Will schools be closed until 2022?

[JillAndJack1]

Sorry, another schools thread.
I’ve just looked at the guardian, it says social distancing may need to be maintained until 2022, if this happens then surely schools will be closed until then? When schools go back social distancing will end. Obviously nobody actually knows, but curious to hear people’s thoughts.
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/14/coronavirus-distancing-continue-until-2022-lockdown-pandemic

@CallmeAngelina. Oh i see, sorry!

@CallmeAngelina - not the coronavirus, not the Chinese virus (according to Trump) but the teachervirus. I can visualise that now being created in an A level Chemistry lesson when someone did not follow the instructions on the worksheet

@CallmeAngelina - I can't believe users really think we would actually think that!

I've never 'seen' so many armchair teachers in the last 4 or so weeks!

I also really really hope we go back in June. I miss my children and my team so much!

@JillAndJack1 don't just read the headline - read the article - the first line of the article says INTERMITTENTLY
(sorry for shouting)
basically if and when the virus crops up it will be reacted to quickly with a short term lockdown, maybe local, depending. like what singapore is doing at the moment. the scientists are not suggesting you can keep children off school or people at home long term. if you want to know more, the twitter feeds of the various world experts are awesome.

If anyone wants to earn their living, keep a rooof over their heads, and doesn't believe in unicorns, then work will have to be done and tax paid to keep the balloons aloft. 2022 for schools reopening is unthinkable, economically.

And it would be a huge abdication of our obligations to our children.

@BertNErnie that is a great term that I will use going forward 'armchair teachers'

Obviously not!

They might make everyone wear masks to start with when they open THIS year.

Schools & staff are already overstretched, I can't see teaching unions standing for staff teaching in shifts 7 days a week. There is no way kids are going to stick to social distancing, especially primary school kids. We will just have to get used to schools opening & closing until this ends however long it takes & for education to take longer.

2022? Omg - don’t you care about teachers?
The schools should stay shut until at least 2075. That’s the only way to ensure we all stay safe.
I’m shocked by the cavalier attitudes towards other people’s health in this thread. Even 2075 is optimistic and it’s far more realistic it would be the year 3000.

Schools will reopen in June, I’m sure of it.

We cannot live like this indefinitely. At some point people will have to return to society and carry on with their lives. We will have to take our chances. Those who can’t or don’t want to will have to stay at home.

When the schools rep open, there will be limited social distancing taking place, especially in primary schools. So cases will rise again, and then there will be a lockdown again, then cases will fall and schools will reopen. This will go on until there’s a vaccine or until people stop dying of it because it’s mutated to a milder form.

Our grandparents and great grandparents had to cope with measles and diphtheria and smallpox and polio epidemics - we will learn to cope with this. Schools will not shut up until 2022 but we might still be seeing rolling lockdowns until 2022, which is actually what the article says.

Yeah I think they will, maybe even longer. Oh and for the one’s asking the government are going to pay us 80% of our wages till then too. All the key workers are just going to carry on putting themselves out for everyone else. The economy will also bounce back immediately.

@Russellbrandshair 😂😂😂

Are they likely to re-open in June though, seeing as they've said exams have been cancelled and are likely to go on predicted grades?
I can't see the point in opening before September, personally.
I mean. what would be the point in opening in June when most colleges finish June and schools finish July? You'd barely be back for a few weeks and then it'd be summer holidays and off again!

I don't think so. Also I work in a class of 8 children and 5 adults in a special school and there is no way we could practice social distancing so how on earth would a class of 30.

That was to @SpokeTooSoon

On masks the UK Government says they are not effective so I really don't think we should even think about imposing them on school pupils or teachers - it just wouldn't work and would not be worth doing anyway.

"Are they likely to re-open in June though, seeing as they've said exams have been cancelled and are likely to go on predicted grades?
I can't see the point in opening before September, personally.
I mean. what would be the point in opening in June when most colleges finish June and schools finish July? You'd barely be back for a few weeks and then it'd be summer holidays and off again"

So parents can go to work, children get out of the house and back to their education. Do you really think the government will keep children at home and society stalled just because "it makes more sense to open in September"

Xenia the leading scientists in s korea and hk (and many other places) say that they are effective - i'd probably back them.

I don’t think the cancellation of exams will have anything whatsoever to do with whether the government decides to reopen schools. They cancelled the exams early to be fair to students, to remove uncertainly. Does anyone really honestly think the leaders of the government will think, “It’s probably a good time to reopen schools for a bit before cases rise again, get the population back in work again, get the economy going. Oh wait, we can’t because we cancelled GCSE exams!”

Xenia well it's the UK govt versus most other countries! Italy has now relaxed restrictions a bit but everyome HAS TO wear a mask when out, same in Spain and I thought they shown even Macron wearing a mask.So it's not just China where it's habitual.

We just got the excuse that population shouldnt buy masks before the health workers etc get a good supply. They don't want to give then out free as in many other countries (I mean, cheap disposable ones).

In Austria they give out disposable ones when you enter a supermarket - are they all stupid?

Masks are effective to stop those with no symptoms spreading the virus - good enough reason to me. Even our govt accepts this.

If of course we get tested for immunity, then those who are immune wouldnt need them.

I know that this thread isn't about masks, per se, but how do masks work? I mean how many does one person need over the course of a day, for instance? Do they need frequently changing? Do they become (even more) useless if you touch inadvertently touch them with dirty hands whilst putting them on.
In a school, who would wear them? Just the staff? All the children? Would teachers have to supervise correct procedure in putting them on and off in addition to the half a dozen or so hand-washing sessions per day? What happens if a child "pings" the mask of their next-door neighbour? Does it become useless?
Has anyone hear ever seen how much your average kid fiddles with a pair of glasses (in mouth, ear, put on upside down, waggled on nose for comic effect etc)? Or a hairband? Or Velcro on shoes?
Oh God, did I say I wanted to go back in June?

If this does go on until 2022, I think we'd see periods of schools reopening, periods of partial opening and some periods of closure. The current Y10/12 would very likely be screwed by this, and potentially the current Y9 too.

The problem with partial openings, as well, is that parents will always be upset if they feel their child is getting short changed. And which groups do you prioritize- the younger children to facilitate people going back to work, or the older ones who's long term future could be more damaged by big gaps in their education.

Anyway, lots of things could change by 2022. We could find a decent treatment, the virus could mutate and become less dangerous (or more dangerous but less likely to spread). We might have a vaccine before then. We'll hopefully have much more effective testing and contact tracing in this country.

Oh, and the government is definitely lying to us about masks.

There might be systems that operate 'double shift' learning, but very few it successfully. It's normally only done in an emergency, for example during a war when a lot of your teachers have been killed or displaced and you might have a lot of refugee kids as well.

That's because 6 or so hours of teaching time is (more than) a full day of work for teachers with prep etc- teachers burn out really really quickly on double shift and the learning outcomes for children are awful. Even if you had half the number of kids you're looking at a much longer day and a huge proportion of primary teachers have primary aged kids themselves.

To enforce social distancing I suppose they could, for example, have the TA take half the class but I can't think of any schools around here which have the physical space even if they gave up their playing fields. And then you've got a huge equality issue where the children who need extra support won't get it and so it would, I expect, be subject to legal challenge pronto.

Don't forget the aim is not to stop people getting it, it is to stop too many people getting it at once. In that sense it makes sense for the population you increase exposure in first to be those least at risk (with measures for vulnerable teachers and pupils).