#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

Closing schools is fantastically detrimental for children's mental health. Many well balanced, 'privileged' dc from supportive homes have been turned into anxious shadows of their former self during lockdown. Can you imagine how lockdown affects dc from unstable families? It's like feeding these kids to the lions. Families with two working parents had to endure unacceptable stress during the lockdown1. Not again.

Schools up until 6th form must stay open. Mass testing should include school settings. Parents must be told in no uncertain terms to wear masks on the school run and to not bloody hang around and chat to other parents at the school gate, it's common sense. Also no to playdates, they are obviously illegal from Thursday and I hope parents thinks say my child in in a bubble with Amy so Amy can come to a playdate (and infect the whole household).

@thrownaway I agree with what you said. I said the same to dh this morning. It needs to be black and white for people. Stay at home. But people will drop kids at school, have a chat at the gates, go do some shopping, meet up with others at the park, go back to school, chat again, it will be exploited. I highly doubt people will drop the kids off at school and go straight home and stay in all day apart from essential exercise, like we all did early in the year. We are in tier 3 and have had the highest cases all along in our area and absolutely nothing has changed. People still doing everything as normal. It won't change unless it's a full lockdown imo.

@Sexnotgender

I think if they shut nurseries I’ll have a nervous breakdown 😢 my toddler is lovely but trying to work full time from home and look after a toddler is a big fat pile of shite. 6 months of it was beyond horrendous.

I love your on screen name. My son came back with a from for me to approve his flu vaccine. I scored out the gender and wrote biological sex. As a teacher in fe., I had to insist my students came in as opposed to being taught online.

*and I hope parents don't think

Schools should remain open for the benefit of childrens education and mental health as well as allowing parents to work. The UC system assumes parents are able to work during school hours so the 'school isn't childcare' crap doesn't hold water apparently.

Other non-essential contacts should be limited as much as possible, so parents shouldn't allow their teenagers out to congregate in large groups as we see in this area or take children to see elderly/vunerable grandparents (despite a lot of 'oh well, I'm old. I'd rather see the grandkids and take the risk'). I appreciate that limiting family and friend contact is awful but its only for a short period this time fingers crossed. The majority of deaths are apparently the elderly so keep kids away from them if people are worried about them being 'superspreaders'.

The people peddling the schools should be closed nonsense are the ones that have an at home parent and secure jobs so school closure would have little or no impact on them. A lot of parents would lose their jobs/homes if they had to be off to homeschool again. If you want to remove your child and homeschool then do so, but don't expect teachers to teach your children as well as those in school where they should be. Parents should not be penalised for removing their children though imo.

My sons primary 400ish pupil school has had just 1 case (yr 2 isolating for two weeks) and my daughters 1200ish pupil secondary has had zero cases. The cases in our council area are half the national average. Why should their schools be closed?

I agree with that as well @EdwardCullensBiteOnTheSide

It also feels awful going into a 4 week lockdown knowing that schools, colleges and unis are still open and mixing in classes. No PPE still for teachers.

The whole situation is a mess.

[quote EdwardCullensBiteOnTheSide]@thrownaway I agree with what you said. I said the same to dh this morning. It needs to be black and white for people. Stay at home. But people will drop kids at school, have a chat at the gates, go do some shopping, meet up with others at the park, go back to school, chat again, it will be exploited. I highly doubt people will drop the kids off at school and go straight home and stay in all day apart from essential exercise, like we all did early in the year. We are in tier 3 and have had the highest cases all along in our area and absolutely nothing has changed. People still doing everything as normal. It won't change unless it's a full lockdown imo. [/quote]
It would help if schools clearly communicate this.

Agree with @EatDessertFirst

I work in a secondary school with 2000 students and 200+ staff. I also have a toddler and a child in primary school. I do not know a single Teacher who thinks schools should close as anything other than a last resort.

The economy will be truly fucked (even more so than it is already!) if Primary and Early Years settings close as it means parents can't work. I don't want secondary schools to close either but blended learning for secondary and FE settings makes sense to me, at least to see us through the riskier Winter months. One week in school, one week learning online from home or students in 2/3 days a week on a rota system means we would only need to have half the kids on site at any one time. This would make it easier to adhere to some semblance of SD, to avoid bubbles bursting and for extra cleaning to take place during the school day. This would require the Government to finally make good on their (false) promise during the previous lockdown to provide laptops for disadvantaged students though and I don't trust them to do any such thing.

I think we need to be careful what we wish for. It wouldnt even surprise me if this Gov't closed schools entirely and permanently. To be replaced by teaching online. They could then sell off all those expensive school sites for housing, not to mention the savings on staff wages.
Be another nice little earner for Dido.

I am in Germany and our schools have been hit by cases of Covid and the self -isolation / quarantining of classes etc but it is not as dramatic as it is the UK. When schools went back in September, masks were compulsory in lessons from year 5 upwards for the first two weeks. Thereafter masks were allowed to be removed at your desk but many classes / individual pupils chose to continue wearing them. Breaktimes are staggered and breaks are spent in their classroom, not in the playground. It's not life as we know it and it is strenous to wear a mask in lessons, but going back to homeschool would be mega-shite for all concerned. I was quite shocked to hear that the UK did not enforce mask wearing.

I don’t understand why universities haven’t switched to a completely online model, like many other countries, this would make more sense than closing schools (at least junior schools) where online teaching is harder due to the age of the students

In hindsight, this could have happened. To do it now, though, half way through the term, at unis where there is still face to face teaching like my own, and where we've got on top of the hotspot (by having a local lockdown for students only for a month, plus private track and trace and lots of asymptomatic testing), it would not be a good idea. These students may well just leave the area and go back home- a few taking the virus (asymptomatically) back with them. That's how it got here, and then spread, so that's how it would work in reverse, although if people are prepared to self-isolate for two weeks (if they can and don't work out of the home) when their uni student child comes home, it could be ok.

t would help if schools clearly communicate this.

I don't think we are the ones who need to do this!

I’m getting so frustrated. I’m a teacher, having to continue working in what is becoming a pretty unsafe environment. I do understand however the argument that it’s for our students and our working parents, even though I might not like it at all times.

But, as this thread is building and 73% of people want schools open and teachers at risk for the greater good, there are others running where people are refusing to follow the rules, finding loopholes or they are discussing children meeting up outside of school.

So I wonder what percentage of people are expecting teachers to be in and schools to be open ‘at all costs’, whilst they then meet up with friends for a walk or allow their kids to have classmates over after school.

I just feel like pulling my hair out at this point.

YANBU my DS has SEN and cannot access remote learning. He managed zero school work over the first lockdown and the change in routine distressed him massively. If there were to be a second significant period of school closure I'm worried he would not be able to remain in mainstream as he would be too far behind his classmates. The posted transmission rates for primary schools just don't support closure in my mind.

I watched Kier S on Andrew Marr.

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

It makes sense to get a sense many as possible to WFH and close schools given they are two of the biggest three areas for cases currently. The other being care homes but they are already heavily restricted.

Whilst they are open many parents will just go about life as normal claiming no point following the rules as the children are in school all day with others.

@Nogoodusername

I also agree that the ‘shut the school/total Lockdown’ crowd are mainly people who don’t have a stake in it: are in professions that are financially secure, have paid off mortgage, don’t have young children who they would either have to homeschool or watch the catastrophic effects on them that school shut downs closed. School closures affected both my children really badly, I barely emerged with my sanity in one piece having them both at home while working a demanding job, and DH was made redundant last month so we are up shit creek financially

It's for exactly these reasons that a total lockdown is better than this current half-arsed attempt which actually has the same impact on those who are financially disadvantaged/out of work but is only going to prolong the amount of future restrictions / length of time that people are forced to suffer those exact same problems. Kids are still going to be sent home when there is a positive test (as is everyone else in their 'bubble') or they won't be allowed into school if they have symptoms anyway. Currently teachers are having to plan to teach both the kids in front of them as well as providing work/maintaining support for those who have to isolate at home and never knowing who will be at school from day to day.

Better still would be not locking down anything at all and having a working test and trace system so anyone who shouldn't be out and about, would know, but despite the fact that other countries have managed this, UK seems incapable...

I think primaries need to stay open but year 9 upwards needs to go online as well as universities. Just for November and then to a rota in September once a safe working environment has been established.

I think they should close, mostly because of the parents in the playground tbh. My DC’s school has staggered start and finish times but they asked everyone with more than one child in the school to come at the same time so that’s a lot of parents... They don’t keep their distance from one another, they all still stand having a chinwag definitely face to face and definitely less than 1M apart. The classes often still don’t leave on time so I’ve been in a situation where I’ve been cornered with about 10 other parents in close proximity.

They just made masks mandatory for parents but you can guess how many are bothering to adhere to that. I must see at least 10-15 parents either without a mask at all or wearing it as a chin warmer. Some of them wear it as they pass the head master on the gate then pull it down once he’s out of sight!

I don’t want to return to homeschooling, I’m a teacher when not on mat leave but I teach adults so primary children was a shock to my system. As much as I disliked homeschooling (as did my DC), I dislike the unsafe school run every day more. I just seethe at the parents not following the rules and my anxiety skyrockets.

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

I agree with this. But it shouldn’t be left to the schools to do. Some HT are using this pandemic to try to look better than neighbouring schools. I wouldn’t trust my school to do the testing.

@Thrownaway

The issue with schools staying open for me is that it means people dont see the sense in following other rules.

Rightly so (imo) an exception has been made for education, but now threads are full of people trying to widen that extention eg well if my kids can socialise with them at school then they can hang out with them at the weekend, well if im mixing at the school gate then i can meet up with them at the park.

It makes me scream inside a bit when i see posts that say well i have three dc's in three schools so im in contact with so many people that why cant i xyz? I dont think those posters think through that then the only alternative is to shut schools

There's much truth in this.

It makes no logical sense whatsoever. For most of a family to stay home, do essential shopping only etc, and then to have their children mixing with their entire year group and potentially becoming what amounts to a vector of infection seems absurd.

I totally get why some people feel it's pointless to bother.

Whilst they are open many parents will just go about life as normal claiming no point following the rules as the children are in school all day with others.

Also totally agree with this because I feel this way myself. I won’t break the rules obviously but I don’t see how it’s safer to send my DC to sit in an unventilated room with 30 other people than it would be to go see my Mum at the weekend.

I think they should be doing blended learning at secondary with half in/half out to reduce numbers. The secondary age group is a massive factor in COVID cases and has a knock on effect. Wondering how many people who's businesses will go under due to this second lock down would prefer schools to close so they could stay open.