No longer a national priority to keep schools open

[noelgiraffe]

The government has surreptitiously dropped its priority to keep schools open.

It has replaced it with a priority to “keep education open”.

Remote learning is now a viable alternative to keeping schools open (as opposed to last Monday when it was a matter for the high court).

In the DfE media blog, tweeted earlier today regarding the delayed start to term in January they say:

“ Is this an extension of the Christmas holiday?

No, this isn’t an extension of the holiday and we haven’t asked that the start of term is delayed.

All students will return to education from the first day of term. Secondary school and college students should learn remotely for one week except those in exam years, vulnerable young people and the children of critical workers. It remains our national priority to keep education open and we are not closing education for any period other than during the set holiday periods.”

Interesting development.

@ancientgran

I think they need to apologise to Greenwich.

And the other schools they made to stay open.

Waltham Forest, Islington, and that multi academy trust all got snotty legal letters.

"Not sending children to school is not going to prevent further lockdowns."

^ THAT.

See what's happening to covid cases/deaths in USA where few schools are doing in person learning.

ChablisandCrisps

As noel/Noble has posted the wording has changed and their is every possibly that the government could close schools to all bar exam years and key worker/crucial workers (note another subtle) change.

And even if you are a keyworker and your children are in, there is no guarantee that your child will get face to face teaching.

Noelgiraffe, yes they all need an apology, I just felt Greenwich were particularly held up for humiliation. I felt sorry for the leader of the council, he tried to do the right thing.

It was madness not to close schools.

Praying it’s just secondary.

Where does this 8% figure come from? I’ve always wondered as it is at least 50% at the (very large) firm I work at.

@noelgiraffe Ah, the AD threads. Unless I’m mistaken I don’t believe I’ve ever actively posted on those, although I do quite like the cut of their jib. Anyway, I’ve just done a little search myself and have already found several references by teachers to classrooms as ‘germ factories’, groups of kids as ‘germ soup’, pupils being ‘pretty revolting at the best of times’ and not wanting to be ‘locked in a classroom with 30 germ-ridden super spreaders’ (plus a fair few disparaging comments about parents). No one would ever dare to use this language about a group of elderly people in a care home.

But I forget that these threads are only really for you and your nodding dog acolytes so I’ll bow out now.

less devastating though than having family in hospital or, you know, parents dead

Which is statistically highly unlikely for the vast, vast majority of children.

I kept my ds home during previous lockdown, i am a Keyworker, work from home, but son also had Sen - homeschooling didn't work so sending him part time.

TempsPerdu

But I forget that these threads are only really for you and your nodding dog acolytes

Oh dear, your bias is showing

so I’ll bow out now.

That fuck for that.

We can't really cherry 🍒 pick our ideal working environment in a pandemic with our backs to the wall.

I'm sure many women didn't want to go and work in munitions factories either!

For secondary children, getting them to access some kind of learning via on line teaching is better than nothing.
If school has a good set up to check for absent dc, there is absolutely no reason that can't be done on line.

Many dc however do have smart phones or lap tops or tablets to follow live lesson on.

It keeps most dc moving forward and learning as normal as possible without practicals.
Primary school age is rather tricky, esp in younger years as usually they need supervision below years 5 anyway.
Keeping them on line longer is more challenging....

But secondary age and above is at least '' something 'we can do in this tech age to keep massive swathes of society safe.

@Jellycatspyjamas

We need to close all schools and of course send home all workers who have children in schools. It's not like we need anyone to be going to work right now.

Yep we don’t need workers keeling shop open, delivering food, don’t need care workers, nurses, social workers, don’t need mental health professionals, or cleaners, or refuse collectors, or energy workers or telecoms workers. They can all stay home and save lives... ah, wait a second...

But as is always the case these children of all keyworkers will still go in so why do you say this?

Parents need to prioritise keeping their jobs. This has gone on for so long that employers' patience with parents has worn thin. It's good for schools to offer online learning, but there needs to be an understanding that working parents of primary age children will be very limited in the support/supervision they can offer their children. So these children may not be able to access this "education".

And that's assuming parents can even wfh to begin with.

Parents who want to keep their jobs need to be emailing their MPs demanding that schools are made safer to reduce transmission rather than to move to online learning as the first response.

If you could include a bit about how it’s not going to be physically possible to test 3.4 million secondary children in the first week of Jan so the DfE need to come up with some more realistic proposals like masks, ventilation and testing of bubbles where there are positive cases, that would be lovely.

But as is always the case these children of all keyworkers will still go in so why do you say this?

They didn’t though, the criteria for key workers was pretty tight - in my area if there were two parents and one wasn’t a key worker that parent was expected to care for the child regardless of whether they too had to work, if one of you could work at home (key worker or not) your child didn’t get a place, they actively discouraged putting children in key worker provision if at all possible. Also the provision for key workers was wholly unsuitable for kids with additional support needs so while it may have technically been available, I and many other parents ended up trying to balance key worker jobs with childcare and homeschooling.

I agree @ancientgran, Greenwich deserves an apology along with the other LAs that reacted to the data showing increasing infections and was threatened with legal action.

They can no longer leave schools open in the south east, surely? Not without vaccinating staff?

Don’t know where Peston got this from and why didn’t he just ask the chief scientist when he had the chance?

Ffs.

That was discussed just before the news conference on bbc news, v briefly.

Maybe that's where?

But yes, you had the chance to ask you twit!

@Blacktothepink

About time!

The sooner schools are closed the better.

Covid soup.

Head sent an email today saying lack of detail from DfE and PHE. However we are tier 4 with children travelling in by bus / train.

It could be we have exam classes in with online learning for the rest

Having listened to the press conference I think you’re right and schools will close 😭

@justanotherneighinparadise

Having listened to the press conference I think you’re right and schools will close 😭

No I doubt it.