#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

@Goatinthegarden nonsense. That's a reflection on particular teachers, it doesn't need to be. We moved our children to online schools and they had a fantastic time and learnt huge amounts.

They should’ve done the half term circuit breaker. Could’ve extended to 2 weeks off prior to a wider lockdown and a rota system at school which would allow more space in classrooms.As always it’s too little, too late.

Also, the coronavirus pandemic affects the elderly and appropriate measures are being taken. But the suicide epidemic is affecting the young (and more are dying of it that coronavirus!!!) so appropriate measures need to be taken for that too.

I have seen a lot of comments about a suicide epidemic, but the data that I have seen does not back this up. Can you provide a link, please?

I think they should stay open, then shut in December when there's only three weeks left, the last week of which not as much learning is happening anyway. And ideally the lockdown for everything else should stay in place until January and a clear message given that there's not going to be a big family Christmas this year. There's a chance then that maybe things can reopen a bit and schools can restart in January

I fear that otherwise schools will end up having to be shut the entirety of spring term.

But I know it is all complicated by the fact of so many businesses relying on Christmas. No easy answers.

My Y10 dd was really worried that schools would close. She needs the social side and is doing the bulk of her GCSE content learning this year.

My Y7 dd would have been happy for them to close.

I will be working so for me it is far easier for them to be learning in school rather than at home where I’m not able to supervise or help them most of the day.

Plus testing each week for staff at least.

I don’t want schools to close, my DD’s are year 10 and year 12, dd2 is in a special needs school, if schools close I have no child care for her and I can’t work. Dd1 is doing A level and I fear how school closures will effect future exams and grades, she’s unable to work at home due to having her sister here and no space for a desk/laptop in a quiet place.

I think most people want schools to remain open. Maybe we will be looking at an extended Christmas holiday if number are still high in December?

Do you have young children and have to work from home whilst homeschooling???
If not then of course it’s very easy for you to want them closed.
You have absolutely not idea what you are asking millions of working parents to do
How about I put you in a hellish situation 24/7 for months and then campaign for it to be brought back.
Lockdown without small kids or dependants it a completely different ball game

@Allthestarsarecloser
Sorry. No way are you front line. I am crammed together with 30 kids all day. Kids that don’t adhere to any social distancing no matter how many times you remind them.
They sneeze and cough in the tiny room that is my classroom. Despite all facing the front you couldn’t get a fag paper between the kids because there isn’t space.
I am not safe even though slt are trying their best.

I'm torn, in the one hand my kids do better when in school (they were so fed up by the time they went back) and I can work easier with them there.

But I feel awful for the teachers, and I'm terrified of the kids bringing the virus home, I'm struggling to get rid of a mild non-covid chest infection from over a month ago, so can't imagine I'll cope well if I catch covid.

There's no easy answers in any of this.

Obviously in person teaching is ideal. But if teachers don't want to teach in person then they aren't helping the cause by campaign for closures when they could campaign for online teaching.

@purplewaterfall

Schools were shut for 14 weeks to some year groups. They weren’t shut for 18 months.

If children don’t do anything for 14 weeks, they don’t just stand still in their learning and end up 14 weeks behind, they forget previously learned stuff and end up behind where they were when they stopped.

I read a study yesterday which found that in writing, year 7s are 22 months behind where they would be expected to be for this point in the year. They looked at the writing of tens of thousands of year 7s and found it was similar In standard to the writing of year 5 pupils near the start of the year. I’m not saying that’s entirely due to lockdown (I think most year 7s experience a bit of a dip with the school change) but it’s not what they normally expect to see.

The people dying of coronavirus are overwhelmingly over 65. Where are they catching it from? Care homes and hospitals to an extent, but probably from mixing with friends and family members. Why is this age group not being told to self isolate until they can be vaccinated? Let the rest of us get on with school, work, running businesses etc.

Lockdown was hugely damaging to lots of children and utter crap for the rest. I will be furious if they close schools again. We are in a high risk area and there have been a number of cases at both my children's schools. It has not spread like wildfire, cases have been isolated, appropriate measures have been taken, children have been sent home and I don't know of any cases where self isolating children or their family have then developed it.

@NeverTwerkNaked

Also I think the problem is that last time round once it was statistically safe to reopen there was so much fuss from teachers and unions that most children still didn't get to go back. I warned teachers and unions reps at the time that that was a short sighted move, because it would make the government much more reluctant to close schools in future waves.

Completely agree. If schools had open fully back in June after may half term like they were asked to/ supposed to, people may have higher trust in them now. The unions and the Labour Party are to blame that this didn’t happen. They made the most ridiculous fuss and it is why I do not trust them at all that they will reopen quickly. The unions will try to every truck in the book to keep schools closed if they can. They do not care about kids education or mental health issues. I hope Keir has wised up to this although he supported the unions in June not to open but hopefully he would not support them now.

They should leave the schools open.

At my university, it was hotspot a few weeks ago and went into tier 3. Everyone caught it, isolated for a few weeks and now no ones catching it again. We have lower rates in our city that teir 1 places now

Yes, I think that has happened in a lot of places. It's interesting that it is not picked up by the media and that everyone seems to think universities are worse than schools transmission when in fact they are a lot safer.

Personally, schools need to stay open, it’s very difficult working and home-schooling, keeping up with the amount of work being sent, trying to support them with their work and technical issues, which we had a lot of. My oldest son who is 14 actually preferred being home, as he said it was less distracting, he is able to get on with his work independently without support and is very academic, so it wouldn’t impact him a lot, however, my younger two needed a lot of support, one of them struggles academically and in order to help him, he needed a lot of support, it was a struggle.

For me, I’m more concerned about the parents grouping together at drop off and pick up with no social distancing, those are the parents who would be the source of spread, causing internal outbreaks at school. Parents should not be arranging play dates/sleep overs/doing school pick ups for each other and grouping together.

@Sexnotgender Iv never felt more solidarity than I did with your post!

@Rubyroost my job is called ‘frontline services’ at my uni so for the purposes of where I work, I am on the frontline. Why do people come on here just to have a go at other people’s use of language? That’s the terminology my uni uses FFS- there are thousands of staff at my uni that are working from home and not having to see any students

@ThornAmongstRoses

Can parents currently keep their children out of school without any comeback?

If not, maybe that needs to be an option for parents who can (and want to) take their children out.

Any reduction of numbers in small classes must be a positive?

NO. My Y10 was off for 1 month medical reasons (supported by Consultant letter) then 14 days re Covid I had a letter referring me to the Ed Welfare Officer

There is no effective SD in my kids High School - none.
In NE where we've been in higher restrictions for weeks and cases still climbing. GCSE Maths lessons being taught by PE teachers.
It would make sense to make attendance optional in High School.
Exams need cancelled at this stage too, like in Scotland.

It's the university age groups that have the high increases (as per the graphs accompanying yesterday's announcement), and I think the virus will have done its work in that community and the infection rate will be very low by the new year or sooner for them. So there is absolutely no point shutting universities now. It has gone through halls of residence. My DS's flat of 24 was quarantined due to four testing positive - none were properly ill (two had mild symptoms for a day or so). They kept within their compound (c. 800 students) but there was very little true quarantining beyond that - they continued to mix with each other. My point is it's too late to shut them down - they are already an exercise in herd immunity amongst the fit and young.

I think MN will present a Keep schools Open view because the majority of us have children.

However, only 8% of the adult population rely on school for childcare, we can assume there is perhaps another 8% with older children at secondary.

I am not sure how long the remaining 90 or so % of adults will put up with a long infringement of leisure, a reduced ability to work, or leave the home, shops closed , hairdressers closed, disruption to appointments etc for the grander idea of keeping all schools fully open.

Some sort of solution needs to be found in between fully open and fully closed.

Keep them open !!!

Why should kids suffer because of an ageing population ?

Surely anyone who wants to take their dc out of school and homeschool them can do that? For me, it's worth the risk for their mental health and happiness.

Fwiw, the only person I know who is pro-closing schools is frankly a bit work shy, she hasn't worked since the start of lockdown (despite being a key worker), and has been posting on social media about all the fun days out she's been having...clearly not socially distancing and probably having more contact with people than her dd does in school. I think she's just keen for a chance to not have to work and to have it be socially approved.

As a teacher, I desperately want schools to stay open. I'm aware that this is based on my personal preference because - in my experience- delivering lessons in a classroom is much "easier" (for want of a better word) than trying to deliver through 'online learning' for many reasons. I also think children need to see their peers and have that stability.

Then again, I am aware that I'm a healthy woman in her early thirties so my view may well be biased by the fact that I'm not in any risk group for Covid. If I was still a teacher but was older or had a health condition, or lived with someone who had health conditions, I might feel differently.

Just as a point of interest, I wonder how representative Twitter is of teachers in general. I just find it interesting because I'm not on Twitter, but in my daily life, I don't know a single teacher who would rather schools closed. All the teachers I know are dreading schools closing and having to go back to online learning. There seems to be lots on Twitter wanting schools to close... ...although perhaps it's the sort of people who 'shout the loudest' so to speak, though they may not necessarily be the majority?