1600 paediatricians have written to the prime minister

[havefunpeleton]

Demanding schools reopen or risk scarring a generation. Reported in Times today.

I am hoping this will be the push needed to ensure this madness ends and all our children can go back to school full time in September.

Question- if schools reopen, how are kids going to get there? The buses in my town are carnage between 8-8.30 and 3.30-4. Literally packed with school kids trying to get to school on time.
Since buses where I am are limiting the amount of passengers allowed on, how are they going to even get to school if that continues? Some live too far to walk.
I absolutely agree schools need to reopen ASAP, BTW. But the practicalities are so many before you even get to social distancing and smaller class sizes etc.

Did you not read the letter from the paediatricians?
school is vital from a safeguarding point of view, from an early years point of view etc.,
what is happening to children at home?
they dont all have access to internet, to home learning,
all very well saying the schools are open to them, but do they actually go?

Over the past week in my area there have been two incidents in parks when the kids would normally be in school. One was a flasher and the other was a group of older teens throwing rocks at a group of smaller ones which resulted in one of the younger ones being quite badly hurt.

Yet they say schools aren't safe for the kids to be at.

Also, asides from their education:
Schools not picking up the signs of abused children, children stuck in abusive homes with parents who are not working, so stress running higher than usual with no escape at school from whats going on at home.
It breaks my heart to think of it.

where i live the buses have changed their time table and currently have two running in tandem, but less frequently

Time for the return of the school bus. (I mean private services with booked places). They have them in rural areas. My DC used them to get to Primary school for 2 years (the youngest from her second day of reception).

As much as you would like to blame the government for this situation being 'mishandled', we know the truth. There is only one source of income for the unions, and it is from teachers like you.

I don't know any school where unions have prevented opening further.

The DfE guidance came out without input from unions or teachers. This is part of the problem.

Lots of schools ignored the guidance, those are the schools who are probably more likely to open further.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53080736

Over the past week in my area there have been two incidents in parks when the kids would normally be in school. One was a flasher and the other was a group of older teens throwing rocks at a group of smaller ones which resulted in one of the younger ones being quite badly hurt.

This is bullshit whataboutery. Those incidents are the fault of the flasher and the older teens.

Why do some schools provide the bare minimum? Who pushes for that in or out of the school?

Is it shortage of staff, now with key workers or other, the HT, other

It doesn’t help the media scared the shit out of the parents. There was many threads on here, how dare you even talk about schools opening and putting our children’s lives at risk The penny is now dropping, there is a minuscule risk to children.

I think they should start looking at it regionally.
In our area there's been fewer than 10 new cases in the last week. In a population of 250,000.
The teenagers hang about in groups, sitting on benches. No social distancing.
The risk is incredibly low from CV.
They should be at school.

@okiedokieme

The problem is that the teachers unions and large academy chains seem to have undue influence. My local private school has R-6 back full time plus years 10&12 7-9 back on Monday. They have marquees on the field!

If you think the difference between state and private schools is down to the unions, you're deluded. Many town and city centre schools don't even have a field, FFS. And no state school has the cash to spend on marquees and the massively extra amount of equipment and staffing to go with them.

Both dcs schools have ample outside space they could have utilised for teaching over the summer. They could have hired gazebos. They could have just marked out squares on the grass and taught the little ones outside in bubbles.

We've got high ceilings in my school. We could have one bubble being taught on the floor of the classroom, then teach the other one higher up when we all levitate. Let's just suspend gravity so we can get the kids back.

They have marquees on the field!

They have a field. We have no green space at all. If we put anything on the playground, we'd have nowhere to go if there was a fire.

I'm a primary school governor and I would not describe our school as unionised in the slightest. We have opened to a significant number of key workers'/vulnerable children throughout the "closure" and are now offering a rota system to any Year R/1/6 children whose parents want it.

Under current government guidelines (which, incidentally, have changed again and again, necessitating the rewriting of plans), we do have neither the space nor the staff to offer any more than that.

Having surveyed our staff, we know that they would be delighted to open to all children (with some sort of distancing for staff only). But are we going to do that under the current guidelines? No, because the liability for the school, should something go wrong, would be too much.

So, no union obstruction here. However, it's fair to say that we governors feel that the government has made an absolute pig's ear of this.

Local school bubble burst on the second day of opening as a child tested positive. Now a teacher also positive. Other children being tested.

@DomDoesWotHeWants , do you know where this is? I'm wondering if it's a school I know, I've been waiting to see if there had been other cases

There are 4 weeks of term left.
Nothing will change in those 4 weeks.
Y10 back - 2 hours of Maths before end of term
Y12 back - 4 hours of Maths before end of term
The cynic in me says is it worth it? but I know there is a whole wider picture than Maths.
I want to know what will happen in September - with 4 weeks of term left and all gone quiet I despair at how schools are expected to 'react'.
Maybe its a good sign and it will be all back to normal? If not and we are part time for other years too then schools really need to know now to be able to plan.
Union has had no impact on how my secondary school has acted. Yes, discussions with Unions in school but only to ensure safety of members. Lack of government directive is what is holding school back.

RickOShay

Do you know anybody who has had the virus? No I don't, but then neither has the majority of the people living in this country. But I do know 3 people who have died because they couldn't get the medical help they needed because they DIDN'T have Covid 19.

No one is saying that this virus has been a disaster, but equally keeping everyone under such strict restriction, little or no schooling for millions of children. People are going to start losing their jobs, the economy going to hell in hand basket. We need to get back to as close as normal as possible, and make sure we as a country as a whole can get back to work and school so we can get through if there is a second wave. We can't keep borrowing money as a country to help companies and individuals keep going.

Anyway. Most people don't want to listen to the actual experts in this.

Teachers are all desperate to get back to school. I'm desperate to get back to school, I HATE what I'm having to do now. It's utterly shit. It's nigh on impossible. I'm working stupid hours to provide video lessons that barely half of my class even look at, I have no mechanism to mark work other than email - when a child finally emails me some work, I feel bad for actually giving them honest feedback and instead just basically say 'thanks for doing some actual work'.

The DfE is dreadful and chaotic. Now you're all engaged with the school system, perhaps you'd like to continue this engagement in future by lobbying the government to fund us properly. We're operating in the situation of chaotic management with inadequate money. Yet apparently it's all our fault.

@Alex50

totally agree - you only have to look at the threads on here just a couple of weeks ago on here where nobody wanted the schools open because of the risk to children - now all of a sudden its the opposite .

I think its the public and the media who are the flaky ones .

For those going on about unions and teachers being obstructive.

No where is the letter does it say this.

The letter praises teachers etc.

It lays the blame firmly at the door of the government for not leading correctly.

And all the threads where PP were complaining about how awful the schools looked like and why couldn’t we be more like Denmark where everyone looked happy in school. Then we get threads on how children have loved being back in school (and actually the set up wasn’t that much different to Denmark)

So not attempt to claim this is “teacher bashing”. We don’t hate teachers, stop being paranoid - unless it’s a niggling feeling you personally are not delivering

Yes I call trotting out propaganda and blaming unions for a complete failure of government "teacher bashing ". Just as I would if people were blaming nurses and doctors for the cost cutting by this government which resulted in getting rid of pandemic stocks as a waste of money.

Lets be clear here. Teachers have been working throughout, some in schools some remotely. They have had to juggle with childcare just like everyone else. If you have an issue with the learning schemes in a particular school take it up with the head. No joy? Take it up with the governers.

Katherine Burbalsingh, darling of the Conservative Party conference and about as authoritarian a head as anyone could hope for has repeatedly said that she could not open the school fully because she has the same problems every other state school has - old buildings, narrow corridors, small cramped classrooms and large pupil/teacher ratio. Plus no extra budgets for extra cleaning, sick cover for isolators, providing a safe workplace for admin, cleaners etc. Many of the countries with more children in school have smaller classes, more space and lower infection rates.

Those problems need money and planning to resolve them. Presumably everyone signing petitions will also be lobbying their MP for money for additional staff, tutoring for shielding pupils, temporary classrooms and extra cleaning capabilities?

There was no money problem to create the Nightingales (which were then so heavily restricted they took very few actual patients).

So where is that investment to get schools open?

Incidentally, teachers didn't create the rules for opening up, the government did.

All through this the journos, esp on that daily briefing, have been absolutely hopeless

I imagine the questions are handpicked by Johnson et al's press office so as to follow whatever agenda they are trying to push that week. The questions wont just be sprung on them.