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.

ChloeDecker
Have you seen one of the mental health charities or organisations is running training for schools to support young people's mental health? I'm not sure on the age range it's aimed at but one of my friends mentioned that her school were looking into it.

I’d really like to hear some more ideas about how we can support children 🤷🏻‍♀️

@noblegiraffe

Sheila There are Us4Them types on here. Us4them have been astroturfing Mumsnet since last summer, posting their messaging as if they are genuine posters, trying to make out that there is more support for their batshit opinions than there are.

They have been vile to anyone who disagrees and it has been pretty fucking tedious.

Or maybe your just paranoid and and you can’t cope with different views. Unless MN has specifically told you U4T ‘types are infiltrating the boards it’s all just conjecture and attempts to shut discussion down.

Well Smile, telling Y11 and Y13 how they are going to be assessed this year is number 1 on my list right now. FFS.

SmileEachDay
Apologies for the repeating. It's more for the benefit of any lurkers to have it crystal clear that U4T types are not parents who want children to be in schools.

You know sometimes it does come across like some posters aren't interested in discussing ways to improve education and support children.

I’ve been having a bit of a Google this evening Lola and came across a few such as, Place2Be.
Having a read and collating what might be useful in school. Not so much appropriate to Sixth Formers yet but still looking. This thread has given me a bit of a push

That's the one. I couldn't remember what it was called. I need to look into it as my friend spoke highly of it.

Yes, some clarity about that would be useful, eh noble?

No worries Lola. I think it bears repeating. The MH charity stuff looks interesting www.place2be.org.uk/

Unless MN has specifically told you U4T ‘types are infiltrating the boards it’s all just conjecture and attempts to shut discussion down.

No, we know it's happening because they post on Facebook about it. They're not exactly masters of disguise either.

Do Off The Record run in your area Chloe - they’re excellent for that age group. Very good at offering bespoke training as well as working with YP.

What about Young Minds? youngminds.org.uk/youngminds-professionals/360-schools/

Thanks Smile I’ll take a look. I have a Year 12 form and want lots of things to do with them in my daily live registrations sessions from next week.

Sorry, only just seen your previous post to me. I’ll post tomorrow my MP letter as it’s on my school laptop which I have shutdown for the night and it takes ages to boot up!

@ChloeDecker

Learning Styles!? Still!? Oh you poor thing echt!

Thinking of free ideas to help our children once back in schools, might be to focus specifically on assemblies (and properly resourced ones) that focus on building up their self- efficacy/strengthening their self-belief that there is and can be hope. Maybe writing letters or encouraging songwriting, possibly during form time. Building on from the previous focus on getting them to think about how they felt during lockdown 1.
For Secondaries, maybe they could set up Mental Health Ambassadors who for now, could be available at the end of an email for other pupils if they want someone to talk to or just to connect with.
Just musing really and thinking about what might work well next half term.

I know. Does my head in.

Thanks Chloe.

I’ve got a Y10 form. For the last two weeks of term I made them go outside every form time for 5 mins and then post a photo onto Teams chat. Then they had to write something they were grateful for. I did it too. They whined a bit at first but by the end every single one was doing it.

@ChloeDecker

I recently did a Mental health Champions course on Place2Be. It was really good. Highly recommend it. I did a module a week for 6 weeks. Each one took an hour. Useful for children and staff.

Place2Be had lots of support materials for Children's Mental Health week a few weeks ago and they were really good. We have a trained Mental Health first aider for adults at school and are looking to extend this to cover children as well.
I think in terms of catching children up we need to look very carefully at what the essential knowledge actually is in each year group and then work to that. I'm Primary and it seems we have a lot of knowledge based criteria for ARE in each year group. We need to simplify this and maybe look at a two or three year plan to address the gaps.

Us4T are MNetters too. They aren’t some hard right group for goodness sake. The issue is that MN is bordering hard left and the views are incompatible.

For what it’s worth, i know many people who support them including me. I believe schools should be completely open even if that spreads the virus. Yes I believe other restrictions are required. But keeping children out of school is going to cause far more problems that we are solving. Zero covid as a plan is no longer on the cards - it can’t be - and the MN who want that are going to have to accept it: we all do.

Children need to go back to school and I will repeat that over and over. We need to accept that covid is here and educate our young.

We also need to accept that people age and die of things. That is a good thing. The intention should never be for people to live incredibly old and infirm lives. It it’s not pneumonia it will be flu and if not that it could be covid.

History will judge us harshly for what we have done to our young people.

I agree completely @Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow

That's a fairly horrific post icalledypulastnightfromglasgow. But I'm glad you put it all down in black and white.

I disagree completely with your whole 'open schools, the virus is here, if a proportion of people die, fuck 'em' stance.

I disagree not because I'm 'bordering hard left' but because I'm not a complete sociopath.

Leaving aside the open/shut schools/us4them debate, and assuming at some point all schools will be open to all again the things I’d like to see whenever that does happen are:

Huge drive on reading for pleasure and providing disadvantaged DC with access to books. The National Literacy Trust did research a while back saying something like 400k children didn’t have one book at home. I’d like to see trained volunteers/parents going into schools to help children 1:1 with their reading and more money for things like creative writing workshops.

Also, forest schools- my DC’s school managed to get this and my DC loved it but they only had money for a one-off session for each half class. I think would help with mental wellbeing too especially at primary level.

Counselling in primary and secondary schools.

I know a lot of this costs money but you asked for suggestions. For free things I really liked the idea of getting your year 10s to go outside and to list one thing they were grateful for OP.

@SmileEachDay

I’d really like to hear some more ideas about how we can support children 🤷🏻‍♀️

Longer school day? Would basically boil down to compulsory after school clubs of sport/music etc so class teachers would have the same length of teaching day.

It would help working parents (especially women) who usually have to negotiate with their employer for part time school hours.

Thoughts OP?

@Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow,

I am never sure whether to laugh or despair at this kind of post.

Who would have staffed these viral hotbed schools? How would teaching have been provided when 50% of the class were absent?

Did you not notice how many schools closed during November due to staff absence?

And as for MN being hard left, many many posters are SAHP to high earning spouses, possibly the least ‘hard left’ possible. These terribly resent the loss of their ‘life’ (gyms, coffee shops and retail ‘therapy’) and don’t really bloke the ‘P’ bit of being a SAHP.

Many many of the above are desperate for schools, restaurants etc to open ASAP but prefer to justify this as ‘children needing education’ than them needing a relaxed life.

Calledyoulastnightfromglasgow and ParadiseLaundry

And what about the OP? Do you have any thoughts about the strategies government and schools could consider to support disadvantaged children? You haven’t addressed that.

Sitting - I agree with this. I’d add literacy for adults in the drive. Would you consider writing to your MP?

Mellon - are you thinking primary or secondary or both? I can see this would help with childcare for sure - and at primary the children would probably benefit. I worked at a secondary that did this once and the kids hated it - so I think the type of activity would be very carefully thought about. What do you think it would do to help disadvantaged children?

Yes sure @SmileEachDay I will write to my MP. I agree with literacy drive for adults too.

Just in case anyone is lurking, likes any of these ideas and is in a position to donate I did a quick google and found this organisation for forest schools: sylva.org.uk/donate

And there’s also www.beanstalkcharity.org.uk/appeal/donate for reading helpers.

Fab - thank you sitting. I think someone is posting a template for an MP letter today.

Those links are great 😌