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?

I have to say if my children are not being given a full education fairly soon I'll join the class lawsuit and sue.

because that will be such a great use of resources. Isn't it embarrassing that you are proud to be so unwilling to do your job as a parent and actually educate your children?

You do know you are free to enrol your children in a private setting don't you.

Agreed pootle also at the idea that they would want protecting at all costs , even at the expense of the well being of the next generation.

My parents are both 65 and key workers (one a medic) and still catching public transport and going to work and both are astonished by the level of handwringing by working age adults about going back to work. And they are delighted for the children in the family who are getting to go back to school now. There has to be a sense of balance about this. Children's education and mental health matters too.

I agree op. The harm of lockdown rapidly becoming greater than harm of the virus.

Bugger it, send me in, I need to see my kids! I did a video conference with them today, I was so delighted to see them! They all look so grown up.

@MH1111 may I ask why shielding staff should only receive 50% pay when they may want to work but are being told they can't by their work place? Maybe some schools arent following this guidance but I don't blame those who are. By making it guidance the government have effectively shifted responsibility to Head Teachers and say a staff member did catch covid at school and become seriously ill or die, the blame would be the schools. The school would then be open to being sued, hanged by the media, all sorts. Schools cannot win here!

And you do realise that we are fully paid by the government? So 50% furlough then topped up by schools if they choose... would be 100% pay by the government. What a ridiculous suggestion!

The lack of resilience of some people is astonishing. That's what will damage their children's mental health, whilst they would be absolutely fine with reasonable parents.

Kids are being treated as though they are walking viruses. The infection control rules are way over the top.

My daughters school sats she can go back into y10 for a couple of hours every week. No talking to friends on the way to school. Can’t bring anything or even wear a blazer. So fucked if it rains and no way off transporting sanitary rushes to school.

Towels

All the kids round here are meeting up in parks etc

I don't see what the difference is, them doing the same at school ...

Staff could wear PPE in the same way as NHS staff do.

Schools are still open in Sweden ...

I don't get the schools being closed either.

The 'alternative' suggests a choice. There's not much that can be done. The monetary system can't deal with a global tide of depression. What happens next is a war for resources. Obviously the UK is massively disadvantaged there. If you can, get out now.

I will add though - I don't mind my kids being at home, so long as the education they receive here is a decent one.

At the moment it is not decent at all. It's really really poor.

[quote Starcup]@eeeyoresmiles

You say that like I have no clue..... when I’m fact, I’m a key worker myself but I don’t cry about going in to work, neither do any of my colleagues.

If we all started crying about it let’s just say the economy would stop alright!

We don’t have ppe either, when we’re dealing with hundreds of people weekly.....

You’ve just got to get on with it[/quote]
Part of just getting on with it means accepting that not everything will be the way you want it and that includes education, and it includes people who aren't personally vulnerable to the disease being affected, because regardless of individual risk of death we'll all suffer if the virus spreads out of control.

The elephant in the room here is that education as it was (30 kids to a small room) is fundamentally unsuited to a world in which we have a new disease spreading.

The only way people can say it could work is by arguing it's no big deal if kids catch and spread it freely. It's not a good argument though. Kids catching and spreading the virus freely will cause all sorts of problems for society as a while and will have knock on effects for the economy. And if we need to try to limit kids catching the virus, then schools are going to have to be very very different. It's logistics and epidemiology that will cause that, not unions and teachers.

@pontypridd schools have asked for ppe and been told it is not necessary. Everyone in my school said they would wear it, although I will admit, we weren't ecstatic about it but that's from a comfort point of view! Because the government has said no to ppe, they will not fund it and school generally dont have the money to buy their own. We have managed to get lots of gloves and full ppe for office staff to use in emergencies or if a child needs to isolate, and some for the early years staff who often still need to change nappies. Teachers offered to supply their own masks as well but the general guidance has been not to wear them as children need to see your face when teaching. We really cant win and it is so frustrating when the vast majority of us are doing our best, going out of our way to supply learning materials, offer practical solutions which are either ignored or we are told not practical, supporting our classes, especially the most vulnerable children, and are desperate to be back in school to see them and teach them again.

@eeeyoresmiles

But where will it end? What will be different in September? Bearing in mind, they may never have a vaccine.....

So where does that leave us as a society? Schools not opening properly, the whole conceit of social distancing has to end at some point.

It baby be until there is a vaccine, because as stated, there may never be one...
so are we to live like this for a year? 2 years? Perhaps 3?

All this when the vast majority would shake it off within a week?

No it’s not IMO. It’s even better knowing that kids are pretty much risk free.

It’s not going away. It will be around for years to come no doubt.

So at what point do we say, we can’t ruin the lives of the majority?

@Pootle40 I agree completely with what you have written.

I am a secondary school teacher and am so worried about my classes! I teach a notoriously difficult subject and I worry about how pupils are progressing without me there by their sides in lesson, without being able to sit with me at break to go over something they’ve found tricky, without being able to attend the after school sessions I run to help revise what we’ve done in class! I worry for those that don’t have access to technology (there are so many more than you would think) who are having to work their way through paper copies of the work without an easy way of contacting a specialist for help. I’m worried about the effect that this is having on the mental health of so many young people. I could go on with my list of worries but I think you get the idea.
I desperately with we could go back to normal as do so many of my colleagues.
However, while social distancing of any kind remains in place ‘normal’ will not be possible. I have nine classes and almost all of them have 36 pupils in! At the best of times it’s hard enough to squeeze myself to get to the kids in the corner! All five teachers in my department are the same so to facilitate just one subject’s worth of socially distanced pupils would take roughly 20 classrooms. Easy to see the problem when even in normal times there are no unused classrooms in the school!
Unfortunately, as with so many other sectors, underfunding in education has led to a point where a crisis hits us in the teeth and there really is no room for manoeuvre. In the nine years I have been teaching, my average class size has increased by 6 pupils!
With this in mind I will be happy to go back to normality whenever it is expected of me, it will be so great to be back in the classroom. However, I expect that on the same day I will be allowed to visit my mother inside her house and have a cup of tea and see her for the first time since infound out I was pregnant! I know which one sounds less risky to me.

LOL.

Schools have been fubared for years.

... And going back full steam ahead is not going to change that...

I’m waiting for hospitals to be fully operational so I can get some pretty important tests done. Childcare is really important, I get that. Education? We can get kids to repeat the year. Take reception kids at age 5/6. Win-win.

If you want all kids back in school then get campaigning for everyone to wear masks.

Also op a lot of the issue is the spread from hospital and care home. With 1 hospital with 5% asymptomatic and another with 40% infected.
I would be setting reading to do during the week and anything they can do independently and doing any teaching at the weekend.

Reception will have finished their curriculum anyway as have year 6. 1 will have done stuff ready for the PSC. So mainly reading which could be done in the evenings.
The work only really gets harder from year 4 upwards. If schools dont subscribe home membership for TT rockstars mathletics etc isnt expensive and some are free currently.
My 8yo has been looking at the bitesize ks3 stuff. (Weve done sound waves/photosynthesis/lungs etc)
Maybe kids not meeting expectations need to get a priority. But certainly secondary age need to be getting good provision as a lot will be beyond parents or they dont remember it.
I definitely think bubbles of 30 for primary age is too big. Eg dc has had 2 fevers this year out of 6m of school but say 1 per year per child. So 30 a year out of 39 school weeks let alone coughs. And covid...
I mean many kids get a cough with any colds. (CP/glandular fever/scarlet fever/d&v/hand foot and mouth/roseola/ etc all can have fevers. Plus uti or ear infections.
Then factor in even if you manage to get a covid test and a compliant child 30% false negatives!!

1/3rd of school staff shielding for some reason is not out of the ordinary from what I am hearing from DH (Head) and his colleagues. Large numbers of staff have, for one reason or another, declared they are 'shielding'. Some are pregnant. Some have been seriously ill recently (cancer, heart operations etc), some are ill now, some have underlying conditions such as Crohn's Disease, Asthma, Diabetes, some live with people who are very vulnerable.
I am sure most will be genuine but it seems odd that so many have declared conditions that have been no problem before in flu situations for example. One of DH's colleagues has himself, a Deputy Head, 4 Assistant Heads, a School Business Manager and a Head of Pastoral Care on his Leadership Team. All of the Assistant Heads, School Business Manager and Head of Pastoral have declared themselves shielding- 6 people who had never mentioned these underlying conditions before and will not return until at least September and possibly not then.
Another of his fellow Heads has a Deputy Head who shot off a week before lockdown because her partner is pregnant. She has said she will not be back until October- baby due this week. Will take 'paternity' leave in September. He doesn't want to challenge her because she is very awkward.

In flu situations? They’d have the flu jab free on the nhs!

[quote Starcup]@eeeyoresmiles

But where will it end? What will be different in September? Bearing in mind, they may never have a vaccine.....

So where does that leave us as a society? Schools not opening properly, the whole conceit of social distancing has to end at some point.

It baby be until there is a vaccine, because as stated, there may never be one...
so are we to live like this for a year? 2 years? Perhaps 3?

All this when the vast majority would shake it off within a week?

No it’s not IMO. It’s even better knowing that kids are pretty much risk free.

It’s not going away. It will be around for years to come no doubt.

So at what point do we say, we can’t ruin the lives of the majority?[/quote]
I think you are making a mistake to think that the virus spreading freely won't harm the lives of the majority. That's what it comes down to.

If this does spill into Christmas/Easter - I wonder whether they will get kids to repeat the year ...

I teach in a primary PRU. We were back in school today to receive training on 'supportive holding' which is a necessary aspect of our role. Our classes are already necessarily small, we don't have much outside space and what we do have is concrete, we have a single corridor that spans the school building and a one-way system isn't possible without leaving the school site, walking around the perimeter on the pavement and coming through the delivery gates. The classrooms have been stripped of all the soft, sensory materials, puppets, sand, cushions, tents etc. that our children access to support their regulation. We are a small school but have a higher adult:child ratio than mainstream schools. Of the 24 teachers and TAs, five are shielding.

Bubbles in schools like ours aren't really feasible. Most of our pupils depend upon school transport to get to us, adults across the school support wherever they are needed - including with supportive holding. The reality is that social distancing won't be achievable at 2m. Even 20cm will be a struggle a lot of the time. We're open for Y6 from Thursday and the headteacher has worked really hard to make the return feel positive and supported for the families.

We have one Y6 child expected this week.
That's it.

My colleagues and I will be in school anyway. Some travelling in on buses or trains that were standing room only today, others have put their own children in keyworker childcare so they can come and do all the online support, phonecalls etc from school because we've been told to be open. My DH teaches secondary and from 15th he'll be in full-time to teach Y10 and Y12. Because of the 25% limits announced by Boris, that means he'll be teaching the same content upto 8 times each week for those year groups whilst also providing online materials for the rest of the week and for other year groups.

Between us, we've got his 'bubble' that more closely resembles slime, or glitter, and mine that doesn't exist and won't be socially distanced. Our own children are staying at home so as to slightly limit the cross-contamination to two schools instead of four.