Those wanting school open - are you not worried about your DC?

[Hicksville21]

Just that really. Do you not think it’s time to keep our kids home safe until this wave passes?

The fact that hospitals are now seeing wards full of children poorly with the virus is, quite frankly, extremely concerning. As a parent of two and a teacher I health and safety must be prioritised.
mobile.twitter.com/bbc5live/status/1345006866829463552

Surely there is actual data being collected on hospitalisation rates across different age groups rather than everyone being thrown into panic by one random tweet?

[quote GingerandTilly]The fact that hospitals are now seeing wards full of children poorly with the virus is, quite frankly, extremely concerning. As a parent of two and a teacher I health and safety must be prioritised.
mobile.twitter.com/bbc5live/status/1345006866829463552[/quote]
Yes this tweet sealed my decision. Mine will not be going back and I'll deregister if necessary.

@TheKeatingFive

Surely there is actual data being collected on hospitalisation rates across different age groups rather than everyone being thrown into panic by one random tweet?

Yes I thought this and someone linked this in response

Haven’t read it yet but has hospitalisation by age

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/

All this handwringing about inequality would be fine in normal times. We are not in normal times. Inequality will widen, and it’s shit and we must find ways to reverse that once this is done, but there is a deadly disease in schools and no mitigation at all. Optimal is not an option. We just have to get through this pandemic, with minimal loss of life and health. Then let’s boot out the Tories fix inequality in society.

I work in SEN education and I was not hesitant in sending my daughter back in Sept to her primary school. She mentally needed it!

However when we started having cases in my school it was quite frankly terrifying how quickly it spread around our school. We started wearing masks all day even in our bubbles and it still continued to rage through the school. Im not on the shielding list but my health is far from good as I have had several surgeries in the last few years.

I'm now extremely concerned about returning especially as they are likely to state that SEN returns no matter what. My daughter tends to get really poorly when she gets colds etc so I am now very worried about sending her back for her sake and the teachers.
I strongly believe that children are vectors for spread.

@LacyEdge

All this handwringing about inequality would be fine in normal times. We are not in normal times. Inequality will widen, and it’s shit and we must find ways to reverse that once this is done, but there is a deadly disease in schools and no mitigation at all. Optimal is not an option. We just have to get through this pandemic, with minimal loss of life and health. Then let’s boot out the Tories fix inequality in society.

I think it's important to state that there really isn't the 'handwringing about inequality' (at least on Mumsnet) during normal times. This pandemic has been something of a leveller and working with really disadvantaged children as I do, I find it a bit shameful how they are being used by the middle classes as a trump card to further their arguments about how schools should be open. The same people who literally couldn't give a toss about them usually.

I think it's important to state that there really isn't the 'handwringing about inequality' (at least on Mumsnet) during normal times. This pandemic has been something of a leveller and working with really disadvantaged children as I do, I find it a bit shameful how they are being used by the middle classes as a trump card to further their arguments about how schools should be open. The same people who literally couldn't give a toss about them usually.
How do you know that it is the middle classes commenting? I consider myself working class (single parent on less than £20k), and my teen was a disadvantaged child when he was younger.

You are right @Myothercarisalsoshit

And that tweet quoting the hospital matron is frankly terrifying.

[quote GingerandTilly]The fact that hospitals are now seeing wards full of children poorly with the virus is, quite frankly, extremely concerning. As a parent of two and a teacher I health and safety must be prioritised.
mobile.twitter.com/bbc5live/status/1345006866829463552[/quote]
I agree, I just started a thread about this. I tried to read up on numbers etc but could only find info on adult admissions?

I also can't find any data on admission of children

@Saylethewayles

I also can't find any data on admission of children

Here www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/

Having had a look it’s not great as early - mid Dec, plus doesn’t indicate change over time

But early - mid Dec it was very low still in new variant areas

I am much more concerned about the effect on my children of being out of school yet again (London borough - primary and secondary).

I'm not worried about my child going to school. 13 kids and the teacher had covid in her class. They were literally just having days and days of positive tests. The parents then caught it from their children. Every single child returned back to school, the parents all said you wouldn't have thought anything was wrong with the children. Of all the parents who caught it not one ended up in hospital or having any medical treatment and one of them has a severe underlying health condition that affects her lungs anyway. She said it was exhaustion and a bad head. No cough, no fever.
I have underlying health conditions including asthma and diabetes and I still want my child in school. I'm more concerned for her mental health and how much education they are missing out on. Its not always possible to teach your children from home when you are also employed and working from home. Unfortunately for my child I had to make earning my wages a priority over home schooling. She was left to her own devices for most of the week unable to understand Microsoft teams to do her schoolwork and I couldn't keep stopping work every few minutes to reload the pages etc. It was a joke and that is no good for a 6 year old. I'd love to be able to home school but paying my bills and putting food in my child's mouth is my priority.
We are tier 4 and in an area Where the primary schools will be shut until 18th.
As soon as allowed my child will be returning.

All London primaries now closed.

Myothercarisalsoshit absolutely. The weaponising of 'vulnerable children' on MN has been extremely distasteful.

I don't recall seeing one hand wringing post over the summer holidays about the plight of 'vulnerable children' although everyone who works in the field knows that this is the most worrying time for them.

Threat of school closures? Suddenly, they're on everyone's radar.

@Saylethewayles

All London primaries now closed.

Yep. Yet another u-turn once the idiocy of govt policy making has day light shed on it.

The thing is, if the issue really IS vulnerable children - school closures aren't an issue, as vulnerable children have spaces even when schools are closed.

It's using 'vulnerable children' as a reason why YOUR child should be in that's so distasteful, especially because in normal times these would be exactly the children you would be asking your teacher for your child not to sit by, or not asking the child to a birthday party, or avoiding the parent on the school gate, or sending carefully-worded e-mails about the possible effect of X on your child's learning so what are we doing about it....

@cantkeepawayforever Absolutely spot on!

Its the same parents who moan about my DD who are also happy for their child to borrow her 1-1 during the 2 hours of the day my DD is banned from attending.

Vulnerable kids are great for peoples agendas but NIMBY is rife

I think closing schools is such an omission of failure of priority of societies that I am deeply saddened it is happening again. If it were me, I would vaccinate teachers along with medical staff first (before any elderly people) and really focus on how to keep schools open and hospitals not overflowing.

I am not worried about my child the risk of covid is low (in terms of serious illness)

I live in London so his education has been stopped anyway for the foreseeable.

In the first lockdown I thought this was an issue as you are often told “education is important” growing up and you need to work at school etc.

But I think generally most teachers feel there are no real consequences to not having state education for non vulnerable children? So makes sense to close them and hopefully start to open up those elements of society that do makes a valuable contribution ...shutting the service sector has plunged the U.K. into the worst recession for 300 years!! That is something that we clearly need!

But yes I am happy to send if they are open, obviously will not now they are shut😂! Hopefully this means that we can open up some fun stuff to do at weekends in time like last time - this gave us opportunities to do go to legoland etc during term time so I guess this will happen this time. I wasn’t assuming that there will be any education available for a long time, maybe next September but if they are not vaccinating kids I cannot see how it would change really.

@Wsdhgujn

I am not worried about my child the risk of covid is low (in terms of serious illness)

I live in London so his education has been stopped anyway for the foreseeable.

In the first lockdown I thought this was an issue as you are often told “education is important” growing up and you need to work at school etc.

But I think generally most teachers feel there are no real consequences to not having state education for non vulnerable children? So makes sense to close them and hopefully start to open up those elements of society that do makes a valuable contribution ...shutting the service sector has plunged the U.K. into the worst recession for 300 years!! That is something that we clearly need!

But yes I am happy to send if they are open, obviously will not now they are shut😂! Hopefully this means that we can open up some fun stuff to do at weekends in time like last time - this gave us opportunities to do go to legoland etc during term time so I guess this will happen this time. I wasn’t assuming that there will be any education available for a long time, maybe next September but if they are not vaccinating kids I cannot see how it would change really.

Seriously? No teacher has ever said it is OK for any child to miss school. It's absolutely not OK. But we're in a pandemic. People are dying. Children are being increasingly seen as one of the main drivers of infection PLUS, because of the government's epic mismanagement have been mixing over the Christmas holidays. It's a recipe for complete carnage. But yes, hopefully they will open up 'fun stuff' for you. FFS

Not at all.

[quote GingerandTilly]The fact that hospitals are now seeing wards full of children poorly with the virus is, quite frankly, extremely concerning. As a parent of two and a teacher I health and safety must be prioritised.
mobile.twitter.com/bbc5live/status/1345006866829463552[/quote]
This has since been refuted by the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55518248
and the nurse says her words were "taken out of context". She was unprofessional and totally out of order.