School compulsory after Summer

[Orangeblossom78]

Boris Johnson has said it will be compulsory for all children in England to go to school when they reopen after the summer holidays.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-heads-caution-against-fines-for-parents-who-keep-children-at-home-pszxwx2mx

May be a 'period of grace' before fines though.

There's going to have to be some flexibility around, for eg children relying on public transport, especially in families where people are vulnerable or shielding.

Bojo has done nothing but damage with his sweeping pronouncements based on what Tory voters want to hear

@Ihatemyseleffordoingthis

There's going to have to be some flexibility around, for eg children relying on public transport, especially in families where people are vulnerable or shielding.

Bojo has done nothing but damage with his sweeping pronouncements based on what Tory voters want to hear

But "vulnerable" and "shielding" are not the same thing and, not wanting to be rude, it does seen a bit like some people are convinced that they are vulnerable when that isn't actually the case.

The restrictions for even those shielding are, rightly or wrongly, supposed to be lifted before schools are back in any case. Obviously if a child was extremely medically vulnerable, immune system compromised or something, it might be unwise for them to be going in. But that would probably be the case even without Covid, since schools are hardly germ-free environments.

I'm personally of the opinion that people need to think quite hard about whether the level of risk is worth sacrificing a face-to-face education and social life for. I'm not saying it isn't, in all cases, but life does inevitably come with some element of risk.

A few weeks ago I envisaged that children who were in the shielded and vulnerable categories would be taught at home online with shielded and vulnerable teachers doing the teaching, - I thought this was part of the reason the Oak Academy was created. But since the announcement of shielding to be paused I can't make head nor tail of what's going to happen. I wish when the gov make an announcement they would give all the details (if the details haven't been fully worked out then say so).

I know Gavin Williamson is supposed to make a statement will that be through a press briefing? If yes I hope journalists ask the questions that we've been asking on here for weeks.

Suppose in an area cases suddenly start going up - in that situation do you really want all kids at school until you're sure it's bad enough to warrant them closing completely? Wouldn't all the local secondary kids who can wfh for a week or two doing so actually help to damp down a local outbreak at that point? Without fines, that would be a natural part of how a community might scale back their interactions temporarily (in the same way that they might scale back meeting other households for a short while). Making that harder - having a binary system where either everyone's in or everyone's out - seems counterproductive if we want to maximise education but avoid spikes in disease. To do that, we need at least some flexibility in the system. We need that to deal with temporary quarantines, too.

We might be in lockdown again by September.

@Jourdain11 what I mean is for example, avoiding peak times on public transport - timings etc.

Flexibility is going to be key

Are people actually saying they’d take the govmt to court if their child caught Covid at school? Seriously? You need to get a grip & some perspective on your health anxiety. And stop letting it impact your child’s education. Children rarely get very ill from Covid for a start. For most it’s a minor cold If any symptoms at all. I assume you’ve happily sent your child to school for years despite there always being a risk of catching illness. No illness is without risk. Kids get sepsis from colds & chest infections. A child locally lost both legs from sepsis that started as an unspecified virus that made him a bit ill initially. My friend nearly lost a child to chicken pox. Risk is all around us. And it’s factually & statistically proven that children are barely affected by Covid. A few are unlucky. Much like the poor lad who lost his limbs in my village ..

This may be a shock to you but home Ed kids go out to see their friends and play sports too.
Home Ed doesn’t mean locking your child in the house til they turn 18

This may be a shock to you but people who normally worked from home before the virus went out to see their friends, shopped and played sports too.

These are not normal times, and despite some people's desperate need to pretend the virus has gone away, it hasn't yet. Yes, other countries are opening things up now, but that's because they got on top of this quicker, or because they had it earlier than we did.

I'm feeling stressed about this, but I'm not going to send my children back until it is definitely safe to do so for our wider family, the teachers and the community. I really don't want to have to lose school places though, and it is an impossible position to put parents and teachers in.

@Bollockingfuck we are in the same situation as you and everything you just typed is spot on. What are we supposed to do. DC needs to be assessed by ep for EHCP. DC needs to be with peers and needs school support. I am vulnerable as is DC and older DC but no, fuck us. We can give up DC's place and home school. What a load of spiteful shit.

What should happen is.

Those vulnerable or in contact with vulnerable should have choice until this is over. It's a win win. Less pupils in school means better distancing.

But no. They want year group bubbles of 240. Utter madness.

They claim they want to support disadvantaged kids. Utter shite. This just penalises them.

Will some headteachers authorise the absences? Maybe.

I'm so annoyed.

And before any smart arse pipes up. No, my DC have not been out with friends or doing any other ridiculous risk taking.

Children are to be deshielded, and can return to school, but they are meant to maintain a correct social distance.

We could do with a bit of clarity on how that's meant to work when they appear to be setting up the return without any classroom distancing at all.

And this needs pretty urgent attention for secondary pupils in maybe year 9, and definitely year 10 and upwards; and across all subject options

They will probably amend the guidelines again so from 1st September children deshielded won't have to worry about social distancing, only so that fits in with what is happening with schools, not actually thinking about the safety of the child.

What about severe special needs children who often have underlying health conditions who attend special needs schools? Although they are often in small classes they will be unable to socially distance, what about all the over 50’s TA’s who have to give personal care to these children? These children and their parents have been forgotten, many people have been under the illusion that any child with an echp has been going to school, they haven’t, our special needs school closed the week before lockdown was announced and hasn’t reopened its doors since, not even to keyworker children. These are the children that have been thrown under a bus. Will schools be open to them in September? Is it safe for them to return? Does anybody care because the government certainly doesn’t, not one thing has been mentioned yet these are the parents who are really struggling with their mental heath caring 24/7 for a child where school would usually provide much needed respite.

How many parents withdraw their children from school due to the potential long term hazards and complications including death from illnesses such as flu, norovirus, measles, chicken pox, scarlet fever...

Schools have never been 100% safe, and never will be.

Of course all children should be back in September!

I think we should scrap the fines anyway.
And let schools use their judgement as to whether someone is off school too much and look for the reasons behind it, rather than fining parents for daring to take a week's holiday in term tune.

The fines haven't prevented those taking lengthy periods of time out of school.

And lots of more well off families just add the cost of the fines to the cost of their holiday - it's still a big saving on school holiday costs.

A big issue in this is trust. People no longer trust in the government to act responsibly given their track record so far with this virus. Tens of thousands have died many because they failed to prepare and ignored warnings to lockdown early. There is a sense that decisions are being made to based on opinion polls and corporate lobbying rather than public health. I am 100 percent behind getting schools fully back in September but I will make my own call for my family if I think numbers are climbing rapidly and Boris is telling me everything is ok and sing Happy Birthday again.

Matt Hancock just said he’s closing the schools in Leicester because they have been particularly affected.

@confusedandtired99

Matt Hancock just said he’s closing the schools in Leicester because they have been particularly affected.

And that's not even with full school attendance.

Kids won’t be going back full time in September, as much as I want it to happen I don’t think it will. We aren’t even out of lockdown and schools are being closed because they have been particularly affected and that’s with less pupils than normal. What a shitshow.

We are now 2.5 weeks before the end of this academic year. If there was an efficient and realistic plan to reopen all schools by September, schools should already have had all the guidelines. Guess what. They have received nothing at all.

Usually schools have two inset days at the beginning of the new year. So maybe they will take 4 inset days instead. To implement loads and pages and pages worth of guidance on cleaning, social distancing, how to handle pupils who are ill, how to deal with pupils with high needs (medical needs) with good social distancing, source PPE if necessary, establish new routines and budget for cleaners, sort out the food halls (which are extremely busy, especially in large secondary schools), will they be able to do any sports, music, clubs, breakfast clubs and after school clubs, etc etc. My guess is, although I'd love all schools to reopen, it's not a realistic proposition as the government is not providing the right level of guidance or support.

They are just hiding their head in the sand and hoping it will all just go away. Same strategy all the way along.

I think we need to have considerable fuller understanding of what happened in Leicester schools (several primaries shut before this lockdown) before pushing ahead with bubbles the size of a year group in order to open in September

Being picky, but it's only compulsory for those who are on a school roll.

I'm finding the whole ignoring of school staff a bit grim really. Barely mentioned.

Bollockingfuck and oldbagface we are in the same position.

I do not want my child to be one of the children with additional needs who has to cope with the loss of a close family member this autumn.

Over 350,000 children in this country have an EHCP.

It might be an acceptable risk to the government and the general public that, say 50 of those children lose a parent or close family member to Covid 19.

At an average case fatality rate of 1% that only an assumption of 5,000 family members catching it from school based transmission.

Quite a few children with a parent who gets seriously ill but survives will have a pretty rough time while their parent is in hospital.

I am prepared to be criticised and pressurised and feel sad to be likely to have to cut ties with a lovely, caring school. I’ll try to take comfort in the idea that another child will benefit from the place.

I wish he actually gave more information rather than just saying that children had been particularly affected in this outbreak in Leicester so they were closing the schools. That’s not a lot of information to go on.

Sadly I think @Llamazoom and @QueenBlueberries are probably right.