So it looks like we're being prepared for children not to go back until after Easter

[choosingcrumble]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/children-face-months-at-home-as-schools-stay-shut-until-easter-wp5ltpm82?fbclid=IwAR1l0gRSzuJLIv508reRmBEojbYfoGOsWwe3_pBFmKpA4EbI1IgC5dKC2uE

I suspected it wouldn't be until then, let's just hope that it doesn't stretch into the summer.

If this is true then they need to close the schools for teaching and open them with qualified childcare only.

TAs are at our school anyway not teachers

@DrRamsesEmerson

Do al, the sanctimonious people saying ‘you can’t recover from death’ also advocate banning motorised vehicles?

We are all going to die one day. Now that Covid exists,some of us are going to die of Covid (but not very many once all those most vulnerable to it have been vaccinated). Some of us are going to die very much more unpleasantly than Covid (my very elderly MIL rather hoped to catch it and die, because she is in the early stages of vascular dementia and as a former HCP she knows what’s coming). In just the same way that some unlucky people die, or have lasting complications, from flu, or sepsis, or chicken pox. As a society, we’ve always previously accepted a degree of risk as the price of life; I’m not sure why that seems to have gone completely out of the window.

^THIS

@BluebellsGreenbells

They are absolutely hanging working parents out to dry

Better that than the children becoming ill and infecting others? Or is it ok for teachers to become ill and pas or to their families?

Someone has to give and the biggest mix is always schools - do you normally mix with 1000 people daily? Would you want to at the moment?

Look at my posting history & you will see I absolutely advocate school staff having protective measures - masks/ screens/ smaller group rotas / testing staff and pupils before they return / prioritisation for vaccinations. Some extra help for children not in school (the summer of catch up Johnson pledged never materialised for us last year). I completely agree they can't return when the rates are so high in community transmission.

But like most people I am finding it hard that the Government are not announcing a strategy for any of these measures to be introduced that means children will return to some form of onsite education and see some other children. I am fortunate that I work part time so can at least oversee/help with some of my childrens schooling but its starting to take its toll and we are expected to manage months more without an exit plan? I really don't know how parents are managing who work fulltime. I also know this is the same for a lot of school staff themselves who are attempting to wfh and homeschool. It just feels endless and (other than the school tech being better set uo this time) we are actually worse off than in the first wave and no lessons were learnt about schools and there is no more help available to working parents.

Yes! to @DrRamsesEmerson post.

catgirl1976 yes teachers vaccinated don’t necessarily stop kids bringing it home to parents.
So it should be a choice- those of us who want and need to send kids back - should and could. I’ve been to supermarkets weekly throughout this. On the tube/ train. Been coughed at, had my personal space invaded by adults every day, I think I must have had it by now. It’s a risk I’m willing to take: for my kids education and mental health. For DH and my mental health and ability to do our jobs.

If 90,000 additional people died in RTAs a year, I’m sure more would be done in respect of road safety.

We offer flu jabs to help reduce the risk of death from that.

@catgirl1976

people are dying

People were dying long before Covid, and of far worse things.

They are still dying of worse things.

Nobody is immortal. Which is why it's so important that we don't just 'exist' during the relatively short time that we all spend being alive.

Life can be full of joy and colour and fun and friends and family. It can also be dreary and boring and repetitive. It can be unspeakably miserable.

But it is life. What we have now is 'being alive'. And I for one don't want to spend my life 'being alive', in order then to die, either of Covid or anything else.

Got to love the coronavirus section of mumsnet.
A few weeks ago the majority of posts were people screaming that SCHOOLS MUST CLOSE!
Now it’s full of posts saying SCHOOLS MUST OPEN!
I for one never wanted them closed. I feel sorry for everyone who is suffering, but those of you who wanted schools closed - I hope you’re happy, and I hope none of you have the cheek to come on here and moan about it!

I know, I remember being told I was scaremongering, and was “reported” for this, when I said I can’t see schools opening for months and months yet

@Bagamoyo1

Got to love the coronavirus section of mumsnet. A few weeks ago the majority of posts were people screaming that SCHOOLS MUST CLOSE! Now it’s full of posts saying SCHOOLS MUST OPEN! I for one never wanted them closed. I feel sorry for everyone who is suffering, but those of you who wanted schools closed - I hope you’re happy, and I hope none of you have the cheek to come on here and moan about it!

Absolutely not a change of mind here.

I doubt many are - or maybe they are who knows

But usually different people

Dr ramses are you calling me sanctimonious?.
I've lost all my close family members, over the past 7 years so maybe that skews my perspective?

I can mitigate mine and my families risk re motor cars, we get mot, safety checks, wear seat belts... Follow safety measures.

Very different to shoving un masked crowds into small un ventilated rooms with no safety measures in a pandemic driven by breath and breathing?

Re your Mil, then personally having watched and been at the side of a family member dying because they couldn't breathe... Perhaps start to lobby for assisted dying?

Do people realise that some of the children who are in school do not have parents who qualify as key workers.

And that those same people bending the rules are also bending the lockdown rules. I have guest hand evidence of this. I know a family who have four children in school when both parents are at home. They live in a high infection rate area. They are freely mixing with other family members outside school including attending their place of religion, which also bends rules.

But do keep complying, won’t you.

@TiersBeforeBedtime bit dramatic. No one is asking you to spend your whole life like this. Hopefully about 6 to 9 more months.

Pop in to your local intensive care and tell the NHS staff there that people were dying of things before COVID and they should buck up and enjoy life a bit more.

You sound like the sort of person who would have put your lights on during the blitz because life's too short to sit in the dark

@Bagamoyo1

Got to love the coronavirus section of mumsnet. A few weeks ago the majority of posts were people screaming that SCHOOLS MUST CLOSE! Now it’s full of posts saying SCHOOLS MUST OPEN! I for one never wanted them closed. I feel sorry for everyone who is suffering, but those of you who wanted schools closed - I hope you’re happy, and I hope none of you have the cheek to come on here and moan about it!

Absolutely, although probably different people. I work in a school, am a governor at another and my kids are at two different schools and I know not one person who works in a school who wants them closed, they should be open and it’s disgraceful they’re not.

@SuperbGorgonzola

As a teacher, personally I wouldn't mind working through summer however, it wouldn't affect just teachers.

Assuming we're not in lockdown, cancelling the summer holidays would impact hospitality, an industry already hanging by a thread. There are also children and families who are struggling, and may be looking forward to some non lockdown, non school directed time where they can get away from the house and actually have some fun for a change.

Funny you should mention hospitality- its the business a lot of my family are in. Honestly, just seeing the kids happy and learning would be like a holiday.

I was saying keep them open throughout. Some may remember the constant abuse thrown at me. I knew this would happen - the actual reality of the day to day, relentless, dull, tiring juggling act soon kicks in and most of those who were on here campaigning for schools to shut are now silent or wanting them to reopen. Complete hypocrites.

Teacher and parent here- I am absolutely gutted by this news. Mostly gutted for my students and for children in general. Also gutted for those parents having to work from home and home school simultaneously. I also feel incensed and like this could have been avoided to some degree if only
The government had listened to teachers and schools and unions back in summer and autumn about what needed to be done to make schools safer and given us the money to implement this. But they didn’t. They refused to listen and now look where we are. It’s just unbelievable and so devastating.

@formerbabe

I could cry...My dd is struggling so much...I don't know how she's going to cope

Same

No one is asking you to spend your whole life like this. Hopefully about 6 to 9 more months

It's already been nearly a year. A year or eighteen months is actually quite a large percentage of childhood. Childhood is short...they are missing out on so much. It's a travesty.

@Flatcokeisnojoke

I know, I remember being told I was scaremongering, and was “reported” for this, when I said I can’t see schools opening for months and months yet

People don’t like being told the obvious truth. I can remember a few weeks ago saying that old people having the jab think they can go back to normal. Off on holiday, hugging people, get togethers but they needed to realise they were still a risk to others, I was told I was a horrible nasty person

@formerbabe did I dream teaching in classrooms during a pandemic from September-December as numbers rose and rose and colleagues and students got positive results? I'm sure those 4 months were in school?!

@Sparkles715

I’m a teacher and a parent and want schools open sooner. WHY won’t the government just take steps to make schools safer? I would love to see all children in at least one day a week in small groups. It could probably be more. Some school is better than no school. WHY do the government seem to insist on full time or nothing?

If you remember a short while back, just before Christmas, loads of people were posting on mn that their children were in and out of each other's houses. The reason? They are seeing each other at school so what difference does it make if they see them outside of school.

Until people understand that the government can't make this go away, nothing will change and lockdown will drag on.

@formerbabe. The global pandemic is a tragedy. And the DfE's handling of things has been a travesty. I think they could have done a lot more to prepare for proper remote learning, ensured tech provision for children who didn't have it etc, putting in proper support for people who who can't wfh especially single parents, put better MH support in place for parents and children. But they ploughed on refusing to accept school's would have to close and bunged all their mates billions for PPE which never came instead.

I think closing the schools for a significant period was always going to inevitable and I think they should stay shut but I also think so much more could have been done to ensure better remote provision.

@MarshaBradyo

If this is true then they need to close the schools for teaching and open them with qualified childcare only.

TAs are at our school anyway not teachers

Kind of defeats the purpose of closing schools to most ... stopping the spread.

And not what TAs or Teachers signed on for.

So much for all the hopes for 2021.
It's like 2020 Part 2. The story continues.

I really hope it doesn't drag out as long as last year.