Kids still feeling the effects of lockdowns…

[sloanedanger]

I just got caught reading a really interesting thread on Twitter started by a teacher:

“Is anyone else thinking we are starting to see the impact of 2 years of disruption and time at home, due to COVID 19, in schools? Extreme behaviours? Some pupils very emotional and struggling to regulate? Low attendance compared to normal? Winter bugs hitting hard?”

A lot of the comments say Y3 is the worst, others saying Years 7 and 8.

My DS is in Year 2 and often struggles with emotions and self regulation at school. It’s made me think, perhaps there’s a reason why linked to the pandemic. Lockdown was hard, DP and I were home with very young DC, trying to work, poor mental health, emotions high. Very little patience.

Same 🙄

I remember their posts. They were all about how to keep schools open by using testing, masks, vaccinating staff as a priority and buying air filters so its not surprise to see them here.

Of course they are, my dd is still recovering from anorexia that she developed one month into the first lockdown.

Her mental health may never fully recover.

Thousands of parents all over Scotland joined Us For Them in June 2020 when the government were proposing "blended learning" for the whole of the 20-21 school session, and the published proposals were for as little as 30% of the time in school. Most of us who joined at that time were already well aware of the damage being done to our children through the lack of socialisation and mixing with their peers and the idea that this 5 days every 3 weeks of being in school for the whole academic year was just impossible to imagine. So we campaigned, emailed, created a massive stink and within a couple of weeks the Scottish government had performed their traditional U-turn and pivoted to saying everyone back in full time in August.

After that for most of us it was job done. Us For Them did go off the rails with their anti vaxxer contingent but let's not forget that it was that movement which was largely responsible for getting the "blended learning" ditched.

The few places that stayed more open are showing that there was benefit now.

I’m not surprised pressure groups were created, there was minimal prioritisation in the approach for children and younger people.

Well done. It was a terrible proposal.

Noble giraffe is re writing history I see.

Like they all will.

Schools were and easy win in "fighting the spread". Lots of positive cases, and fairly easy to do with "minimal impact", because the parents can just look after their children and kids are resilience. Nevermind that these infections werent', generally, what was causing the death toll or serious illness. It was also, I assume, much easier than to work out a way to reduce spread and keep the schools open (at least part time). Which would, presumably, be logistically difficult.

I feel that parents and young people were silenced as was anyone else who voiced a concern - they were made to feel selfish as protecting the elderly was seen as the most important goal. People complaining about young people moaning and being selfish was really quite aggressive.
I feel that the damage is so severe not just in the health and development of young people but in the way they were ignored and silenced - no wonder they feel let down.

No offence to the elderly but i was amazed how everyone was banging on about protecting them all day long.

Im not saying i dont care about the elderly at all, but i certainly dont care about them at the expense of my children.

All children will get Covid over and over again whilst they build up immunity we have finally come to terms with this. Are schools more ‘safe’ now than they were last year? (Define Safe!) Or are we just more accepting of the virus and know that suppressing it/fighting it/locking down is futile? How many cases at your school? Probably loads but we don’t focus on it anymore (thank goodness).

There was so much bleating on about schools being ‘safe’ for a virus that is mild to children. Many children were ‘safer’ at school than at home.

That’s not to say I was against measures to keep schools open. (But ultimately government policy decides whether to shut schools) I suggested more outdoor learning in summer 2020 when the weather was great and cases were low. Yet children were still at home. Or in the pub with their parents..
But I never agreed with masks and social distancing for young children.

If we’d opened schools earlier in Spring 2020 then we would not have pushed another wave in to Winter 2020 - that’s why the schools closed - the government timings and lengths of lockdowns. Not because of any measures schools did or didn’t take. That second wave would have happened regardless of how many school children were wearing masks and how many windows were open! Because everyone will get Covid. Unless they are immune.
And this is why many of us just wanted a blanket government policy that kept schools open to all children no matter what stage in the life cycle of the virus we were.

The disruption came from the endless testing and lengthy isolation periods. On top of the multiple school closures. There could have been another way. Sweden managed it.

The biggest problem with schools is once they were shut it was extremely difficult to reopen them. Likewise if they had gone part time, which I could have been convinced into it would have been very difficult to get back to full time. As I’ve said upthread the original 2 week closures were sensible and I don’t think anyone disagrees with that. I’m suspecting other countries have less destructive unions, their behaviour was disgusting during covid.

I expect I will be attacked by swarms for criticising the hallowed unions 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

If we’d opened schools earlier in Spring 2020 then we would not have pushed another wave in to Winter 2020

Keeping schools closed for the summer months and then reopening them at the start of flu season was always clearly insane.

I don't really understand this. Why would it be difficult to reopen/ go from part ot full time? Other than for face saving reasons.

@Teateaandmoretea It was one (and there were many) of the most stupid decisions the government made in this pandemic.

I have a friend who is a doctor and he said from May 2020 the pressure on the hospitals (in the SE anyway) had eased (August 2020 they were all twiddling their thumbs). The weather was great. No flu or other illnesses around. Yet we all remained locked down and schools closed. Then we are surprised that when we open everything together at the same time in Sept - schools, workplaces, universities- there is a huge, much worse second wave. At the time when hospitals are under far more pressure in the winter months.

To me the pubs opening before the schools showed what the government really cared aboout (ie. the voters they were trying to appeal to). All the "elderly" we were protecting could go to the pub for a pint with their mates, while the kids stayed at home to keep infection stats down 🙄

They then wait for the numbers to go down. It is very slow. That second lockdown was going to be three weeks but no surprise it was nearly a term. Hence the clamour for key worker spaces. People demanding closure on here as usual due to the typical fear mongering from many.

Unforgivable.

I suspect that those saying their child will never recover from lockdown are greatly exaggerating. If it's true though, your child was “never going to recover” from some other life events anyway. They obviously (for whatever reason) are not very resilient and won’t cope with life anyway. I didn't particularly agree with the schools shutting for so long but there needed to be some shut down to begin with. I appreciate that many people on here don't think that their children should have been inconvenienced in anyway just to save the lives of those they consider unimportant (not just of the elderly but also those with underlying conditions) but you can't force people to teach them. If there were no teachers because they didn't fancy being severely ill with covid the schools would shut down anyway. Yes, covid is everywhere now the difference between now and 2020 is people have been able to get vaccinated and omicron is milder than the original strain or delta.

"If it's true though, your child was “never going to recover” from some other life events anyway."

Ah that's fine then. Let's move on.

[bonus prize for least sensitie post on the thread given what some people have shared]

The second lockdown starting Dec 2020 WAS a whole term in Scotland. Children did not go back to secondary school until after the Easter holiday which was mid April. Although with the usual spin, the Scot govt announced that the back to school day was the first Monday of the holidays to make it look better.

I’m sick of hearing that children are resilient. Many are, many aren’t. Some managed fine for a while and then snapped. Some are through it now, others aren’t. Only yesterday the lockdown was flagged as a major factor in the death of that lad in South Wales as his parents could hide the abuse.

Oh mate. I’m not rewriting history, and you can tell because it’s all there on MN. This from 1st Dec 2020.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/coronavirus/4095400-noblegiraffe-wants-SAFER-schools-not-closed-schools-Do-you

From the OP of that thread “I don't want schools to close. I want them to be made safer so that they stay open longer to more pupils.”

And we now know what happened. The suggested mitigation measures were not implemented, covid continued to increase in schools and in Jan 2021 they had to close again.

Do you know how fucking annoying it was to have been saying over and over that something needed to be done to stop covid spread in schools, to be on the receiving end of a shit tonne of abuse for it, to see the concerns ignored, and to see schools close for another two months as a result?

Slow fucking handclap for all those people.

And I posted upthread the new DfE research where they admit that implementing masks in schools would have saved thousands of days of pupil absence.

If you wanted schools open, if you wanted more kids in school, you should have bloody listened.

And now people are still trying to argue I was wrong. Despite how it played out.

Yeah right. The way children wore (and reused) face masks hanging down under their noses would have really worked to stop the spread. The rates of Covid in schools reflected the rates in the community. The elderly and vulnerable needed to be protected. Children needed to be at school. Schools were always safe for children. Face masks or no face masks.

Are schools ‘safer’ now? Or have we just stopped testing and isolating? Covid is still
there..

It was government policy on lockdowns that shut the schools. Nothing to do with crappy mitigations that have been shown to do f all. We are beyond this now.

The schools should never have been shut for as long as they were.

Scotland was worse, plus nurseries were closed but open here (private ones at least not necessarily school). Wales was also bad. Yet people applauding harsher measures on mn wanting the same. Madness

Anyway people submit to consultation, this thread is powerful but limited to mn, the consultation means it feeds into overview - and damage is recorded

Covid is still there but we have vaccinations and covid treatment so yes schools are safer. Plus Omicron is milder than the orginial variant or delta. The situation is very different to 2020/early 2021. Do you really not get that or are you just being obtuse? It's surely not hard to understand.