Schools fubared till November?

[Clemmieandareallybigbunfight]

Disruption to schools could continue to November, MPs told www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52895640

Is this a dystopian joke?

Are we actually trying to fuck up our kids?

Schools need to be instructed to open fully five days a week with enhanced on day cleaning, increased buses to allow distancing, staggered start and finish, covered but open refuge areas allowing distancing whilst outside in all weathers for breaks and no assemblies. Relatively low investment needed, huge gain economically but more importantly for our kids education and mental health. Some of these kids will never get back to school if they are out for so long. Some will fail to achieve their potential. And all for an illness with a tiny mortality rate overall?

Also in terms of childcare. The government has made school childcare for many people. Hence why, when your child reaches school age universal credit is reduced or stopped, as you have the time to go and work.

So for some people school IS childcare because the government clearly thinks it is ??

It is not the job of teaching unions to consider the economy. It is the job of the teaching unions to act to protect their members. Teaching unions are not responsible for limited opening. Limited opening is the norm across countries which closed schools in lockdown. SAGE models suggest limited reopening. This is not about unions, not, really, is it about teachers. I love teaching. I am very much looking forward to my year 10s coming back. And if you think we are not caring, you should see the work done by our Alternative Provision school for our vulnerable children and their families, before and during lo kdown.

And as for shielding, a lot of TAs are older and so many have health conditions that make them at least clinically vulnerable. Most schools would expect at least one pregnancy a year. Staff living with someone clinically extremely vulnerable can’t be in school. As with care home and hospital staff, some school staff are living apart from family just so they can still work.

Cuts to budgets means staffing was down to the bone. Schools can’t just magic up extra healthy bodies to take classes .

Of course school is childcare. It was my childcare when my children were younger, as it is for loads of teachers.

It is money, plain and simple. If the government were prepared to throw money at this, like they did the NHS to allow them to adapt, then schools could and would embrace the challenge.

As it is, they are being asked to provide effectively double the number of classrooms and staffing but given no extra money to help them achieve this.

It is not surprising they are finding it a bit tricky.

Had you considered the problem isn't schools being shut, Nike, maybe it's just you?

Have you ever considered that not everyone is as All Right as you?

Damn, I can't teach calculus, physics and higher-level chemistry to my son who has HFA and due to his ADHD, even with medication, he doesn't learn well outside of a school environment. But it's surely because we all just too stupid and he's ill-behaved and we have a poor relationship . He should be able to instruct himself in this.

@TheFallenMadonna

Quite, but I do read repeatedly on mumsnet that school is categorically not childcare.

"It is not the job of the teaching unions to consider the economy. It is the job of the teaching unions to act to protect their members."

Well said TheFallenMadonna. The unions wrote to Gavin Williamson three times in April/May asking for meetings to discuss how to transition back and he ignored them, then suddenly announced schools were opening with no consultation. The first meeting the NEU had with the SAGE scientists was on the Friday AFTER the Govt announced the June 1 date. The union doesn't want to stop schools opening, they just want their members to be safe doing it. My OH teaches Y5 and he is chomping at the bit to get back into the classroom because online teaching is no substitute for the real thing.

Hey granny, because I've missed 2 months of school, your son/daughter thinks you should die
Comments like this are so unhelpful. I know that my grandmother, who is suffering from dementia, can hardly move and is completely non verbal would prefer to die if it meant her beloved great grandchildren could get back to school. She used to say that the greatest gift we could give our children was their childhood. There is no way she would deem what my children are experiencing now is in anyway a good childhood.

It’s far, far more than 2 months of education lost. We are up to that much time now and there is no end in sight at the moment. The more parents are expected to go back to work, the worse it will get. My youngest (Year 4) has done no school work so far this week and I can’t see that changing tomorrow either. The other two have done some, but I’ve no idea if they have done enough as I’ve been working so not checking up on them.

The thought of no school until the winter makes me so, so sad for them. And it makes me want to cry that the most vulnerable and the poorest children will be so much further behind than they were to start with. My grandmother would not want that AT ALL. She spent her whole life trying to bridge that gap and I am under no illusions that she would sacrifice her life now to protect these children. And before I get jumped on, it isn’t what I want, none of it is, but I know her, know her morals and values and know this isn’t what SHE would want.

Odd that Wales have announced all kids back by end June then.

@LockdownLou , we are "getting on with it?" My bubble is back now. I think what you are really meaning is "when can we stop with all this part time bubble bollocks", which is, the same time as we stop all the "queuing up with a trolley for miles at the supermarket" bollocks and the "sitting outside eating at a spread out table" bollocks and the "enforced working from home because there's a rota now at the office" bollocks - it'll be the time when the risk of the virus has fallen below the point where people are inconveniently dying in large numbers and the requirements for social distancing are dropped and there isn't a risk of your employees suing you

The questioning around shielding figures is odd. Of course schools have considered it. There is clear guidance from the DfE for both clinically vulnerable and clinically extremely vulnerable staff. The guidance for both could well.lomit the role they can take, especially in a primary school, where the guidance acknowledges social distancing cannot always be maintained.

LockdownLou I think MN objects because the word "childcare" has connotations of kids being dumped in the playground simply to be looked after, rather than be taught. The actual definition should be "the purpose of schools is to educate and in doing that they enable parents to go out and work".

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-52895374

Yep all schools back in Wales by the end of the month and they will be there for a month.

Schools are not childcare in the same way that hospitals aren't accommodation providers.

@whenwillthemadnessend

Odd that Wales have announced all kids back by end June then.

But only part time - you do know that?

@whenwillthemadnessend their bubbles are smaller, 10 to a group, part time only. The only sense there will be "all pupils back" is that the rules apply to all year groups. The irony is that this is exactly what most English schools planned for during closure before they were abruptly told otherwise and had to replan everything.

Snowballer, I was replying to a personal attack.

Why is it ok to attack those parents who do not think sending all children back to school immediately is desirable and indeed think it is highly dangerous?

I have had the disease as has my dh, and while I have had it mildly, my dh is still suffering with it.

I would not wish the disease on anyone - you don't seem to have any concept of how nasty this disease is that you are blase about everyone catching. You seem very I'm Alright Jack about people getting ill and dying from coronavirus as a result of schools opening up again.

Welsh schools are opening on a part-time rotation basis, so only a third of pupils will be in situ at any given time. That's not normal schooling.

Part time for all years in June is better than nothing until November. Good for them for shock horror, finding a workable solution. A rota system. Why didn’t we think of that?! All this moaning about how you can’t fit 30 kids in a class and social distance there are so many solutions that people aren’t prepared to entertain.

If you don’t want to send your kids back then don’t.

My Yr6 has been happier this week than in months.

Part times better than NO time!!!

I'd welcome it.

Well good ti hear that the unions have changed so massively since the 80s whe there were regularbstrikes and if your parents couldn't come childrenwere left in the playgrou d in all weathers whilestaff protested.
So now they represent the children as well?? Brilliant!! Of course they dont. Their job is to represent their paying members. .Go and tell rail passengers trying to commute during ateikes that the rail unions represent them.

This is not a strike but until I see evidence to the contrary (and I would be very pleased if someone posted an informative link), I will stick to the view that unions represent their members because that is their job!!

The union doesn't want to stop schools opening, they just want their members to be safe doing it

But it’s getting to the stage where I really want to tell the union to stick it up their arse and I’m not the only one. The numbers of people who have worked through this, keeping society going, adapting, trying to find a way - when you read the endless moaning and demands from the teaching union it’s insulting. It’s lovely they can sit there and dream up all these measures whilst ignoring how the food got on their plate, their pay landed in their bank account, their rubbish was collected and their lights turned on.

At some point there will be no bloody money to pay for any of this! I just wish sometimes these people would try and be part of the solution rather the endless problem.

It's ok @snowballer

@xxyzz has clearly run out of actual argument and therefore has had to resort to personal attacks.

As soon as that happens, they have lost the debate anyway.

I'd report to MNHQ, but I generally feel allowing the attack to stand actually does more to undermine the poster than having it removed in accordance with the Talk Guidelines.