Why on earth do you think home ed would work second time around?

[Whatchasayin]

We know that a huge percentage of DC didn't even log onto home learning earlier in the year. We know thousands of DC don't have devices, WiFi, space to work, parental support. We know thousands of DC can't be bothered to do it and who's going to make them when parents are at work/don't care. This all happened a few months ago so why are so many people advocating going back there? For a virus that many people don't even realise they have and most don't get more than mildly unwell. Average age of death is 82.

@3littlewords
Please don't link together working parents and those who can't be bothered as they far from in the same category
Really sorry that was completely unintentional. If home learning is going to happen my DC will be home alone as I will still have to go to work and I obviously do care.

Schools have now had 8 months to plan, they could at least manage some sort of zoom, Microsoft teams, doing some actual teaching, from now on. An actual lesson. What's the bet that this won't happen?

That only suits a very small minority of parents, as has been pointed out. I'm really glad we didn't do this as my class could all access our home learning and are mostly on track now, same as any other year. You have to be open minded about what to offer and what works, the attitude here is very much stuck in a box about how learning "should" look to a non teacher.

In Japan we have been back to full school since late June-ish, with virtually no closures and very few isolations. Full classes full time. And we never had a full lockdown. What we DO do is that everyone over age 6 wears a bloody mask when they are indoors including in lessons.

Too much moaning about this though here isn't there. That Us4Them lot should hang their heads in shame, such a lack of critical thinking and reason!

Schools have now had 8 months to plan, they could at least manage some sort of zoom, Microsoft teams, doing some actual teaching, from now on. An actual lesson. What's the bet that this won't happen?

But that doesn't work for a huge number of families. What about those who don't have the equipment or ability to access online, live lessons?
And what about parents who are working? I can't teaching my own Teams lesson and supervise my 6 year olds lesson at the same time.

Yes this is better than the NHS being overwhelmed

All that money wasted on nightingale hospitals, that there were never any staff for, when nhs services were effectively cut for large numbers of people waiting for surgery/ cancer treatment.
Antenatal care reduced, GP services and OPD appts by telephone.
Surgical wards practically empty.
I have been very lucky that I have been able to attend some urgent eye appointments, but the department is half empty.
The level of government incompetence is just shameful.

Yes this is better than the NHS being overwhelmed

But hospitals were not even overwhelmed during the last wave. All the extra Nightingale hospitals were not even needed....!

But hospitals were not even overwhelmed during the last wave. All the extra Nightingale hospitals were not even needed....!

There can't be a cancellation of all other non essential surgery/ care again, though. We're talking about making Covid happen alongside other things this time. There needs to be parallel care for Covid / non Covid.

@Barbie222

But hospitals were not even overwhelmed during the last wave. All the extra Nightingale hospitals were not even needed....!

There can't be a cancellation of all other non essential surgery/ care again, though. We're talking about making Covid happen alongside other things this time. There needs to be parallel care for Covid / non Covid.

Where are the extra staff going to come from?

The staffing is going to be difficult. They did try and encourage people who’d left clinical medicine (either retired or left) back by giving temporary registration.

I guess They would have to change the system so that more junior levels (eg students or those not trained in speciality) do some jobs - which would mean a lower level of expertise, but reduce time to treatment?

Could they deploy the army to staff some hospitals in high incidence areas? Though the army have had cuts too and all of it will cost more money.

Why were they built then?

Where are the extra staff going to come from?

I'm confused. My point is that we need to protect the resources we have, including NHS staffing, by avoiding a situation where people are frequently in and out of school and work.

@Lavendersy

Why were they built then?

You might well ask. Repurposing flexible use buildings is a cheap way of appearing to be doing something, I suppose.

I've seen it on here that they were designed as morgues, too

I actually think the nightingales were quite a feat. It shows that if given enough support/funding a lot CAN be done if we choose. I think it was difficult to predict that we would not need them and reasonable to have them in case we got a situation like Wuhan.

However, this strong, decisive, rapid action was not replicated in other areas (eg shutting borders, enforcing isolation rules, expanding testing, masks and locking down). Arguably these would have had a bigger effect than the nightingales if done early. If the govt gave the same effort to expanding testing, I expect it would be in a much better shape.

My teen had some live lessons last term, but missed most of them as I was also working from home and our internet is not good enough to sustain both of us on Teams calls.

If I have three of them at home, only one will be able to access any learning around my calls. We already have the top package that we can for the area. Believe me I want to support my kids to learn, but with that level of service is isn't physically possible.

I am a school governor, and attended our Performance and Learning committee meeting the other day. We had a high level of engagement with the online learning (primary), live in an area where a large proportion of parents had devices and time to support - we still saw almost zero progress across the board from Easter to September. The best we could manage was that for the most part, the children had not lost any progress. Very little was made, and we now are going flat out to try and recover that.

we still saw almost zero progress across the board from Easter to September.

Was your data collected by teacher assessment? I'd be cautious about indicating progress between March and September with a class I hadn't seen. How's your on-entry to October data? We are finding that there aren't huge gaps, for the most part.

@Lavendersy

Why were they built then?

They would have effectively been field hospitals. Not as good as having properly-staffed, properly-equipped hospital beds, but probably better than nothing if we’d got to the point of needing them.

@Tissueboxcover

All that money wasted on nightingale hospitals, that there were never any staff for, when nhs services were effectively cut for large numbers of people waiting for surgery/ cancer treatment. Antenatal care reduced, GP services and OPD appts by telephone. Surgical wards practically empty. I have been very lucky that I have been able to attend some urgent eye appointments, but the department is half empty. The level of government incompetence is just shameful.

I can understand the mistakes back in March. Not only were we responding to something new and unknown, the infection rates were rising very fast. Long term plans (like Nightingales) which were planned for years ago, were taken off the shelf and dusted off and there wasn't really the time to tailor them.

What I can't understand/accept is that we're now seven months further in and things are no better - mistakes are still being made - earlier mistakes haven't been rectified. Govt can't be allowed to get away with this latest series of foul ups. They were basically caught napping over the long Summer recess. Infection numbers, hospitalisations, etc were all rising over late Summer, but the HOC was on their holidays. Schools went back. Tens/hundreds of thousands of Uni students were encouraged to move to cramped Uni accommodation only to be stuck in their rooms doing online learning. If the govt had been on the ball, they'd have seen the rates rising and called for a delay in going back to schools/Unis. But, they botched it up, again.

@Namenic

I actually think the nightingales were quite a feat. It shows that if given enough support/funding a lot CAN be done if we choose. I think it was difficult to predict that we would not need them and reasonable to have them in case we got a situation like Wuhan.

However, this strong, decisive, rapid action was not replicated in other areas (eg shutting borders, enforcing isolation rules, expanding testing, masks and locking down). Arguably these would have had a bigger effect than the nightingales if done early. If the govt gave the same effort to expanding testing, I expect it would be in a much better shape.

Nightingales were a long term plan which they could take off the shelf, dust off and implement.

The other matters you mention had clearly not been envisaged so there were no plans on the shelf they could use.

@Barbie222

we still saw almost zero progress across the board from Easter to September.

Was your data collected by teacher assessment? I'd be cautious about indicating progress between March and September with a class I hadn't seen. How's your on-entry to October data? We are finding that there aren't huge gaps, for the most part.

Our children apart from reception kept the same teacher as last year, they did the assessments.

There are no huge gaps, but there is very little sustained progress either.

Must take a long time to make plans then - because everyone knew 2nd wave was likely. I thought I saw uni labs offering to help with testing in mar. Instead the govt has contracted it out...

Doesn’t take months of planning to ask for mandatory quarantine for those arriving from abroad. Shutting borders should not have taken that long - at least for personal travel. Masks decision was v v late.

The UK government knew in January that this pandemic was coming. They refused to include anyone from WHO in the (late) planning.
There are no excuses.
It was all over international news channels in January.
Testing and contact tracing, masks and social distancing were the first line of defence recommended.
The UK government dithered until March.
For 2 months we had the world and his wife arriving in our ports and airports with impunity.
They essentially refused to put a fence at the top of the cliff and paid their relatives and cronies to park a very expensive ambulance at the bottom.