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?

@Clemmieandareallybigbunfight

I will not send my child with sanitary products in a clear bag. WTF? So we will be back to periods restricting access to education...... They need to be able to have a nice anonymous pencil case in there.

Secondary Schools have been provided with significant quantities of period products as part of period poverty initiatives.

Going by the amount I had to find places to store in early Spring when there was the first termly delivery, they've probably got enough for about the next 3 years.

How would it harm the lives of the majority? Genuinely curious about this?

It kills a very small minority. It harms the life of that minority and those associated with them.

The majority are currently being harmed to protect this minority from harm. There’s no end in sight, so we face a choice between ruining the country to protect the minority from harm.

Who would like to be in government right now? Not me!

The argument that parents should just suck it up and take responsibility for their kids is a ridiculous statement. Of course they are taking responsibility for their kids, by trying to work or get back to work so that they can feed their children and put a roof over their heads. Most parents do work now but it's not about schools providing childcare at all. There is a reputation in this county for over zealous health and safety and this is now going to prevent us moving forward properly. Life is not without risk.

Be careful what you wish for

I don’t think anyone is wishing for teachers to be made redundant.

So how do the girls get hold of those sanitary products? Do they have to ask?

My daughter would be mortified.

I once had to collect her from school ‘sick’ only to find that she wasn’t ‘sick’ at all. She had flooded through her school uniform due to period arriving unexpectedly and being too embarrassed to ask for sanitary protection.

I dropped my 6 year old at school this morning (for her foreseeable 2 days a week) for the first time in 3 months. She has been beside herself with excitement for the past 10 days. I had to leave my 8 year old at home sobbing with her dad; she simply can’t understand why it’s not her going back. I don’t mind admitting that when I got back to the car I had a good cry at the whole situation.

Video ❤️

Drivingdownthe101 Further down the thread people were suggesting those teachers who are shielding and can't go back should be sacked!

I don’t think anyone is wishing for teachers to be made redundant

There is post after post across the threads on teachers and schools which suggest we should all be removed from our jobs if we won’t work. This has included removing vulnerable and shielding staff from their posts as they are clearly not up to the job. In addition, we have been told that due to the impending recession, there will be plenty of talented, capable people queuing up for teacher training so we all need to be careful.

Ah ok, I missed that.
I think losing teachers would be a disaster. But I can fully see our government saying ‘wow this online stuff works fine and it’s cheaper, let’s do that’.

@CountessFrog

So how do the girls get hold of those sanitary products? Do they have to ask?

My daughter would be mortified.

I once had to collect her from school ‘sick’ only to find that she wasn’t ‘sick’ at all. She had flooded through her school uniform due to period arriving unexpectedly and being too embarrassed to ask for sanitary protection.

They take them from the baskets we've put in the girls' toilets - admittedly, I did suggest it specifically to avoid making them come up and ask or take them from a place where I would see them doing it, but I can't be the only person in the only school that has thought of this.

We had a bit of silliness in the first week with a few being stuck to the wall, but after that, no problems.

The majority are currently being harmed to protect this minority from harm. There’s no end in sight, so we face a choice between ruining the country to protect the minority from harm

Couldn't agree more. And I know some will say that makes me a horrible person but I think the overall amount of harm is greater this way.

I know of two young people who have taken their own lives since lockdown, and one 90 year old with advanced dementia who has died of the virus.

@NikeDeLaSwoosh

Fair enough, I was more robust than I needed to be to make my point.

I'm just absolutely furious that teachers always seem be wanting more from the public purse, when so many other public sector workers are stoically going about their business, despite being actual risk other lives.

It's particularly galling when they try to dress it up as 'keeping DC safe' when the facts just don't support this.

Why do teachers think they are special cases?

Sad times at the moment. Teaching profession isn't coming out of this well and have let down a generation

@FulfilledRemit

The majority are currently being harmed to protect this minority from harm. There’s no end in sight, so we face a choice between ruining the country to protect the minority from harm

Couldn't agree more. And I know some will say that makes me a horrible person but I think the overall amount of harm is greater this way.

I know of two young people who have taken their own lives since lockdown, and one 90 year old with advanced dementia who has died of the virus.

Absolutely 100 per cent agree

The online stuff is a good stop gap. Let’s not forget that children the world over have been taught through remote means for years. However, if you want a world class system, you need contact with the children. I was explaining to one of my groups yesterday the frustrations we feel as teachers - I have no real sense of whether they are progressing collectively because I can’t see their faces. Faces tell me a lot. I am planning but don’t have much of a sense of how that is working out - any teacher will tell you they will plan an activity they expect to take 10 minutes and 40 minutes later the students are still at it. Similarly, you plan for 40 and it takes 10. In front of children you constantly adjust and adapt and adjust and adapt but online, I am just planning and hoping! The adjustment isn’t really there - I can only tell they don’t get it en masse when the work comes in and then I can make the adjustments. So progress is slower and students who just need you to stand behind them whilst they work through a couple of questions are not getting that support. We should not aspire to a reduction in teachers under any circumstances. Sadly, it seems many people think we have no clue what we’re doing and if that persists, well, you’ll get what you are wishing for. Untrained, unqualified teachers, straight out of school with no depth of knowledge. Experience will count for nothing.

I'm starting to see some of these posts as extremely offensive and some of the posters here as deliberately stirring and serving up false facts which are basically just opinions.

@CountessFrog I was responsible for first aid at a secondary school last year and had literally tons of periods products, I honestly couldn’t find the room for them all. I delivered assemblies to all the girls so that they would never feel embarrassed to come and collect pads or tampons, spare knickers etc! I had a great rapport with the girls and absolutely loads would come to me to get pads, it was never an issue.

Especially when I think about what I know has happened for some of my young people, family members who have committed suicide, and how the teaching staff have bent over backwards to be there and support that young person. Also volunteered themselves unpaid to help out looking after a child of a KW with Sen over half term.

I don’t think anyone is wishing for teachers to be made redundant

I don’t want anyone to be made redundant. But if you have unions egging teachers on to not do the job they’re paid for and teachers themselves telling parents they should be doing the job that teachers are qualified and trained for teachers can hardly be surprised when one possible outcome is a cull in their numbers.

This is turning into imaginary hyperbole.

You're a mug if you believe any of it.

NeurotrashWarrior

I have got to the stage where I am ASing posters to see if they have form for being goady or just generally being anti teacher, to see if they are worth replying to.

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.

Except we now know it won’t.

Half the people who have died have been in care homes. The vast majority of the rest have been over 75. Of course the deaths of those people are terrible and the care homes situ is tragic but in no way does it imply that the majority of people would be at risk of harm

When I think about the situations staff I know have been in supporting extremely scared and vulnerable children, the comments on this thread are beyond vile and disgusting.

SudokuBook

The unions are asking for the same protections for teachers that other workers have. Yet this makes teachers special.

As for a cull in teachers, this may happen but it will just make the situation worse for your children. As has been pointed out many times there is a recruitment and retention crisis in teaching, firing your staff because they want everyone to be safe would be shooting yourself in the foot.

Which part of "Teachers don't get to decide when and how schools go back" don't people understand?

Plenty of other people will lose their jobs as a result of this pandemic, if teachers think they will be immune I suspect they might get a shock.

I very much doubt it - there already aren't enough teachers. Of course if lockdown has made people think that being a teacher is a cushy number, maybe there will be a surge of people wanting to change career and go into teaching... Pretty unlikely though, given how hard most parents seem to be finding supervising their own couple of children's learning.

Also, if there's one thing we've realised from this situation, it's that school apparently is childcare. So suggestions that teachers will be phased out in favour of blended learning are very unrealistic indeed.