Schools MUST stay open.

[motherrunner]

I hear this a lot on MN.

Schools maybe ‘open’ but they’re not really depending on where you live.

I’m in Tier 2, due to go into Tier 3 next week prior to the lockdown rules.

Since Sept Yr 10 have isolated twice (4 weeks out of a 8 week half term), Yr 12 and 13 three times (6 weeks of a 8 week half term). My own DS is isolating due to being in contact with a positive until next week and I am isolating until next week as one of my pupils tested positive (and before anyone asks why I wasn’t 2m away well let’s just say, that’s school life).

Before lockdown in March my school had to close just to the numbers of staff off, at one point admin staff were supervising classes.

This morning I read a comment from a poster on the ‘lockdown my thread that teachers just have to ‘hope’ they get a mild viral load. Have we become so disillusioned with this virus that because “schools must stay open” then we minimise they health of school staff?

I am happy to be back teaching my pupils, I’m not happy that I feel unsafe. I am not happy that other workplaces have ‘Covid secure’ measures but I have sanitiser and a ‘hope for the best’ attitude.

So, if you really want schools to stay open then please email your MP and voice concerns about safety and hopefully we can stay open in a meaningful way because there’s a difference between ‘schools open’ with us delivering a quality education and ‘schools open’ with a body providing childcare.

@Ghislainedefeligonde you do realise that Covid isn't caught by touching people, but by breathing in their expelled air, don't you?

Primary teachers do not wear masks at all unless changing a child who has soiled or wet himself (early years here) or dealing with a first aid situation. I walk in corridors and classrooms unmasked as we all do, children and teachers alike. We are advised by the dfe that we do not need to wear a mask!

My husband works in retail and he has a screen and a mask. He sees lots of different people but at distance and protected. I always get illnesses every year. He doesn't. I deal with children and their bodily fluids. He doesn't.

In the second week after half term, usually mid to late week, we get a deluge of illness. So I predict the 11th / 12th / 13th November.

There will be children who become ill as well as adults. I know that I will become ill as I always do. I have been ill already this term but not with C19. (I've got low immunity and various conditions. I'm clinically vulnerable). Hopefully I'm not expected to produce online learning when I'm ill!

Despite all this I think that schools should be open. But everybody needs to wear masks, even in Primary!

GoldenOmbre how awful that your kids wanted your attention.. never mind as long as you were able to do your ever so important job..

It was like an extension of the moaning that occurs when it’s the summer hols and they have to look after the children for six weeks. Never understood having children if you’re going to moan about parenting them or having to financially support them.

Can't stand comments like this. Yeah I had a lovely time trying to home school a 4 and 7 year old on my own whilst also breastfeeding a newborn around the clock when my DP was called back from furlough when she was a week old. My children learnt so much.... Not.

@ukgift2016

Do you work in one?
Do you think it’s fair on the adults putting themselves at risk? They are ‘not allowed’ anything more than hand sanitizer.... why should they be forced into that situation?

@Rhine

GoldenOmbre how awful that your kids wanted your attention.. never mind as long as you were able to do your ever so important job..

Yeah nevermind eh, whilst she works her arse off to be able to pay the bills to keep a roof over their head and food in their tummies. The ignorance of these comments is unreal.

But I don’t see a real reason for them needing more than masks

Petition your MP to mandate masks in schools if you think there is a real reason for them to need masks.

Current advice is that they should be avoided in a high risk setting (classrooms).

@Rhine

I think many parents are so entitled regarding schools. Let’s be frank, it’s nothing to do with their child’s education and everything to do with free childcare. One thing that struck me about the last lockdown was how many parents didn’t seem to enjoy spending time with their kids. Harsh I know, but true.

No one wants to see schools fully closed, but there needs to be a better system in place to protect staff and pupils.

You really have no idea of reality do you! I do not know of any job anywhere in the world that it would be acceptable to take your 3 DC in with you and educate and entertain them at the same time as well as doing your actual job to the high standard it requires. Its one big happy party let me tell you 😒

@Rhine

GoldenOmbre how awful that your kids wanted your attention.. never mind as long as you were able to do your ever so important job..

I know right? So SELFISH, having a job. And my silly silly employers, with all their “there’s a national crisis, all leave is cancelled, we need to work out how we keep basic public services functioning” nonsense! Should have just told them I needed to go and do some Twinkl worksheets all day and let the hospital admissions take care of themselves.

IceCreamandCandyFloss I totally agree. It’s almost like some people just can’t be bothered with their kids, isn’t it

Wow. You have sunk to a whole new level.
By the way secondary school DC don't need childcare. Have you considered the possibility that parents actually want their children to have an education. They want them in school because the isolation they experienced last time caused them issues.
But no of course not. We can't wait to be rid of our wretched DC because we can't stand them and should never have had them.
You really need to look at yourself it's not good.

I think we need to try and move away from parents bashing other parents and try to unite more and focus on making schools safer which is all teachers have ever asked for. The mask confusion could be easily sorted if our government would just make it mandatory. You can see from these threads that people don't even realise that most schools still do not allow or insist on masks in classrooms.

Yes, my point IS valid, as secondary teachers mix with hundreds and hundreds of children for lengthy periods of time (up to an hour at a time in a small, poorly-ventilated space) where none of those students are wearing masks (unlike shoppers, who are required to).

We have double lessons (2 hours) with classes of 35 kids.

I think many parents are so entitled regarding schools. Let’s be frank, it’s nothing to do with their child’s education and everything to do with free childcare.

Wow, you have no idea how difficult online learning was for many teenagers during the last lockdown. And that's even with parents at home!

It’s almost like some people just can’t be bothered with their kids, isn’t it

It's BECAUSE we care that we want teens and children to be in school!

I wonder how parents in the USA and mainland Europe cope, having those very long summer holidays? It’s a peculiarly British thing to complain about having to look after your own children I’ve noticed, a long with teacher and school bashing funnily enough.

I also think those comments are unhelpful.

I’m a parent and a teacher. Teaching live during lockdown was so hard. I essentially ignored my own children from 9-3.45 except for break times and lunch. They had a horrible experience of home schooling as I would try and sit down with them either at breakfast time or supper time and the rest of the day they were on devices so they would be quiet whilst I was teaching.

I don’t want to go through that again and that’s why I want improved measures in school because at the moment, for some areas like mine, they ‘all back in’ approach isn’t working.

@GoldenOmber ignore posters like @Rhine she probably had the Nanny and the cleaner on tap to look after her precious poppets whilst they had 6 months of "making memories " whilst the rest of us in the real world ploughed on the best we could.

These arguments do get so complex. Let's keep it simple: all teachers and children should wear masks in school.

Thinking about it, I should probably wear an apron too lol. In an early years class I get frequent unexpected bodily fluids hitting me in the autumn term as I can't say to the child 'just wait whilst I get full ppe'.

@Nellodee

This is from an interview with Prof Semple from Sage this morning.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/31/covid-running-riot-in-england-as-lockdown-looms-scientist-says

He said there were “many more cases, particularly in younger females between the ages of 20 and 40”, with three to four times as many women in that age group going to hospital as men, because they were being exposed to the virus in hospitality, retail and some educational settings.

Soooo, it's because they are catching it in those places. Not because, you know, they're MUMS.

I spotted that too. There's a message leaking around the edges there! One of the things I noticed about the prevalence charts was that the chart for children under 10 was exactly the same as the chart for 20s to 40s. Parents and children being infected together.

Someone's clearly got some data about the virus in school staff and it will pop out somehow.

I’m a parent and a teacher. Teaching live during lockdown was so hard. I essentially ignored my own children from 9-3.45 except for break times and lunch. They had a horrible experience of home schooling as I would try and sit down with them either at breakfast time or supper time and the rest of the day they were on devices so they would be quiet whilst I was teaching.

Another argument for why we should pare down online learning and make it accessible at any point of the day, for lower primary.

Saying schools are spreading it where I am is not the same as saying schools account for all transmission as a PP seems to think.

[quote 3littlewords]**@GoldenOmber* ignore posters like @Rhine* she probably had the Nanny and the cleaner on tap to look after her precious poppets whilst they had 6 months of "making memories " whilst the rest of us in the real world ploughed on the best we could.[/quote]
So wrong and pathetically ignorant I don’t know where to start. But if you want to make childish insults do carry on.

Germany seems to be doing a lot of planning around ventilation in schools. Is that happening here, anywhere? I know my local primary has its windows open all the time but the secondary doesn’t, and I’m not even sure all its windows can open.

Germany also heavily invests in funding for schools.

[quote Whatchasayin]@noblegiraffe teachers at my DCs secondary school wear masks and visors if they choose to (some are). Sounds like it's an internal matter not up to government advice.[/quote]
But this is part of the problem - why are headteachers, with no scientific training, and no evidence provided for them, being put in the position of deciding who wears masks and where, whether windows are open or not, whether staff meetings are in person or via Teams, whether we can touch books for marking, whether staff move around or students etc... my head has been close to tears on a number of occasions because they are expected to make decisions with little support knowing the possible impact of these decisions. It should be science led from DfE - based on you know, actual science not just what someone ‘thinks’.