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?

going to hide forever on full pay

Odfo. They're wfh like the rest. Setting work and planning longer term plans. And home schooling like everyone else, except that teachers do have a more relaxed attitude to that because they know that children pick up learning and can progress very quickly when they resume. It happens all the time to children who have chronic illnesses etc. And that learning can take many forms.

We will need more teachers very soon! Step this way, all who wish to retrain. deafening silence

@Longwhiskers14

Teaching profession really covering itself in glory

What, because it won't sack people who the Govt has told must shield at home? Christ, there are some ignorant people on this thread.

and the damage to kids will last a decade
which any moral teacher should utterly decry

What everyone should be decrying is the Govt's shit response to the pandemic that's put our children in this position, not the teachers who will do everything they can to pick up the pieces afterwards.

Teachers picking up the pieces? Hysterically funny

My children’s school have emailed to say their staff will be wearing PPE (fair enough) they have also specified they will not be helping children AT all at lunch time.

I can’t help but think of care assistants (also in PPE) in a similar situation.

“Oh sorry Betty you’ve shit yourself..... yeah, good luck with that”

@NeurotrashWarrior more than 90% of the nurses in the hospital I work are female, even with pregnancies, those shielding for a variety of reasons, those +ve with covid etc, 4-11% were off at anyone time. This includes critical care areas.

But it's not really about the risk to children it's the risk of them spreading to others surely?

Of course if is. Especially as they are more likely to be asymptomatic and we have no idea yet if their rates of transmission are the same or not, as, being asymptomatic, it may be impossible in many cases to know exactly where an adult in their household caught it from. The child or elsewhere?

Kind of hilarious that prior to this, kids either held it in all day or poor things, went to the loo in their allotted time. How much hand washing was going on?

Which just goes further to the point that it's the vulnerable that should be staying at home, not the for the absolute vast majority unaffected children and under 50s

@Longwhiskers14

NikeDeLaSwoosh It hasn't been proven that children aren't carriers and 47 teachers have died in the UK so far, as a result of catching the virus before the lockdown. So to say there is no risk and safety measures aren't needed are simply wrong. Plus what about the risks to parents doing drop off and pick up? Assuming that's not an issue for you, but might be for your nanny?

Life is full of risk, and we will all die of something.

A person's risk of dying if infected with CV 19 is the same as their risk of dying in the next 12 months in any case.

This level of risk does not in anyway justify the measures that are seriously being entertained.

@NeurotrashWarrior

There has never been a documented case of asymptomatic transmission according to the WHO

EnlightenedOwl If teachers are so crap, why are you so keen to get yours back into school then?

I do not understand how any state school teacher who has studied inequality and opportunity and segregation and disadvantage can justify turning any pupil away from school

I cannot understand why teachers do not realise that many of their pupils are safer at school than at home

I cannot comprehend why those teachers are not willing to drum hygeine rules into their vulnerable pupils that will stand all in good stead long term

There is no THEM only US

NikeDeLaSwoosh Maybe, but it's not the schools or teachers who are setting them, it's the Govt. They had nine options on the table from SAGE scientists, including the Welsh rotation system, and they ignored them all to invent their own. So redirect your ire at the Govt.

Life is full of risk, and we will all die of something.

However, employers won't pay out for workplace deaths if they can help it. The cost of that would be astronomical. That's the bottom line about workplace risk assessments and restrictions. They are always going to err on the side of caution. No one wants that test case to be brought against them!

EnlightenedOwl, I do agree with you in opposite way. Teachers are humans. Have real lives of themselves. Showing a way to deal with tough decisions, they are showing glory. They value their life and their family's life. That's a great role model in many ways. There are many teachers who says they'll return to work. That's great. But there are others who can't because of various reasons. It's great too. No one experienced this before. No one need to be a martyr just to make everyone else happy.

I am at a total loss about all this talk of parents "home schooling". It is not possible for parents to teach secondary school children their syllabus for each and every (or any subject), that is why we have specialist teachers. The reality is that secondary state school children who are at schools that are making zero effort (like the one my dcs attend) to provide a meaningful education are getting zero education and are simply trying their best to teach themselves. Unlike all the private secondary schools around here that are providing 4-6 hours teaching a day for their year 9s and 10s.

The problem is not children's risk, it's the adults' risk. If it was as simple as "everybody who needs to shield stay home", why bother with any social distancing in public at all?

Chris Whitty covered this tonight in the briefing

He said that opening schools is about (as a parent) your worry for your child. He then said effectively it's a decision between the risk/impact of catching the virus and the impact of them missing education (which for some could be huge)

He broke down the risk from virus

1. The risk to children is really low. Either of dying or serious disease. In fact, he said children get either v mild symptoms, none at all or are unaffected by the virus.

1. The risk is that the could spread it to adults. He then said (which I actually hadn't thought of) that parents of school age children are not in the age risk groups. This can be extrapolated to teachers/staff. Most of them are presumably under 65

I looked at ONS stats where Covid is suspected. By 8th May, 41000 dead. Of which, over 88% were 65 or over. - age is THE biggest risk factor by a country mile

4000 odd 45-64 and about 500 under that age. We know that age is the biggest risk along with co-morbidities. So out of those 5000 people, how many were actually healthy working age adults?!

Not many. 1000? 1500? From 41000

Yes shielding teachers need to shield. The rest are no more at risk than anyone else of that age group.

@Longwhiskers14

That's pure sophistry.

The influence of The Blob is a huge factor in determining government policy.

We all know that if the Unions chose to be less obstructive, policy would take a different direction.

I'm afraid that to suggest otherwise is simply disingenuous.

ListeningQuietly Please do your research - it was the Govt not teachers who decided only R, Y1 and Y6 can return. Teachers are not turning away any kids – they are accepting the ones they've been told to accept.

TEACHERS ARENT MAKING THE DECISIONS!

Nike, is this a typo?

There is no need, there has not been a single death in the u9 age category, and only 300 in the under 65 category.

ons has 11% below 65?

Listening - no teacher is turning pupils away

The government closed schools, they'll decide when and how they're opened.

Teachers will do what they are instructed to do or they will resign.

The unions were not consulted before any decisions and have very little power.

Teachers are not turning away any kids – they are accepting the ones they've been told to accept.

No, that is absolutely untrue.

Many schools are not even accepting YR, 1 and 6.

I heard what Chris Whitt's said and yes, on paper it's the elderly who are more vulnerable but if parents of school age children can get it from their children then the adults will then in turn spread to granparents/ people on the bus/people in the supermarket etc etc particularly if they are asymptomatic. Being back at school must increase the risk of this surely?

I just want to get off my chest that after originally having some sympathy for teachers having to adjust quickly to new online learning, the unions, and profession as a whole are not showing themselves in a good light now.

Sorry teachers (I’ve got no less than three in the family), I don’t mean it personally against individuals but come on!

Whitty