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.

@Ihatefish I was misquoted! I didn't ever say people should be grateful they are not dead or that my therapist friends says that. I said we SHOULDN'T be saying that.

*ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia

Totallydefeated

You don’t realise the severity of the pandemic because although you have mental challenges you were evidently not hospitalised or facing a much worse fate like others are. It is disrespectful to all those front line medics who are trying to save lives and under mental strain you would never appreciate nor understand. You don’t know what mental trauma is. A front line medic deciding how to prioritise limited life saving medical resources and yet you are asking for more. We don’t evidently have enough to fund healthcare so who is going to pay for all your nice to have extras?

Why is it always someone else’s problem ie looking towards a relatively incompetent government for leadership and direction. What are you yourself doing to protect your self and family? You will find charity starts at home and especially in a pandemic when everyone is suffering. Some more than others but it’s look towards yourself and do what you can. Nobody can help you more than yourself first. Your long term mental suffering is unfortunate collateral damage but many others have a worse fate than you. Many are dead or grieving. Think of those and everything seems less painful.*

You’re very hard of thinking, aren’t you?

Not to mention severely challenged in respect of your reading comprehension abilities.

You’ve spewed out so much uncomprehending shite in this post that I’m not going to bother addressing each erroneous point, as I’d be here for hours, but I’ll make a couple of high level ones as you don’t seem to have the faintest clue (but this isn’t stopping you from being judgemental or patronising, despite your own intellectual limitations).

you don’t know what mental trauma is

You’re wrong.

You don’t actually know anything about me other than the very limited info I’ve posted. Don’t you think you’re being very silly to just make assumptions like this?

You don’t realise the severity of the pandemic

I do, I’m just not prat enough to fall hook line and sinker for the government’s propraganda, or think they’re handling it well. They’re not. They could be putting all sorts of different measures in place to mitigate some of the fall out, eg taking over other buildings to allow actual social distancing in schools, paying ALL parents who need to stop or reduce work because of school closure etc etc.

I’m not disrespecting anybody by using some vision to imagine how we might be managing better. Don’t be absurd.

A front line medic deciding how to prioritise limited life saving medical resources and yet you are asking for more

You’ve made a massive and unjustified leap here. I’m not asking front line medics for any more.

We don’t evidently have enough to fund healthcare so who is going to pay for all your nice to have extras?

Our govt chooses to spend 2% less of our GDP on health than other comparable economies such as Germany and France. It could choose to fund it better, but it doesn’t.

I think you’re suffering mentally just as much as I am, from the febrile tone of your post, and the huge assumptions you’ve made based on no facts whatsoever. Maybe look into getting some help for that.

What a pile of rubbish -why don’t the people with dead elderly relatives who have lived their lives feel grateful, they could be living in Africa and lost multiple children.

Comparing people’s situations saying someone suffering mental stresses/illnesses should feel grateful because someone is worse Is one of the most idiotic things ever. On that basis, only one person in the history and future of mankind has the right to feel like they are suffering because only that one person can say that no one has it worse.

Guilt tripping people suffering mentally is despicable! Do you go round kicking a crutch away from people who have lost a leg whilst screeching “Stop moaning and be grateful you have one leg”.

Anyone who feels they are suffering mentally has the absolute right to be heard.

Couldn’t agree more Ihatefish. What a cringe-inducing ignorant post that was.

@AriataBrown

Fucking hell 27 pages of the same fucking bullshit On and on and on pretty much since last March Thread after fucking thread Quit your bitching and whining and accept schools will open when they open FFS

Everyone is having a shit time...some more than others
Your snowflakes will be fine
Go and do some artisan baking

I completely agree.

@Thewiseoneincognito

The elephant in the room is unfortunately that once they start mixing, children become disease vectors. Them being at school completely undermines the wfh initiative, the household mixing rules and social distancing rules.

BoJo spelled it out clearly for us in his lockdown speech when he called them vectors.

How school closures impact DC is the lesser evil when compared to virus infection rates. As someone without children it doesn’t affect me but it means we could potentially get some normality back if closures remain in place for a longer period.

Parents have to remember that they are not the centre of the world even though their Dc are precious to them. To the greater good they’re just another cog. It’s a hard pill to swallow but try to have some objectivity when looking at the wider picture.

Not really hard to see from that comment you don’t have children. What an absolutely heartless comment to write. I Picture you as a female version of Scrooge. Miserable and wirey hunched up over your last log on the fire in a freezing cold room with a puckered up scowl on your mouth. Children are the centre of the world because they are the future of this world. If every adult died tomorrow the human race would quite happily live on. You are fully developed (I assume) with an adults developed brain. You have had many adult years before and many more infront of you. Children don’t have that. Children’s childhoods where their brains are developing and learning about the world is finite. You can’t get it back. Not ever. Every week and month they miss at school and developing properly is far more tragic than any adults missed months. You, will get adult time back once this is over. You will trundle off to your job, meet your family, meet your friends. A child will never get this piece of development back. A whole year has been lost for many in terms of security, education and socialisation with unfamiliar adults and peers. This is something that can never be regained

I've though this would be the case for a while.

At the end of the day it is what it is, the NHS must be protected.

We need to remember that the curriculum has not been suspended this lockdown so what our kids are learning at the moment is unlikely to be repeated.

Time for us to crack on and make sure our kids to their absolute best over the next few months, as hard as that will be.

I can't help feeling that moaning about it makes us all feel worse. We'd do much better out of a 'we're all this together', jollying each other along, can-do attitude, I think.

We can keep pointing out how shit it is but is that going to help? No.

How are your kids (and you) coping with this lockdown learning @AriataBrown?

I completely agree.

Do you have school age dc BigButtons are they at home learning?

@Dustyboots

Such a typical MN response
As shit as the next person.

Posters who think it shouldn’t be on this site on the day it’s delayed should read other threads. Or find another site if that’s too hard. Or hide topic. Loads of options.

It’s not hard. Don’t be that irritating that you need to spew such delightful charm.

At the end of the day it is what it is, the NHS must be protected.

It would be better protected if it had the funding it needed to function properly for the last 10+ years.

@MarshaBraydo
Don’t be that irritating that you need to spew such delightful charm

At least thank me for distracting you momentarily and giving your a break from your hamster wheel

[quote AriataBrown]@MarshaBraydo
Don’t be that irritating that you need to spew such delightful charm

At least thank me for distracting you momentarily and giving your a break from your hamster wheel[/quote]
I doubt it. Just more crap to look at.

We went from 'everyone in school' to 'everyone out, full time remote learning' in 12 hours in primary on January 4th / 5th. By comparison, the whole February / after Easter / maybe later thing is positively coherent.

Apparently people at DFE had meetings during the day and weren't told that BJ was going to announce school closures a few hours later too
I seem to recall the Sunday Times reporting that BJ was the "last man standing " over closing schools.

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@AriataBrown are you always such a twat[/quote]
Ha. I hadn’t noticed the name but you’re not wrong

@ineedaholidaynow

Matter of opinion. Probably most days but generally only after 5pm

@MarshaBradyo Why thank you

I can't be sure of source but someone posted Boris making the announcement on the Monday but his watch showing several hours earlier

@starrynight19

The reason was Boris wanted to keep schools open . He clearly said closing them would have consequences , including mental health problems .

Unfortunately I think the unions / science/ porton down reports , gave him no choice . It was pressure from all sides that Forced the change of mind .

It was always said schools were safe for students / pupils and that was true but the threat to teachers health and the virus spreading more easily and being taken home was too much .

The one question I have is how can schools be safer ? I keep hearing that logistically they can’t ?

But if you had all the money in the world what would you do in a short time ?

Children are seriously affected by this - anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded. Children should be in school, learning, making social connections.

The government should be prioritising teachers and their families being vaccinated urgently.

@MarshaBradyo

Tax that’s great. Honestly I’m a keen in class person and I wonder about masks and ventilation being enough.

I wouldn’t say no though! Not yet as cases too high.

Marsha I’m a huge supporter of mask in classrooms, and we had really good compliance in my (secondary) school of mask-wearing in the corridors. (The school allowed students to be exempt if they needed to be, of course.)

Proper ventilation would also be a massive help, as in proper air purifying systems, not just open windows and frozen kids and staff. But, budget... or non-existent budget, more accurately!

But I also agree with you in worrying if that’s even enough, especially with cases still this high, and the new variant being more contagious. I wish there were some decent answers but it feels impossible at the moment to open safely. Which is depressing, as I really want to be back in with my students.

@ktp100

How about you come and tell my 15 year DS who is in Y11 that then? Best I tell him to pull his socks up and try and teach himself content that he didn’t get taught in Y10 when the curriculum was suspended then.

And best make sure he doesn’t moan about the possibility of having his future prospects destroyed because of the incompetence of our Government. Not being in school is having a huge huge impact on these kids especially ones who are in exam years. I think my cup of jollyness ran out last lockdown and now it’s completely empty. But I’m sure telling him to bake some cakes and go for a walk and play with toys in the garden will do an awful lot for his lack of self esteem and his destroyed mental health. That might work for 6 year olds but not for nearly 16 year olds. So maybe people need to have some empathy and realise that there are many reasons why we wants schools to go back (and I’m a TA as well) and it’s not about us parents having a lack of effort. I can’t teach my son to pass a higher level maths GCSE, I can teach him number bonds but I doubt that will help.

@Sweetnessandbite

I can't be sure of source but someone posted Boris making the announcement on the Monday but his watch showing several hours earlier

I'm guessing that it's pre recorded so they can have a final version with the least amount of bluster.

[quote ihearttc]@ktp100

How about you come and tell my 15 year DS who is in Y11 that then? Best I tell him to pull his socks up and try and teach himself content that he didn’t get taught in Y10 when the curriculum was suspended then.

And best make sure he doesn’t moan about the possibility of having his future prospects destroyed because of the incompetence of our Government. Not being in school is having a huge huge impact on these kids especially ones who are in exam years. I think my cup of jollyness ran out last lockdown and now it’s completely empty. But I’m sure telling him to bake some cakes and go for a walk and play with toys in the garden will do an awful lot for his lack of self esteem and his destroyed mental health. That might work for 6 year olds but not for nearly 16 year olds. So maybe people need to have some empathy and realise that there are many reasons why we wants schools to go back (and I’m a TA as well) and it’s not about us parents having a lack of effort. I can’t teach my son to pass a higher level maths GCSE, I can teach him number bonds but I doubt that will help.[/quote]
I'm with you here. The teens are just not going to catch up!

@Littlewhitedove2 bless you. The idea of being a heartless Scrooge made me giggle. You couldn’t be any further from the truth.

As I said, parents need to understand, objectively, that the world does not revolve around children. Especially at this time when a return to schools would have a calamitous impact on the efforts to curb the virus. You are correct when you say how detrimental this will be to their development, I agree.

But growing up in a country in ruins from not properly managing this virus will be far worse for them long term. Children are going to be living with covid potentially all their lives. Don’t we owe it to them to try and get a hold of it now whilst we have a chance? Every step we take now could impact them for years after we’ve all gone.