Pubs or kids?

[coffeeandllbd]

Whitty said we cannot have it all. Pubs are jobs. School is mental health.

I have a 13 year old struggling with lockdown. I would choose schools. My brother would choose pubs.

Who would you choose?

And the Government guidance has said not to use other spaces
Exactly. It’s an all or nothing approach. My concern is that when the numbers inevitably creep up it will head in the “nothing” direction. Whereas at least if alternatives has been put in place at least there would be “something”.

Why Are Pubs Putting the Future of English Pupils at Risk? | Good Morning Britain

Published on Aug 3, 2020
Pubs or "other activities" in England may need to close to allow schools to reopen next month, a scientist advising the government has said.
Prof Graham Medley declared there may need to be a "trade-off", with the reopening of schools seen as a "priority" for children's wellbeing.
It came after England's chief medical officer said the country was "near the limit" of opening up society.

Parents have had to try and do two jobs at the same time with zero choice in the matter

I completely understand that working parents (including teachers teaching one subject to a certain phase and having their owb children in another!!) have had more to deal with. But encouraging and engaging the number of children in one household (and taking an interest in, and ensuring, their learning really does come under the remit of good parents) as opposed to thirty at a time, when each child's class teacher has provided the materials linked to the curriculum, facilitated the explanations and marked the work produced, isn't also doing a second job.

Teachers themselves had additional demands on their time simply in work (without considering their own children) in order to make things clear and accessible when not physically with students. Calculating grades, checking in daily with vulnerable children, delivering meals, supervising KW children were all in addition to the continued work setting lessons, responding to queries and marking work produced, but trying to use technology.

No one has had a choice, but that included teachers.

When I ring my bank and there are long delays and shortened hours available and the automated message tells me to put up with noises from families/pets as colleagues are working from home, I accept it. When I stand outside a shop in the rain while others browse for ages, before having limited choice and being asked to scan my own shopping by someone standing safely behind a screen, while other customers squeeze past me, I don't blame the staff or feel I'm doing their job for them just because my life is harder!

materials linked to the curriculum, facilitated the explanations and marked the work produced, isn't also doing a second job.

Just an email sent here, no marking or facilitating explanations (! at this no chance). It is time spent isn’t it. Three hours homeschooling is three hours not working.

I also think teachers vastly underestimate the motivating factor peers and environment bring for many children in school. Ok I’m sure there are some reluctant children but even adults find endless zoom meetings
(not that we had zoom for primary) or being cut off from people hard.

It might seem like one on one at home would be a lot easier but in reality children flag.

The only saving grace here was Oak Academy but it wasn’t due to school facilitation, school was very much closed to half the children.

Anyway that’s all in the past now, last term, we’re not continuing to deny some access to school.

I’m on the side of PPE and rapid testing. Although I know guidance comes out soon and rapid testing is only just available.

I would
Prioritise exam years.
Allow parents to homeschool whose child is meeting expectations or above.
In primary lots of parents work pt so kids could go pt.
Thing is people arent really making the 'sacrifices' they could.
Some putting kids in holiday clubs they dont need to or hugging friends in pubs.
Others i saw complaining that some group of kids didnt want their kid to play in a park though they didnt know each other.
Anyone complaining and not mask wearing or going for days out when they 'only' have a sore throat or d&v.
It is a sum and you are all adding to it when sitting inside a restaurant etc.
Fundamentally though schools are a huge risk (even if it is only that they spread other bugs that mean whole household will be off 14d or until s test returns.)

The extra spaces issues are around:

• Facilities
• Equipment
• Staff

(All of these could be got around as long as LOTS of money was available - to transport equipment out of schools into these spaces, to buy more equipment, to wire WiFi and computers and whiteboards, to provide enough toilets, to employ twice as many teachers and twice as many cleaners, to pay SLT to work out timetables and staff to write lessons to be delivered in both places) and also

• Number of spaces

This one is much harder. To get class sizes down to how primaries operated for partial re-opening - 15 per group - would need a doubling of the number of teaching spaces.

So an average 2 form entry primary would need an additional 14 rooms, each the size of a current classroom. A secondary would have to double its number of spaces, and would have to work out how to ration access to specialised facilities such as labs and workshops.

In the area in which i teach - small suburb of a larger town - we would need to find, equip and staff at least 21 extra classroom-sized spaces for primary (not counting pre-schools) and at least an extra 60 for secondary.

The single village hall, the two church halls and one sports pavilion aren't going to even start to provide the 80+ classroom-sized spaces needed, even if they could be equipped and staffed through Government funding.

No 10 seems to be a lads' club which finks:

• pubs are absolutely essential to the English economy
• pret a manger too
• jollying everyone up is needed so they buy package hols to spain
• it's a ww2 war game thing
• can't look further than these isles, maybe to Oz or US at a push

Perhaps some mothers and sensibles could be brought on board to help England:

• look beyond it's borders, maybe to Taiwan, HK, Singapore, Japan and talk to doctors there with SARS experience in prevention for public
• looks beyond it's lads' club to see that education is vital and FOR SECONDARY should be online live
• like in Italy right now, and many countries, prioritise internet connections as a basic right in this emergency situation

PRIMARIES should head to the forests and woods for Danish style forest schools (their climate worse than england)

SECONDARIES should have their heads down, all hands to the wheel, Zoom, BBC and radio Online schooling from mid-August

PUBS should be closed. Innovative ones will allow take out, bike deliveries, van deliveries etc - all ordered online.

England has got to be dragged into 21st century. For now, lingering somewhere in 1982.

@LegoMaus

Parents are not against using extra spaces in any meaningful way You only have to look at the Us For Them website which so many parents are supporting. They are totally against social distancing and face masks in any form. They aren’t campaigning for the use of additional spaces, staggered times, outdoor sessions etc. They just want to open schools in their previous format.

I am afraid that U4T come across as quite blinkered with its the old way or the highway rhetoric. Times have changed.

PRIMARIES should head to the forests and woods for Danish style forest schools

How do you propose the very many primaries in urban areas should do this? Many don't even have playing fields or significant playgrounds any more....

PRIMARIES should head to the forests and woods for Danish style forest schools (their climate worse than england)

How does that work in cities? How many schools are going to be fighting over the same small patch of trees?

You only have to look at the Us For Them website which so many parents are supporting. They are totally against social distancing and face masks in any form. They aren’t campaigning for the use of additional spaces, staggered times, outdoor sessions etc. They just want to open schools in their previous format.

I don’t pay much attention to that group and honestly I doubt the government does either. All decisions will be made on what’s possible. It just so happens a lot of what they list is in line with lower funding.

@cant About 90% of England is rural or agricultural, over 3 million hectares of woodland

About 90% of England is rural or agricultural, over 3 million hectares of woodland

But that doesn't mean that 90% of primary school children live within walking distance of rural or agricultural areas, does it, which is what would be necessary for children to be taught in 'forest school' type settings?

It would mean that children already in low-risk environments - rural, sparsely populated areas already have low community transmission - get even safer, while not addressing the real issue, which is in densely-populated, disadvantaged urban areas.

@MarshaBradyo

You only have to look at the Us For Them website which so many parents are supporting. They are totally against social distancing and face masks in any form. They aren’t campaigning for the use of additional spaces, staggered times, outdoor sessions etc. They just want to open schools in their previous format.

I don’t pay much attention to that group and honestly I doubt the government does either. All decisions will be made on what’s possible. It just so happens a lot of what they list is in line with lower funding.

No one with any understanding of education and schools takes any notice of such idiocy. They make themselves look stupid.

In face, looking at statistics, it is rather the reverse - 83% of the UK's population lives in the 8% of land that is classed as 'urban'.

Having so much rural land (though of course, a lot of it is farmed, and almost all privately owned) is of no help when the vast majority of children live in urban areas.

Schools, without question, children have been out if school too long and they need an education, routine and to be able to see their friends. If schools dont open it may also have a negative impact on the economy as parents may find it hard to go to work

Pubs used to shut in the afternoons when I was a child and re open around 6 or 7 till 11pm . None of this all day food available there (or in most restaurants. )
It wasn't great, but people adapt and if it means some places can open with restrictions in place I'm sure people would choose this rather than having them shut completely.
Schools are very important of course , but we also need an economy doing well in order to have money for schools and the NHS to fund all those wages and keep those jobs going too. The wages bill for schools must be huge and that's just a tiny part of the budgets.
It is a tightrope and I feel both need to stay open. How to do this safely is another matter especially in the winter time when people won't want to sit outside in pub gardens.
It's so hard , but we need the economy to keep going as much as possible.
I wish I had the answers!