Private school & MC kids are going to be away ahead at the end of this pandemic

[Norfolker]

Just that.... I know from my neighbours that the local private has a brilliant set up online. They had sent revision work to be completed over Christmas, most of the kids I know at the private have a sahp... The local outstanding primary near us was also the same with the same type of mc parents as in the private.
Aibvu to suggest kids who don't have that support are the ones who will fall behind or underachieve in the years to come.
My neighbour in the local outstanding comp has said she spent a fortune buying workbooks on amazon to supplement the online provision! I ordered some yesterday but the thought hadn't crossed my mind before talking to my neighbour...

This is why I don't understand why teaching unions are campaigning to close schools. Obviously any teachers at increased risk should be working from home if they are in tier 4 anyway. As for the rest, why should they expect to stay home on full pay? Imagine if supermarket staff all decided not to work and close shops for a few weeks...or if doctors and nurses decided they didn't fancy working for a while. Why are teachers any different? Their work is absolutely vital to society. Teachers unions are acting as though school is a nice luxury . Can't help thinking this will come back to bite them later on.

Isn’t the difference about working in a supermarket with protective measures and distancing in place, vs being in a small room with 30 small children who dont wear masks or understand distancing?

At what level of cases and deaths would you decide it’s unsafe for adults to be a small room with 30 others and no masks or distancing? Would you suggest schools close when the figures double or never?

And what about communities too? Yes, people want to be able to keep going to work, but those children will take the germs from their families hey saw over Christmas,back into the room with 30 other people who will take them home to share....including with the elderly that many continue to see in one form or another.

Quite when will you think the time HAS come for schools to close or the Unions who are there to represent their workers to say their workers are not safe?

Interesting thread. A few thoughts.

• When learning is online, a lot of the private school “extras” aren’t available. No pool, no fancy labs, etc.
• I believe Microsoft has been giving MS Teams to all schools for free. (Does anyone know if this is true?)
• Teachers at private schools are directly accountable to parents who pay their wages. Rather than being accountable to a vast, remote bureaucracy.
• My DC are at 2 different private schools. Two working patents is the norm. Both parents tend to work full time and all have continued to work through lockdown from home. They are busy and pressured, but available.
• At my DC’s schools parents were able to go out and buy an additional laptop if needed. (We did, simple new one can be bought for £200, so affordable and worth it to us.) DC from low income families on bursaries were quietly provided with “spare” laptops.

I think the key differences are:
-availability of laptops
-teacher attitudes
-parental behaviour (this is driven by attitude and capability)

The reason the unions are campaigning for this is that it's not their job to protect education or pupils - it's their job to protect teachers. And it is undoubtedly true that teachers are safer from Covid at home than in school. That doesn't mean that all teachers want to be at home of course - plenty would much rather be in school, because they are willing to accept the increased Covid risk given how much harder it is to do their jobs effectively from home.

@SnackSizeRaisin

This is why I don't understand why teaching unions are campaigning to close schools. Obviously any teachers at increased risk should be working from home if they are in tier 4 anyway. As for the rest, why should they expect to stay home on full pay? Imagine if supermarket staff all decided not to work and close shops for a few weeks...or if doctors and nurses decided they didn't fancy working for a while. Why are teachers any different? Their work is absolutely vital to society. Teachers unions are acting as though school is a nice luxury . Can't help thinking this will come back to bite them later on.

The job of the unions is to protect the conditions of service of the oppose who pay their membership fees. Now I think of it, they have campaigned consistently for better funding of schools. Where were you when that was going on?

Teachers will be working from home - the vast majority providing remote learning using equipment they have most likely bought themselves.

The workers you mention are all able to take action thorough their unions is they feel they are working in an unsafe environment: it's Section 44, the same teachers will use.

I think you mean you want it to come back and bite them, be honest, though I can't see how it could in this particular instance.

Those - bloody autocorrect.

@TheEchtMeaningOfChristmas

Perfect response!

Imagine if supermarket staff all decided not to work and close shops for a few weeks...or if doctors and nurses decided they didn't fancy working for a while. Why are teachers any different?

You must have missed all these industries balloting to strike during this pandemic, even in the past four months. Yes, even the NHS! Do a quick Google. Thankfully, in most cases, the government agreed to their union requests.
Now, imagine if the government agrees (or agreed already this weekend) to the NEU and NaHT’s requests for safely opening schools...?

@ChloeDecker

Imagine if supermarket staff all decided not to work and close shops for a few weeks...or if doctors and nurses decided they didn't fancy working for a while. Why are teachers any different?

You must have missed all these industries balloting to strike during this pandemic, even in the past four months. Yes, even the NHS! Do a quick Google. Thankfully, in most cases, the government agreed to their union requests.
Now, imagine if the government agrees (or agreed already this weekend) to the NEU and NaHT’s requests for safely opening schools...?

Yes it’s true, it’s never about the students is it?

@MangoFeverDream

MangoFeverDream
‘I dgaf about Boris and his cronies, but how is this:

‘Boris is trying to keep the schools open, purely so the parents can continue to go to work’

a bad thing? Low-income families need to be in work, and their children need an education, in-person is most effective.

The benefits of universal education are undisputed I thought’

I did not suggest that keeping schools open was a bad thing. Plus, you also only copied the first sentence from my first paragraph! It read:

‘Boris is trying to keep the schools open, purely so the parents can continue to go to work. Otherwise, the economy will continue to take the hit. And he’s now messed up the UK even more with his World beating Brexit deal.’

Of course low income families need to be in work like everybody else in other income brackets.
ALL children need an effective in-person education, not just children from low income families.

If you live in the UK, you should gaf about Boris and his cronies as they obviously make decisions that have and will affect your life, regardless of your income or whether or not you have children in education.

Op here, sorry if you misunderstood my post.. My DH & I are not slack parents, dc are currently exceeding in school, they have access to a houseful of books, do numerous extracurriculars & we take a huge interest in their education. During the pandemic we accessed twinkl, BBC bitsize, Oak academy & printed stackfuls of worksheets.
My point was my neighbours dc attend a (very well known private) who gave the students alot of revision over Christmas, have an excellent online provision with face to face teaching, they have tutors & she has ordered them workbooks to top all that up.
My dcs school do not have a great online provision, we don't have tutors for ours & if I had all that I wouldn't buy workbooks I'd let my dc read & enjoy their downtime.
We are parents who value education but this is another level & it made me realise it will be create even larger gaps.
If we could afford it I would send my DC to the private no question but we can't... I wasn't complaining about the injustice but I was highlighting the difference between the sectors.

Totally. Another game changer for disaffected kids.

That's what the money pays for in private school. Academic support, even during covid.

Primary work a bit hit & miss around here but lots of parents purchased & worked through 11+ books with kids during lockdown 1 (so I assume will do same if closes again) & the local grammar has apparently prepped the whole year online just in case - so basically yes, private & MC kids will come out of this better than most state schools. Not how it should be but how it nearly always is.

Good points from "Empress" above on private schools.
Also private schools mostly do not go back to school until 12th Jan or thereabouts so parents were expecting children off school this week and with having to buy childcare - terms are shorter at private schools although the school day tends to be longer. eg my sons' previous private school had 8 weeks off in the summer holidays.

I believe Microsoft has been giving MS Teams to all schools for free. (Does anyone know if this is true?)

Microsoft have always offered cheaper licensing to schools and universities - its a massive business benefit to them and was expanded to free licensing for the cut down version of Office 365 long before the pandemic.

However the licensing is only a part of the cost of running the systems for a school and of course is dependent on access at home to be successful. Home access needs equipment, somewhere to work and reliable broadband (and the government recently scrapped many of the targets for broadband access in the UK). We have some of the worst broadband access in Europe and that isn't just a rural issue.

I think it would be smart to focus on why the private schools seem better. Being remote means a lot of the advantages of private schools wash away. (Class size, physical facilities). In many ways the playing field should be more level than it has been in decades.

Laptop/internet access is a big problem. But even if we waived a wand and gave every child in the UK a laptop and broadband, I don’t think it would close the gap. Do you?

It would be really refreshing to see people question the bureaucracy, the unions, and our culture around raising children for once, rather than just bashing the government of the day and private schools.

Thank goodness outdoor excersise isn't band, hopefully sitting on benches is OK too.

Good posts empress

Laptop/internet access is a big problem. But even if we waived a wand and gave every child in the UK a laptop and broadband, I don’t think it would close the gap. Do you?

This is exactly what I thought today on hearing some someone (government/ Labour maybe) talk about devices for everyone. It must only skim the surface but I’d like to see data / research if any existed.

She was talking about how bad it was that one hour was done. In a difficult setting one hour can be hard.

And I’m a good setting homeschool is screen based and can be dulling

In.

I think one key difference is not just device but range of engagement plus setting

The private school my friend's DC goes to in Ipswich had the intelligence to have every lesson as per the normal timetable taught via Mircosoft Teams within the first few days of lockdown in March.

Unfortunately my DC's state school in Herefordshire seemed to find it all too much and it was chaos.

Some teachers sent work via email and over-loaded the Inbox and some didn't send any work at all. All very hit and miss and the vast majority of work was unmarked.

The school prides itself with being very IT savvy but didn't use Microsoft Teams once.

The vast majority of households could have facilitated MS Teams as most have laptops, smart TVs and smart phones.

We have 8.9m school aged children in the UK. If we gave the bottom third (based on family income) a simple android laptop, I estimate is would cost about £237m which is a rounding error on our national budget. (Assuming these laptops were £80 each.)

We could easily do this. I’m less sure about the broadband access.

What about replacements if they get broken/stolen/lost?