If you think the key worker guidance should tighten up for school attendance please sign this petition

[swooby]

I can see from other threads that people are just as infuriated as I am about the current key worker guidance leading to schools being half full whilst the other half of kids get excluded.

So I made this petition. It basically suggest that:

1.If there is a non key worker parent at home then that family cannot send their children in to school

1. The keyworker definition needs to be tightened. It is currently far too broad and open to abuse.

I just can't get my head around how a non key worker has to home school kids UNLESS they happen to have a key worker partner.

If you feel the same please sign this petition at change.org on the link below:

chng.it/g4Zjg792Gn

Please share the link too

@Fridget

Regardless of what that parent at home is meant to be doing work wise?

I know a nurse currently working in ICU, married to a barrister whose hearings are mainly done by phone or by video from home. He’s by far the bigger earner, but couldn’t work if he was caring for children let alone home schooling. So the NHS would be down one nurse.

I do agree some people are taking the piss (eg sending child in if one is a SAHP) but it’s really not as simple as you claim, and thankfully the rates are coming down anyway. Have you any evidence of how much difference it would make to the rates if there were a few fewer children in schools?

I'm a key worker who works from home, but in mental health providing nhs therapy. I couldnt homeschool and do any of my job. I dont have kids so doesnt effect me but it would effect a lot of my colleagues who are trying to do all they can to keep working.

I won’t be signing, think it’s quite frankly a ridiculous petition.

@Benhew

One thing that also confuses me is in our school lots of 'key workers' say they didn't need a place last year as they were furloughed...if they are so key, why were they furloughed before? Surely the covid response is the same this time! I can't seem to understand it!

Are you sure it's not because their partners are the key workers? I'm not a key worker but DS's dad is. I was furloughed last time so didn't need a school place but this time I am working and neither of us can work from home so we have had to use a place.

@Welliesandpyjamas

DH is a key worker and in school as normal (EY class teacher). I can't work from home due to the nature of my job. If my 2 youngest didn't have places in their schools my job could not be covered by anyone else in our small company, and as a consequence our harvest related trade would be halved and many local small farmers would lose a big % of their income. Also there would be a massive detrimental effect on my 17 yr old DC's A Level marks and future proapects as he would be left in charge of home schooling younger siblings, one of whom's MH is badly affected by lockdown, whilst also taking live lessons and submitting critical coursework and assessed work. We are absolutely not selfishly taking advantage of the places.

But if your DH did a very important (but not Key worker) job, you’d be completely stuck! You’d have no choice but to stop work. This is the position I’m in. Both DH and I can only work outside the home. He cannot stop as he’s responsible for lots of people who would not earn money if he stopped. I’m only responsible for a couple of others. So they and I are unable to earn money at the moment. And one of my DC is also in a critical Year at school. I don’t think you’re selfish to take your school place, but I do think I deserve one as much as you. The current rules are completely unfair.

I won't be signing.
But if you fancy making it impossible for a huge number of women to work then go ahead.

@SueEllenMishke

I won't be signing. But if you fancy making it impossible for a huge number of women to work then go ahead.

Exactly this

@enidblyton1 yes, you totally do. It isn't fair.

I think we are both disagreeing with the OP in our own ways.

OP, I share your frustration, but I think this petition is the wrong way around. I would broaden the worker category - to allow all children back in school where both parents have to work outside the home. This would result in yet more children in school.
Luckily, we should only have about another month of this to get through.

[quote Welliesandpyjamas]@enidblyton1 yes, you totally do. It isn't fair.

I think we are both disagreeing with the OP in our own ways. [/quote]
Yep!

@Enidblyton1 👊 fist bump
May this crap soon be over

Signed. I know several people who are technically key workers but wife's/husbands work from home and are using a school place. They are friends but it has lowered my opinion of them.

I won't be signing as rates are already coming down and more children should be in school not less: lots of really vulnerable children are falling through the net as being kept at home in worsening circumstances. It is almost certainly possible to wfh successfully if your child is olden enough to work online with minimal supervision age8-9 + but virtually impossible if under 7 and lots of wfh require work to be done in business hours not later, some jobs you might be able to do 6am-9am then 4 -8pm but lots require you to be on your laptop at the same time as everyone else from 9-5

I think the uptake in school provision must vary from area to area. Myself and DH are key workers and cannot work from home. DH is off on Fridays and on that day the girls school from home. Our school clearly said that both parents have to be KW and unable to work from home to be eligible for a place and proof of this would need to be provided.

Our school provides no face to face teaching, all teachers are at home providing online sessions to all children be it if they at school or at home. The TA's are at school and provide more of a monitoring and childminding provision.

From what I can see take up in our school is more by parents who have children with additional needs. There are also seem a minority of parents that previously worked from home and now need to send there kids in. But I try and not judge as everyone is going through there own journey at the moment in these testing times.

As when it was like that back in March there was minimal school attendance.

There's a number of reasons why it's different to March. For one the vulnerable category has expanded.

The DoE ask for attendance info so I'm sure they will publish the data soon.

Nope not signing. More people did it in the first lockdown because it was the first one, and everyone was happy to do their bit. Now we're on lockdown 3, and people are having to focus on themselves a little bit more and taking up a space they are entitled to.

Last time i didn't use my daughters place, i am this time, as are a lot of people

Another 'my life is hard so everybody else's has to be as well' post

Are you really just mad that you can't send yours? Honestly? You would not send your kids to school if one of you was a keyworker and the other paid the bills?

(Note: Mine are home, they were home from March to September and home again January to March this year)

@Welliesandpyjamas 👊

We've had some parents claim to be key workers to try and get a place when our pastoral staff know otherwise. On site provision is really a last resort because anyone who can stay at home really should. We've also had a surprising number of parents who've claimed they absolutely have no other option so need a key worker place, and when they realise their child isn't with their friends (because their friends are staying at home as 14/15 year olds can generally exist at home for a few hours), they magically don't need the place anymore.

I'd love to see it tightened up, but the sad reality is there's too many men who consider themselves far too big and important to even consider spending an hour of their working day with their children. The inevitable outcome would be that women are yet again pushed into paying the cost.

No way! You sound very bitter. Targeting those sending their children to school because you can't see why they need to attend is pretty low.

There's kids at my school that I know have a parent who doesn't work however I have no visibility of their home situation.

safeguarding & sen lists aren't on the notice board.

Will not be signing .This is so badly conceived. Majority of ICU nurses are female and nursing is not a high paying career, especially in expensive cities like London which is currently hugely overstretched in hospital admissions. Often nurses have a higher earning husband/partner. If one parent would need to stay home to look after kids, the couple are not going to jeapordise the highest earner, so you loose a nurse. This is very insensitive to the needs of working mothers in low paid healthcare roles .

Not a chance. So many kids need to be in, you have no idea of each person's personal circumstances, all this will do is increase mental health problems and make life harder for everyone else. I would personally prefer that ALL vulnerable kids were in and risked a few "playing the system" than have kids fall through the cracks, potentially never catching up