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.

I couldn’t agree with you more op. It will all come out eventually that this was a massive mistake and lost more lives than saved.

@Sstarlight

I feel far, far more sympathy for teachers than children right now. It's awful.

Teachers should be vaccinated immediately following frontline NHS staff.

Absolutely agree with this,

@MintyMabel

Given you are only talking about parents of primary school children who will need childcare, the numbers are actually quite small.

We can all stamp our feet and say schools need to be open, and accept more people will get Covid, more deaths will happen, and we’ll all be locked down longer, or we can accept that extraordinary times need extraordinary measures. Arguing that some parents will struggle financially isn’t an argument to keep schools open, it is an argument to support parents better.

Are you living in some middle class SAHM bubble? The majority of parents at my children’s primary school work. Yes we need to support parents better. Going straight from ‘schools open as normal’ to ‘closing the schools’ shows complete disregard. Non key worker parents particularly are being fucked over here. Especially the ones who already lost their job because of homeschooling last time and now don’t qualify for furlough this time around. But that’s fine, I’m sure my kids will suffer less from being plunged into poverty, no social interaction and no education than if they went to school and took a risk no greater than a car accident As for teachers, they are in a job that has risks - like hundreds of other jobs right now. I would support any teacher who showed up in PPE and sign any petition accordingly, but it’s interesting how there are no petitions or union action fully for this, they all ultimately come back around to the close the schools trope, even if they do it on the pretence of ‘just for a little bit’.

I think schools should close. I've not felt like this at all until this month. However I feel the situation is only worsening for teachers and school staff and I don't think it's fair to expect them to put their lives on the line just so my kids can have an extra few weeks of education.

I work from home full time and if the schools do close my own kids will receive a vastly sub par education and minimal supervision. However the long and short of it is that my kids school and it's staff will survive and eventually things will return.

Gaps can be plugged. Lives cannot be brought back from the dead.

YANBU

If schools close I won’t be doing online learning. Are the government/council/school going to give me 3 laptops - one for each of my children? Nope. And I don’t have the funds to just go out and buy them tomorrow.

I have 1 phone and a chromebook between us!

I will happily do spellings, reading, times tables practice, worksheets and other little bits of work. But I’m not going to get myself in a tizzy trying to set my 5, 7 and 9 year olds up for zoom classes all day.

If they fall behind, it won’t be my fault for being “lazy” or “uninterested in the education” or that I “don’t value their education”. I actually value it very very much - hence why I want them in school. And I do lots of support with them at home, just not online.
If they fall behind it will be because of the absolutely impossible situation that many parents and children like us are going to be in if schools close.

I think the people shouting for them to close will get their own way soon so they can all be calm down soon. They just better not start judging parents for not being perfect. That’s when those people start to get really fucking annoying.

@Nousernamesleftatall

I couldn’t agree with you more op. It will all come out eventually that this was a massive mistake and lost more lives than saved.

You think more children will die from missing school than the 74,000 plus people that have died from covid in the uk since March?

A lot of teachers are parents too you know! As a parent, close relative and friend of teachers and frontline NHS staff, and school governor, I think that in this instance primary schools should stay closed for at least a couple of weeks (except for key worker/vulnerable children). And teachers should be prioritised for vaccination. We will struggle financially and we won't find home learning easy, although I realise we will be in a better position than a lot of people.
YABU to blame teachers and not the government for this mess.

YABU

I'm afraid I think schools have to shut. If teachers catch covid, then how can they open without sufficient staff? And teachers, just like anyone else, are entitled to a safe working environment.
Hospital staff have PPE, teachers are unprotected.

The whole mantra of "children don't catch covid/aren't ill if they do catch covid/can't transmit covid" was rubbish. Instead of trying to convince people of this, the government should have put time and money into making schools safer. That might mean children being on part time timetables so that classrooms would be less crowded, for example. And spending money on cleaning and making sure windows can open. But its too late now, rates are too high

Newyearsamecovid

Yes I agree. And yep there has been a surprising lack of union support/force for PPE.

Everyone here needs to see the bigger picture. With almost everything else shut down, schools are one of the remaining places where transmission can happen. Vaccinated school staff or not, transmission still increases rates in the wider community. If you are pushing for schools to stay open then what you are actually saying is that you are prepared for more people to die. It really is that stark.

In our area, we have had very low rates.

I have kids in 2 secondaries, and there have been 3 cases across the 2 schools. There were very very few children sent home at all between Sept and Dec.

But over the Christmas holidays the rates ahve soared. I have watched every night on Points West as the rate in our town and surrounding areas has double and trebled. The new variant is so infectious. There is no point in opening schools, they will all be self isolating within a week or two.

As I posted upthread a bit, I am desperate to keep them open. I am really thankful for teachers who have not only gone above and beyond, but had no thanks for doing it.

But right now I don't think we have a choice, I think the virus will ahve all the schools shut within days anyway

Rubbish. Other people cannot meet with one other person, but 30 children can be in one room together without proper social distancing or masks? Schools should close and then re-open with proper measures, a shift system or some other way of ensuring physical distancing.

I have an adult child, so I am impartial and can see both viewpoints.

It would make sense for schools to close for the rest of the month. During that time school teachers, support staff and nurser staff should be prioritised (particularly older staff) for vaccination.

When they go back, all children aged six and over should wear masks all the time when in school building.

Then all half term and Easter school holidays cancelled and summer holiday reduced to two weeks or less so children can catch up.

Then hopefully, the govenment ensures parents needing financial support are helped and their jobs safeguarded from unscrupulous employers trying to sack them because they have

YANBU but it’s an incredibly complicated one.

I used to teach myself and am lucky enough to know some really dedicated, skilled and generally amazing teachers who are all very much against schools closing because they realise that the negative consequences for parents and children, particularly disadvantaged ones, will be huge.

But I also know lots of others who hate their jobs and would do almost anything to avoid being in school. This isn’t really their fault; morale and conditions in schools have been deteriorating for years, from Gove and his terrible policies onwards. Covid is an added pressure of course, but in many ways is just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Unfortunately this situation is a perfect storm of public fear, media disinformation, political oneupmanship and government incompetence. I don’t really blame teachers for being angry and insisting on having their voices heard. The ultimate responsibility for this shitshow lands firmly at the feet of our shoddy excuse for a government. But the fact remains that the livelihoods of many parents (especially women) and the life chances of many children are on the line here, and those teachers who are demanding blanket school closures need to be honest in acknowledging this.

I agree with point 1. And point 4 and 5, to a degree.

At this point there is no option but to close schools until there is adequate work done to open them safely. There has been zero effort, thinking, strategy, creativity or investment from our government in offering any mitigation, or improved infrastructure in making it safe for children to attend and teachers to work.

As our government do not care - at all - about future generations (only retaining power short term until they have fully asset stripped the country) there has been no attempt at this.

I agree OP.

We live rurally and our school is tiny. Not a single case. School is happy to open.
Head teachers should be able to make individual assessments suitable for their school, based on actual data. Not emotions and politics.

great idea OP
children's MH won't be remotely affected by parents, other relatives and teachers dying of covid.

@funinthesun19 The government pledged to give schools sufficient laptops for all that needed them in the summer. When these materialised, the allocation was a fifth of what was needed. I don't think many expect 'perfect parenting' in the way you describe, teachers certainly don't. To me, perfect parenting at the moment is getting yourself and your family through this time the best you can.

I feel sick, i care full time for a child with severe learning needs who nows he is back at school on Monday of they cancel his return he wont understand.

He needs routine and stimulation, we have only just
Managed day by day this holiday Christmas is always the worst holiday i feel sick and hoping they cant cancel
School with only 2 days warning

Yanbu OP I agree with you. But I do think teachers should be getting offered the vaccine, along with other key workers like my DH and Dsis who are facing the risks daily and aren't getting their safety considered.

@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.

@alwaysraining123 Have you read the teaching unions requests of the government? I ask because if you did I think you would know that they want the schools to be open in a safe manner. Have a read of them and then tell we which ones you think aren’t important or aren’t about maintaining education for children.