If you think schools shouldn't reopen yet, what would your plan be for the next twelve months?

[allthatmalarkey]

That sounds more goady than I mean. I know loads of people who say they won't send their kids in and I'm sympathetic to them and to teaching staff. I'm just wondering how you would manage things instead if you were in charge. What would be your ideal plan?

Personally I think we fucked up by not locking down much sooner, we could see what was going to happen and if we'd kept the number of cases much smaller like New Zealand or Germany (both run by women) we'd have bought valuable time and been in a much better position now. So I wouldn't start off from here. However, that's the past and it is what it is: so if you're thinking of keeping your kids away on 1 June, what is your long term plan and what would be your plan for schools over the next year if you were in charge?

[Namenic]

We didn’t lock down our borders like many countries. Do we even have mandatory quarantine from abroad yet? I think this would be sensible.

Divide country into regions. Make depots at borders to manage deliveries. For the places with low cases, set up Infection surveillance (number to call if get symptoms, testing facilities). Then start to lift local restrictions and monitor infection rate.

Keep the places with higher number of cases in lockdown until case number decreases. This should allow the parts of the country with low cases have more local freedom and get their economy running. It should also be good for places with higher infection rates as they will have lower chance of a bad second wave.

[peoplepleaser1]

I would like to see schools reopening gradually as I believe most of us have to learn to live with the virus. Anyone without a set up where they can live without a job or benefits needs to think about going to work.

However, if schools don't open I would like to see education funding used to help provide effective online learning and a standard as to how this should look adopted and implemented. Savings would need to be made that reflect this way of working and to free up money to be used for online learning. I do not think that if schools remain closed all schools staff should continue to be paid- this is exactly the same as what is happening elsewhere and schools should not be immune.

[Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow]

I think people think September is a magic bullet

I think it’s awful as coincides with flu season starting.

If we tell anyone with a cough to stay off with their entire family, no one will leave the house for weeks. One of mine is always getting over a cough in winter

[LemonPudding]

I think they should just be done with it and close the schools and stop the homeschooling shit show until jan 2021.

But people will still need social distancing. Until there is a vaccine that's how it has to be.

[SudokuBook]

@locorito maybe. I certainly feel at the moment I’m probably more value to everyone dead rather than alive

[Beebityboo]

I'm home educating for a year and moving out of the worst hit area in the Midlands. I have a rare disability so don't want to take my chances and my DD was very very poorly last year and wouldn't cope with socially distanced schooling. It means my other two will be kept at home also, which one of them will hate, but it's only for a year. Hoping and praying it will be gone by then.

[locorito]

@SudokuBook your kids may think differently

[MsInsomniac]

I think they should just be done with it and close the schools and stop the homeschooling shit show until jan 2021. Then all the kids should just go back to the year they left and carry on. I know that means another year of education and that kids who would normally start school at 4/5 would be delayed to 5/6. So there would need to be some sort of provision for 4/5 year olds. And teachers can then cover the keyworker childcare in schools for the rest of the year (and have a lovely rest because they’ve been working so hard).

[SudokuBook]

At least if I die my mortgage will be paid off and my kids won’t end up homeless. Which is a very real prospect here.

[SudokuBook]

I feel I have sacrificed enough for all this and if I get it and die, then that’s it. It can’t be any worse than how things currently are.

[SudokuBook]

Massive loss of business at work

What will school do if we just send them in every day ? Given they wouldn’t let my 13 year old go home alone when he was unwell, if parents refuse to collect them what choice will they have but to keep them there?

[Porcupineinwaiting]

Yeah you go catch it @SudokuBook. That'll make you feel better and show everyone else right?

[Porcupineinwaiting]

My plan would be that we spend a few weeks ensuring that the R value stays below 1 so the amount of virus in the population falls further then introduce really good test and trace? And quarantine people entering from abroad. Then we can open up society and schools safely.

I mean, other countries have managed it.

[locorito]

@SudokuBook sorry to hear that. Why did you lose it?

[SudokuBook]

My children will be going to school every day and I will not be encouraging them to socially distance. I’ve getting to the stage where I have had enough of all this nonsense and all that’s happened is I’ve lost my job. What’s the fucking point.

[SudokuBook]

I think the time must be approaching that everything needs to be opened up as before. People won’t put up with this crap much longer, NHS or no NHS. I have been abiding by the rules but it’s getting harder when others don’t bother. We can’t live cowered in fear from a bloody virus to the expense of everything else for god knows how long.

[SudokuBook]

Social distancing only stops the spread if people actually have it and don’t have symptoms. If they don’t it does fuck all. The answer is testing and contact tracing. Social distancing is just crap.

[LaurieFairyCake]

They're not going back - it was done two weeks ago when they thought they might. It's an academy chain with primary and secondary so they polled everyone

[locorito]

@TuckMyWin but how do you know those people aren't tax payers too? Is their a badge people should wear?

[locorito]

Where has the narrative come from that the people "destroying the economy" & are furloughed are parents with young dc? Every single person I know is still working.

[Daffodil101]

I’m pretty sure they will drop the physical distancing element of ‘social distancing.’

SD involves a range of measures, maybe they’ll keep some and drop some?

[TuckMyWin]

Because people meeting in groups of 2/3 in the park isn't going to pay the fuck off massive bill that the government, and therefore we as tax payers, are incurring by paying millions of people's wages while they can't go to work. Getting them back to work will, and to do that, we need schools-sorry childcare. Plus, disadvantaged kids are dying in lockdown at rates higher than the virus is killing them, so they're probably a little bit worried about that as well. Schools-sorry childcare play a massive role in safeguarding those children.

[TuckMyWin]

Also Laurie, I'm surprised it's as many as 80 planning to go back to your DH's secondary school on 1st June, as secondary schools aren't opening on 1st June. We're talking about primary schools, where children can't be left at home so their parents can go to work in a shop, hairdressers, restaurant, pub or swimming pool.

[Letseatgrandma]

Why can’t we let people meet groups of 2/3 friends in the park or go and see their family who live in a different house and see how that goes, before we open schools? Nobody needs childcare, sorry-SCHOOL, for that.

[user1471439240]

The reservoir vector into society is care home and hospital staff spreading it back into the community, not children. Two weeks living on site for these workers would burn the virus down to track and trace levels. This is unpalatable to our society, and is how China and South Korea won this.