How/when did the tide turn on schools?

[LaceCurtains]

In the beginning the mood here was almost desperate calling for schools to be closed.

In the last week or so there's been a marked shift to getting them open (from peope here).

Is it the same people who wanted the closed, now calling for them to get back to normal or have the original campaigners gone quiet/new people got louder?

FWIW I always thought schools closed as early as they did because of public pressure and it seems to me that "other" things are getting back to normal more quickly than originally planned/expected (because of DC and the need to distract?) but schools don't seem to be included in that.

I'm at a loss as to why schools are being treated so differently. I'm SLT in school, if that makes a difference and the government guidance is a shambles. Changes daily but doesn't seem to have any clear aim.

I never supported them being closed for such a long time. Until May half term, yes.

Not only is the advice a shambles, I think we can increasingly see that the situation is a disgrace.

It’s a scandal what is being done to children. A few weeks while we flattened the curve, my arse. And yet they want to open retail, which is staffed by women. Who will lost their jobs as they will have no school provision. But hey, more jobs for the menz

I never supported them closing either. Yes, maybe for a couple of weeks whilst we checked the NHS could cope, but this is totally disproportionate.

The main reason for school closures has been blown apart now - saying asymptomatic individuals do not even spread covid.

I am so angry about the way our children have been treated. I don't think I've ever felt so politically angry about anything.

I am a mother and a teacher BTW

Some may have wanted them open as it enables parents to work.
Some may have wanted them open as it gives children education.
Now some are finding children are learning more from online school and do so in less hours. Now some are finding online school unsuccessful.
Every child is unique and what works for one does not work for another but I think an outcome of all this will be that online schooling can be great for some children and they won't want to return to being in a physical classroom.

I am so angry about the way our children have been treated. I don't think I've ever felt so politically angry about anything.

Me too and me neither.

I don’t think people quite envisaged how and the extent to which school closures would negatively impact the mental health of their children tbh.

Pressure is on many people to go back to work. People are getting lock-down weary.

DCs have had the equivalent of the summer holidays off. Parents have managed a term of home schooling and are tired. If schools don’t open now there will be no school until September which means 5 months of the children being at home.
That will set many kids back a year or more.

There is too much uncertainty.

I never wanted them to close in the first place. And now it's going to be part time and socially distanced in August, after 5 months off, when already (2 months before August) new cases have been under 25 a day for several days for the whole country (Scotland). Is this it forever now, as there might well never be a cure/vaccine?

Because there is now more information on the virus, in March it was largely unknown. Now we know that a whole generation of children are being shafted to mainly protect those over 60. Those over 60 are still going to NT places, garden centre's and now non essential shops etc but our children aren't even allowed to the playground or zoo. It is disproportionate to the risk it presents to the children.

I supported them closing INITIALLY - in the very early stages, for what I naively assumed would be a much shorter time. This was because at that stage there was a LOT we did not know about the virus, and I understood the ratinale of slowing the spread to ensure capacity within the NHS. I imagined this phase to last maybe 4 weeks or so. As time has gone on and we have learened more about the virus and it's spread I have become increasingly dumbfounded by what has happened to the country and the lack of schools reopening .
I am actually so, so angry at the situaiton now and how the government seem to be totally ignoring the needs of the nations children and young people.

@Speeding201700

saying asymptomatic individuals do not even spread covid

Do you have a link for that please.

I was never calling for them to be closed.

I did understand that they maybe had to because of what was unfolding.

But I definitely don't support their prolonged closure.

I've got a 12 year old here who is feeling suicidal. He's completely isolated. He started secondary school last year and hasn't made many friends.

I don't understand why we can build new hospitals in a couple of weeks but we can't throw money into getting the kids back to school, even if only on a part time basis.

People were, rightly, very worried about the growing first peak

And more than ready, in the whole, to cooperate with stringent public health measures.

That this takes weeks/months (especially if the study which says the level of those in the population with antibodies is only17% in London, lower elsewhere - so low that second peak is possible) was perhaps not fully realised at the outset.

SAGE and the Givernment wouid have known that, and known that public compliance with the regulations wouid wear off, so had to impose at the time they thought it would make most difference.

Now we couid be Sweden, and go for an uncontrolled approach, but that was panned. Or NZ and cut ourself off completely, but that was deemed unrealistic.

So trying to keep,support for enough restriction to avoid peaking was the only possible middle ground.

Closing schools when it was only a couple of weeks to the Easter hood seemed a very different prospective etc toma full term closed. Schools would be closed over the summer anyhow, so focus is on the autumn. And we don't know what the world will look like by then.

What we learn in the the coming weeks, both about school management during infectious outbreak and in how the disease and transmission are affected by ease relaxation in restrictions, is going to make a considerable difference.

I always felt we closed too early, for those exact reasons Weeping. I think schools could have stayed open until at least Easter and we'd be in no different position.

Now I think government just need to "declare" schools back to normal from x date. It might even be better to go back to keyworkers/vulnerable only for a while to make that happen. This strange half hearted effort at getting more children into school isn't helping anyone.

It certainly feels political. The unions would always have disagreed with anything a conservative government asked them to do.

The inequality between provision bothers me even more. The government has allowed a situation where some children are being educated and others not, even within state schools, and when private pupils are receiving teaching towards gcse and state are not.

@IncrediblySadToo

www.cnbc.com/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-patients-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html

It's also in the dailymail but I refuse to link that hahaha.

[quote IncrediblySadToo]@Speeding201700

saying asymptomatic individuals do not even spread covid

Do you have a link for that please.[/quote]
www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/06/08/asymptomatic-coronavirus-patients-arent-spreading-new-infections-who-says.html

Here's one of the many that pops up with a Google search

The WHO announced this yesterday. It was pretty big news.

I was particularly in favour of them shutting but I think the big difference is the tide was going to turn as other things opened when the whole country was shut it didn’t feel so bad that schools were too, once garden centres and IKEA etc are open it feels worse that we are effectively still locking up our children while granting mire freedom to adults. I think you will see the tide turn even more come September as once hospitality and leisure open up it will start to look more and more like a nations children have been left behind (I also anticipate that as none parents start to see large numbers of teenagers hanging out in parks etc once their parents return to work the justification for shutting schools or part time school will be less sellable to the general public.

FWIW I always thought schools closed as early as they did because of public pressure

It was more because teachers were going off ill and many schools had closed or reduced year groups in the week prior to official closure due to suspected cases among pupils & staff.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52969679

I am so horrified and disgusted I almost don't know where to start

I’ve been shocked at how poorly my local school has adapted to online teaching. My kids are done with their daily assignments inside of an hour. There’s zero real-time teacher interaction, and they’ve abandoned new content teaching.

My support for schools being closed was contingent on genuine efforts being made to recreate a decent educational experience virtually.

The plans for school resumption in my part of the world basically amount to a 2 day week with this substandard online component filling the rest.

So, no, now I support going back to normal ASAP.

Now I think government just need to "declare" schools back to normal from x date

Good luck getting the unions and teachers to agree to that!

[quote IncrediblySadToo]@Speeding201700

saying asymptomatic individuals do not even spread covid

Do you have a link for that please.[/quote]
The WHO has just said this.
www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/health/coronavirus-asymptomatic-spread-who-bn/index.html

However there seems to be a lot of evidence saying the opposite and even more worringly that asymptomatic people are having lung damage without realising it.
time.com/5848949/covid-19-asymptomatic-spread/

It's been 11 weeks, it's almost school holidays.

They said before they closed them that closing schools was a major decision & they were holding off for as long as possible, because /when if they did, it wouldn't just be a few weeks it would need to be for 13-16 weeks.

They should have put a stop to the uncertainty weeks ago and said 'key workers children & vulnerable kids only until Sept' and allowed schools to focus on home learning resources.

Our children have been thrown under a massive bus and it makes me angrier every day. All this money thrown at the furlough scheme yet not a penny on getting our children back into education. It is a disgrace.