Children.

[twinkletoesimnot]

Coronavirus: Young people warn of long Covid amid jab drive www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58301011

Article pushing younger people to get jabbed.
Sajid Javid even saying it's a risk for us all.....

We as a family have been lucky enough to avoid Covid so far. The new rules and school return make me feel very uneasy.

Is everyone REALLY ok with this headlong rush to infect our children that the government seem so hell bent on?

[quote Waxonwaxoff0]@RafaIsTheKingOfClay that doesn't help primary schools though.[/quote]
Not yet, no. The USA hope to start jabbing under 12s in the next few months, once it’s authorised for the next age group. But it would certainly help the majority of secondary school age. It’s an absolute disgrace that the Government are continuing to withhold a safe effective vaccine from the 12-15 age group. It was approved months ago by the MRHA and has been given to millions of children in different countries.

Re the kids who cant read. That could be unrelated as some kids take longer anyway. But my question is how much reading have you been doing over the summer? Even if yoi just continue with the same amount as during school so say 3-5 times a week then that is like a whole 1/6 extra progress. And continuing during all holiday time is obviously 1/4 of the whole year.

The data shows us that last year's year 1 children were the hardest hit of all the primary year groups. They missed a large chunk of reception and year 1.

For us personally we were trying to homeschool and work full time. It was an impossible situation.

I suspect that R/yr 1 might also be the easiest to catch up though.

Agree with Rafa. Younger years are easier to catch up, academically. The cases are less severe in younger age groups. In other countries, primary aged children wear masks too, so I don't see why not in England.

Older they are, missed school is going to impact more academically. Also older children seems to suffer more from covid, so it really makes sense to vaccinate secondary children. And use any safety measures at school while cases are higher.
I really don't get the parents who are happy to send their children to school without any mitigation.

I am more worried about the long term plans of pro lockdowners which would deny my kids an education they have definitely suffered a lot more due to not getting an education, seeing friends than they have been impacted by covid. Parents will all have different concerns and only some will see covid as the main risk particularly after the last eighteen months (see the rise in the number of kids with eating disorders as just one example!)

@screwcovid
Yeah flu is also a big risk to young kids, but that’s why they are all vaccinated against flu in primary. The small handful that aren’t are protected by the ones that are.

FFS people who don’t think we should just get on and pretend covid doesn’t exist aren’t pro-lockdowners.

Who, specifically, on this thread is pretending covid doesn't exist?

There’s obviously no ideal solution (side note: fascinating how many people seem to find this hard to accept) - but overall I’m far more anxious about the impact of school closures on children than I am on the impact of them catching covid. Schools and nurseries have always been a hotbed of nasty bugs (just had noro last week YUK) but it’s a price I’m very willing to pay.

I do of course really feel for parents who are CEV, though - I think you are in a far more difficult position and my heart goes out to you.

People who want to have smaller class sizes or distanced schools are pro lockdown as much as it applies to my kids as they would require my kids to stay in the house and not go to school. I get it doesn’t seem pro lockdown to teachers as they would be in school teaching the children of other teachers and key workers but for the kids left at hone watching bbc bite use videos yep it’s a lockdown in all but name!

And given the vaccine mainly prevents serious illness abd death and needs boosters to remain effective it isn’t really relevant for a group who doesn’t get seriously ill in the first place and for whom there will never be enough vaccine to do the whole cohort every six months! Makes more sense to look at vaccinating those likely to suffer serious illness and death both here and abroad if that is what the vaccine is best as doing!

But the problem is too many think not educating our children has no consequences…it does and if you took a vaccine you might question how the research that helped it happen occurred Clue there isn’t a bbc bitesize video that taught sarah Gilbert all she knows! The historic policy of Educating the population has literally saved thousands of lives in this pandemic it’s amazing how unimportant so many people think it is!

Ok so you have 2 choices

Become a MP or prime minster to implement all of your suggestions or pull your child out of school

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

I suspect that R/yr 1 might also be the easiest to catch up though.

Proving they get consistent schooling.

@juliainthedeepwater and children who are CEV

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@juliainthedeepwater and children who are CEV[/quote]
Yes 100%

I agree new y2 will have been most affected - some went back for last half term of y r. So missed 8w of yr and 8 of y1?
As i say just reading at home daily over the summer holidays can bring that back a lot.
With my eldest when in y1 we were reading 30min to an hour a day almost every day.
(My eldest new y5 has read harry potter book 4 and a few other books this summer).
Once they have covered the phonics and before really the progress in reading is made at home - our school only listen to them every say 2w and less during covid. The access to appropriate phonics books being more the issue as they are not in the library.

If vaccines fail after 6m then
we can expect our kids to catch covid every 6m so 20days off school.
More likely to ruin holidays by testing positive.

I want exactly what @changingstages has sensibly suggested:

Masks
Ventilation
Testing

For the best chance of keeping children in schools with the least disruption. Thankfully the senior leadership team at my DCs very large secondary (1,200 pupils) are keeping in place most of the measures they had instituted last term and they will have 2 tests before returning to try and weed out any immediate spread.

I am concerned that immediate household isolations have ended as I know several families where Covid has been spread amongst the family over/during the isolation period. I am glad large bubbles have ended though, my primary DC and three whole classes had to isolate for a fortnight when a case occured in the year group and it seemed too broad a brush to keep children from schools and activities on that basis.

My DC is going into Year6 and their writing ability is no-where near where it should be (as refuses to write at home despite my ploys & pleas).

Children starting Year 6 this Sept had no school March-July of Year4 in 2020, and it varied, but in my DC's case, 1hr remote lesson per day Jan-March 2021 so effectively have missed 6months of onsite education plus other isolation persiods on top. I wonder what the SATS results will look like this year??

And to think parents used to be guilt tripped about damaging their childrens educational performance if they took a term time break.Look at this press release from the DfE (2016)
www.gov.uk/government/news/just-one-day-off-can-hamper-childrens-life-chances

HOLLOW LAUGH

@RumblyMumbly

Children starting Year 6 this Sept had no school March-July of Year4 in 2020, and it varied, but in my DC's case, 1hr remote lesson per day Jan-March 2021 so effectively have missed 6months of onsite education plus other isolation persiods on top. I wonder what the SATS results will look like this year??

And to think parents used to be guilt tripped about damaging their childrens educational performance if they took a term time break.Look at this press release from the DfE (2016)
www.gov.uk/government/news/just-one-day-off-can-hamper-childrens-life-chances

HOLLOW LAUGH

My daughter is going into Yr 6 in Sept. She had one live lesson a day in the second closure. First closure some worksheets. I’m not worried. She’s sitting the 11+ in a few weeks.

@motherrunner it's good you are not worried for both your daughter and your own sake. Are you confident in your daughters academic abilities or think what will be will be and that missed school didn't make a major difference or do you think that everyone is in the same boat?

1. were you able to help homeschool her?
2. have you employed a tutor for her to work with towards the 11+?
3. do you have a good default school in case she doesn't pass the 11+?

I did a bloody ace job with my kids. But they happened to be in classes full of children with parents who had the temerity to be saving lives and keeping people fed during lockdown, you know - the small stuff. So the last academic terms was largely covering stuff that they have already done and treading water while their classmates catch up.

[quote RumblyMumbly]@motherrunner it's good you are not worried for both your daughter and your own sake. Are you confident in your daughters academic abilities or think what will be will be and that missed school didn't make a major difference or do you think that everyone is in the same boat?

1. were you able to help homeschool her?
2. have you employed a tutor for her to work with towards the 11+?
3. do you have a good default school in case she doesn't pass the 11+?[/quote]
4. No, I’m a teacher. Lockdown she was ignored all day whilst I taught live to timetable. Lockdown 2 she was in school but supervised by a TA.
5. No. I don’t believe pupils should be tutored to pass a test. Sets up failure in the future unless they will continually be tutored.
6. Yes.

@FourTeaFallOut yes similar story here!

I rather think looking at what is happening in primary care (the rules are different regarding isolation and family members, younger staff and teen children of staff are getting sick) and the way in which it is affecting service that schools may become similarly affected.

If guidelines are reissued for parents and/or staff just to control the speed of infection rates ensuring schools and other services aren’t too severely affected by a large wave it could affect classes anyway.

I hope contingencies are firmed up for home learning and it’s better than last year and I can see classes being sent home because staff have to be with their kids or because infection rates or air quality is getting beyond what is acceptable.

@motherrunner interesting your take on it from a professional side too, presume you are a secondary teacher as you were teaching live all day? The Year 7 just about to start will be the first to have experienced most missed time from primary school (I had a DC in Year 7 last year and they had completed most of the KS2 curriculum by March and were back in by May that year)so it will be interesting to see how this years Yr7 get on, they didn't sit SATs so no comparative data to compare with previous years but I can't imagine that with 6months out of school and no discernable catch-up that there won't be some gaps and they won't be at the level previous secondary starters were at.

Tutoring - I live in an area adjoining 11+, the children I know going to grammar schools were all tutored (MC parents who can afford to stack the advantage in their favour and continue to do so if needed) and therefore some children in the 11+ area loose out on grammar school places

Glad you have a good options for your DC post year6 it helps give confidence for their academic future.

@FourTeaFallOut

It's not all in and pretend it's not happening. It's being all in - knowing that there are negative consequences - rather than constructing some half-arsed hokey-cokey educational system which is just a comforting approximation of education, knowing all the negative consequences that follow and which can be mitigated only be the very privileged.

Agreed to all this. I am far, far more worried about the known detrimental impact of more school closures than I am about covid. This includes the possibility, which is all it is, that long covid will present a significant ongoing issue for children in the future.

I do want us to do the things we realistically can do to mitigate. So for example some of the ventilation issues that individual teachers on here have described are low hanging fruit and could be solved by bunging a few quid at the issue. Some of our DC go to schools where they have the space to teach outside at least for the next couple of months if they had the money for suitable gazebos. That type of thing. I also want all ECV kids to get access to the vaccine and would be willing to forego any booster of my own (am double jabbed now) until all children in this category have been vaccinated.

I am not under any illusions that we can do much more than tinker around the edges at this point though, because of years, decades really of underfunding and failure to invest. For example there's fuck all we can do about the reality that probably millions of children are being educated in crowded school buildings where throwing money at the issue won't solve it. We've got a labour and materials shortage to contend with as well. But even with all this in mind, there can be no more school closures and the priority has to be avoiding that. So all in is what it has to be.

@ButteringMyArse

Outside lessons are a ridiculous suggestion.
Lots of technology is used in classrooms these days for a start.
It's suggested by people whose principal aim is to make sure that their children are not their problem - they don't care how this might happen.

Would you care to try 'teaching' 30 children outside, in the pouring rain, in October?