To ask how you would feel if the decision was made to adopt blended learning to allow for social distancing in schools

[livevomitlaugh]

just that really?
Yabu- I would be fine with that
Yanbu- I very much wouldn’t be fine with that

Working parents have always had to juggle work and children, it’s a known before making choices in life.

Well considering we need people to work and we need people to have children, we might need to do a little more to make that juggle tenable rather than impossible with remote learning. Moronic post.

No I would hate this. In my experience so far, the mixed lessons ie some kids in the classroom and others at home works very poorly. And that is exactly how it would be under this suggestion, because it is logistically impossible to operate "all in or all out" in schools where the kids are in sets for the majority of subjects, and not tutor groups. It would be a disaster long term and I can't wait to get back to the simplicity of all lessons done at school with the permanent teachers.

I wouldn't be happy about it - DS 14 is now so engaged in his learning (first year of Nat 5s in Scotland) and he says himself he found it very difficult to keep motivated during lockdown.

I hate this view that some have that if a pupil doesn't engage during home teaching, then they'd be poor learners in school as well.

Provision from our private school was very mixed during last lockdown. I'd like to think it would be a bit better this time round, but who knows.

But to balance that I don't want to put the lives of teachers into unnecessary risk - but I think that should be judged at local rather than blanket level.

Also I'd worry that the governments would use schools closing to open up other things so it wouldn't really impact infection rates, just our DCs education.

Having said that I have a bit of hope that things will get better in Spring when vaccine roll out hopefully starts to reduce infection and mortality rates. This term is pretty much over so it's really Jan-Mar we have to worry about. Not an insignificant amount of time, but not an eternity either.

I'm not in the UK and we've been doing this since September. We are in a well-funded district -- meaning school breakfasts and dinners, a laptop, and internet access has been provided to everyone across the school. The state has also provided child care credit for families who need to work outside of the home and there is a paid provision for time off due to caring for children in virtual schooling written into the unemployment here. It's not much, but it's something. It works here due to the small scale; I don't think it could scale up effectively, which means no, I don't think it would work in the UK.

Blended learning is not ideal, but it has limited community spread and avoided the school-wide shutdowns we've seen in other towns when cases rise. Other towns have lost staff to covid or had to close down due to the number of staff who have become ill; we've had a small number of isolated cases which could be quickly traced and quarantined, along with the limited number of contacts in the school each week. Far easier to tell ten people they need to isolate than the whole class.

It is not easy to balance as a parent; my DC are 10 and 7 and my younger child needs supervision through the day, but DH and I take it in turns and we both have jobs that are being incredibly understanding about the need to be flexible.

Some children have clearly taken to it and some have not. The schools have struggled with the provision of services for SEN, OT, etc. and no one as far as I can see has hit on a real, workable solution for that. The calibre of work expected is no less than a normal year, and the teachers in our district spent the entire summer training to deliver remote instruction they have had to become masters of student engagement and curriculum structure (I think DS's Y1 teacher deserves a medal, honestly) to keep students focused and making measurable progress. The teachers are expected to work with the students attending in-person on that day first, then work with the remote students the district assumes a parent will assist on those days. The ability to work in small groups with the teacher has actually been incredibly beneficial; my DS has improved remarkably in some of the subjects he struggled with earlier.

So from the trenches, no, it's not great, but our community spread didn't jump upwards when schools opened like some other towns, and the staff is safe. I'll take it.

So many of the kids have it (majority asymptomatic)
How do you know may of them have it?? Genuine Q

@Crownofthorns
It didn’t take long for the teacher bashing to start, did it?
No, I didn’t mean all schools in all areas (but I’m sure you knew that). I’m talking about schools where cases are high, in areas where cases are increasing exponentially. Obviously.

I have a question to those saying "keep schools open at all costs"

Do you really mean this or is there a line where human lives are actually more important?

This is not a b&w situation and everyone needs to be flexible. Being totally inflexible and saying "at all costs" or everyone should have thought of that when starting a family is unrealistic and lead to nowhere

I'd be OK with it for us. DD (12) would probably do OK with it. Harder for DS (9) who has ADD so may just daydream if not monitored closely.

But then we have space and resources and a lot of families don't.

I’ve been doing blended lessons since the start of term.

TBH, it’s been a killer because I have had to convert my pdf worksheets to Google Slides so that students can do them paperless (plus they are so much better than the originals).

Now that these resources are made, they can be reused next year.

@NoSleepInTheHeat

Yes good question. I’ll give you an example but I can only comment on what’s happening in London:

Two weeks ago there was a case in class of 30. Positive child was asymptomatic but the case was discovered because the parents were pretty ill. Following this 5 other children went to get tested in the class, concerned they’d been infected. No symptoms. All 5 were positive. No other kids were tested.

So nobody knows how many kids have covid, unless you mass test. I have a suspicion that if you were to start mass testing in schools you would have to close because there would be so many positives.

Whole year groups are dropping like flies at the moment. Hundreds of kids self isolating. Rates and hospital admissions in my area are sky high which is why we’re heading in to tier 3.

All I’m saying is that if people really want their 5 days of Xmas without giving their family covid, the sensible thing would be to close schools in areas where the rates are high.

@Carlislemumof4
You’re not wrong in anything you say Carlisle. Home learning is awful and puts the most vulnerable kids at even more of a disadvantage in many ways. And in actual fact, we’ve seen that some of the children most disadvantaged by home learning are those with full time working parents.

Problem is, the governments covid policy is to put restrictions into place to protect the community to keep rates down and the nhs standing and keeping schools open in areas where rates are shooting up goes against that policy (main source of infections at the moment is schools). Especially with a view to allowing a 5 day Xmas period of grace in 10 days time?!?! Who wants to go and infect granny on Xmas day?
If I had to make the decision, I’d rather get kids in affected areas online in the last week before Xmas, when they aren’t really learning much, and lots of parents will be winding down at work, than in January. Let everybody have a safe Xmas, infection rates drop and we can get back to normal in the new year.

Well I’d be working full time to keep a roof over our heads so I don’t know who would supervise/deliver the home learning to my children.

My son in yr 13 has been doing this since Sept. He is in a 6th form college and has been in school for 2/3 week and then on line learning for 1/3.
For his subjects, comp sci, further maths & economics it has worked well but how it works for other subjects I'm not sure.
This week all lessons are on line. He's stuck to the rules and hasn't seen friends outside of school.

No idea how this would work with primary school kids though

Sounds good to me. My dc are crammed in like sardines at school at the moment. My dc in year 8 is isolating again until the end of term and my dc in year 10 is going back tomorrow after 10 days off.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

Very happy and would be grateful there was less chance for more people to get sick. I’d be even happier with fully remote lessons.

I think if they did it until the vaccines were rolled out to the vulnerable it would be much better. Letting it spread through schools was wrong, much better if pupils and staff are safer and have a plan rather than the constant yo-going that’s going on now.

Far better we keep the economy going with businesses open and let schools go remote. Working parents have always had to juggle work and children, it’s a known before making choices in life.

Lol. Yes, before having children people have always had to think "what would I do if there was a pandemic and the government closed schools and all forms of child care down but expected me to carry on with my job and home school my children at the same time?" Yes, that's always been a consideration when having children.

No one seems to be questioning alternatives to closing schools.

Why do kids matter least?

The most at risk people by a country mile are the over 60s. We should be focussing on asking those groups to isolate & providing support to help them do that safely.

Why aren't we? Why must children take the risk? The goal here is to reduce serious cases/deaths associated with Covid. The most efficient way to do that is to isolate those most at risk of severe complications/death and protect them.
That does not have to mean closing schools.instead we should be seeking ways to protect the statistically tiny proportion of teachers aged over 60 or who are CEV.

I hate this view that some have that if a pupil doesn't engage during home teaching

In part I agree but there is no denying there is a massive amount of crossover between those 2 groups and that many students who aren’t doing well now after lockdown wouldn’t have been doing well anyway

The most at risk people by a country mile are the over 60s. We should be focussing on asking those groups to isolate & providing support to help them do that safely.
Yes but the issue here is children picking it up at school and giving it to older/vulnerable relatives and also the risk of long covid

@Bitcherama

I also worry about the impact of online on many children, the technical subjects' difficulties via online, pastoral support etc. Teaching is so much more than online can be. My school is closed and online only at present. Everyone is desperate to get back.

Possibly one on one calls with pastoral staff and welfare checks from form tutors also they would still be in school some of the time so many of the safeguards would still be in place

@MistletoeandGin

Well I’d be working full time to keep a roof over our heads so I don’t know who would supervise/deliver the home learning to my children.

I think the learning would be teacher led (on teams for example) so you could still work

That does not have to mean closing schools.instead we should be seeking ways to protect the statistically tiny proportion of teachers aged over 60 or who are CEV.

Not everyone who has died or been extremely ill was in the clinically extremely vulnerable group though or over 60. Also, some children and teachers live with people who vulnerable.

Child A has been in and out of school all term anyway and the home learning has been effective. I would be happy with this being formalised in some way rather than random, especially if it meant the times he was in school he was sitting further apart from other pupils and teachers. He doesn't need me at home with him to learn and is pretty self-sufficient.

Child B does blended learning anyway as he has SEN so it would have zero impact on us.

But it’s also the over 50’s. Working age population. If you took out all the 50’s and 60’s then some schools would be very short staffed.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

The number of vulnerable and over 60 teachers certainly isn’t just a tiny proportion. My school has just under 10% of teachers over 60. Once you take out those who are self isolating too you could be left with over 20% of your work force missing, which makes running a school virtually unsustainable.
And yes of course you could just isolate the vulnerable and all go back to normal. But that isn’t the governments stance, is it? They’re trying to balance the needs of all. Go and tell all those who are hoping to see family at Xmas that they can’t. You’ll have a rebellion.
Feel free to come up with other ideas though..

Yes but the issue here is children picking it up at school and giving it to older/vulnerable relatives

So isolate the older relatives.

The actual number of children sharing a home with someone over 60 is probably relatively low. We should be focusing as a country and trying to isolate those people - asking them to shop online, not visit cafes and restaurants and avoid socialising, even outdoors. perhaps asking if some can stay with friends so as to isolate themselves more effectively. We should also be looking for ways to make childcare more available and discourage people from using grandparents as childcare wherever possible.

While there will be some who are working age, the vast majority of older people are retirees and it should be less damaging to the economy (and for society in the longer term) for them to isolate.

Where I live 70 and 80 year olds are socialising & mixing as much and more than anyone and this is a huge part of the problem.