#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

Some people at my school have suggested half days or only certain years in on certain days but I’m not sure if that would be very effective because although there would be less mixing there would still have to be some form of mixing and using the same rooms etc.

@AnoDeLosMuertos

This just drives home the fact that people don’t see teachers as humans with lives.

This thread is literally the shittest thing I’ve read in a while on mumsnet. Ableism and an ‘I’m alright Jack’ attitude is why this country is like it is.

Trying to home school them was time consuming and they didn’t want to know 😫 being a teacher is not my forte! Salute all teachers!

I am a teacher and a single parent and I really struggled teaching my DCs too so don’t feel too bad haha. I don’t know how people home school!

Please keep the schools open. As far as I am concerned they are a vital & essential public service.

I’m a teacher at an inner city school in Manchester with two kids of my own in secondary school. Hubby lectures at university.
I believe that schools should be the last to close and the first to open, I have seen the impact of closed schools especially in deprived children, I don’t want schools to close, however I think they NEED to close right now for a short period of time...not months, and possibly only in the areas with highest incidence (perhaps those that were tier 3).

Here’s why, it will have an impact on the R and then the incidence.
In my school we had at least ten cases as well as cases in the parent body. Children have lost family members. Cases gained momentum as we got closer to lockdown. It became eerily possible to predict which class the next case would come in...you’d see absences for ‘non Covid’ symptoms...diarrhoea, fatigue, headache, sore throats, then you’d get symptoms and a positive test, often in parents, or an older sibling.

In my children’s school they were perhaps more proactive than the government would like. They sent children home with ‘non Covid’ symptoms, and you know what, some of those children tested positive. All year groups closed at one point or another, all detected cases did not exhibit the publicised triad of Covid symptoms...instead they had headaches, fatigue, stomach pain.

As for Manchester uni’s well the outcome there has been widely publicised.

The government need to put hands in their pockets to make schools safer. As shorter closure as possible to reduce r and incidence, followed by a reopening with better measures in place. Schools should have PPE, routine testing, ventilation, space/smaller class sizes facilitated through prefabs or empty office space and funding for additional staff, as well as better cleaning.
This would not only make schools safer, but smaller class sizes mean extra teacher time and are long proven to be linked to progress.

We also need a paediatric symptom check list, to help detect the ‘atypical’ cases in school.

It’s all doable, it just costs money that the government won’t spend. However, our children deserve to be as safe as we can make them, and as someone who lost their own mum at a young age...I urge you not to underestimate the impact of grief on a child. If you’re uncertain please Google adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s)

So are you unreasonable in not wanting schools to close? No
But are you unreasonable to believe there is no need? Yes. Xxx

That's a brilliant, clear and measured post honey.

Schools might not need to close entirely but something definitely has to change, and soon.

I live in a country where my children couldn’t even leave the house for 8 weeks during the last lockdown. We are fortunate enough to have a garden but those with children in apartments were stuck inside them for 2 months! All kids suffered as a direct result of this. It’s very unfair to keep shifting the blame onto children for spreading the virus when it’s generally young people aged 18-25. My children are going to school wearing masks all day and having to carry hand sanitizer and socially distance with friends. They are still happy to be going to school regardless. Kids need to stay in education. Schools shouldn’t have closed the first time around!

What some people seem to forget is the affect it has on children mentally.

I hear all the time that closing schools can have a negative impact on mental health which of course it can but keeping schools open can also have a negative impact.
I have many students who suffer with extreme anxiety about the virus whether it’s because they’re worried about themselves or a loved one. They have to use the school buses or public transport to come into school with over 1000 other students and staff and although we do what we can there is obviously mixing and no social distancing. Many of these have vulnerable family members so they spend all day worrying rather than actually enjoying school or learning anything.
The more the cases rise the more I see how it is impacting them.

Some kind of compromise would be great but I’m not sure what.

Don’t shut the schools!

For the obvious and aforementioned reasons it also, selfishly, because I’m a supply teacher and a parent of school aged children. If schools close I don’t have any paid work who would be more than annoying.

I’m a secondary teacher and I do believe children need to be in school, but today we’ve had about a 5th of our school off isolating (the same before half-time too). There is so much disruption and it’s spreading so quickly that I’m not sure the new lockdown measures will do much. Also we’ve got loads of staff off (some with Covid and some isolating because of contact) so there’s lots of supply in which isn’t great. No disrespect to supply teachers, but it’s not the same as having the usual class teacher. Plus it’s a massive cost to schools. I don’t think ours will be able to afford for much longer. It’ll probably be lack of staff that ends up closing my school soon.

@Ilovexmastime35

I think they should shut high schools / colleges/ universities as that's where the highest infection rates are. Infant and junior schools should stay open.

Also from a personal view, my children are y2 and Y5. My son in Y5 had a terrible time over lockdown. He needs routine and to be in school. He has undiagnosed sen but he is on the SEN register. So he was unable to go in last time.
He couldn't cope with the home school side of things and learned practically zero. Him and me cried every single day of those 6 months. Since he's gone back to school he's like a different child

Ah, so as long as shutting schools down doesn't affect you (so not primaries) then stuff everyone else.

I have children all the way through and what a lot of people don't realise is that we know uni's have a LOT of COVID cos the Unis are testing their students weekly (the ones that have agreed to anyway). So they show up as high cos thats the first area in this country that has a regularly test programme!

They definitely need to be open in some capacity. A few of my friends have school nursery aged children and the children really struggled last time. With the best will in the world, its not possible to give a child the school experience from home.

From a purely selfish point of view, we had some people on furlough due to childcare. Our workload sky rocketed. If they close and we furlough again then I'm going to have to go off sick. The stress was too much then and even the thought of it this time is stressful!

Flutter I totally agree, families with more vulnerable people in them are extremely worried. They may not be clinically diagnosed as vulnerable enough to sheild but they are worried and its very stressful for the whole family to be plunged into a petri dish of pandemic virus, via school.

One of my dc thrived at home and came along very well. She hates school and doesn't want to to go back.
What some schools did by simply abandoning the children first time around was clearly wrong.. They need to be engaged etc and learning, listening to their peers... Interacting. They can do that on line and being in school some time days

I work in a secondary school, I want schools to stay open.

I work in a secondary school and am happy to work. But after reading a few selected posts here it seems some people are just thinking of themselves and how difficult it is to have the kids home. I do appreciate children should have the best chance socially and in education and that is the reason schools should stay open

I teach Year 6, with a primary child. Selfish point of view-Id love school to be off, I had a great time with my child at home and I like Netflix.
Actual point of view-many of my class didn’t do so well, and I wouldn’t wish it
on them all over again. The wealthier and/or better adjusted families did well; many of the rest really suffered. One child dropped out and has been referred to social services. This is a total disaster for her.

This is a difficult one for me as I work in a school.
There is a part of me that thinks that a lockdown without schools and unis is a waste of time, as to my mind these places are as 'covid safe' as they can be, but it's no coincidence that covid cases have shot up since September, despite the best efforts made by the staff to keep these places open.

The new lockdown then includes 'non-essential' activities, including hospitality businesses whom also bore the brunt of the previous lockdown and some of these viable businesses and their employees may now face hard extreme hardship. This will inevitably result in job losses causing misery for those and their families that are affected.

One has to wonder how this is going to pan out in the weeks ahead, but I for one am beginning to wonder whether the 'cure' is worse than the disease.

I don't want my Yr10 to miss any more school. She was off for 8 weeks last year following spinal surgery, back for 6 weeks and then obviously off during lockdown.

I just started a round of chemo so I couldn't homeschool my other 2 primary age school children very effectively. They managed ok last time but were very happy to return.
We don't do anything or go anywhere unless it's very safe because my husband is medical and I'm ill, so I am happy to risk school which is so important for their future wellbeing.

Definitely keep them open. It’s not good for them and this whole thing is having an impact on their mental health.
Maybe I’m wrong to say I don’t see how it’s possible to suggest the schools are where the virus is breeding because if that we’re the case why is there such a disparity geographically? Surely the numbers would be high everywhere not just in certain areas of the country

We haven’t had any cases and it’s 6th form centre too, I think it does depend on your area.

Children must stay in school. Far to many were given little or no work to complete. We will have a generation with weak literacy skills and they will never catch up. Children and young people in this country have a fundamental right to education - regardless of COVID.

There is no right or wrong.

The pandemic has spread since the kids went back to school, it is literally that simple so I can't grasp a lockdown yet keeping schools open... it just doesn't make sense.

It's also pointless.

I'm also front line and this is my take: whether we lock down for 1 month or 6 we will keep coming back to this situation until the whole planet has been infected, much like influenza. It's inevitable and unavoidable.

As the apex predator on this planet disease is one of our only natural predators, it's natures way of population control. We not supposed to survive every illness, we're supposed to die to make room for others. That's the unpalatable truth and that is what will happen here. It's just a question of numbers. It's all maths I.e in approx 200 years we will run out of room and resources on this planet so what is to be done regarding population control if we want to survive as a species?

This is the 1st pandemic, it won't be the last or the most deadly, this is just a practice run so everyone needs to stop whining, look at the bigger picture and ask that question: do we accept this natural selection, do we look for another resolution to survive this pandemic to avoid a natural large scale cull or do we bitch about how bitterly unfair our lives are whilst stockpiling toilet rolls?

Bigger picture people.

I don't think it's helpful to talk about schools and universities like they are all one block. I have one in secondary, one in sixth form and one in uni. I would like them all to stay in school in poss. But if the current lockdown doesn't return us to stability then I think we close universities and leave the rest open. And if that doesn't work we close colleges and secondaries too. Primaries have to stay open, though. Little kids cannot do remote education, parents can"t work and homeschool small children at the same time, too many families don't have enough tech for parents to work and kids to do online school, the attainment gap will grow, vulnerable children become invisible to caring adults, and they don't catch covid the way adults do anyway.

Of course schools should stay open. Until I see any evidence of direct transmission taking place in the classroom and the volume of which being significant why wouldn’t they. This frustrates me particularly in primary school as I don’t know of any child in that age group that’s actually tested positive or even still that has caught it from school. We had the class TA test positive a few weeks back and non of it the children were ill/tested positive.