To think schools will close soon

[hibbledibble]

We may well have as many cases by new year as we did in the first peak. In which case school closures could be a very real possibility.

I think it’s an indication that schools won’t close fully. So even if most kids have to stay home some provision will be made in situ.

@Nowaynothappening

I feel so sorry for the children from deprived backgrounds who don’t have access to a laptop/tablet and can’t complete any online learning. Or those who don’t even have basics like paper and pens at home. Or those whose parents don’t give a shit and don’t make them do any of the school work.

Ultimately it’s those children who will suffer the most.

This is the case even when schools are open, unfortunately.

Schools in Wales are closed. Possibly until 18th. This is a right royal nightmare for me, as I teach exam classes in England. I will be in school from 5th. Dh is not allowed time off in jan cos they have shutdown at Xmas. In my circle of friends, there are already 5 kw looking for places at the school, so I don't know what's going to happen.

I know this is unpopular but they should have closed in November and should not reopen in January. ONS stats clearly show the age groups in England with the highest levels of infection are by far year 7 upwards. While it may not "affect" children, it is affecting teachers, it is affecting adequate teaching, it is also very likely playing a huge part of this recent spread. Scientists investigating strong likelihood this new strain is more transmissible in children than previous strains. If the Govt says they need to try and reduce the spread of this faster transmitting strain (and it is no more severe according to WHO) then introducing tier 4 and other measures is pointless in January. Schools must close.

To those saying children won't do much work online again, I disagree. Last time it came a few weeks before the summer. We weren't as aware of how long the virus would go on for. Children hadn't missed any school up to that point.
This time, the situation is different.

I think schools should shut (to everyone apart from key workers) because otherwise we can't get numbers down. I've lost count of friends whose children's classes have had to shut, or their children have had to self-isolate during last term (mine haven't yet, but that's sheer luck, and the way numbers are rising, it's luck that isn't going to last). So it's not like all schools are functioning normally. Children are part of the community, and they're going to be spreading it to more vulnerable teachers and relatives.

We needed more resources months ago. The government really have to get laptops or tablets out to kids who need them, and subsidise internet for families without it. If they'd thought ahead, they could have used the BBC channels to broadcast lessons, which would have solved that problem, but it's too late now.

Exams should be suspended in England too. It's so unfair to put GCSE and A Level pupils under this kind of pressure. Education is a construct, it's not a fixed thing. We can change the system to make it safer and less stressful, it just takes a bit of imagination and planning.

I may be in the minority here but I'm a reception teacher (no social distancing and PPE here!) and would rather schools stay open to all. How can a 4 year old complete online learning when the whole early years focus is learning through play and exploration?! I cannot ask my children to sit on teams or to complete worksheets as that's not age appropriate. So then what?

I think 11 - 18’s will go onto blended learning with a mixture of home and part time school but primary will stay home so that people can go to work.

Primary will stay home not close - can’t type this morning!

If schools in T4 do close to all except Key Workers, who will constitute a key worker this time?

@JacobReesMogadishu

And I think Rotas are a great idea and have said this months ago. Alternate days or weeks. Half the kids in at a time, use all classrooms and then can socially distance more. But people say that’s not possible. 🤷‍♀️

Rotas can work as an ALTERNATIVE to prioritising key worker children and certain year groups. And, unless schools and homes had the tech to ensure the students at home could remotely access the same lesson going on in the classroom, parents would just have to accept that the fortnight at home would be students working independently. In a secondary school, this could work. It’s not ideal, but then when you’re talking about quite literally saving lives I think we need to compromise our expectations of education! I know when we were asked to do a (now scrapped) contingency plan for this scenario, we had the students learning new content more rapidly than normal when in school, then spending their fortnight at home consolidating and practising it.

Not sure how well this would work in a primary though both in terms of pedagogy and also childcare, though presumably 50% in is easier than 0% in!

Another issue is staff cases: you only need a few teachers off and then you don’t have enough teachers to have one per room.

Stay open!

My secondary kids have an extra week off to work from home and are due to return on 11th Jan atm.

My dd in primary was sent home with an exercise book in case schools closed after Christmas.

Where I live we've had local restrictions since the summer, steady cases in our secondary, but these had started to become less before they broke up.

I hope they don't shut for too long although I obviously want staff and pupils to be as safe as possible. We have one laptop for 3 children and two have SEN that requires a lot of support with attempting any school work.

3 of my relatives will have had their two doses of the covid vacc by the end of Jan, so that's giving me some hope.

@Russell19

I may be in the minority here but I'm a reception teacher (no social distancing and PPE here!) and would rather schools stay open to all. How can a 4 year old complete online learning when the whole early years focus is learning through play and exploration?! I cannot ask my children to sit on teams or to complete worksheets as that's not age appropriate. So then what?

This is where a lot of loss is for children.

Ie I agree with you

It is a different thing with reception and primary children. It would be extremely hard to teach when they're so young and need the interaction.
Plus it would be hard for parents (who could) to work from home and also supervise and play with them.

But with secondary it seems madness not to keep them off, when cases are rising in young people. They're old enough by 11 to work more independently, and can respond fine to online classes.

It doesn't have to be forever. If it's a decent enough lockdown then the cases will fall to a point where it becomes much safer again for them to go back to school again. It only takes a few weeks to starve the virus of new people to infect, and then it's so much easier to control. When it's rampaging through the community, it's going to cause more chaos.

Can any teachers explain what their ideal would be?

Money to pay for all the extra cleaning. Money to pay for supply when teachers are forced into isolation.
Adequately sized classrooms to allow some kind of distancing (rather than Victorian buildings with rooms designed for 16 children - yes, we’ve measured them).
Heating systems that don’t give up the ghost when on all day due to open windows.
A Track and Trace that does it’s job, rather than us doing it for them

Failing this, then at least some honesty in the media that children are not all sitting 2m apart and teachers are still wiping noses/putting on plasters/hugging upset children.

Not one member of staff in the primary in which I work wants schools to close. Not one. But we need money, we need space and we need equipment. Most all, we need a DFE that doesn’t make impossible demands at the last minute with no understanding whatsoever of how the English school system is overcrowded, underfunded and running on a skeleton staff.

It’s a tough decision isn’t it? If I were to have a preference I would say exam years in plus primary/infants in for January then all in with rigorous testing until the vaccine is up and running. I am a primary ta. A mainly locked down January would be sensible in the circumstances.

We don't know, it will likely depend on case number in the new year.

People being off work/school over Christmas may be enough to offset things for a while. They are now promising mass testing in schools.

I hope that they'd look at going part time before complete closure. They should only close completely if we are in a full lockdown.

I so wish that people would stop wishing for school closures. Can people stop to think that just because perhaps you, and your children had a lovely time during the last closure. Many did not for all sorts of reasons.

Children are the most vulnerable members of society by default and not being able to attend school long term for so many will ruin their physical and mental health, their life chances, their parents ability to earn money to keep a roof over their heads and food.

It’s worrying that all some people care about is schools staying open at any cost whatsoever.

Your child’s education is not as important as people dying.

Teachers should be vaccinated before they go back if the government has any sense.

I have two DC in secondary but I would prefer they stay off a few weeks versus putting teachers, their families and the wider community at further risk in this spiralling pandemic. Get a hold of yourselves!

I would rather shut everything else before schools are closed. @madasamarchhare

This is exactly that they’ve done. This has been explicit policy all along - “close the pubs to keep the schools open.” However now, there is nothing left to close. The virus is rampaging through schools. They need to close until February half term.

DS’s school already advised they won’t be open for the first 2 weeks of term, except to yr 11, 13 & vulnerable & key worker children. All the rest will be online.

Will wait and see what happens after then. We’re tier 4 with v high rates currently.

@IrmaFayLear

I think schools will have to close.

What I can’t fathom is teachers (there was one upthread) who say they aren’t ready for online learning. I think you’ve had a little bit of warning! Obviously primary school teaching is more tricky, and hard-to-reach families have always been a concern, covid or no covid, but for mainstream secondary schools I think it would be outrageous if plans were not firmly in place for what is inevitable.

Schools have legally had to be ready for online learning since just before the October half term!

@DfEisashambles - love your username. Very appropriate for 2020, let’s hope the DfE improve with new leaders in 2021

@happystone

I hope gcse students are given priority. I don’t have any children tackling gcse but feel they have been let down.

I have children taking both GCSEs and A levels next summer. Tbh the year 11’s I’m less worried about but the year 13’s need to be in school although the preference would be for years 11 & 13 to be in school. These year groups have lost 25% + of their face to face teaching for exams.

All other years (primary and secondary) have time to catch up.