Minister threatens headteacher who wanted to move to online teaching

[DecemberSun]

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/dec/12/minister-threatens-school-heads-over-pre-christmas-online-lessons?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1w1oeCcjoUnPnz4jdlJq0CfyPlyMfnS_gNYuBp6yZo9K7zLVnycfEgmzY#Echobox=1607767566

I don't understand "KW" and "trigger cases".

We are agreed that CEV families should be able to have homeschooling.

Come countries have encouraged families to have learning from home if they can and they prefer.

This has the virtue of decreasing numbers in school, which makes schools safer for everyone.

I don't see why there can't be more parental choice about safety in all of this. It feels as though someone has given some particularly stupid kindergarten children the roles of deciding the rules for everyone else.

For example, Children being at home for 4 days before Christmas, instead of having a school dinner with a bit of turkey and watching a film would make no difference at all to their attainment levels in 5 or 10 years time. But it might make a huge difference to their families at the end of a very tough year (especially if it avoids taking infection home to vulnerable relatives).

I really hope the people responsible for this mess get held to account for it at some point.

Here kw - key workers

Trigger - I mean I’d like a threshold (number of cases) for secondary schools to switch to remote and to be applied when needed rather than all schools follow instruction on a switch

Going by other threads most do want to send in last week regardless of fun, or maybe appreciating it, and those that want to are keeping them off anyway.

I don't work in education as such, but I think we need more choice rather than less, and an automatic decision to go online if there were 2 cases or something would beg too many questions. It is the lack of choice that means so very many parents are unhappy.

We certainly need better infection control. That way, parents who are more concerned about risk would have some of their fears allayed. And also parents who desperately want schools to stay open more consistently would have their needs better met also. And it would be better for the children, so win win really.