To be annoyed they've cancelled my son's nativity

[JudesBiggestFan]

I'm just so tired of the arbitrary and pointless decisions that rob children and parents of yet more joy.
Last year my son had his nativity play cancelled at preschool. This year, the school (after designating him a shepherd and giving him a line...the excitement!) have cancelled again. Because Covid. Never mind all the pubs, restaurants, Christmas shopping, family parties that all the kids, teachers and parents will be going to.
The nativity is some kind of super spreader event that must be forfeited!
It's not going to make the news, but I'm just so bloody tired of it all. He'll never be this little and innocent again...I tolerated it last year but my patience is gone.
Anyone who wants to be is jabbed, we have lateral flows, it's as safe as it ever will be.
Yet the commercial stuff can go on, but the pure joyful ness of a kids Christmas nativity can't. Just wanted to vent really. No point complaining in real life anymore!

Yanbu, it's ridiculous

@ichundich Vaccination should be made compulsory. But while it is not compulsory, it would be unethical and in conflict with the NHS's foundational values to refuse ITU care (if otherwise eligible).

Believe me, I don't like that aspect either. But moral decisions about who deserves care are a thorny issue.

@MurielSpriggs

Honestly, we are going ahead with nativities this week at least, but don't expect anything spectacular

Well done @Abraxan. It's a while since I've been to a nativity, but "spectacular" is never a word I would have used in the reviews

Quite!

Another poster commented they were magical, so maybe some really do expect a spectacular performance!

Every school I have ever worked in, the nativity has been performed by infants whoever said they use older children. It’s very difficult to create back ups in that situation other than probably narrators.

@authenticforgery

People are just being ridiculous at this point. "You want CEV to die you monster!!!" When will rational thinking and a sense of perspective return to the general public? We cannot and should not continue to allow children to be collateral damage. People need to get vaccinated, wear a mask, socially distance if they want to and then fucking crack on.

I'm sorry you find that ridiculous. As a CEV person, it's not ridiculous to me. People give away quite a lot about how much they value - or rather devalue - disabled people whenever this issue comes up.

@BluebellsGreenbells all these children who are already in a class together 5 days a week you mean?

Yep, opposed to the adults drinking once a week whilst fully vaccinated

@Definitelynotanathlete

We are taking time out of the curriculum to film our play too. Whilst also trying to catch up in missed learning from the previous lockdown. I'd like a life where all I had to worry about was a school play.

There’s always someone on every thread who says “I wish this was all I had to worry about”.

I agree with you OP. It’s shit. I’ve never stepped foot inside my child’s classroom. Not had a face to face parents evening since 2019. Only ever communicate with the teacher electronically.

Our school kept the one way system. Still no assemblies. No reading mornings. No sports day. No summer fair. No Christmas fair. Socially distanced drop off and pick up and at one point the school even sent an email asking people to stop allowing play dates outside of school ‘to stop the spread’.

It’s v depressing.

We are an infants only school!

Even pre covid we never mixed year groups for the play. It's hard enough with a cast of 90 the same age, let alone 270! There'd be a lot of sheep!!

It's be a very quiet nativity if our little ones didn't have any lines.

Fwiw in key stage 1 every child who wants a line has one. Some have several. In reception about half the class have their own lines and rest are part of a group who say the words together.

Even several of our 4y children learn and say lines on their own!

@Innocenta that's nice for you. Plenty of CEV don't feel that way. You're not the spokesperson for the entire group. You trying to guilt people by saying they don't care for disabled people just won't wash with me I'm afraid. We are all deserving of some kind of quality of life.

It's so sad to see so many people willing to give up their lives as they know them. 2 years in now and Covid is going nowhere. Lock yourselves away forever then but let the rest of us get on with it with caution.

*Yanbu. Cases are high but hospitalizations and deaths are not, especially if you look at the rates among vaccinated people.

cases don't matter if they aren't making people really ill*

This.

We've had multiple whole class hall parties this term with 30+ children and parents too. I spent most of Saturday at a large indoor play place with hundreds of people in an enclosed space. Cancelling an hours nativity, with children and parents that all mix daily anyway, with masks and ventilation, is not going to have a material affect on cases. It's a ridiculous over reaction. The pandemic seems to have destroyed many people's ability to apply logic and assess risk.

@ginswinger

As I sit here with active covid, quarantined and vacinated, caught from my 10yo DD, worrying quite a lot what's going to happen in the next few days, I think I could do without a mass meet up in the school. Spare a thought for the teachers who are daily facing catching the virus. A nativity would be lovely but given there's so many kids with covid at the moment, I can wait another year. I don't need to sacrifice my health for a nativity.

Thank you for your sane post.

I hope you recover quickly and fully.

@RedToothBrush

I'm going to buck the trend and say I really don't feel this is a big deal.

The kids don't know any different. Its the parents who are being drama llamas about it.

Its not a big deal. Kids are much more likely to spread it than adults atm simply because of who and who isnt vaccinated. Pubs etc are full of vaccinated people. Schools are not. I just want my son to be in school and not missing his friends. Everything above and beyond that is just a bonus under the circumstances. If having the nativity means its more likely you can't spend Christmas with other family members because you and the kids are stuck in isolation with covid, then really no.

I just can't get worked up about the preciousness of grown ups not getting what they want.

Sorry.

I'm with you. As for shopping malls, pubs and clubs these are all voluntary. The school is also a workplace and staff deserve to be protected. Unvaccinated children deserve to be protected. School halls are usually tightly packed and probably not very well ventilated. So close to Christmas could mean covid ruining many celebrations.

A lot of kids that age - probably the majority - would struggle to learn more than one part. When you have 5 or 6 off at the same time for various things that becomes more complicated.

The first week of half term there were 8 kids in one class alone off with chicken pox. Never mind covid. The year 6 group ended up with 20 off at the same time.

As i say i trust the school to make the right call.

@Innocenta

Sorry but you’re the one posting misinformation and scaremongering.

The hospitals are full. People are already waiting ten or more hours in ambulances even to get into ED. Medical staff are horrified by the prospect of the winter

Incorrect.

I work front line, this winter we will have more staff than ever as many have been redeployed from areas that would usually close for assist front line. This winter is the same as every winter in the NHS…shit! Will we get through it? Yes, we always do.

I saw more people this weekend presenting with acute mental health illness stemming from lockdown/covid etc, than I did with covid. Due to our fantastic vaccination program people aren’t becoming ill enough to require hospital admission, but overdoses due to helpless, hopelessness and isolation will. Covid will continue to spread just like the flu or nora virus will, should we lockdown for that? No.

The last thing people need is more of their little joys taken away, at this point it’s punish the majority to help reassure the minority.

Ours had planned to video and release to Teams anyway. So kids aren't disappointed etc

I understand it's horrible not getting to see your child in his play but this won't be the schools decision. We were told one morning that we were to have no parents on site, this came direct from the council and LA.

[quote Innocenta]@Rainbowsew I am CEV so I already masked and took precautions long before Covid. Obviously I wouldn't enter risky settings. I'm still largely shielding (personal advice from consultants).

But if - even unrelated to Covid - I need an ambulance or an ITU bed (both far more likely for a vulnerable CEV patient) and neither is available? Because they're all full of Covid cases? If the staff are off sick...?

It's not actually unreasonable to want a functioning NHS. [/quote]
Staff can be off sick for more reasons than covid.

The biggest cause of sickness in the NHS is due to stress/anxiety and musculoskeletal problems, not covid.

The staff at the moment are suffering immensely due to the increased pressure caused by covid. The back log of work, the expectation of working more and more hours of overtime with no rest and recuperation in between. The knowledge that people are suffering because we can't provide the services we should be and there's noone to call on because every hospital not just in this country but worldwide is suffering.

ITU isn't being affected to the extent it was in spring 2020, hopefully it never will be due to the rise in vaccination. In the hospital I'm aware of less than half the ITU patients are in with covid.

It was the case in the begging we needed to prevent ITU being overwhelmed, that isn't the case now. Now we need to deal with all the other patients who require treatment.

I too want a functioning NHS and at the moment it isn't.

@MurielSpriggs

How do teachers magically re arrange the nativity at the 11th hour if Mary, Joseph and 2 of the wise men have covid?

It's not exactly Macbeth at the National fucking Theatre! They don't need understudies, and insurance for key members of the cast

You cobble something together and it's still magical and amazing for parents and kids.

It really isn't. Most nativities are painful to sit through.

YANBU my year 3 DD has had some assessments cancelled again, she was meant to have them in March 2020, cancelled due to covid, then again in July this year, cancelled because of Covid. Now they've been cancelled again because of Covid.

She's 7 and can't read or write anything legible, she could barely speak properly after the second lot of school closures and hasn't fully regained her speech.

She's been bullied by the kids who were in school throughout because they don't want to play with a "baby".

Her carol concerts been cancelled, she's practised so hard and was looking forward to it. So now she says she hates school and doesn't see why she should go.

She doesn't remember normal school. I don't want to complain as her headteacher looks more and more tired everytime I see her but I am seriously considering it.

These assessments are important. she was already a year behind now she could be up to 2 years behind and slowly dropping further. I am so scared for her future, because I know if she hasn't learnt to read by the end of next year she will massively struggle in Years 5 and above.

People are just being ridiculous at this point. "You want CEV to die you monster!!!" When will rational thinking and a sense of perspective return to the general public?
We cannot and should not continue to allow children to be collateral damage. People need to get vaccinated, wear a mask, socially distance if they want to and then fucking crack on.

Well put

[quote Innocenta]@ichundich Vaccination should be made compulsory. But while it is not compulsory, it would be unethical and in conflict with the NHS's foundational values to refuse ITU care (if otherwise eligible).

Believe me, I don't like that aspect either. But moral decisions about who deserves care are a thorny issue. [/quote]
What exactly would change if vaccines were compulsory? Almost everybody is double jabbed and that doesn't seem to be stopping the spread. I've heard a lot of people on threads like this say it reduces the spread and likelihood of serious illness but I've been looking and can't find any evidence to back up these claims.

It really isn't. Most nativities are painful to sit through.

@itsallgoingpearshaped Maybe I'm just a big softy then

Although I would much rather see Macbeth at the National

@Benjispruce5

I don’t understand the comment that everyone else is carrying on and children aren’t. My school has has sports day, children have had birthday parties and we are having a nativity with mitigation’s. If your school is not, you need to ask why. Birthday parties are not in the school’s remit!

My job involves me spending time in a huge amount of schools. Over the last two years, where sports day has happened, it has been without parents for the majority. I know of no schools that have had shows with parents present, or fairs or indeed any community events. No local school running, gymnastic or singing competitions/ football / netball matches. The nativities have been without an audience but filmed ( a pretty pointless exercise if you're a child ). My own children had birthdays during restrictions. Teachers are doing a great job but it's not the same as it was. You may argue these restrictions are necessary but there is no argument that they aren't missing out. If your school has done all of these things, I would suggest it's not the norm.