My situation is now this: I run my own business with husband, have kids who are studying for GCSEs, one is under learning support at school. Since lockdown, we have been trying to work and teach our kids. Husband teaches from 10 to 4 each day, then works into the night to try to keep our work going. I am working long hours too to try to keep things going. Our business has been hugely hit by Covid crisis, so we are trying to adapt and find new avenues to try to lift us out of this. This would be a horror for any business owner to solve, let alone given the task of suddenly having to teach your children at home on top. We have repeatedly appealed to our school for more support and help - begged pretty much for a teacher to be at the end of a phone to help when we are overwhelmed with subjects we just do not know (chemistry - don't get me started), but no reply to emails. The only person who is interested is LS head, who is lovely, but she can't make other teachers respond. Today we hit an all-time low, realisation point that we can't continue like this. Conclusion to our situation is clear - either educate our kids and let our business fail, or let our kids fail and keep our business. I've given up now on kids going back to school - I can't see how it will happen properly in the near future and I am so disgusted like others that our government has not even addressed the elephant in the room at all the endless daily updates we get/press briefings - how do they expect parents to earn and work when have to teach our kids because no one else is? It's not good enough to say 'schools are open still', they are not. Our children are being expected to educate themselves like an adult studying for a remote degree - that's fine if you are over 21 and have signed up for it, but how can you expect a 13 year old to do it? It is utterly ridiculous. I think the most responsible thing the government could do right now is admit the whole home schooling thing has been an abject failure for most kids - only the high flyers who are able to teach themselves remotely are probably coping well in this situation, and they are possibly just a small percentage of the population? It's time for government to look this thing in the face and be honest - admit people cannot work and home teach. If schools are not going to open up, offer parents a lifeline - if we can't work, we can't earn. Parents need to be paid to stay at home and teach now. The time has gone for this fantasy of people being able to carry on working while their kids toddle along in the background happily learning - the kind of thing I see portrayed on morning breakfast TV that leaves me with my jaw dropped as it is such a world away from where I am. Am I living in a parallel universe? The reality is it is sheer bloody hell and it is killing my family, so what is it doing to others? I have seen posts on here pointing out that nightingale hospitals were built in weeks, retired staff re-recruited to work in NHS and other measures put in place to try to deal with this crisis. Yet the whole system of education has just been ignored and we are all having to go along with this pretence that it is all just fine and 'schools are still open' and isn't everyone doing jolly well? It is absolute bollocks. I am so pissed off I don't know where to even start - I have talked to friends in similar situations who have resorted to doing the kids work for them to get it done so they can get back to trying to do some work. This is all madness. Why can't we get our act together, work with planners to set up schooling in safe situations, urgently recruit more teachers and bloody well start teaching our children again? Or, if government are not prepared to throw some money and resources at it, how about they start throwing some money our way so we can do the job for them? Or at least just write off this whole school year and let everyone off the hook - give everyone a level playing field. If we are struggling and we are trying to teach our kids/have home computers, what the hell is happening to kids who do not have this support? It is just so unfair on everyone. Government have to admit they can't have it all ways - parents working and contributing to the economy or home schooling. It's one or the other. In the end, at this rate, the biggest cause of economic fail in this country will be because schools shut, working parents had to stay at home and teach, and a properly functioning educational alternative was not put in place in time. If we are one small business going through this, how many others must be in the same boat? And how many employers must be struggling because working parents can't go back to work? Our kids are being failed and our families and businesses are being failed. I think Women's Hour had it right too when I listened in the other day, maybe if more women were on the panels making decisions at the moment someone might have mentioned the obvious - if schools don't open, women (usually) have to stay at home, that means they can't work, that means half the working population are not at work, that means mass redundancies when these people will inevitably lose their jobs, that means huge loss of tax revenues, that means no money for NHS or schools, that means we are all going to go back decades in time in terms of education and social/health care. Surely the money should be going into education NOW to make sure this does not happen?