It's best for children to be in school

[Billie18]

I'm shocked that the consensus here appears to be that schools should close. I believe that it's best for children to be in school. Also that they should not be forced to wear masks or perform any social distancing as this is a damaging for their mental and social development. A thread for parents and teachers who share this view and have concerns about the threat of school closures and forced isolation of children who are not ill.

@noblegiraffe

What is your opinion of vaccines?

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I absolutely agree that vulnerable DC and staff should not be in school.

But then I would reintroduce shielding on a voluntary and funded basis right through until April to give us more wiggle room in terms of hospital admissions and capacity.

Those who stay home without symptoms, or being told to stay home by test and trace or shielding letter should not get paid.

There are only a few ways to be able to stay at home on full pay:

1. Prove you are extremely vulnerable with a doctors note and a school carried out risk assessment - a small % of staff might have this.

1. Prove T&T have requested your isolation.

1. Show Covid symptoms and await a test result.

1. Call in sick for up to 5 days self-cert or get a doctors note for longer.

You cannot simply decide to SI. You cannot take time off to stay with a child who is SI. In both of these cases I (a teacher) would not get paid.

So the chances are that if you have a large number of staff off and they are indeed being paid, they are also off for genuine reasons and it would be extremely unfair to punish them by not paying them inline with their contract.

Those who stay home without symptoms, or being told to stay home by test and trace or shielding letter should not get paid.

We do have to provide evidence of those things.
I assume you know very little about how a school is run and how things like pay, etc is organised.

Teachers are no different to the rest of the population and they have to follow the same rules.

If they have symptoms they must stay home. In this situation they will have booked a test and can provide this evidence.
If they are a close contact of someone who is positive they must stay home. They have evidence of this via T&T generally.
If they are CEV then they provide their shielding and/or hospital letters regarding this.

I was off for 7 weeks. I had to prove evidence of my positive test, by hospital discharge note and my on going sickness notes throughout. This is the norm.

I think a child’s mental health would be damaged more significantly by their teacher/TA/LSA/mentor etc catching covid and dying.

Government should be stricter with.yje teachers who just stay home without justification.

You do know individual teachers don't make these decisions and don't just get to stay off with no justification???
I mean, I assume you do have even the vaguest idea that no one, not even a teacher, can just decide not to go to work.
Teachers follow employment rules like everyone else.

If your school provided no home learning then take that up with school management - the teachers work under their direction after all.

When you wrote in and complained about the lack of provision what was your school's justification for this?

@OverTheRainbow88

And unless the staff member is clinically vulnerable, there is an infinitesimally small chance of them dying.

Thanks for that, Aragog. I didn't even know where to start with it.

@ineedaholidaynow the microchipping panic on there had me laughing out loud.

"And unless the staff member is clinically vulnerable, there is an infinitesimally small chance of them dying."

Unfortunately, there is quite a large number of clinically vulnerable staff in schools right now, not allowed to shield.

[quote StarryFire]@OverTheRainbow88

And unless the staff member is clinically vulnerable, there is an infinitesimally small chance of them dying.[/quote]
I thought the agreed upon word was 'minuscule'.

Check your script.

And I strongly disagree with that policy @CallmeAngelina. I’d offer all vulnerable staff and DC the opportunity to shield on a funded basis until April.

I don’t get it OP you aren’t addressing any of the questions posed by PPs.
Do you expect students not to self isolate when legally they have to if they have been in contact with a positive case within 2 metres for more than 15 mins?
And what is your idea on how to keep schools open if there are a high number of absent staff due to covid?
And of course most parents want their kids in school, however if schools are closed due to lack of staff or high number of cases amongst students how can they go to school?

Ah yes, @StarryFire, I remember you stance on that one from your presence on previous threads.

Individual schools and year groups will sometimes will have to close, that’s unavoidable at the moment. I do support schools broadly staying open, though.

@Billie18

I'm shocked that the consensus here appears to be that schools should close. I believe that it's best for children to be in school. Also that they should not be forced to wear masks or perform any social distancing as this is a damaging for their mental and social development. A thread for parents and teachers who share this view and have concerns about the threat of school closures and forced isolation of children who are not ill.

Unless their parents end up dying because covid came home as well. In which case, for those kids, it was a disaster.

And unless the staff member is clinically vulnerable, there is an infinitesimally small chance of them dying.

Do you know how many CV staff there are in schools?
You may be surprised by how many.

I am CV. I am CV due to the medication I take for arthritis. This is not something which would normally reduce my life expectancy, nor something that would normally lead to me being very ill. I take the flu vaccine annual to be safe though.

I caught covid at school. I was ill enough to be hospitalised.
I went rushed to A&E due to a real threat of heart attach or stroke.
I will now be taking medication for life due to my covid complications.

But hey, what does that matter? Underlying condition statistic, that's all.

I’d offer all vulnerable staff and DC the opportunity to shield on a funded basis until April.

CV people are not the same as the shielded group. They were CEV people.

If you include CV in that group you lose an awful lot fo the workforce. Who will pay for their cover?

@OverTheRainbow88

I think a child’s mental health would be damaged more significantly by their teacher/TA/LSA/mentor etc catching covid and dying.

But a teacher, like anyone, could die of anything. A teacher in my dcs school died of an illness (not covid related) my dc was sad to hear that they had died but do I think that their death affected my dc so much they should never have attended school? No, I don't.

Oh dear, how embarrassing! Back to school for you OP!

formerbabe

The child in the class who tested positive for covid just before that teacher/TA/mentor might find it difficult though.

And what happens if it is their own parent they bring it home to?

What would you do about the situation OP? Schools are open, teachers and children are sick, do you have some magic medicine, or magic extra teachers? Do you think the situation in schools is staying the same, getting better, or getting worse? Why do you think this is? Seriously what sort of thinking did you do before posting this thread? 🤦‍♀️

I have had to home educate mine children. I sadly had to pull them out of school

It’s been amazing for us. The best and only decision. It was something I had been toying with anyway. But this just pushed me to finally make that decision

Not all children SHOULD be in schools. Most should. But not all. Some children just don’t thrive in that high pressure situation

Whilst my friend who ended up crying to her 6 yr olds teacher after she was isolating and she couldn’t get her to do any work. The pressure is unreal.

The likelihood of an otherwise healthy person dying of COVID is tiny.

I know it has tragically happened but it is not a high risk.

It is so wrong to make parents and children feel as though they have blood on their hands.