They are going to close the schools again aren’t they.

[Amithetoxicone]

😱

@kowari yes, I'm a working single parent. Working out of the home as my job can't be done from home. This insinuation that parents "don't want" to engage with online learning is crap. I'd love to be able to dedicate all my time to helping DS with his schoolwork. But I can't, because I need to work or the bills aren't getting paid.

Agree. Mine are 4 and 7 and I’m WFH FT with DH now having to work away 3 weeks at a time and no help from grandparents. What am I supposed to do with that? If schools do close....

[quote BelleSausage]@getwhatyougive

Either the government shuts them in a controlled way or they will shut through sickness and teacher absence.

You are right though. I am utterly sick of the way the educational value of school is undermined in favour of treating them as free babysitting services.

If we valued education we’d be doing all we could to make online or blended learning work. It has worked for countries all over the world. Why are children uniquely unable to do it?

I’ll tell you a secret- it’s parents that don’t like it and refuse to ask their children to stretch themselves in the same way children in other countries do.

Who will be better equipped for the future- the children in the UAE who have adapted to the online world or our kids who have been told it’s impossible.

The short sighted view that education only happens in person will be damaging to children in the long term.[/quote]
This makes me so angry.
How can you home school when you are trying to work full time? Are kids just meant to have to teacher input? How do they complete work if they need help every 5 mins or help with the laptop and both parents are working from home?
What if you have 3 kids and only one laptop?
What if you have a baby (or twin babies) at home and also kids to home school.
What about those kids who’s parents are out all week working, or those who’s parents couldn’t care less about encouraging them to learn.
You have no clue how online learning in other countries is getting on.
You have no clue how online learning in your own country is getting on. No one does and no one will be able to measure this impact to our future generation yet.
Online is a very very poor substitute for in person classes and teaching and there is no way to dress that up

*meant to have NO teacher input

I agree with @waxonwaxoff0 the idea that parents are lazy or teachers are lazy are both deeply unpleasant and unhelpful. Both are being asked to do the impossible. In the middle are a lot of lost, lonely children, who now see school as something optional / unsafe / uncertain. I despair of the debate around this subject in the UK.

@Bikingbear

Then the issue is with out working culture and not with schools.

Do you honestly believe that once schools open the infection rate isn’t going to skyrocket causing more deaths and massive disruption?

Just leaving schools open hasn’t worked so far and that was with a less infectious strain. This time round we are going to find that even schools in less affected areas are going to close because of staff shortages. What will working parents do then.

The argument that they have to stay open FT for face to face to provide childcare is so so short sighted.

What will working parents do once the school is shut because of staffing issues and mass infections?

Is it at all fair to ask businesses to close for months to allow working parents to have childcare? Would you be willing to lose your job to keep schools open for other working parents?

Pretending that school opening with no mitigation is great plan is not going to make it so. It certainly didn’t work for all the vulnerable children and working parents in Hull and the worst hit areas of Manchester. And that was a less infectious strain!

@user1472151176
are we all thinking of phoning our children in sick on Monday??
If you are very worried, then yes, I’d say phone them in sick.

Ricstar your so right about all the other stuff sports, play, peers. I count myself lucky we had the resources to drop money on an Xbox for DS1 so he could play online with pals.
He wasn't alone in becoming depressed, not eating, head was down, the relentless worksheets, dead by twinkl.

I'm mentally gearing myself up for a month of HS especially with the super spready strain of the virus I don't think my employer will offer me furlough again.
I just don't know how kids are meant to cope with loosing so much time off school in a year.

Would you be willing to lose your job to keep schools open for other working parents?

No.

I think we all need to be prepared for tougher restrictions all round. The new variant must have the government pretty worried.

I live in an area where the new variant seems to have taken hold. On 15th December I messaged a friend saying the infection rate in my area was at a worrying 500/100,000. It is now at 1300/100,000, just two and a half weeks later. They are going to want to do everything they can to contain the spread.

@Littlewhitedove2
This makes me so angry. How can you home school when you are trying to work full time? Are kids just meant to have to teacher input? How do they complete work if they need help every 5 mins or help with the laptop and both parents are working from home? What if you have 3 kids and only one laptop? What if you have a baby (or twin babies) at home and also kids to home school. What about those kids who’s parents are out all week working, or those who’s parents couldn’t care less about encouraging them to learn. You have no clue how online learning in other countries is getting on. You have no clue how online learning in your own country is getting on. No one does and no one will be able to measure this impact to our future generation yet. Online is a very very poor substitute for in person classes and teaching and there is no way to dress that up

There are many countries in the world where children have not been back to face to face school since March. Children in those countries are progressing well and online working is now very effective. It seems like parents in the U.K. are so fixed on the fact that it won’t work and think it should all carry on as it always has that they’re failing to recognise that we’re in a pandemic, things can’t stay the same at the minute. Time for people with views like you to take a reality check and adapt.

And actually how would me losing my job help another working parent - what a daft question.

@Bikingbear

But you are demanding that other people do the same for you? How many will lose jobs because of tier 4 restrictions?

There are many countries in the world where children have not been back to face to face school since March

Which countries?
What support has been given to kids MH?
What support has been given to parents?

@bikingbear we have bought new devices too - I could see this coming as I do agree with the teachers etc on this thread that not enough was done to make school sustainable and I do also think that no one thinks this is an easy choice. But equally I hate that I am now just meant to encourage my children to communicate online - something I hoped to hold off from. In Scotland children can play together outside, if this is not introduced in England and schools are not reopened in even a limited way in a few weeks I will be breaking the 'rules', my children can not be locked in their rooms for months. Again.

I don't know if they will extend closing all the schools to all of the tier 4 areas. I suspect there's more rational for doing it now rather than in a few weeks time in terms of the health outcomes. Closing them in a few weeks seems like the worst outcome.

@middleager Well said. I wish all parents were like you.

@ladypenelope68 which countries are remote only learning going well? Certainly not the US or anywhere in Europe - where all studies show significant declines in learning and engagement. Please post some studies for these countries where this is working especially for 4 - 7 year olds so we can all learn something.

Really torn over this. It will make life semi-unbearable to go through having DS out of pre-school again. BUT I am very concerned about this new strain and really unsure about whether to send him anyway. I think school closures in tier 4 are the right thing to do.

Nobody ever said online school was a perfect system.

However it is probably the only realistic choice we have right now.

Schools have a got a lot better since March at organising and doing online. Because we have experience and some skills now, where in march we had 3 days to organise a full online school. It was an impossible ask, we did our best.

Schools have not been "safe" from the start. It's 100% clear kids transmit, and they do not socially distance well. Schools cannot distance and have all kids on. It's just not possible.

So with this new variant schools are (in SE) and will be elsewhere, a massive, massive vehicle of transmission for this new variant. The NHS is creaking today. In 4 weeks time we'd be up a decidedly brown looking stream without anny means of propulsion.

Nobody wants schools shut. Teachers included. But it is our only option to keep people as safe as we can right now.

I think until February. I know many hearts are sinking at the thought of finding childcare, trying to wfh with kids etc etc💐 It’s the last leg of this terrible time- hold on, stay strong.

@RicStar
which countries are remote only learning going well? Certainly not the US or anywhere in Europe - where all studies show significant declines in learning and engagement. Please post some studies for these countries where this is working especially for 4 - 7 year olds so we can all learn something
There’s information all over, do your own research, I’m not wasting my time trying to educate idiots like you who are seemingly unwilling to actually having to adapt for a while in the middle of a pandemic. Nobody is saying close schools for good, they just need to close now for a while to prevent further spread of this dreadful virus.

Kids being allowed to play outside has been the one of SGs better moves. I don't blame English families for ignoring that rule.

We have just got a new laptop and I'm planning to delete a shed load of stuff off the old one in the hope I can speed it up for DS. His tablet is ok, actually that was another issue his tablet broke and he hadn't told us. Then Currys wouldn't deal with it before they reopened so it's been upgraded since first lockdown but I think he'd be better with the laptop - don't trust him with the new one.

My Bil converted an old laptop to a chromebook for his DD so that's another option.

@middleager
Brilliant post, shame all parents aren’t as understanding as you. thank you.

I do agree schools should be shut in London or perhaps rotas for the little ones. But I just don't think we should pretend education has moved online for eyfs - ks1. I think this allows the situation to be minimised / seen as sustainable. We should acknowledge what we are doing, stopping their education. Parents of these children will not be able to work fulltime. And we need that to be clear in the discussion and in plans to eventually mitigate the effects.