The EARLIEST schools will open is 8th March!!!

[dingledongle]

I cannot believe this!

Stunned!

My kids have lost one year of school and are going to be paying for this for decades to come

“ Qualifications do not get you jobs. ”

Mine did. Do you mean that qualifications don’t guarantee jobs?

@ElliFAntspoo 100%! I don't think I've ever agreed with a comment so much!

Bottom line is, every child has a right to be educated, and every parent has a responsibility to educate their children. We do not get to abdicate our responsibilities by paying taxes

Agree it is the parents responsibility. A basic like providing food and shelter.

Given how many don’t pay taxes or claim more back in state help not many actually pay for it anyway.

Surely that is just naïve.

I agree with all your posts @ElliFAntspoo except for this.

You've only to look at the thundering of "Teachers know best! Don't be THAT parent!", here on MN to see that we are conditioned to accept that teachers know best about how to educate our children, they are the professional educators and when you have a child with additional needs and you have no experience of this and no idea how to proceed or what you can legally request for them, then of course you would think they might have the training and insight that you as a young inexperienced parent do not. I know I thought that. Later you become the expert on your child and become confident enough to lead or push the process but in the beginning you're in a world of shock and disbelief and it's not naïveté to hope that the person responsible for educating your child might be able to direct you.

Want to be clear here that this is not teacher bashing. Both of my children have stellar teachers now who smooth their path and step up for them every day and I love them.

That people believe the idea that missing a year of school equates to a life-long deficit is very worrying. People all over the world have different educational experiences, and in my own life-time I have seen many changes, and educational practices changed, the times that children are taught things constantly evolves with different educational theories and even what children are taught changes. Education isn't a prescriptive process whereby if you miss some time you can't ever catch up- it's a life-long process. If they don't learn something when they are four, the can learn it when they are five or 6.

As for GCSEs- they just learning a limited set facts and skills in order to pass a test- real learning takes place in the real world.

I'm a TA and currently supervising a bubble in my primary school. The days are filled with the children watching one video after another and completing corresponding worksheets. Believe me, any ordinary parent could teach their children far more effectively and more relevantly.

@FreekStar

That people believe the idea that missing a year of school equates to a life-long deficit is very worrying. People all over the world have different educational experiences, and in my own life-time I have seen many changes, and educational practices changed, the times that children are taught things constantly evolves with different educational theories and even what children are taught changes. Education isn't a prescriptive process whereby if you miss some time you can't ever catch up- it's a life-long process. If they don't learn something when they are four, the can learn it when they are five or 6.

As for GCSEs- they just learning a limited set facts and skills in order to pass a test- real learning takes place in the real world.

I'm a TA and currently supervising a bubble in my primary school. The days are filled with the children watching one video after another and completing corresponding worksheets. Believe me, any ordinary parent could teach their children far more effectively and more relevantly.

It’s not like that in my sons primary, they still have their teacher teaching them. Given that lots of at home parents are working from home how much input can/do they give.

@bumbleymummy

“ Qualifications do not get you jobs. ”

Mine did. Do you mean that qualifications don’t guarantee jobs?

No, what I meant was qualifications do not get you jobs and allow you to keep them. People are paid for what they can do, and who they are as people. Exams tell you nothing about what a person is capable of or what type of person you are employing. That is why you can sack them if they're useless, and why there is no redundancy provision for roles that you need to terminate in the first two years. You have to have a means of filtering the capable from the incapable without damaging the business. The best guarantee of a job is a person who is capable, motivated, intelligent, polite, diligent, honest and willing to learn. A person's academic record only lets you guess at a couple of those, and in my experience, often they are not good predictors.

@HmmSureJan

Surely that is just naïve.

I agree with all your posts @ElliFAntspoo except for this.

You've only to look at the thundering of "Teachers know best! Don't be THAT parent!", here on MN to see that we are conditioned to accept that teachers know best about how to educate our children, they are the professional educators and when you have a child with additional needs and you have no experience of this and no idea how to proceed or what you can legally request for them, then of course you would think they might have the training and insight that you as a young inexperienced parent do not. I know I thought that. Later you become the expert on your child and become confident enough to lead or push the process but in the beginning you're in a world of shock and disbelief and it's not naïveté to hope that the person responsible for educating your child might be able to direct you.

Want to be clear here that this is not teacher bashing. Both of my children have stellar teachers now who smooth their path and step up for them every day and I love them.

What I meant was, believing that the teachers knew what to do is just naïve. If someone believes what they have been taught and never checks to find out if what they have been taught is actually true or not, then that is either naivety, or wilful ignorance. I would defer to naivety and not presume anyone intentionally insisted on believing something they knew not to be true. It would never occur to me to believe that someone else knew more than I did about how to care and nurture for my child without first checking the validity and basis of their information and training. Otherwise you end up with professionals telling you not to breast feed, not to co-sleep, not to have a natural birth, not to take chord blood... The list of 'professionals who know better than you' who are downright wrong and are willing to lie, or are so exceptionally stupid that they will tell you whatever they have been told to tell you because they don't actually have the intelligence to read of make their own mind up is staggering. MN is full of such stories from 'professionals', so why would anyone think teachers are any more intelligent or have any more integrity that that the rest of the working world?

I do see what you're saying but it was the fact that they knew nothing at all that was the shocker. I don't think it's naïveté to expect guidance around education albeit for a child with SN, from an education professional and to think they might be able to point you in the right direction when you are reeling from multiple lifelong diagnoses of your child. Seemingly you feel you could have/or have handled such situations better but you are definitely in the minority - I've worked with hundreds of families who have been in this position. I just can't agree that parents who weren't immediate experts or thought they'd get help are either naive, unintelligent or wilfully ignorant.

The list of 'professionals who know better than you' who are downright wrong and are willing to lie, or are so exceptionally stupid that they will tell you whatever they have been told to tell you because they don't actually have the intelligence to read of make their own mind up is staggering.

I certainly agree with this...now... two children with additional needs later. I've experienced disgusting lies and behaviour from professionals in that time and know how ruthless some people can become when they're arse covering and how willing to throw other peoples children under the bus, but think the point @Justthebeerlighttoguide and I were making is that it is a shock initially to discover you're completely on your own. Most people wouldn't anticipate that and it would be helpful if it was known.

But schools haven’t been closed. I’m seeing pictures every day of my kids school half full..so if school are such a source of the high rates then the minority struggling at home will never go back!

Even though I cannot wait for schools to open
I get why they just can't now
Rather wait and not have yo yo lockdowns
The more pertinent issue
How can we get parents to keep they jobs sanity and homes while minding children
There is very little to no government support and women are getting shafted

@Royalty2k

Boris did say they will be helping Schools to help Children catch up on the lessons they have lost

These children will be entitled to 15 hours one to one tuition. In my long experience as a specialist special needs teacher this is by no means enough. I will of course be doing my best if I ever get the chance to actually go into school but my minimum for making a difference is usually twice what they will be given.

@ElliFAntspoo I’m not sure what job you do but I wouldn’t have footed mine with the years of studying I did to gain my qualifications. I think you’re being a bit simplistic.

@Lianne1977

But schools haven’t been closed. I’m seeing pictures every day of my kids school half full..so if school are such a source of the high rates then the minority struggling at home will never go back!

Lets look at it another way.... You have key workers, nurses, doctors, bus drivers, all of whom come into contact with Covid positive people at a much higher rate that you or I do. They carry it on their clothes, their hand, their hair, and a lot of them may well already have had Covid. But most notably, when they are exposed to Covid, they are exposed to it in much higher doses. They share this with their families and their children, and just like you and I, they are dependant on washing their hands and wearing PPE to try to keep the virus at bay. And just like you and I, they make the odd mistake, but unlike you or I, when they get ill they have a much higher chance of getting very ill because they take in a much higher inoculum.

So, regardless of whether or not people actually get ill from Covid, and regardless of whether or not people have been vaccinated, you have a bunch of children of key workers, and a bunch of key workers and their spouses, who are much more likely to be exposed to, to carry, and to infect others with Covid.

Given the choice, this is not the group of people you want to be sending your children into the midst of, not the people you want to be gatherings with, and their places of work are not the places you want to be going if you can do anything to avoid it.

They are putting their lives at risk to deal with this virus. The teachers who are teaching their kids too. The very least we can do is make their lives as easy as possible by leaving them the F alone to get on with what they are doing and stop complaining that we don't get to add to their workload because we can't deal with our own inconveniences.

@thefallthroughtheair

It's a disgrace. There is still absolutely no cost-benefit analysis being discussed by the government; quite aside from the death and case figures still being given with absolutely no context. This has become a political game of virtue-signalling and the losers are the most vulnerable and voiceless in society.

Exactly

Wouldn’t have been able to get mine*

Yup, you and I and other parents of sen dc believe there is a system in place place..

Jane is struggling to read, not picking up phonics like their peers, red flag on Jane, monitor, call SENCO in, SENCO sits in and observes Jane, looks over all Jane's work, reports, speak to parents.. Any concerns at home...

System clicks into place, we feel Jane may be showing signs of dyslexia, so let's try these strategies to get her going reading then re assess in 6 months..

There is usually no spotting, no proper SENCO and no system to click into place.

[quote bumbleymummy]@ElliFAntspoo I’m not sure what job you do but I wouldn’t have footed mine with the years of studying I did to gain my qualifications. I think you’re being a bit simplistic.[/quote]
That puts you in a very select group of professions - Law, doctor, dentist, etc. Let me ask you though... Was the only way you could get into university to study your degree based on you having a specific set of high-school qualifications? Or is it the case that there are other routes to the degree qualification that do not require school qualifications? Also, let us assume for example that you are an Architect or a Doctor. Are you required to be an Architect in order to own and run an Architect's practice? Are you required to be a Doctor to own and run a Doctors practice? Or are you only required to have the knowledge and employ people who do have the qualifications?

@Justthebeerlighttoguide

Good q on press conference, how can school be safe and simultaneously a vector of transmission.

safe for kids not so safe for the oldies they may live with, cross infection risk for adults when kids are collected or dropped off. No evidence on where teachers catch it and no spike to indicate they are particularly at risk

@FreekStar

Genuine question if you are a TA and supervising the children in who are in your own wrods "I'm a TA and currently supervising a bubble in my primary school. The days are filled with the children watching one video after another and completing corresponding worksheets. Believe me, any ordinary parent could teach their children far more effectively and more relevantly." What are the teachers doing? I mean it cannot take that long to decide what worksheets to give you to give out or what video's the children need to watch. If they are 'teaching' the ones at home then why are the ones 'in school' following the same lessons? That doesn't sound right at all.

@HmmSureJan

no fault of teachers but amazingly, sen isn't taught in training.. Often SENCO are literally just Co ordinators and school surpress issues because they don't have funding to support.

This is something that just beggars belief and over the years I have told people when talking about my children's needs and they have simply not believed me. They find it incomprehensible that teachers do not routinely receive training in recognising SN/SEN in the children they are responsible for. I believe it is an optional module? Not sure on that. Ds was spotted because I knew something was going on and moved him to a primary which had a SALT unit attached - the only one in the borough - and so there were SLT therapists in situ and a specialist SENCO who spotted it almost immediately. Prior to that he'd been in two primaries where they brushed me off every time I mentioned possible autism and gazed at me uncomprehendingly when I suggested interventions that might help until we could get the assessment process started. I'll stop banging on now but this was a feature throughout his school time and then that of my next child - also autistic. They simply didn't have a clue and the worst thing is you expect them to, you think you are not alone and they'll help but they can't because they aren't trained and you end up telling them what to do!

I sympathise wholeheartedly with your position. The teaching of special needs kids in some schools is appalling. Every year at the end of year parent/ teacher meeting I would say to my son's teachers "You do know he's dyslexic don't you?" To which the reply was usually a stunned silence. Fortunately I was in a position to find him the help he needed.. Other parents aren't so fortunate.

@ElliFAntspoo There are other routes into university rather than standard exams in school but they do typically require evidence of you being educated/having knowledge to a certain level eg some kind of portfolio or sitting the exams as a private candidate. Being a nice/friendly/reliable person isn’t going to be enough. If you want to be a doctor/architect rather than just running an office then you will need to train as one.

My daughters teacher is doing this, as I’m sure the rest of the teachers in her school are. She has keyworker kids in school and is preparing lessons each night for the next day. She is doing a fantastic job

I don't understand this whole nonsense and fixation on schools being 'safe'. Surely, we all know schools can NOT be safe in this pandemic! Prolonged time spent inside in cramped, poorly ventilated classrooms with no social distancing, masks or PPE all whilst mixing with the germs of at least 30 families (often 100s of families!) for lots of hours a day! Does anyone really naively believe schools are safe? Why is no-one admitting schools are not safe? This 2nd wave is directly linked to schools returning in September and bringing cases down is directly linked to closing schools before Xmas.

As for JVT claims that teachers have probably caught COVID outside the school but families have caught it from school!? Ok, I'm wrong and schools are safe...Obviously it's the teachers that are not safe and spreading this disease!?

@FreekStar

Our keyworker kids are doing normal lessons (primary TA). We have fifty percent in, and they are not just doing worksheets. I guess all schools are different.