Schools won't be reoping on 1 June, and if they do, I won't be sending my child

[effingterrified]

Unions will be doing what they exist to do and protecting the health of their members.

Until Boris can provide teachers with a safe workplace ie PPE for all staff, adequate social distancing, etc, unions will be telling members not to go in.

And if they do open, I won't be sending my child in as they wouldn't learn anything in the last few weeks under these conditions, and the health risks not only to the children, but to the teachers and parents, are not worth it.

Plus my child relies on a school bus to get to school and there is zero way of socially distancing on one of them. Or of running 3 school buses, say, per route, at an affordable cost.

Also, my dc is happy as Larry off school, and learning as much or more. Let's face it, how many kids object to longer school holidays? I know there are some eg vulnerable kids, but they can already attend at present.

Fed up of threads pretending all parents can't wait for schools to reopen. Not among the ones I know.

Luckily the Unions are taking this up on behalf of staff. Given with the rapid increase in cases of this new inflammatory syndrome in kids which is escalating in the States (in kids showing antibodies ie recovered from Covid19) I doubt very much schools will open either. Crazy that some thinks it’s ok to use children as guinea pigs! The effects of this virus are still very much unknown.

.. and if I see one more post comparing COVID to nits!

It's not a school's job to control nits - it's the parent's.

It was on TV this morning that the WHO reports that there are no reported cases of any child under 10 passing the virus on?

Yep. So just how many teachers have caught and ended up in intensive care or have died as a result of catching Covid-19 from a child under 10? I don't remember hearing anything on the 24/7 news.

Unions protecting their members? More like unions using this as an opportunity to hold the government to ransom or payback time for previous gripes. They do realise that if people can't send their DC to school, they can't work and get the economy back on it feet leading to more poverty, no money for schools or other support services.

But hey, don't let the economy get in the way of your extended summer holiday.

Also it's only reception y1 and 6 gonna school

If the government had locked down a couple of weeks earlier, enforced an effective lockdown and carried out proper testing and tracing, then there would be sensible discussion to be had about schools reopening in June.
Though note that Ireland, which has done a better job, still isnt reopening till September.

No reported cases because the schools have been CLOSED. kids haven’t been mixing

No, most of the studies have looked at cases where a child was known to be infected and then studied whether they were giving it to family members.

Children under 10 do seem to be able to infect adults, but seem to be less infectious than adults. Children over 10 are more similar to young adults.

Good for you that's your decision and choice to make but dont make others feel bad for feeling the opposite to you
All our circumstances are different and what is right for 1 family isn't right for another

Exactly this....I'm fed up of people being so blinkered that they think their situation applies to everyone.

Honestly the teacher hatred and self serving nature is astounding.

They turn up at work and say who can we hate on today? Teachers - yes. We'll trust them with our children's lives, but when they tell us they don't feel safe, we'll just tell them to jog on, the feckless job-shy layabouts.

YAWN

Exactly as radio says. All teachers want is more time of. Bil works as a science tech and hes at home no work and v happy doesnt wanna go bk why would he hes on full pay no work! Shouting at government. Teachers that wont go bk then no pay simple

Imagine if everyone hid in their homes everytime there was a threat.

The chance of dying from this virus is below 1%

Yes you have to be careful if you have underlying health issues.

But you need to weigh to the positives and the negatives.

I hate norovirus and jt kills people every year. But does anyone consider others when they send their kids back less than 24 hours later? Nope. They don't

Same with flu.

My son was in hospital with pneumonia last year. He was 14 months old. He caught a "harmless" virus from his sister from nursery. The virus he had was harmless as a rule. It was just unlucky my son couldn't fight it off. He needed antibiotics and fluids and obs for 4 days. Then a further 10 days at home on antibiotics.

There isn't a vaccine. But shutting down life and keeping your kids away from the world for months on end creates a whole other load of health issues.

Not mixing means your not coming into contact with all the dirt and germs and harmless bacterias we need to be strong. It means we are not getting our social and emotional needs met. In the long run the longer you put it off the harder you will find it to let them mix again.

I get it. Nobody wants this virus. But the teachers have been looking after the NHS kids and the delivery driver kids and the public services kids all this time. They are the ones who will be spreading it to teachers and stuff. The chance of the other children who have only been home for 3 months having it are highly unlikely.

Keep yours home. But look at some actual facts first. Look at the poor testing in this country. They are putting covid 19 down as the reason of death even when no test has been carried out. So we could well have only had 20,000 deaths and most of them are elderly and sadly sick people. Yes we have lost young people. NHS workers. The odd healthy adult. But that's a very small (but sad) amount of people.

We can't hide away forever. We don't want to destroy our kids any further.

Good for you. I work with children in group homes. Have some empathy for people who aren't 'happy as larry'.
FFS.

Hows about the parents that dont wanna send kids to school just unroll them and teach at home forever as it isnt going anywhere!

I would rather wait until we can provide children with the education they deserve.

How many years are you happy to wait?

Covid is here to stay. We need to learn to live WITH it, whether that is by vaccination, better treatment, people respecting social distancing, people practising good hygiene, hiding in corners if that's what people want to do, PPE for those at highest risk, etc etc.

There will never be a day when it is SAFE for all schools to re-open fully. We need a gradual re-opening, small increments, see how it goes, make a few adjustments, and carry on. Small steps! But we need to start doing that NOW, not in 3 months when things may not actually be any different.

I think some of you are missing the point. Teachers want to go back and TEACH. What's being proposed is not teaching or school as we know it.

More like unions using this as an opportunity to hold the government to ransom or payback time for previous gripes.

Nail on the head. They've seen an opportunity to flex their muscles and are grabbing it. To hell with the consequences.

Bully for you OP, knock yourself out with what you will or won't be doing. The way this is panning out, we will be living alongside the virus for a long while. It is about managing risk, and different people have different aversions and tolerance of risk. Personally, I am happy to risk catching it. Others are not. Often, the most risk averse members of society try to sway everyone to their point of view ; this we have seen many times over. So don't send your kids if you don't want to. Be grateful to those who are brave enough to be at the vanguard of living alongside this, where you will eventually have to follow, instead of berating them.

I am kind of with you but disagree strongly with some of your views.

As a SAHP with the ability to both have my child at home and to continue providing her education to her I do think that parents should have the choice to keep their child at home without repercussions provided they continue to support their child's / children's learning.

I think you are in the wrong to say people should keep their kids at home or they are responsible for more deaths.

No matter when it happens, at some stage the world will need to move on or economies will crumble into oblivion, at some stage people will need to return to work, businesses will need to get back to some sort of normality and this will result in a second wave, how can it not?

Allowing parents who can and want to home school the opportunity to do so would be the smart option.

Our school reopens in two weeks for the lower classes, I am contemplating keeping my daughter home, she is happier and learns better at home, however no judgement from for the parents who are itching to send their kids back, they would be the ones taking the risk that someone needs to take while I potentially keep my kids at home safe.

Undecided. The DC and I are healthy and we are not too worried about the virus with them and me, more just their mental health and education. Unfortunately DP is vulnerable, but we and the medical profession are not sure how badly Covid affects his condition, so we are waiting and seeing for that.

I used to work in education and am concerned about how my former colleagues are being treated and what risks they are expected to take, but I will be waiting until the school has communicated with us what strategies they are implementing before fully deciding.

The R may go up over the next couple of weeks meaning Boris has to scrap opening schools therefore it will be out of ours and the unions hands.

Good for you OP. glad it's working for you. I have 3 DC 6 and under. It's causing so much stress having them at home. I really hope the school reopens in June.

Agree entirely OP.

@Kazzyhoward so instead of prioritising childcare let's start with the older children who can understand what's being asked of them and whose experiences of school won't be so wildly different to what they're used to. Y6 staying at a desk and having own resources in a small group could work well. What's being proposed for the little ones is nothing like what they're used to.

Absolutely sick to the back teeth of all the smug SAHP and furloughed workers, basically anyone who doesn't have to work, banging on about how they won't be sending their children to school and being judgmental to those who will be.

It's nice you can make that decision without it badly affecting your family's finances. Not all of us have that option and we have to work.

Stop scaremongering OP. The school aged population and their parents are not at risk of this - even taking into account those with underlying conditions.

I think it's a good thing that those who have the option of keeping their DC home will do so, it means that there will be less children in the schools and so it'll be easier to maintain distance and keep up hygiene standards.

But there's no need to be so smug and judgey about it FGS.