If so many people wanted schools closed then why are some schools seeing up to 75% of children in?

[Waxonwaxoff0]

I have never wanted schools closed although I do recognise why they need to and that they need to be made safer.

Yet it seemed like I was in the minority, all over the internet people wanted schools closed and their children safely at home.

So why are so many trying to send their children in? Is it a case of "schools should be closed except for my child?"

People wanted schools closed to everyone but their child.

This, absolutely. I haven't met a single person in real life who sees it as anything other than a tragedy for children to have their education interrupted, whether they thought it was necessary or not

I agree completely.

In my experience, opinion was fairly event split. Talking about aggressive minority and crowing is divisive.

More DC are attending school because the key worker list has grown. Employer's godwill has been stretched past breaking point.

Schools are not closed. My DC are using the online provision and I am grateful that is the case. My oh is a supply teacher and does not get paid during lockdown.

If schools were safe, teachers and pupils would be allowed to use track and trace. Ds had four isolations due to burst bubbles. Relaxation over Christmas would have meant this would have continued and probably have been worse.

And surely these schools with 75% of children attending will be sending home classes/bubbles to isolate in a matter of weeks and thereby putting essential key workers in a position of being unable to work either because of childcare issues or through illness due to transmission brought home.

I was hoping for two weeks hard lock down testing and graduated return to school so two weeks then test at home and with a negative test return to school probably around three weeks off school total even then I would have said only areas where the NHS is at risk realistically

I only heard people wanting to close schools in MN. Now there is one proposing children should resit the year.

I also never wanted them to close but I think there should be an option to homeschool without losing your place. I think a lot of people.would have taken that chance.

Nobody I know in rl wanted our school closed.

My Dc are still going to school. Not because I'm taking the piss. Not because I have an I'm alright Jack attitude. Because I have no choice if I want to pay the mortgage and look after the people I work with. This whole thing has been so good at engendering an us vs them situation across its lifespan and currently the people who can keep their dc at home are being encouraged to make sweeping and unkind generalisations against those people who can't. I've seen it on MN and FB, the utter contempt for people whose lives are different to theirs and without full possession of the facts, people are being encouraged to direct bile towards their neighbours, family and friends.

It's like anything in rl where there are different life experiences at play. Benefits for example. People who make sweeping, uneducated statements about the woeful state of the country's welfare state and use words like scroungers. You try and counter their arguments and they don't mean those people who actually need it, they mean this other homogeneous squirming mass of people they don't know or understand.

I'm sure the vicious comments on social media about entitled parents and little Johnny aren't aimed at me. That's what the accusators would tell me. They mean these other folk. Them. That lot.

Nobody I know wanted schools closed.

They wanted schools to be made safer with measures such as social distancing (less children in confined spaces), masks, smaller bubbles rather than entire secondary year groups etc etc.

I agree OP. I never wanted schools to close but my opinion seemed very much in the minority on MN. However, now they have closed the majority seem to either be claiming they are a key worker or defending the rights of people who are clearly not key workers but we mustn’t judge because they’ve obviously got their reasons! Hence schools are still very busy and home schooled kids are missing out.

Plus also take into account the people who do it just to contradict the government position. Those who are always shouting U turn blah, blah, blah.

Where is the evidence schools are seeing up to 75% capacity in?

Its funny how some children who could have had key worker places in summer but didn't attend school "because it wasn't safe, the numbers were too high" are now in school when the numbers are vastly higher due to a faster transmitting varient. Some parents at my DC school were very very vocal almost preaching that they were keeping their children safe and almost disgusted at those who did return, yet now they are the ones falling over themselves to have their dc in school.

@CeibaTree

I don’t know anyone in real life who wanted schools closed, just a vocal minority on mumsnet!

This

I’m not surprised. Dd only started school properly this school year so we’ve had to take a place (I’m NHS, DP is supply chain for medical equipment - neither is possible to wfh) but if they’d refused us I would have had to quit my job. Simple maths, my pay cheque is a fraction of DP’s and he would find it harder to get another job paying what his does now. Our childminder has laid down the law that she won’t facilitate online learning so we’d end up with a fine too which would be lovely.

Neither of our employers have any goodwill left after the last year with constant isolations etc.

It's classic government acting at the last second with utter inability to predict the bleeding obvious or think things through.

Yes, the schools needed closing because rates are bloody soaring and the NHS is about to be in a mess the likes of which we've never seen.

Yes, this time around with much more experience, children absolutely should be provided with online teaching available at home.

However this is bloody impossible to achieve without at the same time sorting things with employers and furlough schemes to enable parents to have their children at home, and not have the whole family competing at the same time for the laptop and broadband. The two things needed to happen simultaneously.

Plus they needed to sort the keyworker criteria again so that it doesn't apply to most of a school population, and parents can't take the piss and have a place that isn't genuinely needed. Because the guidance has kept changing and expanding until it becomes unfair to exclude the very small proportion of kids it doesn't apply to instead of being a safety net for families with no other options. And be very clear in messaging that keyworker places are for set needs only, employers need to help, and while this sucks for everyone, this is necessary for a time.

Likewise they need to realise that by this point (as on another thread) the whole bubble advice has been changed so much, so often, and has become so loosely confused that most people have given up and created their own definition to just carry on as usual but call it bubbles.

The ones I know baying for schools to be closed were the SAHP, the ones with access to alternative childcare, the ones with secure jobs and those on furlough to name but a few. I'm none of these (single, wfh non-keyworker parent), and I never wanted schools to close. But if you express the fact you don't want schools to close on MN, you are throwing yourself to the lions and get accused of wanting to kill teachers and their families.

Schools should be open even though it seems most are anyway to ALL children but a lot safer. Teachers should be a higher priority than they currently are to be vaccinated. My DC have had brilliant online provision so far but it is not as good as learning at school with correct resources and the social side (which I understand is not the most important thing right now). In theory, they could get a place as their NR father is a prison officer. I could easily join the reams of pisstakers by pushing that fact (ham it up by saying he has 50/50 care or whatever) but I won't as its just not moral at this time.

If schools are going to be 75% full, then they should reopen to everyone, otherwise it seems as though you are illegally excluding a minority of students.

The public in general it seems wanted the schools shut. They got what they wanted. Now they are whinging about it. Noone is winning in this lockdown, least of all the kids.

I’ve been surprised at how much blatant hypocrisy I’ve seen throughout. The polls always show majority support for whatever the most recent restriction is but then apparently 80% of people don’t self isolate etc. I’ve had friends moan to me about people meeting family over Christmas and in the same breath tell me about their plans to meet family at Christmas. This is partly more of the same. Also agree that there is a minority on here who don’t represent reality. It wouldn’t occur to most people I know not to send their child to nursery while they’re open for example but is a big thing on here. Plus a lot of people without children at school will support school closures because they see it as a way to drive rates down which doesn’t really affect them.

I saw an estimate that there are 10m key workers the other day so most of those sending kids to school probably are entitled to.

The bottom line is that there is no effective lockdown, the roads are busy, the chip shop is open, KFC is open, most work places are open - schools seem to be the only places that are shut!

Mumsnet is the polar opposite of real life imo. It is actually often the opposite of real opinion in real life. Plus there are a lot of trolls on the corona boards (and Mumsnet in general I think) at the moment.
It seems like lots of people have taken up school places this time and I will take up my son’s place too maybe next week.
I think that is a result of the utter mistrust in the unions as to when they will open schools again. I have no trust they will work with the government to open the schools fully again ASAP after their behaviour in May.
But with more children in they will be less likely to be able to keep the schools closed indefinitely like last time as the parents whose kids are not in school will become more and more pissed off.

I wanted schools closed. Not sure I was one of the most vocal but I did comment on several threads about it.

Both key workers (according the new list - which is frankly stupid) and my child is at home.

About 50 to 60% of his class is in. Most of them have parents working at home.

It's crazy

The only people I know in real life who wanted schools to close completely were elderly and retired (neighbours) or had grown up kids (my dsis) and they back down when you point out that their kids got an education so why shouldn't yours. Friends who are teachers were more conflicted - they dreaded going into school but wanted their own kids to get an education so had more balanced views.

MN views aren't particularly representative of the real world. If it was Jeremy Corbyn would be the current PM for better or worse.

is it partly a feature of MN being very London/SE Centric?

nobody i know wanted schools closed. In my (northern England)area we had COVID rates of 700-odd per 100000 shortly after schools and universities went back, but our schools were not permitted to close at that time. Since then rates had fallen to approx 180/100000, and so most people felt that their children and teachers were not facing increased risk.

Wanting schools to close, and coming to the realisation that it was no longer possible to keep them open safely, as a result of this new variant are too different things.

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