Stop the doom narrative and campaign to plug the gap.

[SmileEachDay]

The constant narrative from groups like U4T, the wider media AND (if MN is representative) individuals that children now are “a lost generation” and that they will “never catch up” is tremendously damaging.

They may well not be at exactly the (completely arbitrary) age related expectation. Perhaps they aren’t quite at the (complete arbitrary) progress point at secondary. Yes, the GCSE and Alevel students are having a difficult time, and their results will be reached in a different way.

But...

We won’t motivate children or families if we tell them it’s a lost cause.

The EEF are estimating that on average children are two months behind where they “should” (based on an arbitrary measure) be. It’s worse for children from a disadvantaged background - as it has always been.
Rather than claiming they’ll never catch up, would it not be more helpful to:

Tell kids that yes, it’s been tough but that they’ll still reach their potential AND then plough our time and resources into really closing the disadvantage gap. That’s going to mean government funding for educational support services, SEMH services, support for families, literacy support where appropriate, Surestart, youth mentoring - and that’s just off the top of my head.

It does suggest a much larger proportion of our education spending is not government spending compared to other countries.

This does feel odd to me, as just over £4,000 per pupil per annum seems such a small amount compared to private school fees of £20,000 per annum.

It is less than this.
Local authorities have the right to set what the schools receive and use the rest of the money in other areas that they see fit.
In the London borough that I teach in, the council take £600 per pupil in Secondary, to use elsewhere, before the school even get the pupil funding. One school threatened to take the council to court two years ago and that Head was pushed out soon after funnily enough.

@noblegiraffe

they haven't demanded that governments clearly set out the risks of things like closing schools and sports against the benefits

Hmm, now which group has that on their posters I wonder?

I know you're convinced I have some connections to U4T @noblegiraffe. I am aware of them, but I don't know any of them. I'm not sure how being connected to them would be a bad thing - I don't know what the problem is with them - but if my arguments are the same as theirs it's because it's possible for people to think those things without being part of one particular group.

@SmileEachDay

The reason I ask is because I find posts like the OP's incredibly naive

Is it? Why do you assume I’m coming from a place of not having thought about it?

saying 'everything's fine, lets spend millions on this fantastic recovery for children

I didn’t say everything was fine. I do think investment is needed in education- I’ve thought that for years. Do you disagree?

How on earth did you get that from what I said??

To explain again, no matter how much investment you think is needed in education the money isn't there because the economy is absolutely and comprehensively fucked. No amount of believing everything can be fixed is going to change that.

You’re literally quoting their campaign literature, Carbunkle.

As for why you wouldn’t want to be associated with a dubiously funded anti-lockdown astroturfing organisation masquerading as a grassroots parenting group - I guess that’s down to personal ethics.

To explain again, no matter how much investment you think is needed in education the money isn't there because the economy is absolutely and comprehensively fucked. No amount of believing everything can be fixed is going to change that.

But there has been money there.

I dont tell my DC anything that negative because it's not children's burden to shoulder. And actually on an individual level my DC will be fine as DP and I are wealthy and highly-educated so barring total societal breakdown, life will be fairly peachy for our DC.
But amongst adults, this should absolutely be at the forefront of discussion. There are many issues which were well-researched and accepted before Covid, some of which (at population level before anyone starts about individual circumstances) are: 1. Poverty leads to lower life expectations, worse physical and mental health and lower age of death; 2. Lack of education is correlated with poverty; 3. Isolation is correlated with poorer mental health than lack of isolation; 4. Poor mental health is correlated with poor physical health, poorer life expectations and lower age of death. 5. The national debt is now at staggering levels and Hmrc are going to see far lower tax revenues, however hard they try and squeeze those of us who are surviving this financially. As lockdown has worsened all of these things, it is not a huge leap to suggest that as adults, we ought to face this head on, discuss it sensibly and rationally, and perhaps consider putting our children's futures ahead of our own - often frankly irrational - fears.

@noblegiraffe

You’re literally quoting their campaign literature, Carbunkle.

As for why you wouldn’t want to be associated with a dubiously funded anti-lockdown astroturfing organisation masquerading as a grassroots parenting group - I guess that’s down to personal ethics.

The fact that I'm quoting them is pure coincidence. Like I say I'm aware of them but I don't know anything about them. I can't be arsed discussing some group that you have conspiracy theories about.

@ChloeDecker

To explain again, no matter how much investment you think is needed in education the money isn't there because the economy is absolutely and comprehensively fucked. No amount of believing everything can be fixed is going to change that.

But there has been money there.

I don't understand this comment sorry. What do you mean there has been money there?

As for why you wouldn’t want to be associated with a dubiously funded anti-lockdown astroturfing organisation masquerading as a grassroots parenting group - I guess that’s down to personal ethics
Quite!

Sorry @TheDailyCarbunkle, I wrote a long post earlier in the thread about it.

@ChloeDecker

Sorry *@TheDailyCarbunkle*, I wrote a long post earlier in the thread about it.

Sorry @ChloeDecker I see the post you mean.

Huges packets of money have been thrown around for 'covid response' without much or any oversight. I've personally seen massive massive waste of funds on total bollox. Once things settle down all the money will dry up and 'covid recovery' will involve austerity and making the poor suffer, as usual.

The way out of this isn't austerity so extraordinary that someone who is against making the poor suffer seems so utterly resigned to it.

It’s frustrating isn’t it @TheDailyCarbunkle which is why we need more loudly as possible, trying to steer the decision making in a better direction that actually might make a positive and measurable difference to children and young people than those currently trying to steer it towards another angle.

I can hope anyway.

As lockdown has worsened all of these things, it is not a huge leap to suggest that as adults, we ought to face this head on, discuss it sensibly and rationally

Yes. Will a focus on how we can affect change and begin to narrow that gap. That’s not the same as the “lost generation” media U4T narrative.

@noblegiraffe

The way out of this isn't austerity so extraordinary that someone who is against making the poor suffer seems so utterly resigned to it.

Totally agree with this. I’m so sick of hearing the constant refrain that there’s no money. It is absolute rubbish. In the middle of a pandemic the government is again having a major re-organisation of the NHS. Which it does approximately every 5 years, at great cost, according to political whim. Austerity doesn’t only harm the poor, it’s not good for the middle either. Just the top creaming off the money as usual. Education is vital, we are failing children and it needs investment and a fairer funding formula. It will benefit us all as today’s school kids are tomorrow’s workers

Just the top creaming off the money as usual.
There's been some very interesting reading on how many contracts were awarded directly without any competition during this pandemic, with many having financial links between company figures and the Conservative Party. I'd not like to suggests something as awful as cronyism, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

@LolaSmiles

Just the top creaming off the money as usual. There's been some very interesting reading on how many contracts were awarded directly without any competition during this pandemic, with many having financial links between company figures and the Conservative Party. I'd not like to suggests something as awful as cronyism, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

The good law project are persuing this as a not for profit through charitable donations.

@noblegiraffe

The way out of this isn't austerity so extraordinary that someone who is against making the poor suffer seems so utterly resigned to it.

Of course austerity isn't the way out. That doesn't mean it isn't going to happen. I am resigned to it unfortunately because what the last year has taught me is that people will take whatever shitty hand they're dealt as long as politicians can hoodwink them into thinking there's no alternative - who'd have believed before 2020 that parents would not only accept their children being denied access to school, but actually demand it??

@TheDailyCarbunkle,

You are determined to pretend that the pandemic is some kind of catalyst for the government to institute some kind of sinister plot. Quite what this is you are less enthusiastic about explaining.

A pandemic is a once in 5 generation event which all governments are struggling to deal with, bar China which has imposed a solution which, though successful, just would not be accepted in many other countries.

It is true that some have been lucky (online businesses) and there have been some charlatans who have abused the emergency response to enrich themselves.

However, in the main, the loss of education and livelihoods have been caused by Covid 19, not the policy response. The idea that the policy response to COVID has destroyed livelihoods and education is analogous to telling a battered woman that she is to blame for breaking up the family when she leaves her husband.

@noblegiraffe

You’re literally quoting their campaign literature, Carbunkle.

As for why you wouldn’t want to be associated with a dubiously funded anti-lockdown astroturfing organisation masquerading as a grassroots parenting group - I guess that’s down to personal ethics.

I’ve just had a look at Us4them. Tbh I think a lot of parents are starting to feel like this. All the parents I know are pissed off and want their kids back in and with the vaccine roll out the excuses are just not holding water anymore

Why does it make them an anti lock down group? Does this mean your pro lock down? (Makes sense!) and who funds them?

Boris is under pressure from his MPs to lift lockdown before the end of April and I pray and hope to god he does. We don’t all have safe cushy WFH jobs.

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@TheDailyCarbunkle,

You are determined to pretend that the pandemic is some kind of catalyst for the government to institute some kind of sinister plot. Quite what this is you are less enthusiastic about explaining.

A pandemic is a once in 5 generation event which all governments are struggling to deal with, bar China which has imposed a solution which, though successful, just would not be accepted in many other countries.

It is true that some have been lucky (online businesses) and there have been some charlatans who have abused the emergency response to enrich themselves.

However, in the main, the loss of education and livelihoods have been caused by Covid 19, not the policy response. The idea that the policy response to COVID has destroyed livelihoods and education is analogous to telling a battered woman that she is to blame for breaking up the family when she leaves her husband.[/quote]
Your analogy is ridiculous, it doesn't even make sense.

You are determined to pretend that the pandemic is some kind of catalyst for the government to institute some kind of sinister plot. Quite what this is you are less enthusiastic about explaining.

I have genuinely no clue where you got this idea from. I absolutely 100% do not in any way believe that the pandemic is some kind of catalyst for the government to institute some kind of sinister plot. I have never even suggested I think that. What I definitely think is that the government is made up of incompetent idiots and that worldwide there's some sort of bizarre pissing contest going on around who can be 'the best' measured in cases and deaths, as though those are the only things that matter. What I can't get my head around is how people can have an ounce of trust in a government that brought up Brexit, which is far and away the most moronic and pointlessly destructive thing any country has ever done to itself.

How the pandemic is dealt with is a choice. After nearly a year, it is beyond ridiculous that the only response the government can come up with is to shut everything, including schools, down. That is an utter failure and is nothing to do with covid and everything to do with a government who can't manage to come up with anything other than panic and destruction as a solution.

@TheDailyCarbunkle,

And your solution? Might we have something based on reality and not total fantasy?

China won the ‘pissing contest’ and did pretty well out of it, as have Australia and NZ.

Wanting something to be so does not make it so. Nearly all worthwhile research (not the one mid level university research paper that you can dig up) shows that behavioural modifications are the best response until vaccinations kick in, which, surprisingly (not) is what is informing the ‘pissing contest’ that you refer to.

Be careful @Dearymesheila, apparently if you agree that children need education and should be in school then you must be in cahoots with some shady organisation who for some reason are using children's welfare as a front for their unspecified dodgy dealings. That's a humdinger of a conspiracy theory, given that it doesn't even really make any sense.

The job losses, the harm, the stress on the health service, the widening of pre-existing inequalities, the inequality of the impact of the virus even at the level of health outcomes - all of it has been made what it is by more than a decade of austerity.

Yes, the virus is a natural event.

But many of the effects are man-made - the result of many years of politicsl choices.

And - because those choices are man-made - we have it within us to choose otherwise.

And we have choose otherwise sometime and somewhere.

I would suggest we start choosing otherwise now.

We start choosing better in our responses.

We choose long-term solutions, not ridiculous, short-term sticking plasters.

At some point, we need an adult government - who choose wisely and well, for all the generations in the U.K.

Not a government that hides behind the sofa, eyes closed, and shouts, 'You can't see me!'

We need real solutions - with money - because the alternative is inflicting real harm.

Simply calling for schools to re-open is a sticking plaster.

Serious investment in children, education, MH provision, social care - that is not a sticking plaster.

It's what a government, rather than a cabal of the venal, vain and incompetent would do.

It's what we deserve.

It's what our children deserve.

And I am sick of being told that the harm inflicted by austerity is a virtue, that off-loading responsibility to markets is responsible fiscal governance, and that I have no right to expect a government to invest in the future.