AIBU to stand up for children and parents...

[alwaysraining123]

... and say that closing schools is not an option. Some observations.

(1) millions of children will suffer poorer mental health, educational deficits and be at risk of physical harm.
(2) if schools close now the government will struggle to get them back open.
(3) the unions are playing a highly political game preying shamelessly on people’s fears.
(4) online learning is of no use for most of the primary school years. Parents basically need to be available all day to support children.
(5) more parents are going to find themselves unable to work causing more financial hardship. This won’t affect your middle class sahps or people who can work from home as much- there are people who actually have to go out of their house to earn a living.
(6) if you’re parent and you’re worried you can keep your child at home.
(7) educational transmission of the virus is low and infection control standards can be escalated where needed.

Whatever is done we need to place maintaining educational provision for children at the heart of it. We need to make it work...there’s no other option.

My DS would be happier at home with remote provision than being in school at the moment. He is very nervous about going back to school. He was very disciplined in the summer term with the school provision, and probably worked harder than he did when he was in school

"educational transmission of the virus is low and infection control standards can be escalated where needed"

If this was the case, we wouldn't have had 2% of the primary school population and 3% of the secondary school population infected, bubbles bursting and schools having to close left, right and centre in December and a government that refused to fund cleaning materials, wages or supply staff in schools and forbade teachers to wear masks would we?

Don't be so utterly silly.

Parents aren’t trying to palm their kids off. I would be happy to have my kids at home. What I can’t do is homeschool them whilst running a company that employs 60 people. I almost had a breakdown in March. Teachers please consider this incredible
Stress is the reason why parents are so worried. If I just had to homeschool and had no other responsibilities that would be fine.

Why does Flax keep saying this? When it's not true. People keep correcting her ...

People keep correcting me, would these people be teachers? Because I don't know anymore just how many actually are what they say they are. There are huge amounts of teacher threads but none of them seem to be like any teacher I've spent time with or spoken to recently

I gave my opinion on this proposed teachers strike, you dont like it and now appear to be following me from thread to thread, to "correct" my opinion.

It's an opinion. OK?

Also @Flaxmeadow if you are reading - how will the Unions weaken the government?

By disruption of services. That's the whole point of it.

@Flaxmeadow

Why does Flax keep saying this? When it's not true. People keep correcting her ...

People keep correcting me, would these people be teachers? Because I don't know anymore just how many actually are what they say they are. There are huge amounts of teacher threads but none of them seem to be like any teacher I've spent time with or spoken to recently

I gave my opinion on this proposed teachers strike, you dont like it and now appear to be following me from thread to thread, to "correct" my opinion.

It's an opinion. OK?

Also @Flaxmeadow if you are reading - how will the Unions weaken the government?

By disruption of services. That's the whole point of it.

Do you think the government are doing a good job?

I agree with the OP for primaries in areas without high case rates. We've had 1 case in a school of over 200 pupils. Many people were calling for schools not to reopen in September, but if that had happened then my children would have missed out on a whole term of schooling.

@farfallarocks

Parents aren’t trying to palm their kids off. I would be happy to have my kids at home. What I can’t do is homeschool them whilst running a company that employs 60 people. I almost had a breakdown in March. Teachers please consider this incredible Stress is the reason why parents are so worried. If I just had to homeschool and had no other responsibilities that would be fine.

What would happen to your children if you died? Or if you ended up seriously ill in hospital? Or if you developed long covid?

Because on a general scale, that is what I am worried about happening to people.

Yanbu

@SansaSnark that is incredibly unlikely for under 50s via Covid. Maybe cancer or a RTA. I have life insurance if the worst happened. What is widespread is a lot of kids missing out on education, peers, exercise and being neglected. And mine are the lucky ones.

I’m
Of blaming teachers they are doing their best. I just really hate the whole ‘you can’t be bothered with your own kids’ narrative which is extremely offensive

@Newyearsamecovid

Irrelevant to the discussion but a degree does not = easy to find a new job by any stretch.

No I do understand that but if someone really hated/resented their job then most people would leave unless there was a reason that they couldn’t and that is usually due to not being able to find any other job.

A lot of jobs would favour you the more qualifications you have even if the subject is unrelated to the job.

Yanbu. We’ve had no cases, in a roll of 400. Neither has the other school in our town.

Not grouping teachers all in one. I know it doesn't apply to all. I know 2 teachers, one primary one secondary. They have rarely stuck to the rules throughout and made exceptions as they say "well if I can spend all day in a room full of children then it makes no sense why I can't have people round at weekend - I'm bound to get it anyway" - so part of me is thinking what having schools open represents is an issue to some. That basically if you can mix there, what's the point in not mixing everywhere. I'm hoping this mindset applies to very few.

Really though, the issue is we are approaching a new peak. Likely worse than before. Hospitals are maxing capacity and its only going to get worse when schools go back.

No childs right to an education comes above someones right to live and have access to treatment (not just from covid related sickness but any emergencies). Children are adaptable, they bounce back, they will get over missed education and in a few years time will be like it never happened. Someone who has to die in a hospital corridor gasping for breath as there is no room for them in ICU wont recover, neither will the trauma their loved ones will have to live with knowing they died in an awful yet potentially preventable way.

@Whataloadofshit

I quite clearly remember that Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney being on the news saying that it was too dangerous to open in June for 15 reception and year one children. They wanted to delay until September.

The unions and the government and sadly some (not all) teachers are using our children as political pinball and it's quite sickening. Neither parties have a our children's best interests at heart.

I would agree with this

[quote farfallarocks]@SansaSnark that is incredibly unlikely for under 50s via Covid. Maybe cancer or a RTA. I have life insurance if the worst happened. What is widespread is a lot of kids missing out on education, peers, exercise and being neglected. And mine are the lucky ones.[/quote]
Agree. I guess the same thing that would happen if I got killed in RTA, or died of any other illness...
Statistically it’s extremely unlikely, for the majority of parents of school age children.

@alwaysraining123

... and say that closing schools is not an option. Some observations.

(1) millions of children will suffer poorer mental health, educational deficits and be at risk of physical harm.
(2) if schools close now the government will struggle to get them back open.
(3) the unions are playing a highly political game preying shamelessly on people’s fears.
(4) online learning is of no use for most of the primary school years. Parents basically need to be available all day to support children.
(5) more parents are going to find themselves unable to work causing more financial hardship. This won’t affect your middle class sahps or people who can work from home as much- there are people who actually have to go out of their house to earn a living.
(6) if you’re parent and you’re worried you can keep your child at home.
(7) educational transmission of the virus is low and infection control standards can be escalated where needed.

Whatever is done we need to place maintaining educational provision for children at the heart of it. We need to make it work...there’s no other option.

I’m not a teacher, but I have 2 dc in primary. I can’t comment on point number 3, but the rest are all not true for me. Point number 7 is utter bullshit. As for point number 1, I believe some children’s mental health is also affected when they are forced to attend school knowing they have a high chance of catching the virus. My boys have had to isolate on many occasions because their bubble collapsed as their friend had the virus. My eldest started symptom spotting as he was worried he would’ve caught it. Point number 4 regarding online learning isn’t true for all either. We have very effective and good quality online lessons at my DC primary school.

I’m a parent and want to have the choice to keep my children home without having to worry about de registering and fines.

No cases in my childrens school either, not many closures throughout the county either, but still tier 4 . I really feel for the people that arent able to work from home or have multiple children of various ages. School closures arent an issue for parents who are lucky to have a sahm or sahd, still not great for the children, they might enjoy the first week or two of 'no school' but most kids need the school environment to focus as well as the social interaction

[quote farfallarocks]@SansaSnark that is incredibly unlikely for under 50s via Covid. Maybe cancer or a RTA. I have life insurance if the worst happened. What is widespread is a lot of kids missing out on education, peers, exercise and being neglected. And mine are the lucky ones.[/quote]
Not all parents of school children are under 50 and healthy, though. Although only 1770 people died due to RTAs in the UK in 2018, so I'm not sure that is more likely.

I know some of the children I teach have clinically vulerable parents. Or they live with grandparents. Or their parents are older.

So, basically, because you think you'd be alright, everyone else has to suck it up?

Last term was shit educationally for a lot of kids too.

I want schools open in a safe and sustainable way, but that's not what the government are proposing.

Like I said, Flax. Me showing up to work on Monday (secondary) would be me, in school, teaching 5 online lessons to children studying at home.

Me being "on strike" on Monday would be me, at home, teaching 5 online lessons to children studying at home.

I guess all those parents who have been (rightly) complaining about how hard it is working from home whilst having young children around have actually been on strike the whole time.

Lazy buggers!

@SansaSnark

Teachers please consider this incredible
Stress is the reason why parents are so worried. If I just had to homeschool and had no other responsibilities that would be fine.

Do you think teachers have a say about when schools open or close?
We found out the same time as you that the schools will be closed for two weeks.

It is Saturday evening and I still don’t know if I am meant to be going in on Monday as planned or what days I am in next week. I am a single parent so also know how difficult it is trying to wfh and homeschool.
If I could afford to quit until this is all over I would 100% do so as I have never been so stressed out but I know it’s the same for millions of other people too all around the world.

Educational transmission is low? all due respect that is absolute bollocks [[https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-transmission-schools-claims/]]

with all due respect.

@SansaSnark cancer and suicide are the most likely causes you are right.

I’m not saying we should open schools. I am saying it’s horrible to hear that I can’t be bothered to look after my kids ( by teachers on here) when actually I’m just stretched to the limit, worried, anxious, trying to save 60 people from redundancy and their own mental
Health challenges and not totally neglect my own children.

@farfallarocks

But it isn't unlikely where long Covid is concerned. If you look at the long Covid thread on the Coronavirus board, you'll see that a lot of previously healthy and fit people, in their thirties and forties have long Covid and are unable to function for months. I'm a long Covid sufferer, 51 and with two adopted DDs of 11 and 8. My DH ended up having to WFH with me out of action (I'm quite a bit better now but still get very quickly exhausted) and therefore having to supervise our DDs during lockdown, DD1 having SEN. He ended up off work sick with stress.

It's still a minority who end up with long Covid, obviously, but there's no way of knowing if you're at risk of developing it. I did have CFS before, have had pneumonia the previous year, but a lot of people have no health issues at all.

Sorry wrong person

@farfallarocks