How long do you reckon the schools will be shut for?

[Forfoxsake29]

and if they are shut for a long time, how will they
Cope with things like children starting school September, gcses, alevels, uni etc

I think September. I hope not! I think a huge amount of people will have lost their jobs by then, me being one of them. I hope the government have thought of a way to fund all the extra benefits people are going to have to claim. I am absolutely devastated at the thought of my reception child going straight into year 1 after a 6 month break with minimal teaching from me (i have 2 other children and at the moment working from home too). My older daughter is already 6 months behind her peers so she’ll drop even further back. I know this isn’t a huge issue in the great scheme of things, but I can’t help how I feel about it.

Whilst we want to slow this disease we must be mindful of what's best for the children too.
Keeping their parents alive is the best thing for children. The mental health of small children not able to go to school is a long way down the list of priorities.

This is Imperial College's graph of expected ICU cases.

The blue boxes are periods when the modelling has the schools closed to suppress transmission.

UK govt are following the advice that this model says is best way to limit the deaths.

I'm not blaming Imperial. This is a strategy the models say is needed to minimise premature deaths. Model has policy of widespread testing, >70s self-isolating, contact tracing & isolating the symptomatic continuing constantly until end 2021, but the schools can open & general social distancing can be relaxed occasionally, for a few wks at a time.

All models are wrong, of course. A miracle might happen to suppress transmission. A very quick vaccine, a miracle drug, discovery from antibody testing that everyone had it already, mutation to become a more benign disease, sunshine killing it... If there's amazing or terrible progress the trajectory waves change.

September. If there was any chance of them returning in May or June they wouldn’t have taken the drastic step of cancelling exams.

@JustInCaseCakeHappens it's not the case though for many of us. I am happy to take care of my kids but I also know she loves her friends and school life. It's awful for them being trapped home longer than the summer holidays with nothing to do outside the house.

Local head teacher here is predicting back after Easter and then another extended holiday over spring bank for 2nd wave. Back again mid June.

He’s going to be very disappointed then.

Maybe the last couple of weeks of term, but unlikely before September. Cancelling the GCSEs and A levels rather than postponing was the giveaway

Are support staff not classed as key workers?

^Education and childcare

Nursery, teaching staff and social workers.^

So we’re expected in but what to do with our own kids?

Japan here. The schools are probably going to open on 8 April, after a break of 5 weeks. UK schools.....? Who knows. The pandemic is likely to peak in mid-May for the UK, so perhaps late June. I wonder if the summer holiday dates will be changed.

For those worrying about how kids will cope with going up a year, it will be thought about. Teachers adapt their teaching to suit the year group. I do it every year and every time I change unit. So year 1 teachers will obviously account for this in their planning. Gradually they will all catch up. This applies to all age groups.

Also I agree that children are so resilient. My own daughter was upset but then moved on to playing. They will cope with this far better than we will! We must try to protect them from our own worries and stresses.

I think September.

I've printed off a load of work sheets for DS Yr 7,and he has a stack of books from Christmas that we're expecting him to read - easy to set him essay questions. He thought he'd just be on his ps4 /ipad 😂

Dd returned home from uni, she's not expecting to return until the autumn. She's in her first year, uni is setting up online lectures and work.

I'm SAHM but feel for people trying to arrange cc, must be a nightmare.

• housepurchaseanger our speculation is after Easter, possibly May. I think A Level exams will be in July and GCSEs in September - this means grades will still be there for unis and there will be a rush to mark with generous grade boundaries. GCSEs will be later and still doable. Teachers are contracted by number of days rather than set dates, so they could end summer holidays earlier so that kids go back and learn more... who knows!*

No chance!! It’ll be September...

1. the peak is expected May/June so they won’t return kids during that time but several weeks post.
2. Exams (GCSE & GCE) have been cancelled so strong suggestion that there’ll be no school returns.
3. a huge number of teachers are providing ‘care’ for key workers kids, vulnerable kids etc & given the circumstances will be asked to continue this provision over half term (May) to enable key workers to continue working through the predicted peak.
4. teachers are also providing online learning. In our case their usual timetabled studying.
5. teachers will also get sick or need to self-isolate so it’s not as if they’ll be full capacity.

Our scho has set work for the kids with due dates end of August so I’m thinking September

Where have people heard the peak is May as we are only two weeks max behind Italy and rising fast and their peak is now - I thought peak was estimated in next two weeks?

Likely September.
I hope they are massively lenient with grade boundaries for all current years 10-13 because of this, now and in the future.

September I think

I think kids who can legally stay home on there own eg 14 and over will stay off until September

Younger kids will return in phases much sooner - maybe after Easter or at least by May - they cannot realistically keep millions of workers out of employment for 6 months just to cover childcare

@Sunshine1239 How do we know that Italy’s peak is now? I’m not seeing new cases dropping or slowing.

I think September but I have half a mind it will be a lot longer than everyone thinks.

Next year is my guess

They wont keep them closed that long the effects on everything going forward will just be too much

I think they may have part time hours with different classes going in sooner than you think probably half term

When they "most of yr" they don't mean "most of 2020" they mean "most of the 12 month period starting from today"

"at least"

yes but on and off assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/873729/06-spi-m-o-consensus-view-on-behavioural-and-social-interventions.pdf

If this happened, the entire period of on-off restrictions would need to be spread over "at least most of a year" - with at least six of the 12 months having the restrictions "on".

Two things that could make this change: treatments and a real understanding of whether this is the tip of an iceberg or not.

But bear in mind this is a worse case scenario

We have received an update from dd’s School that schools are opening in some Chinese provinces eg Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and guizhou. They have been shut since mid January.

I'm thinking before September in some ways. Ideally they need to prepare the reception kids for year one. They need to have taster days, welcome days and introduction evenings for the 2020 starters. If they are not able to do the basic preps for the next year then they will be in a pickle. They will have reception kids behind and not ready to move up. Pre schoolers unable to visit and meet teachers etc. Year sixes will be sad and unable to say goodbye. They will go into secondary feeling potientally anxious and low from not seeing anyone for months or prepared in those final months.

Also there are 5.5 months until September. That's a long long time for teenagers to be away from education. It's a long time for kids to not be socialising.

If the rest of the population listen to Boris, stay at home and people start keeping a distance then I think the virus will start to die off. I think they will complete the last 7 weeks of summer if this is the case. Perhaps they can do 8 weeks because we would have already been off for such a long time. To do only the last term they've still got 9 or 10 weeks at home which is still a massive massive amount of time to be cut off from society and isolated.

Fingers crossed