To ask if you have changed your view on school closures

[Chasingkevin67]

Just that really prior to late December anyone suggesting school closures would be flames where as now it seems those who want schools to remain open are in the minority. It may just be different posters posting but have you changed your view on schools and why?

No. It feels very political to me,
dressed up as wanting to ensure that schools are made safer. A teacher relative has just shared an article which is basically a celebration of teachers getting one over on the Government. Mind you that’s a teacher in a tier 4 area who was yesterday filmed being pushed down the street by a neighbour on a sledge. Today he is moaning about teenagers mixing. What a muppet. I shouldn’t let him cloud my judgment of teachers so much.

I want schools to be safer, as they are in basically all of the rest of the world, and have been writing to my MP about this since June.

Asking my MP why the government isn't providing funding to allow schools to follow scientific best practice on reducing risk.

I don't want them to close, but it was inevitable if the government did fuck all to ensure safety.

And I was right. I didn't foresee the rapid spread of a new variant due to absolutely no measures to stop airborne spread in schools. But in retrospect that was fairly likely too.

So here we are.

No. They should stay open. We need to live with covid not keep hiding from it.

I think there should be clearly thought out tier systems which depend on the amount of infection in that area. Same with schools closing. If the local rate of infection is x then schools switch to remote learning or rota systems until then come down to y and normal service resumes. We all know where we stand then

I haven’t changed my mind. The rate wasn’t too bad in my children’s school before Xmas but now it’s approaching 800 in 100,000 so they aren’t going in on Tuesday. I was going to lie about it but my husbands changed my mind. We aren’t going to lie. If we lie nothing will change

I still think schools should be open, but this current state of nothingness is dreadful and I think schools should be closed for a short period of time to allow for proper conversations to be had and appropriate measures put in place.

I am a primary teacher, I didn't want schools to close until the last week of last term when our community rates went mental. Now they are even more mental, doubk3 what they were in the week before Xmas. So, ta da.

I am really grateful that there is such an effort to keep schools open. It is the very poorest and most vulnerable who suffer when schools close.

That said, if there is evidence that school closure is more necessary now than it was last term, I’ll accept the closures and not complain.

I probably have. If the NHS is overwhelmed then we have to have decisive action. Personally schop school closure (and I stand by calling it that - there was no home school provision made) was appalling for my DCs mental health. But something has got to change. Quickly.

I'm muddling about with different views, especially when we've seen time and again that the promised support for vulnerable students is not happening and the support for exam year students - particularly on vocational courses - is so frustrating.

I can see why secondary schools like my DDs' which simply don't have the space or resources for all this should go all online for a time or at least go to a rota system that's mainly online, but practical subjects and some support could be done in-person when schools can have in-person for everyone again. I support that more than ever at the moment.

With my DS on a Y11 vocational course at a college with 7 other people in a large workshop space, I see less of it. I know it's likely to happen, it's just we've got nothing on how BTECs are going to be handled or 'adapted' at least that I or he has seen, it was such a shitshow last year, he's freaking out because they were told if they don't complete the practical project they started before Christmas that it's an automatic failure. No amount of reassurance that's not from the college itself is helping. Selfish, but I'd like him to know WTF is going on before he's left out in the dark again (he's on a programme where they do a few GCSEs in Y10 and a few in Y11 with a 2 year BTEC, so this is his second 'exam year'). There are multiple alternative provision programmes around me, which tend to be small and with kids that are 'vulnerable, but not vulnerable enough' and just got largely ignored last time when they closed. For them, I'd still like better support to be able to stay open and in-person as much as can be done.

Even if it was BTEC students were just get told what's going on and those like my DS who is at alternative provisions at a college closed but those in full alternative provision facilities get theirs open for them where possible, I'd think things were a better than last time.

I want schools open, however I think it’s inevitable they will close and would rather just get it over with then delay it further and then it end up being for longer.

Sort of. I said at the time and still believe they should have opened properly (Sept style) after May half term when cases were low. I was very strongly for schools being open last term and if the new variant hadn’t appeared I’d still think schools should be open. I accept that in the current situation it just isn’t tenable anymore.

But alongside closures I’d like to see an immediate cancellation of primary school tests/SATS (and a plan for secondary exams), a change to the vaccination priority list to put school staff higher (if necessary bumping down people like my parents who are in their sixties, healthy, retired and entirely capable of just staying at home) and if it goes past Easter a serious consideration of shortening school holidays in summer/ next academic year or even how some children could be allowed to repeat a year. None of that will happen of course.

I’m a secondary teacher, with DC in primary and nursery.

I was anti school closures in the first lockdown. When we returned and I saw the impact on a lot of my students, I was more adamantly against closure. With rates so high now, I have more mixed views.

If the government could make sure every child had access to the right technology, and schools got enough notice of closures to plan work, then I would support online schooling, with hubs for keyworker childcare and vulnerable DC. Ideally the government would also plough a lot of money into vaccination during this time, so that any increase in R when schools reopened wouldn’t lead to as big an increase in deaths or serious illness.

But with the current lack of funding for online learning, and last minute closures (DD’s school only announced this afternoon that they’re not opening tomorrow on LA guidance!), I’m worried about the impact of closing again.

@year5teacher

Yes, I was very adamant that schools needed to stay open and wanted them to open fully earlier last time. I still want them to be able to stay open, but I don’t feel it’s possible now.

Agree with all of this.

No. I've always wanted them open and still do. I do recognise that there needs to be better safety measures for this to happen.

No. They should stay open. We need to live with covid not keep hiding from it