Boris to make imminent announcement on schools, any guesses?!

[Adviceneededalways]

Do we think an extension delaying opening or is he going to try and get children back in sooner...

I have to say I think the latter would be a fucking disaster but I wouldn’t be at all surprised...

@TheKeatingFive

I had really high hopes for Kier Starmer and the repairing of the Labour party but he is no less a fool than any others. Shame.

Agreed.

Also agree. So disappointed

I don't know how you go from the hard hitting BBC reporting that hospitals were at breaking point with nurses and morticians crying and adverts saying that you could catch it from a non symptomatic runner you pass on your daily walk to, let's shove loads of kids who can't social distance and can pass it on even if they aren't affected themselves in the same (usually fairly small) classrooms within the space of a week.

Bad decisions after bad decisions. I'm not having a great time homeschooling but sending them back so soon is madness

@snowballer

*Don't worry, I'm not desperate to go and sit in a restaurant whilst kids are 'missing out' on an education either.

I do think though that some (too many) parents are sending their children/can't wait to send their children back to school when they could homeschool them. Purely because they realise it's hard bloody work and they just don't want to do it.

Their motive is not "children's education".*

Oh come on. You can't really be that shortsighted can you? I'm assuming the parent that home schooled you and your siblings didn't have a full time job to do alongside the home schooling? I assume you also didn't homeschool in a lockdown where you couldn't see anyone else your own age, or go to the numerous edifying places that proper homeschoolers take their children. I assume also you weren't trying to follow a curriculum set by a school, with no internet/devices/quiet spaces to work.

Just try and see beyond the visibly tiny bubble you currently occupy.

You are only proving my point @snowballer

Everyone has the capacity to "see beyond the visibly tiny bubble they currently occupy". But how many people are actually doing this?

More to the point, how many people are "whatabouting" their own "special" circumstances whilst ignoring the bigger picture and the resulting impact on society.

My DM managed homeschooling 3 children under 11 and keeping a roof over our heads and putting food on the table after my dad fuck off 5+ years prior.

That's not to say that everyone is expected to race to the bottom with competitive hardship stories. It isn't about the individual circumstances at this point. Everything is hard for everyone, in different ways.

But if (if!) parents want school open just because they hate homeschooling... Perhaps they should consider the wider reaching impact of that.

These parents will send their kids to school and then pick them up and take them round the supermarket... A pp had a very good post about being sensible with mixing, and just because people are mixing in school does not give parents an excuse to ignore or bend the lockdown rules. But a sizeable minority think they are special, which ruins it for everyone else.

@fromdownwest yes so true . Whilst your mental health and that of your child goes down the pan !

Well since teachers are getting tested x2 per week they should be back at school

In the Autumn lockdown, when schools were still open, I read here & elsewhere of families saying "Well, my child mixes with all sorts at school, so I don't see why we can't all do what we want."

I think it was maybe more that they didn’t see why they shouldn’t mix with the same families they were mixing with at school. So friends having parties with school friends and maybe mums of kids who spend all day together meeting up, knowing that your families are sharing a risk. Tbh although I didn’t do this I can see why people did. The Govt tried to tell them that the kids couldn’t catch it in school with hundreds but could catch it having one or two of those hundreds round for tea which doesn’t really make sense.

If doesn't matter if you wfh or sahm the vast majority of children are demotivated and are struggling with the change.

I really disagree that it’s the vast majority. I personally believe the vast majority are fine. But also, neither of us actually have data on this (besides anecdotal).

@CrackOpenTheGin

Praying common senses prevails and schools stay closed to most

100%

@Christmasfairy2020

Well since teachers are getting tested x2 per week they should be back at school

I don’t follow the logic. School staff testing twice a week won’t stop children passing it to each other and then taking it back home.

@Christmasfairy2020

Well since teachers are getting tested x2 per week they should be back at school

Who said they are wing tested twice a week? Last I read the tests were seen as not accurate enough and that idea was trashed for now.

Really think about grouping together 10,000 people and what that crowd would look like

I think this is a point which needs to be made, over and over. At the beginning of the pandemic, when the UK was just starting to see cases, I remember Italy recorded just over 450 deaths in a day and I was just horrified. It seemed such an unfathomable number and it scared me. Now, when we have over 1,000 people dying a day, it just seems commonplace - oh well, underlying conditions, old, made stupid lifestyle choices...

I am gutted about the schools and have been feeling really low for over a month now but I think it's really saying something when we are seeing '000s of people dying, all of whom were someone's family, friend and loved one, and are not horrified.

And yes, death lurks in far more places than just Covid but if 1,000 people a day were dying from something which society as a whole could help prevent, why on earth wouldn't we do what we could.

There's not a chance in hell schools will go back on 8th March. As everyone knows, Boris loves to tell people good news and what they want to hear (hence the 100,000 deaths).

This will most likely result in yet another u-turn. Or, if by some miracle they do open on the 8th, we'll be in another lockdown within months, with a strain of the virus which is resistant to the current vaccines. Madness.

And I say this as someone who would much rather my kids were in school than at home.

@Sparklfairy

I was simply responding to your cringeworthy assertion that parents don't have enough "grit" to homeschool. I pointed out that what kids are doing now is not homeschooling in the traditional meaning of the word. My point still stands.

@DarcyJack

If you care about transmission to anyone other than teachers, then vaccinating teachers is no good. The number of teachers getting ill has never been the problem (for the nation - obvs a huge problem for teachers). The problem with open schools is the children transmitting it to each other and then the community. This will definitely happen again if schools reopen with numbers so high. If you are happy with that fair enough, but people are despairing of our 100,000 deaths and this is the way to go to increase it.

eh? The teachers are the community! I really don't see how this stacks up. So children only transmit at home? FFS.

My god PMQs is painful to watch

@Pissedoff1234

I don't know how you go from the hard hitting BBC reporting that hospitals were at breaking point with nurses and morticians crying and adverts saying that you could catch it from a non symptomatic runner you pass on your daily walk to, let's shove loads of kids who can't social distance and can pass it on even if they aren't affected themselves in the same (usually fairly small) classrooms within the space of a week.

Bad decisions after bad decisions. I'm not having a great time homeschooling but sending them back so soon is madness

Totally agree. Madness.

I caught a bit of PMQ where Johnson was whinging on about how much they have had to deal with and it's too early to try to work out why the UK's mortality figures are so bad. He seems too thick to work out that other governments have had the same problems to deal with, or that there might be some merit in trying to investigate our death rate now so that we can perhaps bring it down, rather than leaving it to some pointless inquiry a year or more down the line,

Don't worry, I'm not desperate to go and sit in a restaurant whilst kids are 'missing out' on an education either.

I do think though that some (too many) parents are sending their children/can't wait to send their children back to school when they could homeschool them. Purely because they realise it's hard bloody work and they just don't want to do it.

Their motive is not "children's education".

I absolutely agree with this.

@SanFranBear

Really think about grouping together 10,000 people and what that crowd would look like

I think this is a point which needs to be made, over and over. At the beginning of the pandemic, when the UK was just starting to see cases, I remember Italy recorded just over 450 deaths in a day and I was just horrified. It seemed such an unfathomable number and it scared me. Now, when we have over 1,000 people dying a day, it just seems commonplace - oh well, underlying conditions, old, made stupid lifestyle choices...

I am gutted about the schools and have been feeling really low for over a month now but I think it's really saying something when we are seeing '000s of people dying, all of whom were someone's family, friend and loved one, and are not horrified.

And yes, death lurks in far more places than just Covid but if 1,000 people a day were dying from something which society as a whole could help prevent, why on earth wouldn't we do what we could.

There's loads we could do to prevent other deaths - look at that poor young child who the coroner ruled died of an asthma attack exacerbated by pollution. Sadiq Khan has been banging on about deaths caused by pollution for years.

We could all give up cars and walk/take public transport/ not fly but people won't so lets not pretend any of us don't carry some guilt in this.

Far better to look at the ONS excess death data than just the raw death data for Covid - Covid, much like death, is rather ageist. All available on the ONS website. About 5000 excess deaths for November and 9000 for December, plus you can go back over the whole year - the April figure is a LOT comparably to Nov and Dec.

@Christmasfairy2020

Well since teachers are getting tested x2 per week they should be back at school

But they also need to test the children twice a week. Otherwise the children will pass it on to the teachers/TAs.

[quote snowballer]@Sparklfairy

I was simply responding to your cringeworthy assertion that parents don't have enough "grit" to homeschool. I pointed out that what kids are doing now is not homeschooling in the traditional meaning of the word. My point still stands. [/quote]
Correction. Some parents don't have enough grit to homeschool.

And your point doesn't stand with me. I didn't mix with kids my own age or the other stuff you spouted. I was at home, the equivalent of lockdown. Didn't leave the house. It was a necessity for a similar period as is happening now.

Following that period I moved into grammar school and stayed there until the end of my secondary education.

When an adult (parent/teacher etc) asked me to do something, I did it. As did previous generations. I'm only 32 but see the damage that people thinking their own selfish wants and 'human rights' come above everything and everyone else.

If just those people toned their self absorption down a bit, genuine parents like @SinkGirl would have more support available to them and things might just go back to normal that little bit quicker.

But, as is the millennial British way, when the going gets tough, the tough whinge about human rights and civil liberties and I'm alright jack instead of pulling together as a community.

Not before March 8th?

As do vulnerable parents and guardians at home.

To 30 children at a time?

I do think though that some (too many) parents are sending their children/can't wait to send their children back to school when they could homeschool them. Purely because they realise it's hard bloody work and they just don't want to do it
So what? We aren’t teachers, we’re parents with out the skills to home school!!!

What other profession is in a crowded room with 30 children all day, no masks, little or no ventilation, no social distancing, serving and clearing lunches, performing first aid, helping after toilet accidents, comforting, holding hands after a child has put their finger up their nose straight after washing them etc etc...
You do realise the recent data on teachers was over a 9 month period from March to December; 6 months of which, not many children were in school and it was spring/summer so windows could be open and more time spent indoors?

@PastMyBestBeforeDate The ECV and over 70s should be up to full protection by then is that sarcasm or are you just not the brightest? May 31st will be the date of full protection.