To think that everyone who told those with preschool children in 2020/21 to get a puddlesuit and that lockdown wasn’t that bad needs to read this

[manysummersago]

BBC link

Reading the above has made me feel so angry and sad at what was done to the babies and toddlers of this country, and I can’t believe that we let it happen, quite honestly.

"Yes yes. You are very important. Gosh you are important. We could not manage without you."

Oh, the irony! Surely what many posters are saying on here is exactly that - that people could/did NOT manage without teachers?

Anyway, there is an awful lot of re-writing of history on this thread, along with a wilful misunderstanding of previous posters' stances on the subject of schools re-opening to larger numbers.

"Teachers were not at significantly increased risk compared to the general population. Many professions were at higher risk."

This is just plain wrong. All the current documents show increased risk to school staff - 37% greater I think was the most recent calculation.

Oh, the irony! Surely what many posters are saying on here is exactly that - that people could/did NOT manage without teachers?

I appreciate this might be difficult to accept, but I genuinely do believe teachers and educational staff are important. Very important. Essential to any civilised society.

Just not, perhaps, so important that any conversation about the pandemic’s impact on toddlers must be turned into yet another fight about how hard primary and secondary teachers did or didn’t have it?

Because babies and toddlers are also important, and this report is about them.

It’s about brain development as opposed to academic achievement and this is much more difficult to compensate for later.

Neural pathways are formed at specific points in human development which affect one’s whole life.

Do you realise that there are qualified teachers at some nurseries too @GoldenOmber. And EYFS curriculum covers 0-5 so anyone in childcare is an educator too

So how did you imagine schools/nurseries would stay fully open during lockdowns? With case rates so high and no vaccines?

We could and should have kept the restaurants and pubs closed, and prioritised the well being of toddlers and children. One would have offset the other in terms of infection rates. It became clear very early on that children were not 'vectors' and were not at risk, nor were the under 65s especially at risk from covid which is most teachers. It was a massive overreaction to close the nurseries and schools, and a desperate fight to get them reopened.

Back to the actual point of the thread - which is focusing on the impact to babies and children, and that I think we can all agree is horrendous, and we have no idea about consequences in the longer term. Not just to their learning ability but socially as well. Formative years are the foundations of any child's building blocks, this has never happened before so we have no idea at all what will be the final prognosis for the covid kids of today. And not even the experts have been able to guess. We just don't know so those claiming 'they will just bounce back' are deluding themselves.

@toomuchlaundry

So how did you imagine schools/nurseries would stay fully open during lockdowns? With case rates so high and no vaccines?

Since the thread is about preschool children, I'll focus on that. Lots of nurseries did a fantastic job of moving to mostly outdoor provision which benefited the children hugely and kept transmission rates low. My DC's nursery moved fully outdoors but did have to reduce its opening hours, which parents accepted.

There is a lot which could have been done to mitigate the effect on young children without massively increasing risk. The government could have increased funding to nurseries to provide outdoor provision and clothing. Baby groups and playgroups could have been supported to meet outside in the park, rather than banned outright. Like I said, childcare and friendship bubbles would have allowed young children and their parents to socialise in small groups.

The challenges for preschool children were different (and in some ways, more easily surmounted) than those for school-age children. The basics are focused caregiver care (not from a parent trying to wfh), verbal interaction, sufficient exercise, exposure to different environments and activities and socialisation with other children.

Children are vectors, why do you think so many school/nursery staff are off sick?

"The persistent narrative on here was that school is NOT childcare, and that there was something wrong with parents of three teenagers who couldn't do their own full time jobs, and support their kids with doing subjects as diverse as advanced higher chemistry, drama and geography."

What alternative would you have suggested?

Swaying, you’ve completely forgotten what lockdown was like and how unknown this was. Do you not remember how close we came to running out of ventilators? Do you not remember that healthcare staff were struggling fully covered in ppe? Do you not remember the screens, social distancing etc and masks in all workplaces? And you really think in all of that nurseries should have been open, presumably with the staff fully in ppe (they were at risk from each other not just the babies) and somehow social distancing? It was a national emergency!

Is it quite ironic that the people being derided on here (the educators) are the ones who are going to be mainly the ones helping children catch up socially, developmentally and academically.

And @Sittininafield in our area at least parents were pulling their children out of school well before the schools were closed, because they didn't want them being in an enclosed space with many other people breathing all over them. In that time when so little was known about the virus many people were not keen to let their children to be exposed to the virus.

[quote Imanidiotiknow]@peachgreen hope you and dd are keeping well

I'm torn on this. My ds has a speech delay and I feel incredibly guilty reading this. I know he missed out on baby and toddler classes as well as nursery but he's been read to, talked to, loved, played with, taken out and he's only just starting to speak at 3.[/quote]
Can I ask about your sons speech delay?

I feel I might be in a similar boat with my DD but I don't really know. We aren't able to have any health visitor visits or anything so I'm not sure what is classed as a delay.

[quote Imanidiotiknow]@peachgreen hope you and dd are keeping well

I'm torn on this. My ds has a speech delay and I feel incredibly guilty reading this. I know he missed out on baby and toddler classes as well as nursery but he's been read to, talked to, loved, played with, taken out and he's only just starting to speak at 3.[/quote]
@Imanidiotiknow forgot to tag you in my last comment

Am I right in thinking English nurseries were open January 21?

Kids across the board have taken a massive hit. It's almost impossible to say which demographic if kids has been hit worse.
Affluent parents were probably more likely to be WFH
Less Affluent more likely to be keyworkers or furloughed.
Lack of any hope for those who were out-of work, few jobs about other than delivery work

The stages children were at all possed different issues, keeping up with school, ability to type, it wasn't until the second lockdown our kids had any Google Classroom meetings at all.

The toll on everyone's MH, esp during the first one, queuing out side supermarkets to get in.
Lots of shortages - bog roll and hand wash - along with other stuff, remember not being able to get pasta and bread.
People were frightened worried about bringing covid home and not being able to get out to the shops, trying to stock up.
Others stressing because shelves were bare.

People are forgetting how stressed adults were, trying not to tell the kids what was going in.
Baa baa Black Sheep just never entered my head, kids wouldn't / couldn't sleep either due to lack of exercise, depression.

Older kids worries about exams etc.

It was a cruel time for many people, isolated, confidence lost, friendships drifted, everyone worried in their own bubble.

@Swayingpalmtrees

Just to be clear, there is zero chance of anywhere locking down so no one is talking about that.

We are feeling rightly aggrieved and angry that our children have suffered so much and it was pointless. Completely pointless. We could have achieved the same outcome with the schools remaining open.

People keep saying this, but how? What's your super proposal for keeping schools open as if nothing was going on during a global pandemic- assuming, as was the case, that the government didn't want to bother investing in stuff for schools like ventilation, reasonable ppe measures, IT infrastructure for home learning for vulnerable children, and it was lockdown vs nothing as seems to be the argument here? I think most people agree that the government could and should have done more to ensure vital things kept going; but as they didn't the hypothetical scenario is lockdown vs no lockdown. Interested in how things would have kept open business as usual and what consideration is given to children losing relatives, some having stuff like long covid, having treatments for their cancer halted because the health service is overrun? It was a shitty situation whatever happened, but in no universe did they stay open and everything was fine.

The governments of many countries across the world took even more extreme measures to keep schools/nurseries closed (to everyone, even the children of Key Workers) for significantly longer periods of time than we in the UK did.
Yet when educators on here began suggesting ways we could get ours open more widely and more safely, they've been viciously set upon as having an agenda quite different from the truth. Any "blame" (with the benefit of hindsight)and responsibility for how lockdown was managed lies squarely at the feet of our Government, not (teacher) posters on Mumsnet, ffs.

The fact that HV services have been cut back so much certainly won’t be helping. It was an issue before the pandemic so God only knows how many young children are missing out now because remaining HVs just can’t manage to make up for all the gaps in service.

Yet when educators on here began suggesting ways we could get ours open more widely and more safely, they've been viciously set upon as having an agenda quite different from the truth.

Undoubtedly they were. Mind you, this was at a time when pretty much anyone who dared to suggest anything was viciously set upon. Everyone on here was at one another's throats, it was horrific.

[quote mathanxiety]@BogRollBOGOF, children who spend all day every day in a nursery or with a CM are not going to see much of the inside of a supermarket either, and will also miss out on precious vocabulary like 'aisle' if their parents prefer to order groceries delivered.

[/quote]
The children who got to see the inside of a nursery or CM were getting more opportunities than those who were prohibited from accessing school or their peers at all.

My point was not that "aisle" is a vital word for a child to learn, it's that a variety of experiences opens up learning opportunities beyond those present in the home. I spent years babbling away at a speech delayed toddler, and the more places we went to, the more he was exposed to a broader range of words and social interactions. Had he been a toddler in 2020, he'd have got some beneficial nursery interaction, but he'd have missed out a lot on what we did at weekends and my P/T days off. The movement of our swimming lessons (which included group singing ) has been very beneficial for a child who it turns out has dyspraxia. A lot of things I did to enrich and develop my child that have turned out to help him live with additional needs just were not avaliable to children and parents in 2020/21, and data and reports from multiple agencies is now showing a detrimental effect across this cohort at children.

Children were banned from play areas.
They were discouraged from shops.
They had limited opportunities to see family if at all.
It was very difficult to risk being a social pariah to openly suggest breaking lockdown to improve social contact.
Toddler groups/ extra-curriculars weren't able to open for 6 months and had constantly changing restrictions if they did manage to open in autumn 2021.
Sometimes the conditions of strict social distancing and masks eliminated the purpose of being able to go to these groups. Facilities like swimming pools and libraries often opened up services to adults first and did not restore child friendly services until social distancing was dropped.

Rules constantly ignored the needs of children.

In Feb 2021, I spent several afternoons breaking the law to watch DS and his friend "exercise" together in the park, because they were on the young side to play unsupervised. Meanwhile 200m away, half their class got to sit in a classroom together and get some interaction with their peers.

Why was it legal for some children to be allowed to socialise and others banned?
You can't stick children in a box (or home) and expect them to emerge unaffected two years later.

Everyone I know who works with children of all age groups, paid and voluntary is observing the same issues around social confidence, skills and learning.

I honestly don't think we could have achieved what we did, with the schools still open. Ds2 is a secondary school teacher, and even with masks on and windows open, and regular testing, covid still goes through the school - staff and pupils. He has been pinged as a close contact so many times.

Also, if the schools had stayed open, what about the members of staff or pupils who had someone vulnerable at home? Would they have had to come in regardless, and risked passing it on to someone who might become seriously ill or even die of it? Or if they were allowed to stay at home, how would the schools have managed a hybrid of online and in person teaching? From what ds2 has told us, it was bloody hard work sorting out the online teaching and delivering it - and I can only imagine it would have been even harder if they were having to deliver hybrid online/in person teaching.

I had covid, this time last year. I was lucky - I had had my first jab (I was due to have my second one the day I got my positive PCR test) - so I didn't feel seriously ill - but my oxygen saturations dropped low enough that they sent an ambulance and took me into hospital, where I was nursed in isolation, on oxygen, for several days.

When I was ill, we weren't at a one of the peaks of covid - but the staff I talked to told me about what it had been like during the worst of the peaks - massive queues of patients on ambulance trollies, waiting for a bed on a covid ward - so many, in fact, that there were almost NO ambulances left out in the community, because so many of the ambulance staff and paramedics were waiting with these patients, for them to be admitted. There was nowhere for these patients to be put, and supervised by hospital staff, so the ambulance staff had to stay with them until they were admitted.

I have long covid - a year on from my admission to hospital, and I still get breathless if I do anything - walking upstairs, or going down the hall to the loo and back. And if I do anything, I end up shaking with exhaustion. I made supper one night last week - nothing complicated, and most of the preparation I did sitting at the kitchen table - and after I'd done it, I was literally shaking. I spend most of my days sitting on the couch, doing almost nothing. I wouldn't wish this on anyone - and I know that, despite the way I feel now, I AM one of the lucky ones - I didn't need ventilation, I didn't feel really ill, and while they severely limit my life, my long covid symptoms are nowhere near as bad as some people's are.

I believe the hospital staff when they say they were stretched to their absolute limit, at the worst points of the pandemic. When you need so many intensive care beds that you are converting wards to ICUs, and even repurposing operating theatres - just to cope with the demand - you have to do all you can to try to control the growing demand for ICU beds.

So I do believe that the lockdowns and the other measures were necessary - the outcome if we hadn't taken these measures would have been unthinkably bad, IMO. I also disagree that all the measures were put in place just to protect the old and the sick. I am in my 50s - not that old - and covid hit me hard. Part of the problem with covid is its unpredictability. You can say that the elderly and sick are more likely to become seriously ill or die, but there were still significant numbers of young, healthy people who were hit disproportionately hard by covid - and we don't seem to have any way of predicting which young, healthy people are going to sail through it as if it was a minor flu bug, and who are going to end up on a ventilator and/or with disabling long covid.

In hindsight, I'm sure we can see how things could have been done better, and less damage done particularly to children's lives, socialisation, and mental health - but when the pandemic hit, we didn't have the benefit of hindsight, and had to do the best we could. It wasn't perfect, but I do believe that it saved lives, and stopped the NHS from failing to cope with the demands of covid.

BUT - we need to be absolutely clear about the collateral damage the measures caused, and serious money needs to be spent, to ensure that the damage is mended. I do believe it can be mended - people are resilient, and we have so much knowledge and expertise in education, mental health and social support - but we do need the funding and support from Westminster.

e need to be absolutely clear about the collateral damage the measures caused, and serious money needs to be spent, to ensure that the damage is mended

Some of the children are no longer here to be 'mended' I will say that.

It is not only covid deaths we should think about, but the whole picture.

We have been very badly affected by teen suicide and those children can not be fixed can they. Nor the children whom have organ damage from advanced anorexia and will never return to mainstream schooling. It is not solely a money issue. Some things are irreparable. Many of the toddlers struggling to communicate may simply never catch up, neurological pathways were missed at the time can not be fixed with money.

Why was it legal for some children to be allowed to socialise and others banned?
You can't stick children in a box (or home) and expect them to emerge unaffected two years later.

Why were they stuck in a box or a home for 2 years? We weren't in lockdown for 2 years, schools weren't closed for 2 years.

@Patchbatch

100%! I feel like people want every sacrifice possible from education staff - people who work in one of the most stressful sectors, for the worst pay. And the burden of complaint always falls at the door of those committed professionals - not the government that has persistently cut funding for the past decade.

The fact is, the impact on children is down to social inequality - closure of the schools was unavoidable - but the impact could have been mitigated if the government had actually funded services rather than lining their own and their friends' pockets with taxpayer's money.

@Swayingpalmtrees where are you getting your suicide data from? Suicides were down in England, Scotland and Wales in 2020 compared to 2019. The group with the highest rates of suicide was middle aged men, not teenagers.

I'd also like to see some science you are quoting g about missed neurological pathways because I think you are making far greater claims than the science supports (you need to link COVID restrictions to neurological damage, the only thing I can find is research linking COVID itself to neurological damage).

@ancientgran

Why was it legal for some children to be allowed to socialise and others banned? You can't stick children in a box (or home) and expect them to emerge unaffected two years later.

Why were they stuck in a box or a home for 2 years? We weren't in lockdown for 2 years, schools weren't closed for 2 years.

A lot of things were closed or restricted to children for large parts of those two years though.

Where I live for example:

• nurseries closed formally for most children for about 7 months. Then lots of restrictions on play settings and toddler groups around that. Some of this tipped towards parents who could pay - so eg locally, our free library toddler sessions closed in March 2020 and did not return in person until February of 2022, but well-off parents could pay for private toddler groups in the next town over.

• limits on ‘household mixing’ and visits. To start with the government was issuing ‘helpful’ advice on how to keep toddlers socially distanced from each other when playing. They dropped that eventually but you still weren’t allowed to visit another household indoors from March-June 2020 and then October 2020-April 2021, so that obviously limited how much interaction young children were getting out of the home.

• even taking children out and about with you, eg to the shops, was strongly discouraged, and facilities for children often took longer to reopen than for adults. There was a time in spring/summer 2020 when the local tip reopened, the garden centres reopened, and the national trust outdoor places reopened - but all the playgrounds were still closed.

• there were still limits on things like health visiting services, baby weighing clinics, breastfeeding groups and so on for much longer than we were in lockdown.