Why Years R, 1 and 6?

[Carer589]

Can anyone explain the reasoning behind these year groups going back first? The way I see it, the littlest ones have got the most time to make up what they've missed. Year 6 are done with primary and can start afresh in Year 7. Surely priority should be given to those sitting GCSEs and A Levels next year, to prevent a second group of children having their exams messed up. Plus secondary schools are much bigger, making social distancing easier, and the children are old enough to understand the rules.

If the goverment is adamant that Primary should go back first, wouldn't it make sense to send the older ones in first? The older the child, the better the social distancing.

The only way I can see years R and 1 returning making sense is from a child care point of view.

As in, the older a child is, the easier it is to work from home with the child at home.

I did wonder about childcare but that's only any good for parents who just have children in those three year groups. Any with additional children in other year groups will still have the childcare problem.

Not sure. We are 3 tier here and Year 6 means nothing, it's the middle year of Middle School. It would make more sense for the Year 7s to go back if it's about preparing for High School.

This is definitely being done to try and get the economy going again, nothing to do with what's best for the children. Having childcare in place for young children will allow more people to get back to work. I think the year 6 is to allow them a bit of closure, although I imagine a lot of their parents will just keep them at home.

YR and Y1 because if disadvantaged children get support early on it makes a big difference. Hence the provision of Early Years Childcare.

Y6 to prepare them for the transition to secondary school. It's a big change, to just chuck them into a new school, new routine, different classes etc having been off for 6 months would be challenging.

I agree on Y10 and Y12, but I think it's harder in secondary schools - you need public transport to get children to school, they move around the school every 40 minutes or so. It would be harder to stagger start/finish times as you'd have to stagger the whole timetable and children don't stay in the same groups for each lesson so more mixing.

I would love my Yr7 to go back to school, she is struggling so much at home, but I've accepted the logistics mean it is very unlikely this school year.

I think it’s because R & yr1 need to learn socially and they need to learn to read. Neither can be done remotely. Year 6 need closure and confidence-building to move onto secondary from a secure foundation.

Many feel there will be a bigger impact on social distancing in secondary schools because they travel further to school (use public transport) and walk around the school more when there (changing classrooms, option subjects taken by different groups of pupils) so they are harder to socially distance than primary who can be put on “pods”.

I have today my own feeling is that we need to sort something out re year 10, if home learning in this county is to be one the norm then primary schools pupils have time to adapt and may never remember a time when most of their learning took place in school but year 10 do not have the luxury of time to get used to new systems and it not to have a profound impact on their education.

I think from a child development point of view they’ve chosen exactly the right groups to send back.

Because vulnerable YR and Y1 children will be struggling massively. Heaven knows how they can social distance though .

Y6 need a few days closure and support with transition to secondary. I think that year would be fairly easy to keep apart though.

I think they are just doing the formalities of getting year 6 ready for secondary school and giving them some element of closure on leaving primary.

The younger ones feels about childcare to me. There’s something to be said about giving disadvantaged children opportunities but formal early years education isn’t that important.

The younger children will cope better if they catch Coronavirus, it is said they have better immunity.

There is no other reason, Y10 and Y12 should be first back if this was about education.

After the first few weeks of the younger children being back they will know if the infection rate goes up and probably that will affect any more children going back to school.

Some interesting points. Thank you. I hadn't thought of transport for secondary school children. It would have been nice if government guidelines had given some explanation for the decision.