‘School will have to look different from now on’....

[Starrynightsabove]

‘With a mix of home schooling and in-school learning’

So said Nicola Sturgeon.

So how does this work for a single parent trying to work full time from home with a full on job who needs to pay the mortgage. Literally how does this work?

What a bunch of whitters on this thread.

A lot of parents do not want full work. We are happy just ticking over with bits. We have had to set work but not expect it back as kids are struggling. Do not presume you are correct when other parents want it to different to you by a country mile.

Missing approximately 14 weeks ( if it is September) isn't ideal but it isn't the catastrophe that some of you are saying. There will be no future doctors. What? Seriously?

Now if it went on a year I could understand the moaning. But it has only been 23 school
days not even a full summer holiday.

Some of you just want to moan. Schools will go back. Teachers have kids at home too.
Moaning over nothing for the sake if it it seems. You wouldn't like it the other way round.

She has to get it past the unions first....

I wonder how many kids are actually doing more work at home cos they're distracted by 32 other kids.

School is primarily there to educate children. Society has changed over the years eg both parents work,more single parents etc and turned it into childcare. Time for society to do a bit of back pedalling

@Raver84 I’m not sure how I could back peddle having my husband leave after 15 years of marriage. What would you suggest?

Also, disgustingly and depressingly sexist

Also wrong. Why does being a parent who needs to work suggest treating schools as childcare. My childcare is the childminder. My school is school.

I don’t know what world politicians are living in where they think this is acceptable. Only a small proportion of families can afford a SAHP. Even where they can afford one many choose not to because both parents value their careers. This is going to be devastating for the poor and for women.

Sounds like the death knell for women in the workplace.

Doesn't it just?

Why not take it a step further? Seeing that women with children will be expected to stay at home and oversee their dc's education, why not have girls finish their education at the end of primary school or by GCSE?

This helps with social distancing with fewer pupils in the classroom and girls can support younger siblings too, once they are out of school. Wonderful . No women at University also means better social distancing. Yeah!

It’ll only be devastating for women and the poor if it’s unsupported. The state could up its game and collect child support or pay out proper support and many women won’t go to work. Those who can afford decent quality of childcare accessed it even back in the 70’s

On a practical level the National Oak Academy is really good for people who need more for their DC.

As a teacher i am really hoping that this Pandemic shines a light on what is actially important in education and what schools should/could provide.

It is now clear, that letting class sizes swell to 30+, having fewer TAs, Pastoral staff becoming on site Social Workers, alongside constant pressure to keep up with whatever Ofsted wanted next, just wasn't right.

Schools can adapt and change, if the govt throw money at it! Class sizes need to be smaller to adhere to social distancing! 5 intense all singing all dancing lessons are knackering for staff and DC! So why not adapt the curriculum so that some sort of fun stuff or more enriching arts/sports are explored in the afternoon!

Lots of staff would be willing to oversee more activities from 3pm onwards if they didn't have to mark so many bools in ridiculous amount of detail, rewrite lesson and in ridiculois amount of detail, attend yet more meetings to discuss progress in kids in ridiculous amount of detail!

What is actually important here! We're not having league tables or Ofsted as a stick to beat us with this year, maybe they were never that important! Maybe doing hands on stuff with kids, keeping them educated/entertained/enriched is important and is what sockety needs at the moment

Well said chosen

Secondary aged kids all have Internet enabled devices..

Why can't the schools run the timetabled core subjects via zoom...surely that's an easy solution

People can’t be expected to live like this for any length of time. Why is our kids education less important than the virus?

Because people won't die because your wee precious misses a couple months of school? Even if they miss a whole year (for the sake of argument) that's still preferable to the deaths of thousands of people surely? Do you actually understand what happens if e NHS is overwhelmed?

Why can't the schools run the timetabled core subjects via zoom...surely that's an easy solution*

Safeguarding and security would never allow it.

And another thing perhaps it's just my school but all this having to provide home learning as well as teaching in my case is rubbish. I get sent out a list of links for me to look up and print out on a Friday for the following weeks learning. It taks what 10 minutes to direct me to BBC bitesize and twinkle. They aren't marking any of it. In my experience it varies massively, I have 3 GC at 3 different schools and it seems to go from nothing to online full normal timetable and e mails from teacher is pupil isn't logged on and doing lesson at the right time. All state schools.

Why can't the schools run the timetabled core subjects via zoom...surely that's an easy solution Not all children have laptops, not everyone has broadband. Sometimes parents are working on line and bandwidth isn't enough for say 2 parents and 3 kids to all be on at the same time.
Basically I think it disadvantages some of the already disadvantaged children.

But regardless of that children’s education must also be a priority. Today’s children in school are our doctors, nurses, leaders of tomorrow. How do they get into those roles with no decent education? They get 14 years at school, how many weeks have they missed? I think we need to keep things in proportion. Some of the children missing school are 4, I think they will recover, this years school leavers have had up to 14 years at school, it shouldn't be that big a deal to miss 4 or 5 weeks and it is happening to all of them so no one should be disadvantaged. Maybe there is a point somewhere between 4 and 18 where it will destroy their education but I'm not sure where.

Because people won't die because your wee precious misses a couple months of school?

You are completely ignoring a huge number of very vulnerable children here who are being abused, physically or sexually, during this lockdown, or neglected or exposed to domestic violence. Or those families increasing at risk of mental and physical breakdown as they try to look after very vulnerable or medically complex children without a break. Lockdown and school closures can make these children invisible to support services and unable to ask for help themselves. Yes school is very precious to abused children.

What is the point of children not being in school if they are in some sort of childcare instead? The only reason not to open school is to avoid mixing children and staff and that is completely negated if they mix with each other and other adults in childcare instead. They would be better in school.

Hear hear chosenone.

I’m not worried just now, my son is 14 and miles ahead of most of his peers anyway, but if it’s dragging onto this time next year and a year away from national exams which he needs to get straight A’s in to fulfill his aspirations then I will be very concerned.

@Starrynightsabove I haven't told you to back peddle anything. Perhaps re read my posts before commenting. It was someone else.

It has been stated on here that video teaching doesn't work because of safeguarding. My ds' college are using Google Hangouts and it seems to be working for them. Yes they are older, and come September some will be 18, but they're still subject to safeguarding considerations.

I would have thought that a lot of schools could offer a week on and a week off. No idea how childcare would work though. And no idea what you do with the smallest children if nurseries can't open.

Why would it set women back in the workplace? Lots of men earn less than their wives these days, they can stay at home with the kids! We need to change our assumptions that the mother is always the primary care giver and the dads are just an extra.

It would help if libraries could reopen for internet access at least.

Interestingly when this started I wondered what I would do if my internet connection went down for more than an hour or so. In the last I've walked to my local library and worked there but obviously that's not an option at the moment.

But I laughingly said I'd have to go and sit outside and hope they'd left their wifi on!

I wasn't being entirely serious and then yesterday I saw that Leeds City libraries had actually noticed people sitting outside the libraries using the wifi so they are looking into ways of safely reopening when they can. They have also been running a digital skills virtual conference.

If libraries could reopen it would provide a safe space for older children to go to study when they can't go to school.

Not sure what you do about book lending though. While I am sure the chances of catching the virus from a book are pretty much zero, I don't suppose the powers that be will want to take the risk.

Basically I think it disadvantages some of the already disadvantaged children.
Oh Hell yes.

Also, it's only on MN that I ever hear people repeat the mantra "school is not childcare"
Of course that is part of what school is for most parents.
When they passed a series of education acts in the 1870s/80s part of the reason was pressure from educationalists and part of it was because children weren't supposed to be working in factories anymore but their parents were still working 12 hours a day. The government didn't want them roaming the streets, they had to be corralled somewhere.
It's all well and good to say to f.t working single mum "school is not childcare" but for her it very much IS actually. It has to be-what's the alternative?? It's not optional to go to work for most people, and there is nowhere else to leave your children while you are working!

The state could up its game and collect child support or pay out proper support and many women won’t go to work.

It's never happened, but let's just chuck women out of secure employment and hope that shit works for once eh? I'm sure all the Daddies will suddenly step up financially and it'll be grand.

Lots of men earn less than their wives these days, they can stay at home with the kids!

Oh the fuck they will.
What about the single women? But they have it coming don't they. Them and their kids. Right?

Christ some of the wishful, ignorant, clueless "it could be like this!" bollocks is maddening. Let's work with how things actually are and ensure that mothers are able to continue to provide a roof and food for their kids. Fucks sake.

There will be a lot of children left at home all day who a too young to be so. What age is a reasonable ‘cutoff’? 12? 11? 10? What about if looking after 5 and 7 year old siblings? 14? 12?