Do teenagers care? Open the fucking schools.

[FreierFall]

All my son's friends are now meeting up in groups. Probably in each other houses. Of course I am the worlds worst mother for saying he can only meet one friend outside at a time. Pretty much everyone he knows is assuming they can do what they want now. Why bother keeping secondary schools shut now? It's pointless. Instead we are going to have groups of bored teenagers roaming around all summer. I am in despair.

There's been groups of terms meeting where I am and before being allowed to meet friends there were some meeting you who clearly went from the same house
And no my children haven't my youngest met up
This week with a friend to go for a run and he knows how to social distance he is year 10 and I think this year group going back for a few days shouldn't be as big an issue as they can social distance , keep hands washed etc

I watched primary school
On tv the other day in Denmark I think and they were back (no ppe in sight )and how they were managing it seemed like a good idea and the kids who were quite young had adapted really well

strugglingwithdeciding - by quite young, you mean 6-7 years old at the youngest; a much more appropriate age group to start back with than 4-5 year olds.

Well my two teens are in. Although they have pointed out hiw at risk they and I will be when I return to work as a teacher in June. I can't really reassure them either.

My two teens havnt left the house for 9 weeks. We work together to try and keep each other as happy as possible under the circumstances and to keep each other safe. My teens care very much.
It’s called parenting

We have this weird thing in our house, with 2 teenagers, where us, the adults are in charge and have to sometimes enforce unpopular rules

Exactly this. Unless my 17 year old is contributing equally towards the rent, bills and food and house hold responsibilities then I’m afraid what me and Dh says goes.

It’s ultimately about respect though and I wouldn’t tolerate a teenager coming and going and thinking they could dictate what happens, especially at a time like this.

Yes, respect for themselves, their own family and the wider community.

On tv the other day in Denmark I think and they were back (no ppe in sight )and how they were managing it seemed like a good idea and the kids who were quite young had adapted really well

What's the population of Denmark in relation to that of the UK? Or England, in this instance?

A quick google tells me it's about 5.8 million. In 2019, the population of England was around 56 million. So Denmark is about a tenth of the population size of England, with (according to the ONS) 19% of that English 56 million under 16 ie 10 million - almost double the entire Danish population.

I think this makes the return to school very much easier in Denmark, than here in England.

Also, they haven't had 10 years of austerity - a deliberate government policy to diminish public funding of public services, such as schools and the healthcare system.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/bulletins/annualmidyearpopulationestimates/mid2019#population-age-structures-of-uk-countries-and-english-regions

FreierFall you say "I don't give a flying toss" so why should anyone care about your convenience or 'despair'.

In Denmark staffing is over 50% up and school ends at 1pm - not thinking many UK primaries will have the budget for that!

It could be possible if the government funded it. The main issue is they have repeatedly said they don't consider rotas, part time and flexible approaches to be appropriate.

Government nudge unit are very busy lately, multiple threads about naughty naughty teachers and naughty naughty furloughed workers, dont you know its going to be all your fault the economy fails and cant you just please think of the POOR CHILDREN, the failure of course and the amount of subsequent deaths will not be the governments fault how could you possibly come to that conclusion, oh and blah blah DENMARK blah blah SWEDEN

Don't forget the naughty naughty people who've started traveling to day out spots because restrictions were lifted.

We've also had naughty health workers in the press and on here around about the same time it emerged that Boris missed meetings and failed to sign us up to PPE ordering.

Then there's the rush to the bottom for employee safety where there's workers turning on each other saying 'but X employees have shit terms, no PPE and have to get on with it otherwise they don't get paid, so everyone pushing for responsible health and safety should roll over'.

Watching all the little people fight between themselves to avoid proper scrutiny or employer responsibility must be a rich guy's wet dream at the moment.

hospitals care
their parents care

the school bus drivers care

I am a secondary teacher. I volunteer to go into school once a week to supervise key worker/vulnerable students. We have a variety from Y7 through to Y10. Number have steadily increased. I suspect 2 reasons - school allowing students who find it difficult to work at home to come in and key worker parents who can not get their children to work at home sending them in.
For the first time last week I came away very upset. I volunteer, I am in more than most staff, I volunteer to help some of my students in a core subject - they asked if I would go in.
No social distancing - they will if asked, when in a classroom they sit apart. Moving around school, turn your back they 'forget'. One boy sat in a corner on his phone, 3 boys 'ran out of work' and were playing games , 3 girls decided to talk a SLT member into opening up the dance studio for them and disappeared for 2.5 hours.
Most upsetting - one boy after going to print something, tried to push between my chair and desk to get back to his seat. Fully ignoring one way system etc....... He was 15 years old, he had been allowed in school to get 'support'. Found it quite hilarious that I stopped him and asked him to backtrack.
So maybe I'll stop volunteering.
Maybe I will insist on that type of dangerous behaviour being followed up on.
I'd rather teach some students properly.
Whenever I hear about Social Distancing in school I just want to invite the people spouting it into my (very successful, leafy area, waiting list over 100+) school to see how less than 30 students act.

Top post, @LolaSmiles

Schools don't exist to parent your children for you. It's not teachers' fault that you can't get your child to stick to lockdown rules. My teenager isn't going out, and neither are any of her friends.

lazy
Same around here. I'm not seeing large groups of school aged teenagers around either.
It's hardly surprising that there's a minority of teens who think lockdown doesn't apply when there's adults who are arranging mass gatherings in parks to protest the illegal lockdown and to show their objection to forced vaccinations against Covid.