Email from DfE to Headteachers. Schools prepped to shut again?

[AntiMaskersAreTwats]

Do you think this means it likely schools will shut again?

Again on a societal level some groups are more vulnerable.

Children are one of those groups.

It’s for all of them

All children are vulnerable as a group.Its not hard to get

Do you include the vulnerable to covid children in that? Because there are thousands of them out there. Children who are not legally allowed to stay home, even assuming they wanted to because they don’t want to be isolated from their peers and also need to be educated.

How do you think that feels right now? Being a vulnerable to covid child?

"If the UK does close schools again for a few weeks, it might be a better idea to have a serious think about the idea of "treat closures as a complete break for kids/staff, and then open schools for part of the summer holidays instead."

Vulnerable children will need to be in school so it wouldn't work.

The point is that we haven't moved in from people saying 'Schools must not close!'

It's just that government ministers and others are saying it loudly and trying to push it through parliament.

They shouldn't - most teachers agree. The thing is HOW do we do that?

You can protest, shout, scream - whatever! But that doesn't change the fact that very little help is being given to us to do that.

Just wanting something - however badly, doesn't make it a reality.

*moved on

They may close ad hoc but as a response it’s a political decision to do it across the board.

So yes it will make a difference if public pressure, and parliamentary change, means the Bill is passed.

It’s not futile if change happens.

The DfE threatened to take Greenwich council to court because it closed schools early for Xmas, and forced them to re-open.

That worked out well

Forcing schools to stay open by legal measures doesn't mean that anything extra will be done about the conditions in them and it is extremely naive to miss that this is absent from that particular conversation.

Ad-hoc closures are also not good for children.

No they are not but two terms out has been disastrous for many.

Anyone should be able to see that by now.

Yes, Marsha, closing schools is bad, which is why I spent an inordinate amount of time arguing that they needed mitigation measures to keep them open.

An argument which some still seem oblivious to.

That discussion goes on, bring in mitigations as long as it’s not SD which closed school to many.

I’ve only ever been against that. I have no issue with other as long as it doesn’t impact education.

The shift proposed is very welcome on societal level for all children who have been de-prioritised for too long.

Yes but what mitigations?

Funded by?

I currently have no heating in my class. No money to replace - it's been condemned.

I have brought from home a fan heater I plug in when I get there until the children arrive- when I have to turn it off and open the window.

I put it on again over lunch.

We have all been freezing all week.

Where is money coming from for mitigations?

bring in mitigations as long as it’s not SD which closed school to many.

I didn't argue for SD/blended learning/rotas either 🤷‍♀️

Where is money coming from for mitigations?

Well it should be government funding, shouldn't it? Perhaps the No. 10 Christmas Party fund could be put to better use.

If only the Tories knew anyone with deep pockets willing to shell out for stuff to improve buildings (although I'm not sure gold wallpaper is an improvement).

I didn't argue for SD/blended learning/rotas either

I didn’t comment on whether you did 🤷‍♀️

Jolly good, I'm sure you were fully supportive of proposed mitigation measures all along in that case.

I’ve never been against mitigations as long as they don’t close school to many or harm education.

Where is money coming from for mitigations?

Not having mitigations is WAY more expensive than having them. It would be cheaper to put in ventilation measures in a school than generate even a couple of extra ICU cases in hospital. Every child you infect potentially leads to an ICU case. Every ICU case costs tens of thousands.

Refusing to mitigate costs us a fortune, even if money was the only thing that mattered.

In fact even last year there was some silly thread and I suggested unions focus on one important thing - improved ventilation was my bet

Unions? You think the safety of our children and buildings they use should fall to the Unions to sort out? Something very wrong here. Why can't you say that the government should focus on improving ventilation instead?

So I can only have my holiday from work in lockdown time when I can't go anywhere or even visit my family??

I can only speak about the country I'm living in, but we still had a couple of weeks summer vacation. The teachers basically took the stance that shuffling holidays about for one year was a) their responsibility, b) in the long run, would be a lot less stressful than having to deal with the nightmare of kids who have lost massive amounts of learning and are all at wildly different levels.

Subjects like maths are built up stage by stage like jenga; if kids miss out chunks of Year 4 maths, it will cause problems with Year 5, and if they struggle with Year 5 maths, they'll find Year 6 even harder. And kids who are having difficulties with learning start playing up and causing disruption in lessons.

Personally, I'm really glad that in this country, we all decided to just push through and accept shorter summer holidays for one year; it's a huge relief to know that the kids are on track.

KW children went to afterschool care centers in this country during the school closures, so schools really were 100% closed. The gates were literally locked.

Yes, asking your MP to focus on ventilation might have been more productive, everyone knows that the government pays zero attention to the teaching unions.

If schools are essential infrastructure surely they should be funded as such.

Talking about children as a whole vulnerable group, some children actually benefited from lockdown and remote learning, not just those shielding but also some children that struggle being in a large group setting, found remote provision much easier to cope with. My DS, who likes being in school, thrived with remote provision. When his school talked about getting classes back into school in the summer, after the first lockdown, most of the parents of the senior school asked if remote provision could continue rather than having a few ad hoc days in school, they preferred the certainty of what was happening, rather than all the rules and regulations that would need to be in place if the pupils came back in bubbles, and all the yo yoing when children were going in and out of isolation.

@mrshoho

Unions? You think the safety of our children and buildings they use should fall to the Unions to sort out? Something very wrong here. Why can't you say that the government should focus on improving ventilation instead?

Eh?

The unions were asking for various things weren’t they- it wasn’t that long ago that people have forgotten…

The unions are still asking for various things, including improving ventilation.

Here's an ongoing scandal in school funding that those concerned about education and the impact of school closures should be protesting about. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4423678-The-Tories-STILL-dont-give-a-shit-about-your-kids-or-their-education