective or because parents were too overwhelmed to actually care for their kids properly.

1. Social distancing is not possible in schools. Children and especially teens barely keep their hands off each other at the best of times, let alone meticulously follow the routines set in place for them. Smaller class sizes and a rota would be a possible solution, but interfere with points 1 and 2.

1. Schools are being given no money and no official powers to enforce safety. Be it having to spend £££ on masks for children who "forget" or snap theirs every day, providing wipes/ sanitisers for every classroom, having to pay for extra cleaning (staffing, insurance, equipment), not even having the powers to exclude those children who provide a serious safety risk by purposefully crossing bubbles daily. No powers to discipline, because of time and bubble restrictions, so detentions cannot run as they would. No handing out of equipment to those who have none and will spend every lesson being disruptive, because they can't use a pen they don't have (and can't share).

1. Staffing schools is a serious issue. Due to bubbles bursting in school, across year groups, the teachers' own children's year groups, health issues due to not being able to access medical care, mental health issues because many schools STILL pretend that schools should run as normal, including rigorous performance appraisals.

There is no easy solution without a huge cash injection, more staff (in a shortage profession), parental support and the more care from children.

100% spot on.

They have to close for all the reasons already given. It isn't safe for children or for staff.

It's where it's spreading.

So close them.

Id more accept blended learning and half class sizes. Or allow parents to choose to do half and half or full time without fines. Think this would naturally reduce class numbers over the week. With people working at work and at home, as well as part time workers and those furloughed.

Going back to just key workers , if schools ever did close, would be a mistake, as it was 'abused' by many, just at my school, with examples of one parent being a key worker and the other furloughed but sending the kids into school full time, because they could. But 2 parents wfh had to make do!

I work in schools, know we are sitting ducks and have to hope for the best. Also my children's school has said to keep children off, even if they are 'just ill', regardless of whether covid symptoms or not, as better to be safe than sorry, so there's going to be a lot of absences if follow that!