2 months to the vaccine - let parents decide

[herecomesthsun]

We only have 2 months to go (according to the BBC discussion I am listening to now).

The ministers are "very fearful" of the virus being out of control.

We have over 50k cases and 981 deaths today.

Why not give parents the choice about homeschooling while the vaccine is rolled out? (with social services supporting vulnerable children).

That way - parents & children who need schools open can get into schools

• vulnerable families who need to homeschool can homeschool

-schools are safer as fewer children are in

Fewer people die awaiting the vaccine.

Homeschooling could only be for a few weeks or months and children of responsible parents will be fine.

everybody wins

it is simple?

I would love to know how they have come to the conclusion that schools are safe.

I am going to write to my mp to ask...

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

I mean, it's only asking them to double their workload.

DH and I have had very thorough educations. We can cover most subjects (except woodwork and PE) though we wouldn't want to homeschool full time. We can get work in to show that something is being done and are happy to give up our time. Schools are going to need to have stuff online for isolating pupils anyway.

@FuzzyPuffling

My daughter is a teacher. Can she choose too?

And surely your daughter would be safer with less children in school?

FWIW I think teachers have been asked to do an impossible job during the pandemic and should be first in line along with with health and care workers for the vaccine.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

I mean, it's only asking them to double their workload.

Would you rather have clinically vulnerable parents get infected than have an arrangement where they are teaching children at home?

Completely and utterly agree Op.

You don't have to send them in, just deregister and do it yourselves.

What do you mean by home school? Taught by parents or working at home with online provision from school? Because I haven’t a hope in hell of teaching my y12 and y13 A Level DC. And it isn’t their fault I’m CV and their father is ECV. If however, there was an option for them to stay home with work provided by school then I think that would work short term. And then they’d be freeing up desk space for those going in. In the period between half term and Christmas holiday we had so many of the older years out in SI, time and time again, that a lot of lessons in school were simultaneously live on Teams, worked well. Much better than them teaching themselves March-July. So if you’re suggesting that, yes.

@MrsSalvador

I would love to know how they have come to the conclusion that schools are safe.

I am going to write to my mp to ask...

Boris said impressively that....schools....are.....safe.

Then he said it was the mixing of households within schools that wasn't safe.

I genuinely thought that was hilarious.

DH said it reminded him of the man in a field with a bull.

"Is this bull safe?" he asks the farmer.

"Yes", is the reply "The bull is perfectly safe...

...I don't fancy your chances though."

(Managed to miss your updates while typing that )

No don't de register as some posters like to spout. Why for the sake of keeping your family safe for the matter of a few weeks to months should you have to ruin your child's future prospects. Really riles me with how flippantly people like to churn this line out ignorantly.

@TragedyHands

You don't have to send them in, just deregister and do it yourselves.

I will lose both their places doing that.

And you honestly believe the vaccine will solve all this!?

We've been lied to constantly .... I just don't trust a word that comes out Hancock's mouth.

@yawnsvillex

And you honestly believe the vaccine will solve all this!?

We've been lied to constantly .... I just don't trust a word that comes out Hancock's mouth.

I think it would make a difference (it would reduce my risk as a CEV parent to something approaching the normal for my age and I could live with that. In particular, it seems to greatly reduce the risk of severe illness leading to hospitalisation, which would be a huge boon).

@Understandingnotignorance

No don't de register as some posters like to spout. Why for the sake of keeping your family safe for the matter of a few weeks to months should you have to ruin your child's future prospects. Really riles me with how flippantly people like to churn this line out ignorantly.

@Understandingnotignorance I agree with you completely. It makes me so cross, as though normal rules should apply to parents- either send your children to school or lose the place and home school- despite this being a dire emergency. The biggest crisis the country has seen since WW2.

None of us had any choice but to try and home school in March. Surely we should be allowed a choice based on our personal circumstances, just in the short term whilst so many are in tier 4 and the new variant is running rampant.

“children of responsible parents will be fine”. So all parents who can’t homeschool for whatever reason aren’t responsible parents in your eyes?

Completely agree! Until we know more about the new variants and potential effects on kids, I won't be sending mine to school...but I appreciate for some parents this is difficult.

Agree OP. This situation is incomprehensible.

The government should also give more funding to social services to help vulnerable kids and families, and stop leaving schools to pick up all the pieces. Teachers are in an impossible position.

Playing Devil’s advocate here but what makes protecting clinically vulnerable parents more important to protect than children who are at genuine risk from being stuck at home with no school keeping close tabs on them.

I realise that you work in education or healthcare it’s difficult to have a concept of how many children are kept safe by being at school. It really is a huge number.

@herecomesthsun I agree with you. Won't be a surprise to you though :)

Great in theory, but who will supply the materials/lesson plans/do the marking to check progress while your children are home learning? The already under pressure school staff who'll still be in the classroom teaching the kids who are in physical attendance?

Fine if you want to do this, but I think you should home teach on your own volition.

DS's school did online teaching for those isolating last term whilst teaching the rest of the class, they set a camera up with the teacher so they saw the same lesson as those in the classroom.

@ThelmaNotLouise

Great in theory, but who will supply the materials/lesson plans/do the marking to check progress while your children are home learning? The already under pressure school staff who'll still be in the classroom teaching the kids who are in physical attendance?

Fine if you want to do this, but I think you should home teach on your own volition.

Fine to do that as long as the kids can go back in 2 months time hopefully.

@Busygoingblah

Playing Devil’s advocate here but what makes protecting clinically vulnerable parents more important to protect than children who are at genuine risk from being stuck at home with no school keeping close tabs on them.

I realise that you work in education or healthcare it’s difficult to have a concept of how many children are kept safe by being at school. It really is a huge number.

My kids have a right to an education. An education in a safe environment (safe in the way that work environments should be safe)

Schools are not safe and up to now no extra money has been spent by the government on making them safe. There is an argument that the new variant was fostered by the lack of mitigations in schools making the schools a sort of petri dish in which new forms of the virus could infect our kids.

When the numbers of daily cases and deaths have reduced and the school environment is safer then it would be reasonable to return.

If there is concern about children then of course schools could insist on them coming into school.

Schools could insist on a certain amount of work being completed and coming in (even if it wasn't marked) to keep tabs on progress and if this wasn't happening, they could say that the child has to come in? And also there would have to be a commitment by parents to teach/ supervise. In the absence of engagement the school could inssit on attendance.

You see, I think my children's future, safety and prospects are far improved by staying at home in the immediate next few weeks.

I just want to be able to keep my child at home to protect her CEV father. I don't expect her teacher to set work, we can cobble together enough stuff from Oak/bitesize/twinkl easily enough for the period of time we are talking about until vaccine roll out

I know there are concerns about vulnerable children, but if my child loses her Dad, that will enormously affect her wellbeing, not to mention plunge her household into poverty. So then you are just creating another educationally disadvantaged, socially vulnerable child.

Is it not feasible to ask schools to sign off families as competent to keep their kids at home if they so wish ? They know whose reading diary is always filled in, who engaged with work in lockdown 1, who has emotional problems, who has safeguarding concerns etc.etc.

Busygoingblah vulnerable children and children of parents who are CV or ECV are not two discrete groups. If I die (I have a number of vulnerabilities) my children could well end up as 'vulnerable'.

What about children who are already carers for adult parents? Where is their support now (they have a shameful amount of support)? What will their support be if they are orphaned?

It doesn't need to be one or the other.