The logistical issue with closing primary schools...

[Jourdain11]

Just want to say at the start that, in saying this, I do not in any way mean to undermine teachers' and school staffs' right to work in a safe environment. But there is a big logistical issue with the closure of primary schools, assuming that childcare arrangements would also be knocked out.

In the spring, a huge number of people were either wfh or furloughed. That is no longer the case to the same extent. Since the rules/guidance now is to "work from home unless you cannot do your job at home", there are many, many more people who are expected to go into work, at least on a part-time schedule.

Which creates a huge issue in terms of primary-aged children doing remote learning from home. Either you end up with a pretty large number of "key worker" or "unable to learn from home" children going into school (which creates issues for staff in terms of providing in-school staffing and online provision simultaneously, and also slightly defeats the point of the entire exercise); or you have thousands of parents having to resign their jobs, take unpaid leave, beg for time off or whatever (which is clearly very far from ideal). Or you end up with parents simply saying, "I pay taxes for my children to be educated in school and it is their right to receive this education" and sending them in anyway.

Seems the only way around this would be either to have a "short, sharp" shutdown with a (for example) 2-week timelimit, which might be more manageable for both parents and school staff. Or to stay open and increase hygiene measures in PSs, or at least strive to make them equal across all schools.

Thoughts?

@GrumblyMumblyisnotJumbly why can’t primaries stay open and temporarily have half the class in AM / half PM to ensure continuity in core teaching while social distancing can actually be achieved.

^ unless teachers fully cleaned down between am and pm this is useless. Furthermore teachers would then still be teaching two separate bubbles....

@GlowingOrb

If I were in charge I would switch all lessons to online, but I would hire a staff to supervise the children who need someplace to be during the day. So ask people to keep their kids home if they can and if not, they can come to the school building and be assigned a desk with aides available to provide supervision and tech support. Both masks and social distancing would be enforced. Hallways and other non-classroom space can be utilized because the children are learning via computer with headphones for zoom classes so it doesn’t matter that they are in shared spaces. This also provides continuity in the even schools must shutter entirely because kids will still be using the same system to learn, just having everyone at home instead of those who can volunteer to make it more spread out in the buildings.

Not possible for young primary school children.. "Assign them a desk"?!

@MessAllOver totally agree. Not running myself into the ground to pay tax for the NHS, education etc again. The key worker thing was a massive slap in the face last time. As if we don’t need as many as possible paying tax at the moment in the private sector!

@BustopherPonsonbyJones

Small business owners face more closures and are facing financial ruin as they are shut down to keep education going. Parents feel they can’t work and supervise their young children. School staff face either the high risk of infection from being in unsafe workplaces or teaching from home (incredibly challenging) often with their own families too. What works best for one, is not going to satisfy the others. What compromises could be made?

I don't think it's a matter of individual people making more compromises. The pandemic has hit so unequally already.

I think it's going to need some structural changes to be manageable. Maybe: Change the furlough scheme so that it's granted automatically on employee request, applies to all sectors, and has a lot of really hefty legal protections around it, would be a start, along with more and continued support for businesses trying to operate through all this. (Alas all this will need to be done by people, some of them working parents...)

What is quite depressing is for the national approach to have put so many working parents through all of that in the spring lockdown as a national emergency, then have had months and months to plan better if we're in that situation again, and come up with nothing better than "maybe you could ask your employer to be nice to you?"

@Agoodbriskwalk and how am I supposed to cope when I cannot do my job from home? Are we supposed to live on air?

Honestly now that all parents are entitled to a childcare bubble and many are additionally entitled to a support bubble there should be very few who cannot (rather than don't want to) access sufficient childcare to enable them to work, and for this reason if schools were to close this should include key workers to allow teachers to focus on alternative provision. Large employers that operate on a variety of shift patterns (such as the NHS) should be encouraged to have a system in place where employees on opposite shifts are encouraged to form a childcare bubble with each other to ensure nobody is without childcare.

@Ylvamoon

... meanwhile, all we really need is a 2- 3 week "total lockdown" to break the transmission cycle. (Yes I am thinking military style as they did in China. ) After that, we need to be very careful/ vigilant who and how people are allowed to enter the country. That would bring the numbers right down... it would protect the NHS and keep children in education thereafter. Probably unpopular and politically impossible, but most virologist would secretly agree...

Absolutely. But unfortunately we can’t have a proper lockdown in this country.

I think what many of us working parents are saying is that we refuse to "suck it up". That we're not even going to try to make it work again. That's certainly my stance. I won't be running myself into the ground to pay my taxes.

Well if you can afford not to work then crack on. Otherwise, you'll have to suck it up. The virus doesn't care what you think.

@StatisticalSense

Honestly now that all parents are entitled to a childcare bubble and many are additionally entitled to a support bubble there should be very few who cannot (rather than don't want to) access sufficient childcare to enable them to work, and for this reason if schools were to close this should include key workers to allow teachers to focus on alternative provision. Large employers that operate on a variety of shift patterns (such as the NHS) should be encouraged to have a system in place where employees on opposite shifts are encouraged to form a childcare bubble with each other to ensure nobody is without childcare.

We were allowed to form all the 'childcare bubbles' and 'support bubbles' we liked before the pandemic hit, and yet working parents were still paying through the nose for childcare. Do you think that's because we just couldn't be arsed to ask Granny to step up?

Really? Do you have a limited amount of sympathy to go around, that you’re worried about using it up?

Or do you think that if you start being sympathetic to working parents, it might complicate things for you? Much easier to decide where to stand on a hellishly complex situation if you can just tell one group of people affected to “suck it up” after all.

Er, I'm a working parent. And no, my sympathy lies with the teachers who are being forced into a life threatening, health threatening situation. NOT the parents who find it tricky to supervise their own children. Because both can't get what they want, so I think it's important to support the ones who are actually in danger, not the ones who just want the childcare.

... meanwhile, all we really need is a 2- 3 week "total lockdown" to break the transmission cycle. (Yes I am thinking military style as they did in China. )
After that, we need to be very careful/ vigilant who and how people are allowed to enter the country.
That would bring the numbers right down... it would protect the NHS and keep children in education thereafter.
Probably unpopular and politically impossible, but most virologist would secretly agree...

I agree 100%.

If you're trying to work with 100% focus and simultaneously look after a EY or KS1 child, the child might actually be in danger!!

@tappitytaptap. During the next lockdown, we'll be poorer but we'll be baking hedgehog bread, going for long walks and doing cosmic yoga.

I understand that schools may have to close but I'm too tired to face an extended period of surviving on less than 4 hours sleep and trying to hold classes and work meetings with my preschooler jumping on my back.

And no, my sympathy lies with the teachers who are being forced into a life threatening, health threatening situation

Okay, and you see how I'm not typing "well they should just suck it up, it's a pandemic, most teachers are young and will only get a relatively mild case of flu, the virus doesn't care about their worries"?

That's because I'm not a total arse, and I'm aware that I can care about the tough situation teachers are in while also caring about the tough situation working parents are in, without minimising either.

School closures will be of particular benefit in areas of high deprivation where Covid-19 infection rates are generally higher.
These areas also tended to have much smaller numbers of children attending school when they were open for children of keyworkers only.
I'd definitely support a blanket closure of schools but there will be some parents who still need to work regardless.

It does feel that a large number of people feel like the issue of how parents of younger children can work will go away if you just sort of wave your hand at it. Already on this thread we've got: it isn't a problem because it doesn't affect that many people, working parents don't really need the money, working parents are just thinking about what's 'convenient', working parents could organise childcare but just don't want to, 'they're your kids', and so on.

There hasn't been one issue this pandemic has caused so far that's magically gone away because people have said "oh well that's a bit tricky, let's pretend it's just not a problem."

I honestly don't mean this in a snarky way but I'd love to know what kind of jobs all the "employers will just have to be flexible" people have. My employer is starting to get pretty fed up with people having to take time off when their young kids are self-isolating, because they're running out of money to hire temporary staff to cover them. My employer is a school, which is obviously not at imminent risk of closing down forever if they have a bad financial year. I can't imagine how much more difficult this must be for small businesses - and even bigger businesses - that simply can't afford to have 8% of their workforce or whatever it is be off for several weeks.

Incidentally GoldenOmber I think I've agreed with pretty much all your posts on every single thread I've seen you on.

School closures working also rely on the kids who aren't at school actually not meeting up in huge groups to hang out. And I saw a lot of that in the spring and summer! I saw about 10 kids leaving some child's birthday party a week or so back, with their parents and clutching party bags - there were balloons at the door, it wasn't exactly subtle. If all that goes on, closing schools ain't necessarily going to have the desired effect.

@Jourdain11
Nobody should be doing that, but equally there's ways to ensure nobody has to do that even with schools closed. The historical 9-5 will have to take a back seat for a while in many cases but with a bit of flexibility from both sides there are very few jobs in which a 2 parent family or 2 people in a support bubble shouldn't be able to negotiate opposite working hours (and this is where the government should be focussing) so that between them they can look after the children at all times and work their contracted hours when their partner is available.

Thanks psychomath (I do have terrible taste in music and fashion, just in the interests of fair disclosure on the good judgement front!)

Honestly now that all parents are entitled to a childcare bubble and many are additionally entitled to a support bubble there should be very few who cannot (rather than don't want to) access sufficient childcare to enable them to work

People who live some distance from their families? People who don't have close friends / friends in similar circs to form a childcare bubble with? People whose family members are elderly, vulnerable (to covid or otherwise) or disabled?

I run a foodbank. During lockdown 1 DD (3) came with me to work most days, and spent her time bashing a piano and emptying out salt and pepper shakers. All lovely and charming but I was trying to sort out food for 600 people a week at the same time.

@GoldenOmber

It does feel that a large number of people feel like the issue of how parents of younger children can work will go away if you just sort of wave your hand at it. Already on this thread we've got: it isn't a problem because it doesn't affect that many people, working parents don't really need the money, working parents are just thinking about what's 'convenient', working parents could organise childcare but just don't want to, 'they're your kids', and so on.

There hasn't been one issue this pandemic has caused so far that's magically gone away because people have said "oh well that's a bit tricky, let's pretend it's just not a problem."

All of this.

Also, ‘can’t employers just furlough staff?’ is a shockingly short-sighted question. Some firms have a very small staff and wouldn’t have enough people to cover the work if even just one or two were furloughed. Those firms would be likely just to make staff redundant rather than furlough them, so that they can hire people without childcare responsibilities.

Okay, and you see how I'm not typing "well they should just suck it up, it's a pandemic, most teachers are young and will only get a relatively mild case of flu, the virus doesn't care about their worries"?

That's because I'm not a total arse, and I'm aware that I can care about the tough situation teachers are in while also caring about the tough situation working parents are in, without minimising either.

Sorry you lost me at 'relatively mild case of flu'. You're one of those.

And again, nobody said anything about the tough situation working parents are in. My comment was about people whining about how tough it was having their kids at home (the same people that show absolutely no respect for the job teachers do, usually). Teachers should not have to risk long-term illness and death so that people don't have to wrestle with a maths worksheet for a week or two.

School closures working also rely on the kids who aren't at school actually not meeting up in huge groups to hang out. And I saw a lot of that in the spring and summer! I saw about 10 kids leaving some child's birthday party a week or so back, with their parents and clutching party bags - there were balloons at the door, it wasn't exactly subtle. If all that goes on, closing schools ain't necessarily going to have the desired effect.

Some people will meet up - but it won't be hundreds and it won't be every day, so it's in no way comparable to schools being open.

And the birthday thing a few weeks ago - well some people (quite justifiably) feel that if their kids are in school together all day every day then getting together for a party is not really increasing the risk.

@Jourdain11 Yes re the danger. During first lockdown my then 18 month old fell down the decking steps because I was too busy working to keep a proper eye on her.

I’m a primary teacher who was filming lessons, feeding back on work, Zooming children and responding to parental queries at any time between 6am and 11pm (so that similarly working parents could get hold of me outside of their working hours). I had no other option. Usual childcare is ILs, but they are over 70 and we were scared by the media reports into keeping her away from them, or ft nursery at £1200 pm, which we can’t afford without defaulting on our mortgage (and they refused to allow her in for even her usual one day a week anyway, as I was ‘at home’).

Primary schools need to stay open if they can, if only for childcare reasons, but I will repeat that they WILL NOT be anything approaching safe until we get some funding from the government to clean and staff the school to at least a satisfactory level. We have been paid NOTHING so far, and budgets have already been exceeded. If parents want primaries open and transmission within them down, this is what they need to be pushing for.