To think that those people calling for the schools to shut should check their privilege

[berryfull]

It’s all very well and good to decide to keep your kids home or call for the schools to shut when you have enough space/have a garden/ have enough bedrooms/ have a home office/ can work from home/one parent doesn’t work/ you can work flexibly / your work can furlough you/ you have enough savings/ you have enough money/ you have WiFi / you have a device per child/ your children can read and write/ your children are independent/ your children are neurotypical/ your children don’t have disabilities/ you’re not scared of your partner/ you’re not scared of your children/ your mental health doesn’t make you a danger to your children/ yiu can cope with the stress/ your partner isn’t a danger to your children/ your health is good enough to allow you to look after your children/ your education level is sufficient for you to help educate your children you can feed your children throughout the day ..... etc etc

Stop presuming that all children will be safer at home. There are bigger and comparable dangers to the Covid that school keeps children safe from. And the vunerable ones are not being looked after.

Keep the schools open .... please!

School is NOT a babysitting service. Shutting schools is not ideal for anyone. It is necessary for many.
Check your privilege is a riciculous modern catchphrase/buzzword which should be banned!

@berryfull

All the vunerable children are not all in school.

All the school staff are not safe. In fact they are not protected in any way. Government have decided who is vulnerable and that may not include all with SEN. Don't blame the teachers. Cases are out of control. I just don't get it. The NHS is overwhelmed. We actually have a vaccine. Just do everything possible to reduce transmission. It won't be forever. The end is actually in sight. Why throw lives away pointlessly. Save the maximum number of lives. Close the schools (to all but vulnerable and NHS workers) reduce transmission. It's not like last time when government suspended curriculum and asked staff just to provide childcare to those on school. This time curriculum will continue,teachers will teach. Schools have had time to plan and prepare (although no money of course) online and offline work.

I am sure the vast majority of people on here are excellent parents who absolutely love and protect their children at all costs. BUT there are a huge amount of vulnerable children in our society who not just need to be in school but rely on school for their own safety. Some won’t have eaten a decent meal in weeks and will have endured things that you and I can’t even begin to imagine. People who work in schools have committed to provide those children with protection, hence why they all have to go through Safeguarding training. Some even commit to becoming Safeguarding leads and thank fuck they do, because not everything can be left to the Police, Social Care etc!!

Everyone apprising schools being open from what I can see are doing so from completely selfish points of view.. only caring about their own circumstances or situations.

I agree with a previous poster who said if you feel that strongly then you should be able to keep your children at home but seriously please keep the schools open for the sake of all those children at risk.

I think people who will not be inconvenienced by school closures, like myself, are very aware of their privilege and have great sympathy with those for whom it will cause difficulties. It could have been hard for any of us at a different time, I've often wondered how I would have managed with my job and a child if the pandemic had happened then. However we are where we're at.

@WorrierorWarrior

It looks to me like most of the parents of today's children look on schools as a place to give the parents a break from their children. Schools are there to educate and to a certain extent socialise children not to give parents peace. This is a seriously tough time that we are all going through and it is not just difficult for school children and their parents. It is really tough going for everyone for a variety of reasons.

I think that comment is really condescending to those parents that physically have to go to work and are not classed as key workers ie shop workers, delivery men, lorry drivers, etc etc. Who do you think gets the food to Tesco and how do they do this if they have to homeschool? Most parents don’t see school as childcare. So please stop using that argument.

I agree with you op.
I also think vaccination for teachers should be prioritised along with health and social care workers.

OP completely agree.
I am a secondary teacher and want school fully open.

DS has an ehcp, needs routine due to his asd, and both parents are key workers, who can't wfh.
In the last lockdown he got a school place, for 2 hours, three times a week, on random days, often only decided in the morning when the teacher rang to see if he felt like coming in.
Not exactly "all vulnerable children are in school'

@JustSaying101

Hi *@berryfull* - do your children have an EHCP and are they at a Mainstream or Specialist Provision? Pretty sure that if they have an EHCP, this would mean they are able to continue within school, alongside keyworker children. Otherwise, if you are struggling, do speak to your Head and see if there is any way that your children might be able to be accommodated. Agree that it is a crappy situation all round, particularly with another national lockdown looming. Some do have it way easier and it is hitting those hardest that don't. There really should be more support in place and I hope that during this period, vital services will be available to those that require them. Hang in there, wishing you and your family all the best.

Not sure about mainstream but I've heard that some special schools are closing... due to the fact that the unions are persuading teachers to stay at home and thus close the schools...

@RosesAndHellebores

I agree with you op. I also think vaccination for teachers should be prioritised along with health and social care workers.

I kind of want to know why teachers like me are further down the pecking order than people who are 100 years old when it comes to getting the vaccination?

Your post attacked the OP for not doing enough for vulnerable children. You asked where she was. How is it relevant where she is now?

Nope. I was responding to the attack from the OP as to why raising it only now? A perfectly valid point.

I really think parents should be supported to home educate during this-those that want to and are able to. It would make school safer for those working there and those who need the places. It is confusing to me that DS1 and DD (secondary) are more likely to adhere to instructions on masks, hand washing distancing etc than DS2 (primary); yet secondary is delayed return and primary is due back tomorrow. Which effectively means DS2 could potentially infect his older siblings to incubate the virus until their due return next week. It just makes no sense whatsoever.

For those who can, keeping children at home with school support with curriculum would be highly preferable to contemplating taking the fine for keeping them off. Surely this would suit those with children who need the places and teachers as well, as the risk would be reduced

@Gobbeldegook

Teachers aren't childminders

True they get paid more than childminders. I don’t understand what this has to do with keeping schools open. If a parent has to go to work in Aldi then how can they homeschool? The parent may need to work to keep paying their rent etc. They cannot sit at home and expect to get paid.

I admit I’m privileged: I can WFH, my income is stable, I’m not experiencing domestic violence. But I have asthma, and I’m pregnant, so I’m pretty keen to avoid catching Covid.

Cases in my London borough have gone from 8 cases per 100k in September to 800 per 100k now. That’s a catastrophic increase and the risk of opening schools is just too high.

OP, I am a teacher and FWIW, I totally agree with you. All of the vulnerable children are not in school because many of those who experience domestic violence (either seeing one parent beat another or being victims themselves) are not on the school’s radar.

I don’t know what the answer is but as a teacher of secondary and a parent to a primary aged child I want to be in school.

I am of the mind that if parents want their children at home then that’s fine, there will be then fewer children in school. I don’t see this as a plan for moving forward though.

All staff, children and their families benefit from safer schools (including vulnerable ones).

All I wanted to say is please do not assume the vunerable children are ok if schools close. Because it’s not true.*

You make it sound as though all vulnerable children are being abandoned. It's not true at all. By far the majority are in school. Schools know who they are and are going above and beyond for them. It's just the definition of vulnerable (set by the government) varies.
I repeat the definition of vulnerable is set by the government. Teachers are going abi e and beyond to care for their vulnerable pupils.

Don't assume teachers/TAs won't die if schools open. Don't assume people in the community won't die if rates aren't brought down by closing schools.
SAGE have said schools need to close for rates to reduce. There will be deaths. Unnecessary deaths.

@JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows the vaccine doesn’t prevent from catching the virus but from getting quite ill
That 100yo person quite likely would catch it and need a long stay in a hospital using a bed that could be used for someone else

Yourself , if you’re below 60/not cev if you caught it , it’d quite likely be a mild case and no need of bed in a hospital (if any of the above then I assume you’d be getting it quite soon)

That’s why the vaccines are being given to elderlies/care home etc. Mainly cuz it’d quite likely prevent from overwhelming the nhs

Schools are closing and there’s nothing to be done about it apart from suck it up. I will be back to working from 4-9am and the afternoons/ evenings in order to get work done and home school. It’s horrendously stressful and the sector I work in is actually quite pertinent at the moment, so I’m extremely busy. I don’t really know what the answer is, but this can’t go on. I would rather we did things properly this time than have the half assed approach we have had up until now. Stop all travel in and out of the country for a start. Sanctions for those breaking the rules. Concentrate on rolling out vaccinations to school staff would be a good start so they can get back into the classroom. Let’s at least make this worth doing instead of a fucking waste of time.

"**dons hard hat>

I kind of want to know why teachers like me are further down the pecking order than people who are 100 years old when it comes to getting the vaccination?"

@JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows

I would want to know the same. Although older people are far more at risk of dying, we can also shield them better and are not sending into situations they are likely to catch the virus.

The sensible plan would be to close the schools for a month, vaccine as many people as possible -including school staff, before reopening. We are just dragging it out more and will pay for this with a long lockdown and the NHS collapsing.

I’ll let my husband who is awaiting an op for cancer know that he is privileged for wanting the school where I work closed, thank you for letting me know, we don’t feel massively privileged.

The problem with this virus is it is not one size fits all.

Not sure about mainstream but I've heard that some special schools are closing... due to the fact that the unions are persuading teachers to stay at home and thus close the schools...
Unions aren't persuading anyone to do anything. That's not their role. They are supporting their members in relation to legislation covering health and safety at work - which applies to all jobs.

OP, I am a teacher and FWIW, I totally agree with you. All of the vulnerable children are not in school because many of those who experience domestic violence (either seeing one parent beat another or being victims themselves) are not on the school’s radar.

If you know about the domestic violence surely they would be on the school's radar?

@WorrierorWarrior my dc are grown up now. Their state primary was about having a few mates and socialisation. They arrived at school at 4 well on the way to Reading. At school the priorities were: PE, singing, art, queuing, clearing the plate even if not hungry, learning to duck the shits and bullies. I got rather tired of correcting teachers' spelling mistakes, unlearning partitioning and reinforcing to my dc that x was the horizontal axis and y the vertical after a fully qualified post grad teacher taught them the opposite. And God help BODMAS in a primary school. And yawn.

The current scenario is hideous. remember the HT who shut the school for 1/4" of snow such was her mathematical understanding of risk . Am quite sure that HT is absolutely hysterical about the risk of covid-19. 75k/66m anyone .

Not wishing to minimise a pandemic but honestly ime the average teacher is not numerate enough or practical enough to call this.

1000 people a day are dying. Schools reopening drove these numbers. It’s horrible but until the vaccine is rolled out schools need to be closed (except for vulnerable children).