We need to rise up about the lack of education for our children

[Speeding201700]

Please do this. Please join the Twitter movement #usforthem
Please write to your MPs
Please talk about this.

Our children are missing out on their fundamental human right of an education.

The children of regular families are suffering (all 5 of mine are suffering desperately), but those in vulnerable families are suffering even further. The gap between these children will be HUGE

I am a teacher and a mother. I am ready to go back to work full time and with the 'old normal'. I am also type 1 diabetic.

Please help us rise up to get our children educated. Our children have been totally forgotten about. Throughout my career I've had it rammed down my throat about how school is a safe place for so many children. They don't care about these children now.

I am amazed so many people have just accepted this. It has gone on for too long now.

So we can go and sit outside at a pub or restaurant. It looks like air travel will be back up and running for holidays in mid-July (whether you’d go or not is another matter)

But the government still have no plans for education of our children. And now reports are coming out about more sodding blended learning and school not normal until Jan.

They need to prioritise a plan of action for this now and stop focusing on bloody horse racing and football.

Absolutely shocking.

Why are we not at least reducing the 2m rule to 1m??

Whilst I am an outspoken advocate for a very measured release of lockdown, those saying that it is absolutely disgraceful that we waste what wiggle room we have on things like beer gardens and restaurants are totally right. Schools should be very close to the top of priorities (behind urgent but non-emergency health care).

Not to worry..the kids will be able to spend their time shopping in primark. After a drive through burger. Those are the things that they will be able to do soon...in lieu of getting an education!!!!!

I'm getting more and more horrified by the extent to which we are sacrificing our children for a virus that overwhelmingly affects the elderly. I don't care anymore that people will be personally offended by that. It's absolute, total madness.
Completely agree.
And this 'safe' mentality which is corrosive.
Some people will get ill. A few may die earlier than they would have done but however 'safe' you strive to be you will die eventually.

Why are we not at least reducing the 2m rule to 1m??

Because 2m is safer than 1m.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/01/risk-of-infection-could-double-if-2-metre-rule-reduced-study-finds

Look out for an email from Department of Education. I've just received one to participate in 'urgent research' to help assist Government with future planning for schools. I've received it in regards to my early years child (4). I feel like he is getting a good education so will be saying so. But it's a chance to get your views no matter what they are fed back to Government if you are asked to participate. At least they seem to want to know of any issues. Whether they act on them though I'm not so sure.

The WHO recommends 1 and many other countries are between 1 and 1.5m

Apologies if this has been covered already, but for those wanting schools opened fully ASAP, what would happen to the children that can't attend - those shielding or highly vulnerable themselves, or with siblings/parents/household members shielding or highly vulnerable? If schools are back to 'normal', there is likely to be little or no capacity to provide quality home learning for those left at home. Already my year 6 dd has experienced a drop off of her home learning (far less interaction with her teacher, work no longer being set each day) and therefore is feeling increasingly isolated. I am expecting the same to happen (more worryingly) for my year 10 ds once his year group return to face to face teaching from next week. I completely understand why - with their teachers in school all week, they simply don't have the capacity to carry on as they were before the wider school openings.
But where does that leave the education for dcs who can't return to school yet?

Sorry we can’t sacrifice the majority of the kids so the minority aren’t upset !

Why can’t can’t even gov set up a nationwide online school for those who can’t attend their local school due Covid concerns ?

I agree schools do need to back too many children are missing education for various reasons. There have already been reports and studies done stating that only a 1/3 of all children are doing some school work.

We can not afford to throw so many children under the bus when it comes to education.

I certainty don't blame schools for not being ready to teach on line because lets face they had 3 weeks of yes the schools were closing, no we are not closing schools and then to be given 2 day notice school being shut. They didn't have time to prepare properly no one did.

Going forward we do need to have proper plans for doing school on line, with proper resources. And either prerecorded lessons or even live lesson given over Google classroom. We also need to ensure that all children have the necessary IT Equipment needed to be able to do the set work.

We have to live along side this virus, but we can't keep hiding away from the 'risk'.

A great many of those wanted kids back are also teachers themselves.
Those if anyone can see the long term damage this will cause if it continues much longer. And yes agree with poster that says priority for shops and pubs should come after education!

@Sunnydays123456
I wasn't suggesting that anyone is 'sacrificed' - and it's not about the minority being 'upset' - it's about them having an equal right as everyone else to a decent education. They equally should not be 'sacrificed' for the good of the majority. I was just wondering what a workable solution might be.

Sorry we can’t sacrifice the majority of the kids so the minority aren’t upset !

Why can’t can’t even gov set up a nationwide online school for those who can’t attend their local school due Covid concerns ?

THIS

@nellodee

Whilst I am an outspoken advocate for a very measured release of lockdown, those saying that it is absolutely disgraceful that we waste what wiggle room we have on things like beer gardens and restaurants are totally right. Schools should be very close to the top of priorities (behind urgent but non-emergency health care).

I agree with this.

This debate is getting unnecessarily polarised. We don’t have to choose a side between ‘caring about education’ and ‘caring about fighting the virus’. We don’t really have a choice but to do both.

Everyone wants children to get an education and social contact with their peers. Everyone wants vulnerable children to be protected. Preventing the virus spreading in an uncontrolled way is necessary for that education and child protection to happen. It’s necessary for hospitals to be able to do non-covid care. It’s necessary for business and the economy to function.

It’s just a question how we do it. The government should have solving the problem of “how to run education in a world of infection control” as one of their absolute highest priorities, for both planning and funding. It’s not a problem that’s going to go away even after this pandemic because there will be another one sooner or later.

We would be stronger as parents pushing for the government to do more if we weren’t divided by the idea that we have to be either on the side of ‘education’ OR ‘infection control’.

We need to stop thinking that people who are calling for schools to open are all saying the virus doesn’t matter, just let it spread. We also need to stop thinking that people who are calling for a slow careful end to lockdown are all saying education not happening yet doesn’t matter, just let them wait. There might be a small minority of people at the extremes but most of us are in the middle and worried about both.

There has to be a way of managing education without letting the virus get out of control. It requires creative thinking, planning, money and technical development from the government. At the same time, what we can do for ourselves right now is work collectively on keeping virus transmission in the community as low as possible to give schools the best chance possible of staying open and functioning as more than just babysitting.

Sorry we can’t sacrifice the majority of the kids so the minority aren’t upset !

Actually, on here everyone is suggesting that the current lack of quality education for the majority is simply devastating. Why then is it framed as though the 'minority' of shielding/vulnerable children (or those with family members in these categories) would just be 'upset' if they experienced a lack of provision? Surely it would be more than just 'upsetting' for them?

Agreed eeeyore

If majority are in school and the teacher is teaching the class, can they not set up a link for those at home? They can watch and participate that way, doesn’t help with the sport/social interaction side but all children can’t be kept home because some are shielding.

And I totally agree with @eeeyoresmiles post. This has become so polarised that it is hard to think clearly. I am often left feeling that because I care about what happens to my children too, I am throwing all other children under the bus. This situation is not the fault of teachers, unions, school leaders etc, nor is it the fault of the vulnerable or shielded and their family members who want to protect them. It is squarely on the shoulders of the government, who have not only made huge mistakes in the handling of this crisis, but have ultimately failed to prioritise children and their education in any shape or form. The answer isn't to demand that all schools take all children back tomorrow. It is to demand that the government take responsibility for creating a workable strategy that supports all children to get the high quality education they have a right to, in whatever form that might have to be. This will take money - schools desperately needed investment before this all happened, even more so. And joint working with the very teachers, unions and school leaders that are often demonised on these threads, as well as other experts in infection control, epidemiology, etc, and those that understand the risks to the vulnerable.

*even more so now.

Not read the thread but I completely agree. The mental health or our children is being utterly ignored whilst the govt panders to those shrieking that we'll die if we open the schools. So many tragic deaths every year including kids being knocked down by cara yet we don't close roads. 55,000 flu deaths in 2018. Flu has a r rate of 7 yet no closures. It is utterly ridiculous. Get them all back in to school with no sd.

What about the fundamental human right of a teacher to be safe?

@LadyPenelope68

What about the fundamental human right of a teacher to be safe?

Define safe.

Save standing beside my 8 year old and screaming at him to do his school work (which obvs I'm not going to 😱) I simply cannot force him to do his work. He hates remote learning. Even the odd zoom call with a private tutor is difficult. At school he was happy and worked hard. At home, life has totally disintegrated as I am working ft at home and DH is trying to hang onto his self employment business. My kids (DD is 11) are left to their tech for much of the day 😢😢

@MrsArchchancellorRidcully

My dd is 9 and like your ds was happy at school and worked hard. Last week she point blank refused to do any work. The novelty of home schooling has worn very thin. Like you say, you can't force them. I'm not prepared to scream and shout and create a hideous home environment where we're all unhappy. Luckily she's agreed to do some work today but this is unbelievably hard for parents and I'm a sahm so consider myself pretty lucky that I can give them my time. I can't imagine how much harder it would be if I was working.

Yep I have children who work hard at school and achieve well. But they just don’t thrive in a home school environment. How do you force children to get the work done? You can’t. You can bribe or threaten no screen time but it is all so exhausting and they achieve so little.