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?

@ProsperTheBear

You lack empathy. I think I understand where you are trying to come from regarding resilience, but it is not so black and white. This is a social experiment and never before have children been isolated from their peers/extended families for so long. None of us will know the effects of this for a while to come but your views are extremely short sighted. Children thrive when they have a loving, secure base at home AND friends, social interactions, and a life of their own. It is those children who will display greater resilience. It is NOT a few weeks as half terms and summer holidays have now all rolled into one long period for children. It’s really not rocket science, and your views come from a completely privileged stance.

Children do need lives other than their immediate families in order to thrive. Take traveller children for example, they don’t go to school, but they are still very much connected within their own communities. It’s a long time for young people to be isolated, and you really do lack empathy.

Personally I want to go back because this version of teaching is teaching with all the fun sucked out (i.e. the actual bit with kids). But (a) that should only be when it's safe for the community as well as staff and (b) the government will decide not us

Yep.

I've written a ton of long term curriculum plans with loads of exciting and inspiring ideas which I know won't be possible to do for a while under the SD guidance.

But experienced teachers are used to having to fall back on plan E,F and G and various u turns. Just have to get creative and adaptable for the foreseeable.

Which is what the rest of the world needs to do.

if that's what being home does to them, there should be serious concerns and actions.

The refusal to see the bigger picture is so boring. There are serious concerns about a large amount of extremely vulnerable children who are very much out of sight at the moment.

For the rest, just "being at home" isn't what we're dealing with here. I have an 8 year old who is bright, engaged at school and very sociable. Despite a supreme effort on the part of her teachers, who are doing a full programme of teaching, she is upset, unmotivated and every lesson is a diplomatic exercise in persuading her to sit down and do it. My heart says just to leave it but my responsibility as a parent is to battle on in the least upsetting way I can, otherwise she'll fall behind the rest of her year group who are doing a lot.

I'm extremely stressed on a daily basis about what this is doing to her. Peer influence is so important at this age and I can't replicate that at all. So just rethink the sweeping statements when you have little idea of anyone's lives outside your immediate household.

LockdownLou
it's not a lack of empathy, it's just observation. I don't know if you are extremely privileged or very naive!

So you have never moved your family and know no-one who has moved for work, and had children left on their own all summer because a) you were working b) they hadn't met anyone else yet. Good for you.

I bet you never gave a second of thought for the kids who have done just that.

What I can see is that the need to make a drama and cry about the lost childhood (as seen on another thread) is ridiculous, and would be funny if children were not caught in the middle of it.

Some people REALLY need to get a grip.

snowballer
I am not talking about my own household...

No one is saying there aren't those concerns, it's keeping teachers awake at night.

My heart says just to leave it

Yep, that's what I've done. I've broken it into small chunks, a mixture of daily maths on white rose as he'll do it, 3 other very short literacy tasks from work books I've linked to what staff have set and the rest is unschooling, letting him do the learning he's interested in.

LockdownLou

I think that this situation will have little effect on recruitment and retention.
Teachers are in this for the pupils and as long as we get the support from those within our own schools then we will be fine.

MN isn't a true representation of life, nor are the papers.

@ProsperTheBear

An observation that is just that. A personal opinion, one where you cannot see beyond the end of your own nose.

I’m not quite so sure what makes you an expert on other people’s lives? I don’t claim to know all the answers, nor all the hardship that some children will be facing. So therefore no, I am not the naive one. You are. You are projecting.

I have the emotional intelligence to know that yes, this is hard for some families, and no, they do not simply need to just get a grip as you so kindly put it.

I think the only way forward is to stop social distancing in schools between pupils. Not now but after summer.

Get them back full time in September when hopefully we will have reduced community spread right down and maybe the track and trace will be better.

Other countries like Switzerland have had children back full time since May 11th. Yes they had lower cases than us. We could hope that in 3 months we may be in this position though. We don’t know do we? The virus is down to less than 100 cases per day in London.

The easing of lockdown hasn’t caused an uptick in numbers or a second wave in other countries...

For what it’s worth I don’t blame the schools or the teachers but very much the government for a complete lack of leadership and direction on this.

I think the only way forward is to stop social distancing in schools between pupils. Not now but after summer

Agreed. They aren't going back til August here anyway. So I'd keep SDing til then, then go for it, with self-isolation as and when needed.

What happens to the teachers without the SD though? Are we just supposed to go nowhere near them, or each other because, that's not working. and definitely not teaching.

God this is so boring now.

Just admit that you are only interested in the childcare aspect. So many of the disadvantaged kids you are all hand wringing about will not be coming back to school. Most struggle to attend under normal circumstances.

This is what I mean about thinking outside the box. Those kids need targeted services. Not just shoving back in a classroom with peers who have actually been doing the home learning with support.

I know this has been asked multiple times but I've never seen an answer. So to all those saying that a, b and c suggestions won't work, what are your suggestions for how to move forward?

Are you honestly saying that schools should remain closed until we have a vaccine or fully effective treatment? And if not, what are you saying?

Piggywaspushed

Remember we have to have that "can do" attitude, no matter how badly it could affect the pupils, their families, our health and the health of our families.

I am hoping that in September that the threat that this has with have reduced significantly.

The schools aren't closed.

As I keep saying I am not a virologist. epidemiologist or a public health expert. Nor are you. I'll leave it up to them and just do as instructed. My ideas would be about as useful as Dominic Cummings'

Belle you're clearly selectively reading this thread. Multiple issues have been raised from children in danger, to children who aren't in danger but suffering from lack of social contact and peer influence, through to lack of ability to work, loss of jobs, further damage to the economy and full blown recession.

And school IS childcare. It's primary function is education but by the best virtue of it taking place during the working week, it also functions as childcare for the vast majority of working age parents. To deny that is utterly ridiculous

I am hoping that in September that the threat that this has with have reduced significantly.

And when it hasn't? Then what?

"And school IS childcare. It's primary function is education but by the best virtue"

That should have said "its primary function is education but by the very virtue"...

Schools aren't closed. Due to space restrictions, it'll have to be a creative approach to part time education.

Childcare for KW.

snowballer

And when it hasn't? Then what?

Then those that have the power and control over schools and education will have to sort something out.

Hopefully with discussions from scientists and the education unions and specialists.

The First will happen the second probably won't.

Vulnerable children are a different complex group; the majority should be in full time. Sen should be what best meets need.

I think we’ll look to other counties. We are in a fortunate position somewhat as they are ahead of us. Maybe quite far now! But by September if new cases are very low like in Switzerland then we see what they did.

The pupils aren’t socially distancing but I don’t know what the teachers are doing. Maybe they are still not marking work. Or not sitting close at desks to help. We need to learn from other counties and get some idea on how to move forward.

I don’t want to get in to another argument about studies but there have now been 47 studies to show children are less likely to pick up the virus and pass it on. All these studies were reviewed by a university in Sweden. We are getting more and more information about children and the virus every week. Even if you want to argue with these studies and say ‘we don’t know yet’ have we have seen loads and loads saying the opposite? We haven’t seen any studies saying the opposite have we?

@BelleSausage it’s not the childcare aspect.

You do know that children need more than just education to thrive? I’m talking about ALL children here. What about their social needs? If this carries on until November they have all been fairly isolated irrespective of education. No parks, no clubs, nothing. A LARGE part of their social needs are fulfilled at school. Do you think it’s fair to deny children a right to a social life of their own?

School is not just education, it simply isn’t. Keep telling yourselves that though.

Children need friends. It’s the 21st century, they make friends at school.....

They don’t need to be stuck to screens day in day out home learning. Tragic.

Is there a way of trying to get more vulnerable pupils in? At our school 36 pupils were identified as vulnerable, and 2 took up their offered school place.
None of the year 6, year 1 or reception pupils who were identified as vulnerable are choosing to go back with their year groups either.

I think the only way forward is to stop social distancing in schools between pupils. Not now but after summer.

Then we may as well stop SD everywhere. No more queues at supermarkets, etc.