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

@NovemberR

It can't surely be a surprise? I've got a Y11 DC and I can't see them back before Easter, however much I'd prefer him to be in school.

How are you 'stunned'? The writing has been on the wall for a while.

I won't be at all surprised if the Yr 11s and Yr 13s never go back except the Yr 11s who go on to 6th form.

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.

@MercyBooth

Indeed. Better to admit you’ve been necking back the wine and not scoffing on mumsnet.

Children are still getting an education. No, it’s not the same but they are still being educated. The difference is that we are teaching simultaneously in school and online and our workload is mad. We want schools to be back to normal be a use actually it is easier to teach a whole class, in person, in school, but we only want that when it is safe to do so. Pretty much every single member of school staff is suffering from an underlying, continuous anxiety right now. Anxiety about catching covid, Anxiety over work set. Anxiety about the well-being of not only our own children but of our students.
It’s all there bubbling under the surface.
It is exhausting.

And catching cv is shit. I still can't do much more than a short walk. And I'm properly fit. If I was 'in' school, I couldn't be back. As it is, I was able to keep teaching 'lives' whilst in real life, kids would have had supply the whole time.

I bet all the people clamouring for a "quick sharp 2 wk shut down post Christmas" weren't expecting this.

@sadpapercourtesan

JVT's comments about schools and Vallance's about mortality are the most disingenuous and shifty things I've seen since this whole mess started. They've both come across as straight shooters in the past.

I find that rather unsettling.

Agreed. Shocked by JVT tonight.

@colouringindoors

I hate to tell you, but our Head has said students won't be back before Easter.

1700 more people died today.
NHS ICUs still running at 200% capacity, 50k NHS staff off sick/isolating and thousands have PTSD.

I do sympathise, I have two kids, my siblings and friends all do.

But the virus is out of control.

Your Head can’t say this. They find out the information at exactly the same time at everyone else

I think it would be more stunning if he had announced anything different. Have you not been following the news?
There are children who may be impacted for decades ( hopefully they are in school and identified as vulnerable). While I worry about my own children, I don’t think they will be impacted for decades. People come through all kinds of trauma and move on.

Stunned ? What when 100000 are dead and 35000 are in hospital ?! Unless there is a plan for schools nothing will change. Out of 6 classes i had 5 with positive cases. I was left with an average of 4 pupils each time as others isolated. It was carnage across the school. But sure, be stunned we are not opening sooner.

@stuckinagut

I'm surprised the PM bothered with a press conference. The Unions have been dictating school closures and come 8th March, they will do what they want, not what the PM says.

Bullshit.

There are many many children who suffer in school, for whom long term Home education is not on option. There are many children doing far better now than they ever would at school

So what are you actually hoping for?

well I'm still going to be surprised if schools will be open to all students in March. Perhaps exam years or KS1 or transition years. But not all. After Easter will be different! Warmer weather, more opportunities to be outside, more people vaccinated, lockdown will have brought cases down, deaths will be down by then. I'm feeling very optimistic about the summer term!!

@LucasLeesEyebrows they don't know for sure but most of them can see the way it's going. For secondaries at least, it is almost certain to be after Easter before we get the kids back.

I see @starrynight19 so your children didn’t have multiple isolations in the autumn then? They are fully engaged with quality online learning first lockdown and this lock down?
Right, that’s bully for you and your kids. One of my DC will have had only 9 weeks in school for a whole year. You really can’t call working ‘online’ a substitute for school. It really isn’t. How can my DD learn to play music, work in dance and dance groups, use school art and textile and dt equipment, play sports or conduct science experiments at home? It’s very dry and unmovitating staring at a small laptop screen day after day. Completely different from school.
Last year in Y6 she got nothing. Well almost- the work set took 2 hours and that was a whole weeks work. That wasn’t marked or any feedback given. Brilliant! Yes this is good schooling isn’t it? Why don’t we all go and live in the land of make believe

I really hope that at the very least primary school kids can actually go back on 8 March. The toll this is taking is quite big now and the R rate seems to be below 1 in quite a number of areas already...

@NailsNeedDoing

There are many many children who suffer in school, for whom long term Home education is not on option. There are many children doing far better now than they ever would at school

So what are you actually hoping for?

Absolute school closure!

I listened to a headmaster on the radio who was desperate to get the kids back in. He said it’s doing damage to a generation of kids and no one likes to admit it. He said thousands of children were falling through the cracks in society and home learning is nothing like in school learning. He hadn’t had one single case in his school as his staff put in robust measures.

I really didn’t want schools to shut again, but even I could see that it was the only thing to do to bring cases down. Surely everyone knew that when he said February half term that was never going to be a realistic prospect and it was going to take longer to bring cases and hospital admissions down than that.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if it’s staggered reopening once they do reopen, so reception and year 1 in on March 8th, but everyone else following in the weeks after that.

@dingledongle

My kids were self isolating for 4 weeks with school closures after October half term so they had about 6 weeks teaching starry

So, surely you can see that reopening schools too soon will just lead to this happening again?

If we go back too soon, it will end up like last term- which was crap for everyone.

Everyone is in, if not a similar boat, at least the same situation with disrupted school. Obviously that doesn't make it a good thing, but the vast majority of students will be alright in the end.

I absolutely agree that children cannot go back to school until we have a handle on this, we can't keep dipping in and out of lockdown. It's so damaging, I'm so many ways, for so many people.

However, I have been living a bit of an ostrich-like existence and telling myself 'this won't be for much longer' so today has been a tough day for me even though I knew they'd not go back any time soon.

I am touched out. Everywhere I turn someone is THERE. I can't even use the bathroom without someone asking where I am. I cannot prepare a single snack more, I don't know a thing about fronted adverbials, my phone is constantly pinging - if it's not a zoom/teams reminder for one child or another, it's a parent on the class zoom asking how to do something. I am doing a shit job as an employee, despite changing my working hours to try and get stuff done before everyone else in the family is up. I am permanently exhausted and despite my best efforts I am snappy with my family, and I am clinging on to the hope that it will get easier once the kids are back at school.

I have broken my 'no midweek drinking rule' today as I am so full of despair, but a little rule bending is preferable to homicide...

Hang in there everyone, we may not have an exact end date but this will end. And until then, unmumsnetty hugs for all!!!!

@colouringindoors

I hate to tell you, but our Head has said students won't be back before Easter.

1700 more people died today.
NHS ICUs still running at 200% capacity, 50k NHS staff off sick/isolating and thousands have PTSD.

I do sympathise, I have two kids, my siblings and friends all do.

But the virus is out of control.

Your head knows f- all. Same as all the other heads in the country right now

@Littlewhitedove2 if that is all she is being set you need to put in a complaint. To the teacher, the head, the governors or even Ofsted...
Most schools will be providing live lessons and work for the whole day/week.

I'm stunned that anyone is stunned by the news, TBH. Do you not watch the news? How could anyone think that schools could go back after half term - it's been bloody obvious which way this was going for weeks! I just don't understand what else you could expect to happen? Serious question.

OP, we are all eating a shit sandwich at the moment, and undoubtedly some people are having a far worse time than others. But all of us with children are watching with grief as they miss out on social interaction, exercise and normality. It's not just happening to you.

Nobody's children have lost a year of school!

@Porcupineintherough

Some children will be irreparably damaged

Yep. The ones who've lost parents for sure.

This!