Schools should close for 2 weeks after the Christmas mixing

[OverTheRainbow88]

I think that schools should remain closed for face to face teaching 2-3 weeks after the end of the period in which Boris will allow families to all mix.

I don’t want to be in a classroom with 30 different kids 5 times a day who’ve mixed inside with all different family members and friends.

I say online learning until mid Jan, if Boris will allow us all to mix at Christmas

I am yet to meet a single person who has a positive thing to say about online learning

Research, then. Online teachers have never had so much work and it's a serious craft.

CountessFrog

Well, no. You put MN down and do a bit of reading up (takes half an hour at primary level). Your child puts the screen down (for most of the time) and you interact. Then you go and do stuff, some of which will (what a coincidence!) involve learning stuff! They will magically end up knowing more than they did at the start.

I know. Mindblowing.

There is a good compromise. Children back in school but with rigorous safety measures.

At the moment there is little protection for teachers and covid is spreading. I dread to think what it will be like after Christmas. If it spreads in schools then it will spread into the community.

Online learning is an acceptable alternative to in-class teaching in a pandemic.

The Government still have their fingers stuck in ears trying to pretend that it isn't spreading in schools.

Hopeless situation.

I don't want schools shut, and definitely not for additional time before or after Christmas. My DC in Y11 needs to be at school for the social interaction and the input from subject specialist teachers. My Y7 DC will tick along fine academically without attending school but is beginning to form a relationship with the teachers at secondary and is loving all the new subjects. That enthusiasm will be hard to sustain online. Oh, and I am a teacher - in an SEN setting so we won't close and don't have any distancing anyway - and DH is a secondary teacher. Mind you, he's been called for jury service (yet again, he's already done it four times) as the January term starts so he won't be teaching his Y11 and Y13 exam classes anyway!

Because of our teaching responsibilities, and DC1's GCSEs, we won't be mixing with others over Christmas even though that will mean not having been able to see grandparents etc. for months now. We know that having been teaching all term, we mix with many more hundreds of people each week than any of our siblings do and so we pose a greater risk to grandparents than they do so if there's any mixing to be done, it'll be amongst them. I guess DH might be able to visit his parents at the end of jury service, before returning to school but Christmas will have long gone by then.

I am sure that even if restrictions weren't lifted for some part of the Christmas holiday, lots of people would choose to ignore the rules. Yes, Christmas is important to me but Eid, Divali and all the other festivals that have been missed during lockdowns of varying degrees are important to those who celebrate them. I don't see that Christmas is superior. Maybe it's because it's so consumer-driven that the government are apparently intending to treat it differently.

@OverTheRainbowLiesOz

The Government still have their fingers stuck in ears trying to pretend that it isn't spreading in schools.

Hopeless situation.

I agree. DS has tested positive today. It is rife in his school (4th period of self isolation was due to start). The boy he sat next to was positive yesterday. They'd only been back in school 2 days after the last SI. We've all been nowhere for weeks.

An education is so much more than that, it’s learning to get on with people, to be independent, resilient, to try things that your parents aren’t experts at or don’t interest them. To participate in sports with other children, the list goes on. Not having every need catered for actually helps you become resilient in the long run. In my experience living on top of each other, doing everything together doesn’t improve your relationship with an older child, they need independence. I didn’t even take some of their subjects past year 9. We I also think it’s a very positive thing for a child to see a parent with a good career, working hard. We are a society, some people are good at teaching some people are good at other things. Surely we maximise what people have an aptitude for. We all pay taxes so we can have professionals do what they are good at. I’m not sure I understand your point about being on mums net. It’s not as if children can be taught at 11pm is it? Their best hours coincide with work, I still have to feed them, shop, do laundry etc so I’m not sure when you’re suggesting the schooling gets done? I can’t teach 10 GCSEs in a couple of hours in the evening. I’m quite happy and do support with homework. I teach my children every single day, just not the national curriculum. I pay for many services, someone collects my rubbish for me, yet I’m expected not to pay for teachers despite it being a much more skilled job? If other parents want to choose home Ed or sitting in front of a screen learning that’s their decision, school is much better for my child and I think that’s equally valid.

I literally never imagined that ITU consultants could stay at home with their primary aged children in a pandemic, just picking up an iPad for a short period and then interacting with them.

Simple when you think about it, and in fact if they’d only thought of this sooner, then we could have prevented all their children missing out, because prior to this revelation, they had never thought to do it, they just sent them to school, the fools.

And as it turned out, they weren’t needed at work. Because the general public found they could replicate intensive care beds by rigging up a shoe box with some buttons and just twiddling knobs every now and again, perhaps occasionally proning their relatives and administering drugs that looked a bit like dexta but were in fact made from boiled jelly tots.

All to the same effect.

What about teachers who are support bubbles to terminally ill lone relatives? There are lots around.

If I was a teacher I would feel absolutely the same way OP.

Keep the schools open they have missed alot of education this year as it is. They are mixing with each other at school and to and from school. Its hardly going to make a difference. Everyone should calm down and stop being so fearful.

They are mixing with each other at school and to and from school. Its hardly going to make a difference.

The problem is is that it is making a difference and contributing to the rise in numbers of cases in areas that previously had low numbers, even though they are currently in a lockdown.
It’s fine to want the schools to be open at all costs but it’s not fine to pretend that schools being open is not affecting the numbers of people catching Covid19. It’s this thinking that is causing reckless decision making from many and is partly the reason why people are worried about mixing over Christmas.

I literally never imagined that ITU consultants could stay at home with their primary aged children in a pandemic, just picking up an iPad for a short period and then interacting with them.

It’s lovely to have more sarcasm from you CountessFrog really.

An ITU Consultant who happens to have a primary aged child is still a parent who is facing difficulties just like every other parent who has a primary aged child and has to work.
None of this is ideal. Nobody wants this. The fact is, is that the government could have (and still could) put in measures to keep school environments safer and at less risk of closing due to positive cases and in turn, allow people such as ITU Consultants to work in person. But they haven’t and that’s the true scandal that should be worthy of your comments in posting.

@96315id great if you have the time to do that. Many working parents don't. I work out of the home so I won't be there to supervise DS and I'll have to scrabble around for childcare. Online learning will widen the gap between those who have SAHPs who can afford to dedicate time and money to their child's education and those who can't.

This whole school closure Covid thing has highlighted the fact that school is as much about free childcare and safeguarding as education.

Of course it is. Teachers are in loco parentis and are given safeguarding training for that reason

Yes, most of us delegate education, safeguarding and childcare, which we and the rest of society have paid for via taxes, to teachers. Unless society wants to return to career breaks until the youngest child is 11, this is necessary. Everybody benefits. Unless teachers also want to stay at home for years whenever they have a child they benefit too.

Tag it’s too little notice now

Tbf

@CountessFrog

ITU consultants with young children should have a back up child care plan as sooner or later their children will be sent home to self isolate for 2
Weeks because either they are covid positive or a class mate... and then said child could go back to school and then 3 days later be sent home again for 2 weeks- which has just happened to our year 7s.

YANBU

I’m not planning on having a big family Christmas - will just be our household. Aside from a few exceptions it seems ridiculous to be relaxing the rules so much. I don’t want my DC to be in school mixing with others who have been in contact with so many over Christmas and I feel very sorry for the teachers.

I’m hoping many people also keep things small and also hope my extended family agree!

I’d rather the emphasis be on making the most of a quiet Christmas so as not to undo all the good affects of lockdown (hopefully!). Perhaps a special friday and Monday ‘family bank holiday’ could be arranged at whatever point next year that vaccines (again, hopefully) etc make the risk of large group meetings a lot less.

@CountessFrog

Its funny that you labour what you think is an argument winning point whilst ignoring that if schools are to remain open something else has to stop.

What we currently have is the usual
Schools should remain open but no one is prepared to stop do what they want to do.

They are mixing with each other at school and to and from school. Its hardly going to make a difference.
this makes me want to bang my head against a wall. it makes a difference, and a substantial one. thr risk isn’t linear (i.e. any additional contact is a small increase of risk), its exponential, i. e. any additional contact significantly increases the risk.

Mine return 4th January (different schools). The 11th seems very late.

We are back on the 4th jan too