If blended learning was the thing for all of next academic year?

[porktangle]

www.thenational.scot/news/18454764.blended-learning-become-new-normal-schools-return/

This is obviously just an article and anything could actually change in the next year but I read this and suddenly the possible next academic year just hit me like a ton of bricks. I don't know why it's taken until now tbh. I think I've just been thinking about June 1st mostly!

I could still work (I'm full time main earner) but husband couldn't so we'd have significant money problems after a few months. My son is autistic and wouldn't have his EHCP fulfilled. He's done reduced timetables before and they were a disaster, he ended up out of education for over a year.

If blended learning (half in school with social distancing, half at home remote learning) is for the next academic year.....how would you manage?

I rather think that when people are actually staring financial ruin in the face, it’s dark and raining, they’re watching their children’s learning and mental health suffer, their career is gone and they can’t pay the bills and yet there’s just a few dozen cases nationally of a virus that kills “other people” that they will demand full time schooling, social distancing be damned. If the R number then requires we close hospitality, non essential shops etc to “pay” for it then so be it.

I really really hope Boris makes a political point and says fuck it and sends everyone back to school full time. If there was ever a time for political point scoring Boris, the time is now.

Problem with both BoJo and Sturgeon is they are both addicted to being popular and can’t make difficult decisions. They both follow the prevailing opinion on twitter. (Although twitter is a self selecting platform)

Yep BoJo and Sturgeon do what they think it popular. As I say wait to September, huge backlash and they’ll get the schools open full time.

Yeah exactly and I don't think one third of an education will be that popular will it?

1/3 might be ok for some people who have a SAHP, and children at primary, with money to buy other resources (tutoring, pe, music lessons).

Which will be a tiny proportion of people - particularly when we are in a recession.

It will disproportionately affect women too.

Nihil, yes, it's probably bad maths, I'm not a maths teacher .

But the Scandinavian countries have a very different society and population distribution so surely it makes sense to compare them?

Which means not locking down has meant 6x the deaths.

SAGE know a lot more than any of us. They said 500,000 without lockdown.

Here's some more bad maths for you. I'm not the most sociable person so I reckon only 6 people would be badly affected by my death. More would be sad for a while, but they'd be ok. So 3 million people grieving if everyone's as unsociable as me?

What does how many people are grieving have anything to do with it?

People die every day. Every single fucking day. Covid is not the only cause of death and it would do us well to remember that.

@Nihiloxica

Agree with everything you have said.

Why the hell haven’t the teaching unions said - “we want to get to work to educate children as it’s v v important, to do this we need xbillion and x number more teachers and free use of all these spaces (halls leisure centres etc) etc etc etc”

I would totally get behind this message and I think the government might as well because it will be cheaper than the economic implications of having masses of the workforce out of action as they are caring for their kids and definitely cheaper than the long term ruin the country will face if we don’t educate our kids for years. If we don’t get kids educated and through their exams we will run out of doctors, nurses, teachers etc in 3-5yrs....

Instead the unions comms appear to be - bbc bitesize is just as good as being taught in class and we’re not going back until covid has gone. If that takes three years or so then parents with money/time will have found other ways to educate their kids making teachers irrelevant and those without or that don’t care will not see the point and children will be damaged.

Unions have shot themselves in the foot and damaged children as well.

(Transport unions also done similar by refusing to run extra services (although I realise there is evidence that they are at higher risk than teachers) and So people are finding other ways to travel meaning that they are doing themselves out of a job to return to

SAGE know a lot more than any of us. They said 500,000 without lockdown.

Neil Ferguson's (widely criticised) model had 500,000 as an absolute worst case scenario without lockdown.

His model was based on flu pandemics and treated children as superspreaders, which we now know they are not for this coronavirus.

That model isn't standing up too well as we learn more about the virus.

And that's the model that SAGE went with. So they don't know everything.

We need to stop placing the burden of this pandemic on the people with the lowest risk and who have no voice of their own.

It is shameful how we are treating children in this country.

I'm not sure why this comes as such a surprise to many if you? Schools were overcrowded as it was, clearly they can't reopen how they were.

Keyworker children (and those deemed as vulnerable) are currently being offered full time places (8-5 in my area), I presume this will continue? At the moment not many keyworker places are being used, I guess this will change as time goes on, leaving even fewer spaces for other children.

My concerns are how the divide between private and state schools increase. Surely most private schools have a) smaller class sizes anyway and b) more space to allow smaller classes?

The emotional impact on children. There's no chance my year 5 child could just walk though the school gates tomorrow. She hasn't been out in months and is petrified she'll pass the virus onto someone.

Transport to and from secondary schools. I'm guessing school buses won't be squishing in loads of kids like they used to.

For us we would have to change our shift patterns and probably reduce our hours however we would manage.

You have to remember that "The National" is basically the newspaper mouthpiece of the SNP.

Blended learning is hugely short changing our children. Attainment will plummet. We've all seen the stories on telly about 6 kids all trying to homeschool with a single mobile between them, which a parent has to take to work with them. Not every child has their own laptop/tablet and a stable internet connection. Or even a kitchen table to sit at and work.

I have a child approaching exams this time next year and already I'm worried about how much she's missed. 50% schooling for a year is an appalling solution, especially as our local Council are flat refusing to allow online teaching via video in any way, shape or form.

Sorry, but 50% of time in school and 50% of "here's a few worksheets" isn't good enough.

I'm not sure why this comes as such a surprise to many if you?

Well, partly because we didn’t do this for a whole range of epidemics in the past of diseases that affected children much worse than this? And still don’t in parts of the world where those diseases still exist? There were short-term school closures for polio but we didn’t go “well it’s not THAT important children go to school full time, we can wait a year or three.”

@SockYarn yes, that's why I'm worried as there is no effective opposition here.

Nonot

The supposedly "left wing" response to all of this is at complete variance with what you should expect.

The idea that all a person needs is their immediate family and their home is hyper Thatcherite.

All this crap about "protecting people" whilst shutting down society for months on end.

Our society - seeing people, going to the GP, children at school - is how we protect one another.

Closing down society and insisting it can never go back as it was and "social distancing" must go on indefinitely is agreeing that there is no society, just individual men and women and their families.

People (on the left!) Want it rebrandec "physical distancing" because we can talk to each other on Zoom. As if massively reducing face to face human contact had no social implications.

It seems we have an authoritarian left wing that no longer supports any of the Fabian principles that underpinned the British Labour movement.

It's such a betrayal.

There’s no decent opposition in Scotland and if you dare to speak out on social media there is a massive and upsetting pile on. People in Scotland have learnt to keep quiet.

It's a shock because children are entitled to a free education. That's now been taken away from them and seemingly will become a thing of the past.

Our country has over time forced a lot of families into having 2 working parents because a lot of us simply can't afford to live on 1 wage.

Now we've somehow gone back in time where one parent is expected to teach their child but there's absolutely fuck all in place to allow us to do that?

My mortgage won't go away because schools have closed?

If they're going to do this they have to simultaneously introduce universal basic income.

And even if they did that I'd still be fucking mad because it's STILL not solving the issue of kids having a proper education.

Many parents will not be able to teach their children.

I’m really stunned at how the left wing are encouraging the destruction of a child’s right to an education. I properly feel stabbed in the back. Such a betrayal.

I agree @KaronAVyrus I'm too scared to say my real views or I get a kicking.

On paper I should be well able to teach my child but I'm terrible at it. So now I have more guilt to add into the mix.

I really hope that we can get back to normal but seeing the actions taken by many workplaces in terms of wfh carrying on until next year I fear the worst here.

I could also teach my child but he has a fundamental human right to an education. A proper education and not one cobbled together by his mum.

@KarenAVyrus I'm left wing and I'm shocked too. One of my firm beliefs is that all children should be entitled to free good quality education. Millions will not be getting that at home.

Yes, it feels very odd indeed to be in a situation where the only public figures really pressing for children’s right to a school education are Tory politicians.

It's actually parental responsibility to educate our children, not the state's.