Social distancing in schools- mental health

[Myfriendanxiety]

Does anyone else feel that they would rather home school their children indefinitely than send them to a school where they have to social distance?

I really worry about the mental health of children if they are forced to sit alone at desks 2m apart from others without any proper play time or interaction. I just can’t see how this type of schooling is going to be beneficial to children and how it will create a positive learning environment.

My DS has another year before he starts school luckily- but if he were starting in September to a school system based on social distancing then I wouldn’t be sending him.

Yanbu. I will leave it up to my kids, but certainly for my asd 6 year old i think it would be completely unworkable, let alone depressing. He spent today beating us up and shitting and pissing on the floor and generally trying to wreck the house.

Rainuntilseptember most of the teachers at our school tend to upload the lesson onto Google classroom anyway, so it’d all be there.

Do you teach? The PowerPoint or whatever from a lesson is not the same as a piece of work designed to be completed at home with no teacher present.

That's very unusual .

I teach 10 different classes at secondary. Between 26-30 in each class.

I can fit 8 in my room with 2m gaps.

We have open plan toilets where you could fit max 2 in at a time - every time they need to hand wash.

Corridors are less than 2m wide.

It’s not going to be ANY sort of normal for the kids.

Schools will be unlikely to open without social distancing in place. This is for the health of the staff as well as the DCs.

I expect masks will be the norm as well. Half time table, maybe a third.

I'm retired now but I wouldn't go back into the classroom without measures in place.

Social distancing in primary schools and nurseries is not going to work, bar more frequent hand washing and this is okay. Providing social distancing is followed where possible, the impact of schools and other places of work where it isn't possible (hospitals, prisons, secure units etc) will be largely mitigated.

When they reopen schools, they might as well remove all requirements for social distancing - those who can and still want to will make their own decisions - but I've been into school one day a week to cover key worker children and social distancing is zero even though we've only had 6 children in.

Its impossible.

Tbh, I'm fairly pragmatic about the whole thing and everyone getting back to normal life asap wouldn't be an issue for me personally, but I will be very pissed off if I'm expected to resume 'normal' working only to be told I must maintain 2m+ distance, or no contact at all, with the rest of the world.

It either matters, or it doesn't.

Social distancing is completely impossible.

It's also impossible in offices, aeroplanes , trains or any other confined spaces.

The idea that transmission won't happen when people are in the same space for sustained amounts of time is illogical.

Schools reopening will increase transmission again and necessitate further lockdown.

It's all academic until there is a viable vaccine rolled out. Or we accept rising death rates again.

Tbh, I'm fairly pragmatic about the whole thing and everyone getting back to normal life asap wouldn't be an issue for me personally, but I will be very pissed off if I'm expected to resume 'normal' working only to be told I must maintain 2m+ distance, or no contact at all, with the rest of the world This is the reality already for many of us who are still working

However for primary children I think it’s really quite cruel to expect them to attend school like this.

It's unworkable unless our only focus is maintaining the distancing.

My daughter is in year 9. She's coping reasonably well with not being at school. Expecting her to go in and not have any close contact or private conversations with her friends would be more damaging.

It absolutely won't be possible in my children's schools.

What job are many people doing that means social distancing is (currently) impossible?
If it is, you should be given and using ppe

This is the reality already for many of uswho are still working

I know that. It's not about me 'working', it's about the practicalities of keeping 4-11 year olds away from staff and each other.

I've previously worked in offices etc where it would be quite easy to maintain social distancing. But not with children!

Social distancing not possible in many many keyworker jobs.

There is not sufficient PPE and many not being provided it.

I’ll send mine as soon as the schools open. Kids are incredibly low risk and it’s better for them to be at school learning and seeing their friends.

Can’t understand the view the keeping them alone at home is less damaging for them socially than slightly apart at school. It’s not ideal but better than this isolation.

All of the 1:1 teaching assistants for the children with EHC plans in our school are shielding. We have no other teaching assistants as they were all made redundant last year.

Who will be 1:1s for these children who will need a school place?

Our deputy head and several teachers are shielding as well.

I don't understand how people think social distancing would work in primary school.

Schools might pay lip service to it, and even try, but, in practice, in won't happen.

My son is a keyworker and is still working but he is able to, in the main, maintain social distancing.

I don't have a problem with schools reopening per se, but the expectation for social distancing needs to be taken out of the equation.

The premise of suppression of covid is based on as much social distance wherever possible - the more the better but it's not absolute and obviously can't be.

So you can't do it in schools (or hospitals for personal care etc) that's factored in but you can easily do it outside or with family / in shops - that offsets the riskier environments. It's not going to be everywhere or nowhere, it's much more nuanced than that and about keeping the balance tipped in our favour.

Do some of you just really want schools to stay closed for a year or more?

Because all I see it people saying how you can't do this or you can't do that instead of trying to think about workable solutions.

No it won't be easy and it won't be normal and it won't be without risk. But short of keeping children locked inside until there's a vaccine, what can we do?

Lots of people are already out working still and social distancing isn't really working.

Do people expect that we carry on exactly as we are now for another year or more?

Can’t understand the view the keeping them alone at home is less damaging for them socially than slightly apart at school.

They might not be in on the same days as their friends, we're looking at having to stagger children to help reduce class sizes. If they are in at the same time as their friends, I think it could be worse for them to be so close to friends but not able to interact in the ways they want to.

The thing is shielding is only guesswork. They dont know and some vulnerable or even no existing conditions will be more likely to die.

I wouldnt be happy with am/pm due to surface spread.

I agree with pp it has to be voluntary.

Wecannot just say other countries are going back to school as almost zero of them especially with this level of infection are going back with no SD. Germany is i think using masks too.

You cannot expect ks1 to SD.
So i might say send back yr 4 and 5. Voluntary so they can be spread through the schools. Plus key worker children.

So our school thats 120 kids. + so 12 classes of 10.

chocolate that isn't really the point of this thred : the whether the schools should open or not debate has been done to death. I think OP is coming from a difficult angle and opening an interesting discussion about the mental health impacts of reopening.

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Even if the plan was to have 1/5 of the class in each day, it wouldnt be possible, would be a miserable experience for the children and a nightmare for staff to enforce.

Like I say, we've had 6 children in on the days I've been in and social distancing has been zero.

"Miss, I haven't hugged you today" was something a 3 year old said to me today as she approached me smiling and with open arms. What am I supposed to say?