How long will schools stay open?

[belay]

Just read that a secondary school in Derbyshire has closed. Says that some staff "unable to come to work" because of risk to themselves and their families?
Is the government forcing schools to stay open at the moment ?

My school has started to close due to staff shortages. I agree with a pp that we would have been able to stay open for longer if they’d shut earlier to all but essential worker’s kids.

Our local primary school has strongly hinted that they will need to close soon due to staff shortages.

we would have been able to stay open for longer if they’d shut earlier to all but essential worker’s kids.

Completely agree

and a pack of work isn't going to be anywhere near enough to stop the wall-climbing
I work with over 19's education and we are expected to still be working, but remotely. I presume the same will apply to school teachers, so if this goes on for longer, more work will be uploaded/ sent out, work marked etc.

a pack of work isn't going to be anywhere near enough to stop the wall-climbing

I'm assuming most schools will have set up remote learning. Our school closed yesterday. Ds (11) has just got up to find assignments on Microsoft teams for all the lessons he would have had today. Dd (14) is in denial and thinks it's going to be one long holiday!

She got a printed schedule including, work, exercise and chore time. It even included suggested bed time

I LOVE this. Whish my kids school would do it. I suggested at the weekend that school closure didn't mean school holiday and I would be getting them up, they would be school work, doing exercise (walking the dog) and chores. I was met with the beginnings of world war 3.

Our FE College is closing today. Online classes start tomorrow, with students following their usual timetable.

@tometoyou6 ours closed yesterday, quite suddenly. Taking the kids out of school today because of it, eldest and youngest end up on steroids frequently and I’m unable to justify the risk to them or the elderly staff they come into contact with at school any longer.

Home schooling is going to be fun

It's all well and good saying schools should only stay open to kids of essential staff and by essential staff, I think people are meaning NHS staff, police officers etc. In most families, their jobs are essential and given that the government has not announced any definite help, people that can't work from home aren't going to be able to find childcare for an undetermined amount of time at very short notice. It's fine if you've been at your workplace for over 2 years and have a stash of cash in the bank but a lot of people aren't in that situation.

At the moment, if no one in your household has synptoms and you don't, you can still go to work and school. I find it hard to believe that 80% of us will get this virus in the short term when in China, less than 00000000.1% of their population got it. They didn't lock down for well over a month from when the outbreak happened either. I think asking the elderly and vulnerable to self isolate for now, with the right help, is the best way forward. We aren't really in a position to have half the work force of the UK off due to childcare issues and people losing an undetermined amount of wages due to self isolating without any need to. Not everyone is office based and can work from home. A lot of people do manual jobs and those include driving delivery vehicles with food in them, serving people in shops, fixing issues in people's homes/businesses, care workers attending to people that can't manage on their own, working in factories producing food etc. Will they be deemed essential workers or can they just F off, their kids won't be allowed to school because they aren't a nurse or doctor and they can sit and stress about how they won't get paid and how their employer can't function without them meaning they may not have a job to go back to?

It's not reality to close schools and tell everyone to self isolate. Fine if you're a SAHM or can work from home but that doesn't cover a large amount of the population. Essential staff goes way beyond doctors and nurses. Infact, the jobs that probably pay the least in society are probably essential right now like cleaners, bin men, carers, delivery drivers, factory workers etc but people, on here especially, seem to think we can just do without them and they can do without getting paid 🤷‍♀️

Something like 97% of cases in China we’re in the Hubei province so % population is wrong

Plus China still has 3000 in intensive care and is still partially on lockdown

All these lockdown countries are doing is hiding to slow the impact on healthcare

Unless you suddenly become immune or we develop a vaccine we will all still get it when restrictions relaxed

The lockdown is purely to control the numbers for hospital care

We will all be exposed at some point they know that they’re just ensuring it’s staged so each can get care

@YappityYapYap

I agree. While I have huge sympathy for teachers etc. I actually think the kids are better off at school at the moment unless they have underlying health issues. To be honest though, if I had a child with health issues, I would have pulled them out 2 weeks ago.

My parents are self isolating. We have reduced all social contact, all clubs and sports etc have stopped. At least school gives them some structure at the moment. I am dreading the point when I have all 3 at home.
I was a teacher, my home is generally fairly organised and well run, I could home school them, they are nice kids. There are no SN issues, and we are just at home right?

but for 12 weeks with no outside outlets - they will kill each other!

My heart really goes out to family in small homes/flats, or single parents, and kids who will struggle to be shut in doors (eg ADHD) it is going to be HARD.
(and that is never mind the financial worry and strain)
I echo what a teacher up thread said - some of these kids are going to be in awful situations when school stops.

@steppemum

They sent out a text saying how many had logged on (expected at 8.30) so they are obviously monitoring it. It was about 90% I think based on year size.

I think schools will close Friday in the UK. I know a few places are closing from tomorrow as the teachers have been told. So I assume the government will announce it tomorrow for Friday. My child’s school is getting backs ready so I think schools have been told and know but not the public yet

Toomanycats - Oh that is impressive.

It woudl help me so much if our school does this. Then my dc woudl need to be up and logged on and working.

Only problem I can see is that I have 3 dc and not enough laptops (and one is my work one, which I am supposed to be using, and the only time I am going to get any work done is while they are doing school work)

My school has already sent home sixth formers and year 7 and 8, due to staff shortages. We are expecting to close fully by Friday and not expecting to reopen until September (we won't have the staff as pregnant and vulnerable staff have to isolate for at least 12 weeks). We are also not expecting exams to take place and have all set predicted exam grades instead.

I received this message this morning so don't expect it will be far away...
Morning. Please could you reply to this message if your job is in a front line service (NHS, Police, Coastguard, Fire Service, Education) This is so the school can attempt to make provision for your child should we need to partially close over the coming weeks. Please reply with Yes - and the service you are in.

Ours has closed but there's no info on whether and how GCSEs and preparation for them will happen.
My daughter's doing a revision course with private tutors and they've just updated their website with the latest info www.justincraig.ac.uk/preparing-for-school-closures/ and will be taking extra measures to ensure kids can keep learning and not miss out but I feel like this is not enough when there's no school, plus she's quite anxious and already paniking.

Has anyone heard anything about exams and how to prepare effectively at home?

I'm NHS but DH company isn't allowing them to wfh. We live semi rurally, no neighbours, no family in the county for childcare.
How would that work? Lots of people would really struggle for various reasons other than being 'front line'.

We're moving to online teaching from tomorrow.

Children will follow their normal timetable and we deliver our normal lessons from either our classroom or home (depending on whether self isolating or not) via Microsoft Teams, Showbie and Skype.

Not sure how it works for families with multiple children in the school all following different online programmes. Unless they've got a laptop/iPad each, I don't see how they can do it.

It's going to be interesting!

DD is printing out workpacks, she is Maths HoD, for the children who don’t have home internet. She works in a deprived area of Stoke where 70% of the kids have free school meals and there are almost 40 kids in care.
The school is arranging weekly food parcels too.

Secondary is partially open, just year 10 off, they haven’t set up alternative learning yet but I’m sure they will, they’re very “on” about learning.
Primary have reported 25% of students off, 20% of staff and nursery closed as they need the staff to be on hand for the older kids, they’ve set up home learning for all classes, they’ll probably close soon as they won’t have enough staff, maybe they’ll try to keep year 6 open for as long as possible?

Not sure how it works for families with multiple children in the school all following different online programmes. Unless they've got a laptop/iPad each, I don't see how they can do it.

I have 3 teens. We do actually have 5 laptops, (old ones dh buys and adds memory etc) but dh and I need one each for work, and the older ones are not going to be fats enough for kids to stream lessons, and then 5 of us all trying to stream at the same time.....

Just heard a decision is imminent on school closures.

They really need a decision on GCSE and A levels making soon. Some schools have closed and some students are self isolating, some lessons aren’t being taught by the subject teacher. Some of dds subjects they haven’t finished the coursework yet. It’s no longer a fair level playing field for students going into these exams, and the longer some schools stay open the bigger the gap there will be. Students will also be going in rather than isolating adding to spread.

Our school is fully open but has said they don’t have the capacity to set work for those students who are isolating and that they should use resources such as bbc bite size. Not good for exam years