Email from Head - primary school will be open on Monday

[CloseSchoolsProtecttheNHS]

Just had an email from our head teacher 'reassuring' us that the (primary) school will be open as usual to all pupils on Monday morning. Personally, I find this far from reassuring in the middle of the worst part of a pandemic. We are in a county that borders London and rates are over 600 per 100,000.

I'm assuming the staff are either non NEU or have agreed to go in anyway? How can the Head be SO sure they'll open, as to actually write an email on a Saturday night saying so?

The rest of England are guinea pigs for London then

As usual they are going to be reactive. They'll just sit and wait for hospitals in the North to become overwhelmed.

I’m now more cross than I was before. Boris Johnson is an idiot. He only cares enough about the impact of schools on the infection rate when it’s sky high and the NHS is crippled, otherwise it doesn’t matter

Well if MN is anything to go by a lot of teachers have been looking for an excuse not to go back since September. They need to get in with it like everyone else

Boris, Boris, Boris......

What if the kids are sent in and there are not enough teachers in? I can see it now - a hall full of kids with a handful of staff. That's really not going to help the situation now is it.

@gottakeeponmovin keep on moving along 🙄

@RedToothBrush

Anyone watching Marr should note what Johnson has said.

Schools in areas with low levels of the new strain should open whilst they establish how the tier system works with the new strain. Until the new strain reaches problematic levels.

Schools are safe for children (nothing about staff) and should stay open whilst they work out how much schools spread the new strain.

So schools may pose threats to the wider community but the government aren't concerned about that, nor are they concerned about the spread of the new strain despite the problems its causing in the SE.

I hope you are all feeling reassured because i sure as hell am not.

Yep. In short - we know what happened in London when the new strain got into schools.

We are going to wait if the same thing happens in the rest of the country 🤦‍♀️

Im happy with Boris comments on Marr. If you don’t feel safe- don’t send your kids back. But given rates have rocketed these past few weeks while kids haven’t been in school and we had 1 case in year of 90 kids all last term and no teachers off- I’m sending our 2 DC back.

Impossible to provide any decent homeschooling or indeed parenting while both of us try to hold onto our jobs too. So I’m
very pleased Primary schools will open.

How can Boris, who has gad covid himself BEFORE this strain was here - sit there with a straight face and say that schools are safe?

Why are children and staff in London not safe to be in, but those in other tier 4 areas are? This makes absolutely no logical sense. He knows it. He also knows that if enough teachers are HTs follow union advice that schools will not be open. He just does not wan to be the one who shuts schools so he is pushing the blame onto teachers. Again.

@DollyParton2

Im happy with Boris comments on Marr. If you don’t feel safe- don’t send your kids back. But given rates have rocketed these past few weeks while kids haven’t been in school and we had 1 case in year of 90 kids all last term and no teachers off- I’m sending our 2 DC back.

Impossible to provide any decent homeschooling or indeed parenting while both of us try to hold onto our jobs too. So I’m
very pleased Primary schools will open.

Hope your family stay safe and well

@DollyParton2

Im happy with Boris comments on Marr. If you don’t feel safe- don’t send your kids back. But given rates have rocketed these past few weeks while kids haven’t been in school and we had 1 case in year of 90 kids all last term and no teachers off- I’m sending our 2 DC back.

Impossible to provide any decent homeschooling or indeed parenting while both of us try to hold onto our jobs too. So I’m
very pleased Primary schools will open.

Flip it the other way. Cases have risen despite being off and so community transmission is higher. Therefore more cases will be brought into school.

And to anyone who thinks there school is safe because there were no cases/ few cases in their school - do bear in mind we have had two weeks since then. Two weeks with rapidly increasing infection rates, two weeks where some families will have been mixing households, having parties and breaking lockdown rules.

If my dc were still school age, and I was able to keep them at home, then this is what I would be doing.

1. Legally you have to send your kids in.
2. If you don't you risk their school place
3. Keeping your own kids home does not eliminate the risk to the wider community the school being open may present
4. It still doesn't resolve the safety at work aspect

By the way have you seen that the BBC have apologised for reporting the fake news that COVID wards are full of children, saying there is no proof that it true?
Should be a banner headline on all news outlets but I bet it is somewhere obscure and will be ignored. So glad I didn’t renew my TV licence.

Everyone’s situation is different. Stop Fortherosesjoni70 posting stupid emojis in response to my post or lecturing anyone who feels differently to you!

All my school mum friends and obviously me, are relieved and pleased that for now our school will be opening. I would count at least 20 of these good friends in my DC classes in this bracket. Are you saying we are all reckless and dim? I respect you for deciding to keep your kids off school ( though severely doubt every one of you claiming to be horrified schools are opening and worried for the safety of your kids- will actually be keeping your child off school). You- respect the many many working parents who have made the call, in agreement with our PM - that we want our kids to have an education while we keep our jobs (and our whole family our sanity).

I think a lot of those threatening they will keep kids off won’t actually do that -just trying (pointlessly) to drum up a groundswell to make the gvt close schools.

Our school had no cases until we broke up. Then it ripped through a class and ruined all those family’s and staff member’s Christmases. It has continued to spread through those families

EmmanuelleMakro and DollyParton2 completely agree. People on here LOVE to hide behind their screens taking the moral highground and chastising anyone with differing views...while then still ironing their kids uniform in preparation to sending them back. Such hypocrites.

OPs school has let them know. I expect there are some schools that have not, or cannot as not knowing which teachers will be there.

@sundowners

EmmanuelleMakro and DollyParton2 completely agree. People on here LOVE to hide behind their screens taking the moral highground and chastising anyone with differing views...while then still ironing their kids uniform in preparation to sending them back. Such hypocrites.

How do you know? Are all these posters people you actually know in real life, and have proof that they're sending their children into school while posting that they're not?

Fortherosejoni do you have primary / school age children? Will you keep them home?

@Benjispruce2 my DD's primary school had the exact same experience. September to Dec all clear - but early on Christmas break infections springing up in KS1 and then KS2 and now parents.

If this board was representative of real life then 80% kids wouldn't be returning to school by parents keeping them off. Look at any school still opening in the country- the reverse is true- around 80% will be returning. So some people on here are clearly lying. I note a lot of people post to share their outrage/horror- while keeping schtum and refusing to confirm if:

1. they have school age children at all, as if you dont sorry: you cant possibly know or be experiencing what we are right now
2. are working parents
3. that they will 100% not be sending their child into school. Out of local friends, neighbours, school friends, anyone I know- I know 2 TWO!!! people who wouldn't send their kid back. Out of at least 100+ I've talked to recently. Why is Mumsnet so different? Its not in reality....

@Notonthestairs if we hadn’t broken up when we did, the school would probably have been closed anyway. One case spread through so many in 2 days and not just those close to the case that phe said to isolate. It doesn’t matter where children sit because they play together.