#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

Yes, I'm front line in school too and we have to stay open. We're working with some very vulnerable kids, we did our best to reach them during the lockdown (yes we were open for them but many didn't attend) we can't lose them again.

Then there's being able to provide a basic education for the majority. On MN children seem to have fully engaged with remote learning but that's not a real world I recognise.

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).

Who is going to enforce this though? My DD's school have repeatedly stated all of the above "in no uncertain terms" in every newsletter, new signs on the gates and around the playground, repeated text and email reminders. Parents are still not complying and the school are powerless to make them.

At the secondary where I work we know students are gathering in large groups at the park on evenings and weekends, having house parties with kids from other bubbles, playing sports with kids from other schools. Not to mention being sent into school with covid symptoms while waiting for a negative test instead of self-isolating. Again, we are powerless to stop them.

I don't think schools should close but I do think parents and older DC need to take more responsibility if they are to stay open.

@echt

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

The Tory government did this. No-one else.

The unions will try to every truck in the book to keep schools closed if they can

The. unions. cannot. close. schools.
Simple enough for you?

I can remember back to June quite clearly. The gov were pushing for the schools to open after may half term. The unions backed by labour were arguing very firmly against it. They won. Social media activists on Twitter etc were full of "we won " posts. I remember being disgusted then with the crowing with no thought to the kids education and mental health. Unions can try and rewrite this narrative now but they are now trying to try the same tactic hopefully this time without labour support as labour should be pro education. T And yes unions don't have power to close schools but as they showed in June they do have the power to keep them closed. Hence I do not trust them and I hope the Labour Party recognise this too.

I’m a senior leader in a secondary school and I’m totally torn. I definitely don’t want schools to close for a month. At the same time, I think if the government had started a national lockdown two weeks earlier they could have had a much bigger impact with a short, sharp closure of two weeks. For the overwhelming majority of the country that would been a week of half term and then an extra week of home learning either before or after.
One week of home learning would have been a relatively minor disruption, and I can’t help but feel frustrated that the government’s dogmatic commitment to keeping schools open at any cost may mean that we end up with a screeching U-turn followed by a much longer, much more disruptive closure in a few weeks time, when they realise numbers aren’t dropping in the way that they need them to. It’s a mess, and I think that we’ll be looking at Wales and wishing we’d just tacked a week of school closure (for secondary at least) onto half term and closed hospitality etc at the same time to buy us some breathing space as we head into winter. Children need to be in school as much as possible and I think taking a week out in October might have prevented them from having to miss several weeks later in the winter.

@Washimal totally agree, the school can’t enforce the rules or police the parents doing the school run. My DC’s school is the same and so far I’ve witnessed a parent without a mask coughing and spluttering all over the shop, lots and lots of parents congregating having a big gossip and far too many pulling their masks down once the headmaster is out of sight.

Other countries are keeping schools open and cases are going down.
I also find it interesting that teachers unions (where members have nothing to loose from lockdown, but are very comfortable) push for closure, but you don’t hear anything about the need to close from early years practitioners who’s risk is much higher (bodily fluids etc), but who will loose their jobs and income....

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)

As I don’t think any of those things will happen, I think numbers will spiral, scientists will say schools need to close and we will end up with a 3 week total lockdown including schools which will probably be very effective.

This chart makes sense to me and I would much rather have a short total lockdown including schools than a much longer one where far far more people end up getting coronavirus in the end.

@rawlikesushi

I work in a school and we have very strict measures in place.

Despite this, parents congregate to chat at drop-off, attempt to come into the classroom to talk to me, pick up children from other bubbles for play dates, arrange parties and sleepovers, car share and walk home in big groups.

I think that, for some, 'going back to school' meant 'back to normal'. Perhaps the full lockdown will just sharpen people's minds a bit and it will have a suppressing impact on socialising before/after school.

I don't rule out it becoming necessary to close schools again but I do think they should be the very last places to close, and that we have to try everything else first.

Universities are another matter. You only have to look at where the hot spots were to see that. Most students are now being taught entirely remotely. Close the universities and refund accommodation.

I did think this, as I have two at university and both are locked in their flats. They may as well be at home.

But, if we move all the infected uni students back now, they will just spread it more. Xmas will be a nightmare. We will go through lockdown and then all the students will spread it again when they come home. They should never have gone.

Schools are different. My son is much happier being at school. But they could reduce the risk by providing and enforcement of masks, and by having work at home days. Not for primary, but certainly for secondary.

In order to keep schools open we have to sadly say that those exemptions dont work for everyone.

Im happy to make sacrifices for the schools to stay open but there a hundred threads of people saying that its unfair that while schools are open that the cant meet another adult with their toddler, mix with elderly parents etc.

Its just whether people are happy to stay at home with their 4 year old who isnt quite in school, and accept they cant mix but a 4.5 year old in school could

If we want the rules to apply equally then schools have to close

Exactly @sashagabadon the unions showed a complete lack of foresight for refusing to teach on line /reopen. So they need to live with the consequences now.

University should close as its that age group which seemingly can't follow the rules. Secondary possibly. Primaries are low risk spreaders they should remain open

I agree with closing the schools. I'd sooner DS miss a few weeks / months of face to face learning than get Covid and pass it on to the rest of the family.
Secondary schools are one of the main breeding grounds.

MadameMinimes, I totally agree - a two-week shutdown in October would have been much better.

@baxterstockman

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.

They might be catching from working in a school or a supermarket.

Someone who's 65 today has another year to go before they can get their pension.

There's another option give parents the choice. Some parents are able to keep their children off this will reduce the numbers in schools and lessen the transmission which lets be honest is rife in schools. For me right now this lockdown will not change my life because all I'm doing is working from home, shopping for essentials and the school runs. I am however seriously considering de registering my child if the fines remain in place. Her school isn't doing all that it can you keep people safe and I worry for the staff having to work in such conditions.

I am a teacher and really want schools to remain open. For the mebtal wellbeing of our pupils, for safeguarding reasons and to support struggling families. I have three main worries about remaining open.

The first is that individual bubbles keep bursting and pupils from those bubbles with exams will be at a disadvantage. Overall closure and a decision on exams for those pupils having exams within this school year would be better than what may well be turning into a postcode lottery.

The second is that the Government will delay the decision and we will end up closed for longer. I would rather have a shorter closure now than a prolonged period like last year.

The third is that other people will put my family and I (and countless others) at risk by not following the rules. Some children with a temperature have been dosed up with paracetamol and sent in regardless. People are allowing their children to play out together as 'they are all together at school'. We have had kids wasting the hand sanitiser, fighting, jumping all over each other and generally being too close. I know it is asking a lot (as pupils seem to have magnets that attract each other) but there must be a real change in behaviour if schools are to remain open throughout the crisis.

I hope the Government will make the right decision at the right time to enable us to keep children in school as much as possible. Plans need to be made now to ensure all children have internet access and laptops to learn from home in case of the worst case scenario. We have the benefit of hindsight this time and the opportunity of time. The plan should be multi-layered. Then we can hope for the best while knowing the worst doesn't mean any child is left without an education.

Secondary schools are a much bigger transmission risk than primary and early years. It’s the number of contacts that each child and teacher had that makes them so much riskier. 2% of secondary school pupils are currently infected with COVID according to ONS and teachers might come into contact with many hundreds of pupils in a week. Our drama teachers, for example teach the whole lower school between just two of them, and then several GCSE groups and A Level groups. All in all about 450 pupils each. Their chances of coming into contact with a case is many times higher than an early years practitioner who deals with perhaps 20-30 children in an age group that is far less likely to be infected.

Schools should stay open. Universities should not, other than for nursing/other medical students and perhaps a few other courses, and be online until at least Easter. No-one wants the self-isolations that happened about a month ago with students feeling imprisoned.

Don't deregister your child unless you are sure there won't be a problem for you when hopefully all this is over and you want them to go back.

There is a discussion tomorrow of a petition for parents to be allowed to homeschool temporarily.

There is also a class action planned on human rights grounds to support parents who want to homeschool through the worst of this, likely to go to court in the next month or 2 hopefully.

I'd avoid deregistering at all costs, in our situation.

I don't really know what I think, but I am in Scotland where we have had restrictions for about 6 weeks - no indoor socialising, pubs and restaurants closed 3 weeks ago, but schools are open. Currently there may be evidence that cases are plateauing or even decreasing. In my dc school, fade masks are worn in the corridors, and now senior pupils will be expected to wear them in class. It will be interesting to see how cases go over the next week or so and follow the same downward trend, even with schools staying open.

Schools are repeatably shown to be relatively low risk compared to many environments , yet there are posters constantly refusing to believe the data. Take your own children out and home school them by all means - but let the rest get on with their education

I think the problem with blended learning, which has been mentioned upthread is that with no extra teachers/investment, who supports home learning, when teachers are teaching the kids in school? This is one of the reasons I was really against blended learning - at least with lockdown, we knew we could get support from teachers, as most were not doing any face to face teaching.

My DH is a teacher in a secondary school of over 1000 pupils. The pupils are often not following even basic rules they have put in place regarding social distancing. A lot of pupils don't care.

@Emelene and others who work in or have accurate info about cases in schools - I am curious to know how many confirmed cases there have been in your schools.
DD goes to a large London comprehensive of 1150 students and they've had three cases since September. I work at an even bigger London school (1400) with a wide catchment and we've had a total of 5. All outbreaks have been nipped in the bud with kids and staff sent to isolate at home. There seems to have been little or no transmission within the year groups.
These are not (yet) numbers which terrify me. Am I being naive? Is it much worse in other schools / locations?

Agree, Holly Road, there have been 3 cases in DC's school of 1400/1500 since August - this in an area with a lot of cases.

There's just no easy answer. I am one who thinks there isn't a lot of point in lockdown without closing the schools. Yes, alot of spread is in homes...but how does it arrive in a house? I think on many occasions via school children.
That said I dont want the schools closed ideally, and certainly not without mandatory online lessons all day. Last lockdown was a total joke for ds' schools with no live lessons and one phone call each during the entire period. Also, I think the time has come to make a call on the exams, like scotland. I cant see ds being ready for GCSEs and the reduction in some of the syllabus is a joke! The work I did get him to do on the english set text for example was a total waste because they are dropping that book 🙄.