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.

@Newyearsamecovid

Primary education cannot be delivered online, they are not eligible for furlough, they are key workers. They need to do what key workers do and go to work. If they refuse to work, they should face no pay. My local school announced closure at 6pm this evening for tomorrow due to ‘union action’. Maybe the wages from the teachers not working can go back into helping families who have suffered the effects of poverty from being unable to work.

My son in law worked through day and night delivering his lessons to his class of primary children. My daughter likewise, creating lessons that could be delivered to her class of teenagers with SEN During the last lockdown they were almost brought to their needs teaching the children of keyworkers by day and creating online lessons and work for those at home, by night.

Why there are still people on Mumsnet thinking that teachers are not 'going to work' (albeit working in their lounge or bedroom) I don't know.

needs = knees, ffs.

They need to do what key workers do and go to work.

My Dh is a 'key worker.' He works from home to do his job.
Not all key worker jobs require people to work outside of the home during the pandemic.

If they refuse to work, they should face no pay.

I don't know if any teachers or teaching staff who have refused to work.
Even if they use the section 44 letter they are not refusing to work. They clearly state that they are available to supervise key worker and vulnerable children in schools, or to work from home providing remote learning.

If you want them to have no pay then they will not be providing any remote learning or any key worker/vulnerable children care either. Are you happy to take that support away from children who need it?

My school is a tier 4 definitely closed and yet here we are, still sat waiting to find out if we have a golden ticket place of education, shockingly bad

Exactly the same as my friend and she’s a teacher so if her DCs don’t have a KW place that means she can’t go in and there’s one less member of staff in her workplace.

But I think they need to see how many staff are available to come in to cover the VKW which is what is taking so long. I honestly don’t know how the heads are coping! I would have had a breakdown by now.

@tallulahwullah

I absolutely agree the Unions are behaving in a very manipulative way!

Forget the unions for a minute. Forget teachers. Look at this graph. Remember that hospitals have all but run out of ICU beds and are cancelling cancer surgery. Look at this chart that shows what his happening to this new infinitely more transmissible virus right now. Do you REALLY think that now is the time to be sending children into school, unmasked and shoulder to shoulder in a small poorly ventilated room with up to 30 others? Do you really want yours to bring Covid home to you?

Remember that hospitals have all but run out of ICU beds and are cancelling cancer surgery.

Yes this is what people keep forgetting.

Posters are saying about children being less vulnerable but it’s not so much about their health it’s about the fact they can’t socially distance in schools so spread it.

And as you say it’s not just about people dying it’s about people taking the beds up leaving less facilities available for others.

Healthcare workers should not have to work without ppe or in rooms with multiple people not at the minimum distance

Ah ok. So MH nurses should just let people actively try to harm themselves or others, by staying 2m out of the way? Refuse to assist patients to shower, refuse to administer injections? Gotcha.

Except they do, because even though they are at total risk themselves and often CEV, (with entire wards of staff catching covid after incidents - which include staff being deliberately coughed on), if they don't work, no one will be looking after some of the most vulnerable in our society.

I can assure you that nurses wages are frequently less than that of teachers, and HCAs (the bulk of staff on a MH ward) are paid roughly the same as TAs.

These staff are literally risking their lives every single day, yet have the dignity to simply do the job because it's so essential.

Please stop making comments about what "should" happen in the NHS as it shows a woeful lack of understanding of what is actually possible.

Especially, please don't imply that NHS are somehow paid danger money to do their job. It's offensive and wrong. MH nurses, LD nurses, police and prison officers are not invoking Section 44 because they KNOW they are the front line and if they refuse to work it brings the system to it's knees.

Teacher's may have the ability to invoke Section 44, but that is a privilege because chances are that people won't die if you refuse to work. That's fine. But don't make out like you are the only profession in grave danger. You just have the option to choose to do something about it.

YABU

My daughter hasn’t felt safe in school since October.

Her mental health is shot.

She’s in her final year and wants to be there but she also wants the environment to be made as safe as other places are.

We are being held to ransom by these bloody teachers and their sodding unions

Meanwhile back on planet reality check there's a pandemic on and it looks like there is likely to be school closures whatever.

This is an extract from tomorrow's front page of the daily telegraph in which it reports that formal school closures sanctioned the government itself are likely as early as next week anyway. Simply because the new strain is that out of control.

But yep. Lets shout and scream at the teachers.

This is coming. The only thing to debate was how it was handled and tbh the DfE's piss poor attitude to those it oversees is the problem together with the magic disappearing Williamson who i note hasn't been seen today. And instead it was Johnson out defending the decision even though he knows at the same time that its highly likely he's going to be closing schools next week.

Wtf has Williamson got on Johnson? Williamson is this weird figure in the party who has far more power than his position should afford him.

My daughter hasn’t felt safe in school since October.

I have seen mental health decrease because of being in school because they are worried about spreading it to their loved ones and that they are being forced into an unsafe environment.

Obviously this may not be the case for everyone and it’s no ones fault but a lot of people talk about keeping schools open due to mental health but don’t think about the impacts on mental health when they stay open.

SAGE have said that schools need to close to bring transmission rates down.
The virus is out of control. Hospitals are overwhelmed.
We are already giving out the vaccines. The end is in sight. We just need to hold out for a short time.
Why throw away lives unnecessarily when we are so close to the end?

School closure will not be like last time when the GOVERNMENT suspended the curriculum.
Vulnerable and key worker children will be in school as last time.

I am also fed up of hearing how teachers did nothing sara.

In my school, we had vulnerable and key worker children in and taught them.
For those at home, full work packs were produced each week, which had maths, English and some topic work in. Some of it was Twinkl sheets but in the same way that we use the sheets in class to back up a subject, we used the Twinkl sheets to support other activities, all devised by the class teacher. Learning for my class (Year 1/2) in maths included measuring household objects, weighing, using milk bottles etc to work out volume ....
Weekly newsletters were sent out which included photographs of the children and little messages they had sent in to us for each other.
Each class teacher read a story online every day. Some videos were made to help explain tricky concepts. Reception had daily phonics videos made by their teacher.
Each child was offered the chance to have online meetings (weekly) with their teacher if their parents wanted it. Each of these meetings had to have two adults present our end, for safeguarding.

Some of our households had no printer for the work packs, and in one case no internet access.
For these children, we physically drove round the area on a Monday delivering the packs to the families by hand and checking in with them.
The head also phoned vulnerable children who were not in school several times a week and drove to visit them once a week.

It was certainly not sitting around doing nothing.

The current cabinet are a bunch of psychopaths with the few among them with a functioning brain cell only concerned with feathering their own nests.

The idea that some schools will be open this week then a nationwide closure announced next week, after the virus has had a good party in a crowd, falls into the 'you couldn't make this shit up' category of decision making that has been the hallmark of this government.

@christinarossetti19

The current cabinet are a bunch of psychopaths with the few among them with a functioning brain cell only concerned with feathering their own nests.

The idea that some schools will be open this week then a nationwide closure announced next week, after the virus has had a good party in a crowd, falls into the 'you couldn't make this shit up' category of decision making that has been the hallmark of this government.

Nail. Head.

I am also fed up of hearing how teachers did nothing sara.

The trouble is you will have half of parents saying not enough work was set and then you’ll have the other half saying too much was set and they can’t wfh as well as help their kids with school work, so often you can’t win.

@FoxinaScarf

That's exactly how I feel. I think schools really do need to close. It's a conclusion I've come to unwillingly (because it definitely doesn't benefit my DDs) but the alternative is far worse.

There is a vaccine now, which is being rolled out, so there will be an end to this.

Heres the times saying that Downing Street sources say that more areas are likely to have to go into T4 (Hello Liverpool City Region - i notice Halton with one of the highest rates per 100,000 in the NW today - higher than almost all the T4 areas) and there will be more school closures in the 'worst affected areas'.

But hell yes, we know things are shitty in your area already but do crack on reopening the schools tomorrow anyway cos thats a bloody cracking idea.

facepalm

@christinarossetti19 totally agree. Whatever gains we made from school being out for two weeks will be squandered by 10am tomorrow morning.

I don’t think teachers should have to go into unsafe schools, especially those 50+. They are not NHS workers. No-one dies if schools close for a month or so.

I do think that, in the state sector, many schools did not provide adequate provision for at home learning and this has given the idea that teachers hardly worked in the first lockdown (the reality is many worked extremely hard but some did get away with very little. There is no reason not to provide face to face learning over the internet. Those without computers or internet can be supplied with devices with dongles. Children do need the routine.

For the very young (reception and Year 1), however, I do think parents have to take on the bulk of the learning. In some countries, formal schooling does not even start until 6 years old.

The government has been incredibly remiss in not funding schools to adequately deal with Covid. Most schools are out of pocket due to extra cleaning, buying products etc, on very stretched budgets. And, even where you can apply for the money back, a lot of schools are managing month to month and just don’t have the free cash.

However, there is a lot of hypocritical moaning from parents who are prepared to do nothing extra due to the pandemic, but want everyone else to go the extra mile. Teachers are having to deal with huge pressures on their MH, but suck it up to help children; I think you need to think about that when you moan about your own and your children’s MH when schools are closed. In addition, schools are on their knees economically (state schools). I am always amazed about how little PTAs raise, even in affluent areas. The state grant is, right now, not enough. So, before you moan about how lazy teachers are, transfer what you can comfortably afford (and, for many on here, that will be at least 4 figures) to your school. If even 10% of parents did that, it would be enough to provide a safer (not safe, that is impossible) environment in schools and get them open again.

I agree OP, so sad that people disagree. These are the same people that somehow forget how important children's development and education is.

Give young people their education because without it their lives will be impacted forever, those that disagree are probably already educated!! Funny that.

Why should teachers not go in? Should supermarket staff also not go on? Dealing with hundreds and hundreds of people a day?

Should NHS nurses just stop treating the COVID patients too? Then what happens.

I think the price people are putting on education is worryingly and surprisingly low

Why should teachers not go in? Should supermarket staff also not go on? Dealing with hundreds and hundreds of people a day?

Supermarkets workers spend minutes maximum with individual customers. In masks. Usually behind screens. In larger spaces than classrooms.

Should NHS nurses just stop treating the COVID patients too? Nurses are kitted up with PPE and in a strictly managed environment. Hospitals test patients for covid and triage/ward them accordingly.

neverneverplease
My 13 and 14 year old dds, who love school would prefer to move to remote learning for a while, as they are both worried about bringing the virus home, especially to their younger brother who is medically vulnerable and has been learning from home since half term. They can see, despite the schools best efforts, that schools are not safe.

Schools have no PPE, hundreds of children not social distancing, spending extended amounts of time together in poorly ventilated spaces, mixing with people from different households and different areas, half of whom have travelled on a packed bus, with not great hygiene facilities.

nevereverplease those staff are provided with lots of additional safety measures eg PPE, screens, numbers being limited etc. Schoool staff have NONE of that. Hand gel is it, literally. I think NHS workers would be prepared to strike too if they were asked to work with no protection except hand gel.