Likelihood of schools closing again before summer...

[confuseddotcomma]

I know noone knows what will happen. But I feel this is increasingly more likely every day... Fingers crossed we can hold out until the summer holidays!

[quote CallmeHendricks]@Sunnyfreezesushi, "Already have the longest school closures in Western Europe."
What is your source for this claim? Is it the one where they lumped together universities with schools, thus distorting the figures?
My school was "closed" (apart from being open for Key Worker children) for half a term in 2020, (opening for four year groups at the beginning of June and the whole school from 22nd) and then 8 weeks from January 2021.
I'm pretty sure many other countries had closures (and complete ones, at that - no Key Worker provision) for much longer.[/quote]
Yes, I know for a fact that Cyprus have had longer school closures for a start. So tired of the govt lumping primary and secondary schools in with universities.
University students have had an awful time of it but absolutely should not be linked with primary or school situations to make a political point.

That’s awful MaMelon so sorry.

Fortunately it's not my son's school that's moving back to online schooling Chloe

@ChloeDecker

School closures should not be the default answer to everything.

And it hasn’t been. Quite the opposite in fact. Whether that has been to the detriment of people’s lives or livelihoods though, we may never know as the govt has been suppressing that information.

School closures in themselves have been detrimental to livelihoods, especially to women, not to mention detrimental to education.

We didn't close. We wanted too in March 2020, a plan was made by the cohort of schools we belong to, the education authority approved it, the govt announced lockdown and we were told we weren't closing. We had 2 days to prepare.
Our school has been open ever since. Bubbles closing, part time provision sometimes but never closed. My own dc didn't go to school during the lockdowns but their schools weren't closed either. And the union told us to cite unsafe working conditions which anyone can do (if it's true) it wasn't just for teachers. Hth.

Wanted to.

School closures in themselves have been detrimental to livelihoods, especially to women, not to mention detrimental to education.

And yet the government are currently wanting to extend furlough further and yet schools closing has always been the last option the govt has chosen because of education over lives.

@Icanflyhigh where I live they are currently inviting people in their 30s. That's most of my colleagues just getting a letter now. Many of the early-vaccinated will have been past retirement age of course. There's been a push for people in their 20s to register for a vaccine here, and afaik over 40s should have had one dose. I'm in my 50s but was still teaching full classes for two months around Easter before I had any immunity at all. Waiting for second one now.
We'll be in a much better position re vaccinated staff come August.

@MaMelon

Fortunately it's not my son's school that's moving back to online schooling Chloe

Phew for your DS at least

@ChloeDecker

School closures in themselves have been detrimental to livelihoods, especially to women, not to mention detrimental to education.

And yet the government are currently wanting to extend furlough further and yet schools closing has always been the last option the govt has chosen because of education over lives.

Furlough needs extending, that's not a bad thing. Businesses still have to operate with social distancing in place so many will still not be back up to full income.

[quote Getawaywithit]*What proportion of teachers are

You have misread Reachersloveinterest on that post. The majority of teachers training, where the average age is not 39. That is still something to be concerned about and quite frankly, is a scandal that those staff are still unvaccinated.

I can only think of one teacher in my school who's in their 20s.

My GP hasn’t provided the service I wanted over the last year, but I wouldn’t dream of wanting any health professional working in unsafe conditions and being constantly denigrated by the public

Hmm there's a big difference between the service GPs have not provided (and nothing to do with "safety" as they can see one person at a time, easily 2m apart) and the service teachers have provided, with 30 unvaccinated kids in a room. The last thing I want is schools to close again, and agree pubs etc should close again before that happens, but lets not conflate the inadequate service provided by GPs with the less than ideal conditions some school staff have had to deal with.

Another teacher here, working full time throughout the pandemic, mixing with large numbers of young children with no perspex screens, no distancing, no actual mitigation measures except a bottle of hand sanitiser and pointless little rules that make life difficult. Dishing up hot dinners in my classroom every day. Being fenced into a tiny corner of the playground so that bubbles don't mix. Taking my whole class to the toilet 4 times a day as they are only allowed to go at certain times. Sitting in rows at tables when most were still only 5 years old. Limited resources. Expectations to catch them all up. The whole difficulty of videoing lessons for children at home, setting work online, marking work, 1.1 zoom appointments with children and parents at home, phoning parents every week, parents phoning me in tears because their child won't do the home learning, or they want to but don't have a laptop or ipad and tosspot Gavin didn't allocate any to ks1, organising paper copies of home learning fir these families, cahms referrals, I could go on. I've only been vaccinated because I had the good luck to get a spare.

But yeah, teaching has been a bloody picnic this year.

Teacher. Worked through the whole thing. Bloody scared I was in January as we had sky high cases. I don’t know anyone who has had a jolly lovely time though so why compare?
I’m concerned about why your children had such a horrible time though? Sounds awful

So most of them won't have had both jabs and be clear of the waiting period they take to be fully effective.

Those in their mid thirties and below won't actually be protected until well after the return in September.

what do you mean ‘for so long’?

6 months of learning loss for vast majority. 6 months is a long time in the life of a child. Long enough to slip back 3 months due to each Lockdown in England.

Hot off the press news story, went online 20 minutes ago.

ps: is covid vaccine available to all age 18+ in rest-UK, just not in England?

@lljkk

what do you mean ‘for so long’?

6 months of learning loss for vast majority. 6 months is a long time in the life of a child. Long enough to slip back 3 months due to each Lockdown in England.

Hot off the press news story, went online 20 minutes ago.

I completely agree with you and that story is not really hot off the press-we’ve known it for ages. I was just pointing out that 6 months out of a possible 18 being ‘for so long’ is just as silly as you disputing that a large number of teachers and school staff are still unvaccinated and others have only just had their first dose. It may not be all teachers but it is still a large enough number.

Why were "the vast majority" of dc not doing any home learning for those 6 months?
I absolutely accept there has been learning lost but I can't understand why it would be for so long or for so many.

@lljkk

ps: is covid vaccine available to all age 18+ in rest-UK, just not in England?

No

@Mistressiggi

Why were "the vast majority" of dc not doing any home learning for those 6 months? I absolutely accept there has been learning lost but I can't understand why it would be for so long or for so many.

I don't understand it either.

Schools provided work, remote support, there was the government oak academy, bbc etc not to mention a whole host of workbooks that can be bought and resources available online.

And yet, my colleagues in real life are reporting little difference in attainment this year to previous years.
Not disputing the experts' findings, just talking from my own experience.

@Mistressiggi

Why were "the vast majority" of dc not doing any home learning for those 6 months? I absolutely accept there has been learning lost but I can't understand why it would be for so long or for so many.

Let's get the results but online lessons are no replacement for face to face learning with peers.