No school for us til 9th April at the earliest. Royally fucked off now.

[WeAreFromThePlanetDuplo]

Announcement just made for NI that most kids won't be going back to school until after the Easter holidays, and there's no guarantee of that. So fed up.

The data on primary children was from the REACT study, published yesterday.

Summary of findings here:
www.gov.uk/government/news/february-interim-findings-from-covid-19-react-1-study-published

What it states is:
"prevalence fell substantially across all age groups compared to the last REACT report from 6 to 22 January. Prevalence fell from 0.93% to 0.30% among the over-65s. Highest prevalence is among 18 to 24-year-olds at 0.89% and those aged 5 to 12 at 0.86%"

So it is not that infection amongst primary children is growing, it is that, as prevalence amongst other groups falls, that amongst this age group remains stubbornly high. Which makes sense, as so many are in school with the same guidance in place as in September. I would love to see a breakdown to see the prevalence in that age group who are in school vs not, and also amongst those in schools where 50%+ are in class vs those where a much smaller percentage are there.

[quote LadyPenelope68]@siestalady
do you have actual credible data for this, or was it just something you vaguely heard from your TV whilst doing something else?
It was the actually one of the Government’s Scientific Advisers talking about these figures, hence my drip feed comment. Are you always so sarcastic and unpleasant?[/quote]
The comment about the TV on in the background was aimed at another poster who had written that.

What is sarcastic and unpleasant about asking for credible data to back up claims that rates are shooting up amongst primary school children; when the ONS report shows the opposite?

@siestalady,

As I have said above, it's the REACT study not ONS.

When this is all over I will never take the holidays in term time rule seriously again.

Education is either important or it's not. It's clearly not important at all and my kids have missed a year and its supposedly not done any harm so what's a week or two a year?

The hyperbole on this thread is tiring

@ConeHat
Quite. Viz all the people below saying it's pointless children returning 'for only three weeks'.

Can you imagine the reaction if you took your child out for 3 weeks?

@cantkeepawayforever

What is missing in the 'live input followed by response' model of teaching that online learning favours is all the incidental, responsive teaching that happens in the classroom.

So a typical 'classroom' lesson would nominally have the same 'input' as online, but as a teacher you are constantly scanning the classroom - who is looking puzzled? Who has a question? Do I need to go faster / slower?

Then there would be some interactive practice of what is being taught - children might try a sentence on a whiteboard or do a couple of calculations and show their answers; the teacher might scribe a few sentences following children's suggestions; there might be some questions and answers; children might work in pairs or groups to generate ideas.

Then children would do the task - again nominally the same task as set online - but there would be much more interaction - let's check the answer to the first question; I can see that everyone's finding number 6 tricky, let's have a go together; read your story opening to your partner and get some feedback from them; remember the spelling of homophones. There would also be 1:1 or small group support, either planned or reactive.

There would also be some kind of wrap up - sharing of work done, checking answers and finding any that caused particular problems, checking against objectives.

Online learning can replicate the 'formal' stage of the teaching process, but can't replicate the 'informal' teaching that makes up the majority of the time in each lesson.

This! When people go on about children getting an education, it's just online instead, but it's acceptable, so we don't need to worry about schools remaining closed. Not to mention the social psychological and physical benefits of being in school. Home learning, for most children, is incomparable.

@Saoirse7

*posted too soon

The English education system is also not setting the world alight because of:

• Intensive testing from 5 years old (phonics screening?? Wtf) SATs then in year two as well.

• Intense pressure of teachers from Ofsted, teachers end up doing time intensive things for the benefit of Ofsted and not for the children. Eg over marking of books

• Focus on ability groups - children pigeon holed throughout their whole school life

• The changes to the curriculum under Gove, look at the Literacy objectives FFS how stupid.

• Gross underachievement in areas of poverty

I could go on. I have taught in England and NI and I have to say from a child centred perspective the NI one (while not perfect) is miles and away a better education system.

This. Our Educational outcomes in this country are piss poor frankly.

There is plenty of research and evidence as to why.

Flight pathing children from 4. Plotting their attainment to GCSE level from 4.

Testing children formally from EYFS.

An obsession with ability grouping, which doesn’t work, it limits children. England has one for the highest percentages in the world for ability grouping.

On over riding focus on accountability. Not what’s good for the children.

All of these points have been well researched in the field of education. England do it badly, very badly for all the above reasons. Yet for some reason, it’s a national disaster of we can’t stick to all of the above. The educational system in England has a lot more to worry about than the quality of zoom lessons.

ConeHat quite, you and all other families. Now that we know that there is only 1.5 hours of teaching a day - missing a whole week is missing 7.5 hours and lets face it the children will have already missed 2 terms.

@ConeHat

When this is all over I will never take the holidays in term time rule seriously again.

Education is either important or it's not. It's clearly not important at all and my kids have missed a year and its supposedly not done any harm so what's a week or two a year?

The difference between a whole cohort receiving online education vs a singe child missing 2 weeks of in school education is that, in 1 case, it is a whole cohort affected so the future curriculum and teaching will be solely focused on catching up and filling those universal gaps. Whereas a single child who completely misses e.g. fractions in a particular year group will have that knowledge assumed in the next year and there will not be the same focus on catching up.

@ConeHat
They haven’t just closed schools on a whim, it’s been done for a reason, there’s a pandemic going on if you hadn’t noticed. Of course education is important, what a stupid comment, nobody has ever said it isn’t.

@ConeHat

When this is all over I will never take the holidays in term time rule seriously again.

Education is either important or it's not. It's clearly not important at all and my kids have missed a year and its supposedly not done any harm so what's a week or two a year?

I personally don't have an issue with kids taking term time holidays. The price difference is worth it. I wish I could take them! I'd rather that than the kids who perpetually miss a day or two a fortnight with no reason.

The only thing is though that if a parent takes their child out of school for a week I don't supply the missed work.

When this is all over I will never take the holidays in term time rule seriously again.

Yes, me neither. They’ve totally lost the moral high ground on this one. As the principal of DS’s school keeps saying, the parents are the child’s first educator.

I agree with what’s been said as to why we aren’t educational on fire-the curriculum is about testing,too much pressure on young children and the school day is too long and rigid. Homeschooling has also highlighted (amongst many other things) parents are out of touch to what goes on in a classroom and many seem unable to assist their children. This isn’t just because they are trying to hold down jobs as this is evident in normal times when children don’t complete regular reading,spellings,timestable homework or projects etc. Parents are actually a child’s biggest educator but even in normal times they can’t seem to offer them the time that is required. A child’s school day could be halved if this was addressed resulting in smaller classes and more focussed teacher time. Then maybe we would have a world class education system.

An added dimension is the complete clusterfuck the local politicians have made of managing this in NI (mainly the DUP) so they're determined to claw some off that back.

@angrysquirrel73

ConeHat quite, you and all other families. Now that we know that there is only 1.5 hours of teaching a day - missing a whole week is missing 7.5 hours and lets face it the children will have already missed 2 terms.

As above - there might only be 1.5 hours of 'teacher transmitting input lecture style' per day, but there is nigh on 4.5 hours of 'teaching and learning' (I have omitted lunch, break and assembly). It is a gross fallacy, at least in primary, to assume that teaching and learning is only taking place while the teacher is lecturing the class from the front.

@angrysquirrel73

ConeHat quite, you and all other families. Now that we know that there is only 1.5 hours of teaching a day - missing a whole week is missing 7.5 hours and lets face it the children will have already missed 2 terms.

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

I said 1.5hrs of teaching, not 1.5 hrs of learning. When do you expect the children to do any work if a teacher is stood teaching the whole time??

I mean, just stopping to think for a moment would make this obvious - is a child learning addition when the teacher is talking, or when the child is doing some calculations and getting some feedback? Is a child learning handwriting when a teacher is demonstrating letter formation, or when the child is writing and getting feedback? Is a child learning science when a teacher is talking, or when a child is doing an experiment with a group, designed and overseen by a teacher?

Surely the REACT study is testament to vaccinations though.

The report says the highest prevalence is amongst the younger generations (i.e. those unvaccinated and likely to remain unvaccinated for the foreseeable future) but it still declined amongst those groups; just less than the others (where vaccinations are starting to have an impact).

@angrysquirrel73

SpencerGregson agreed, I'm not worried about my children's progress its more social skills, mental health and the progress of the whole cohort.

Which is why, if schools don't reopen on 8th March, I will be inviting my sons friends round so he can actually have some face to face social contact with someone who is not a parent or toddler.

Anyone who wants to come at me about "this is why we won't get out of this" can get to fuck quite frankly. Save the skin on your fingers because any sanctimonious and/or abusive responses don't matter to me.

Saoirse7 I'm not being obtuse - some of the 1.5hrs online learning time is the child also doing they are not listening to the teaching all the time. You were quite clear that it is the same in the classroom which tbh was why I was quite shocked! Also there isnt really much feedback as no work is submitted for marking and there are no times tables / spelling tests so I do not know how the teacher knows how much has been absorbed (also as they are not in the same room so are limited on interaction).
Outside of the 1.5hrs they are not doing any additional work in the home learning. 1.5hrs is the total.

It is a gross fallacy, at least in primary, to assume that teaching and learning is only taking place while the teacher is lecturing the class from the front.

I wouldn’t have thought this the case at all but it’s a good reason to prioritise early years.

We don’t actually get lecturing atm as no live teaching, expect for art weekly by video. I haven’t advocated live for primary in any case but not all schools will do 1.5 hours. We have found links to content which would be about half an hour to an hour a day. About four hours student work, usually with parent around to help out or motivate.

@siestalady

Surely the REACT study is testament to vaccinations though.

The report says the highest prevalence is amongst the younger generations (i.e. those unvaccinated and likely to remain unvaccinated for the foreseeable future) but it still declined amongst those groups; just less than the others (where vaccinations are starting to have an impact).

If we got this data without a lockdown, then of course this would be a testament to vaccination.

However, the huge effect of the lockdown is what we are currently seeing, and the more subtle effect of the vaccine (the REACT study is not real time, so the data was collected a little while ago) is not so obvious.

@CKBJ

I agree with what’s been said as to why we aren’t educational on fire-the curriculum is about testing,too much pressure on young children and the school day is too long and rigid. Homeschooling has also highlighted (amongst many other things) parents are out of touch to what goes on in a classroom and many seem unable to assist their children. This isn’t just because they are trying to hold down jobs as this is evident in normal times when children don’t complete regular reading,spellings,timestable homework or projects etc. Parents are actually a child’s biggest educator but even in normal times they can’t seem to offer them the time that is required. A child’s school day could be halved if this was addressed resulting in smaller classes and more focussed teacher time. Then maybe we would have a world class education system.

What an absolute load of tosh.

I'm really happy with my child's education they are young and I really don't see the need to hot house them at home so that they can be "world beating"

@angrysquirrel73

Saoirse7 I'm not being obtuse - some of the 1.5hrs online learning time is the child also doing they are not listening to the teaching all the time. You were quite clear that it is the same in the classroom which tbh was why I was quite shocked! Also there isnt really much feedback as no work is submitted for marking and there are no times tables / spelling tests so I do not know how the teacher knows how much has been absorbed (also as they are not in the same room so are limited on interaction). Outside of the 1.5hrs they are not doing any additional work in the home learning. 1.5hrs is the total.

That is poor from the school. We do around 1.5 hours live or video per day, of which some is later in the day and is an opportunity for feedback and questions. Outside that are the tasks for children to complete, all of which is marked and feedback given.