Unhappy about primary schools re opening

[Bitterglitter]

Is anyone else unhappy about primary schools being re opened as part of the lockdown easing measures?

I keep thinking about the kids who have underlying health conditions that aren't yet diagnosed.

My DS1 (5) was diagnosed with a benign heart murmur in feb this year. It was only picked up because he has a lot of follow up Paediatric appointments because he was premature. I don't even know if it's an issue as far as covid19 goes. But what about all the kids out there with undiagnosed asthma, diabetes etc?

Primary age kids can't and won't maintain social distance. And they will act as super spreaders too. Doesn't matter how well their parents maintain distance if all these kids are mixing it up in schools.

It just seems crazy when so many parents can continue working from home. Am I being hysterical?

OP not joining in with the conversation?

So the poster who will keep their kid off school and mix with isolating parents is happy for food producers, delivery drivers, utility workers to go to work as long as their bubble family is 'safe'. Poor kids getting a message that is okay!

This is such bullshit. It's widely agreed that whole thing has been handled dreadfully by the government but according to you we should just keep following their directives like sheep and not make the decisions that suit out own families best?

@Devlesko thats utter bollshit. With a collapsed economy there wont be parents keeping a roof on anybody's head. There wont be no jobs; have u seen countries with no economy waiting on UN to donate to them, and ppl dying of starvation??? Do u even understand what a collapsed economy looks like?

Keeping the economy running saves millions of lives, which is far more important than the number of lives who could die of covid.

Most of us have a choice whether to send our children or not.

Can we all live in your world please?

Why do we just not wait for official announcements. The papers are overflowing with false and contradictory headlines. It’s like a media frenzy and it’s making things worse. We closed down too late , we are not lifting lockdown early enough, there are no antibodies, why are we not testing for antibodies, vaccine will take 3 years, we will have a vaccine next week , people are too scared to lift lockdown , people are ignoring lockdown .

JUST WAIT .

I have to put my family first and safeguard them.

But where would you be if everyone had the same attitude. NHS staff, delivery drivers, supermarket staff, food producers and utility workers all stayed at home.

Then you wouldn't be able to safeguard your family by shutting out the rest of the world.

@LIZS i like that. I’m obviously happy for children at risk, or with at risk close family to stay at home, and bet loads of support. But all the others - keep your school place and go in, or loose your school place. Calling in sick for weeks on end hopefully will lead to exclusion and massive fees anyway.
I really don’t see why schools should have to put in loads if effort to get these kids re-integrated and caught up with school material after their parents decided they didn't need it in the first place.

The Sunday Times today is saying that one of the first 'tweaks' to lockdown that will be made this Thursday is that the government will start encouraging key workers to send their children into school, if not already doing so. I find this particularly interesting as I had just decided to send my DC back in from next week to take up their as yet unused key worker places.

I don't 'need' to do it as we've been managing okay so far (albeit with no real school work being done) but the DC are missing school so deeply now that I'm worried for their mental health. I wonder if others will feel the same and there will be a lot more key worker children coming back even if schools don't officially reopen for a while.

Carry on homeschooling then, which presuming you are

You might be happy to risk your family dying for the sake of schools being open before the summer holidays

Some of us are frontline nhs and keyworkers. Who "risk our family dying" every fucking day, and I can definately say none of us are fucking happy about it.

Don't you dare sit there in your privileged position of being able to stay at home and judge others.

So basically fuck off.

Have I missed something? Schools haven't been confirmed as opening June 1st?

Also:
No I am not deregistering, my kids will be going back to school, just not yet. I will be waiting at least 3 weeks to see in deaths go up again once schools open.

You wouldn't see a spike after 3 weeks, 2 weeks incubation and then typically 2 weeks to death would be 4 weeks, not accounting for time for it to circulate?

Boo boo.

The parents who aren't happy, deregister your children at school and homeschool them! Simple.

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat

But why are you only worried about Covid deaths? What about those suffering and dying in poverty, domestic violence, job loss, homelessness, postponement of operations? Why aren’t these deaths one too many for you?

well said! I dont get why people cant understand how awful schools being shut is for vulnerable kids. every day that schools stay shut widens the disadvantage gap. There are children stuck at home being neglected or abused in terrible situations. Many vulnerable primary school children especially desperately need the support that school provides.

yes reopening schools is likely to bring on a second wave in infections, but years of life lost to this will be far less than that lost by keeping the schools closed.

The economy is intrinsically linked to preserving and extending lives, I'm not sure how people don't understand this

I think they do, but they don’t care, what they are focused on is the impacts on them alone, be it through genuine misunderstanding and subsequent fear or because lock down benefits them personally.

I dont get why people cant understand how awful schools being shut is for vulnerable kids. every day that schools stay shut widens the disadvantage gap

They do understand, but again they don’t care it’s about what benefits them personally.

Every single parent has the option to stay home and home school. Every single one. They can even claim benefits and pretend to look for work. It is an option everyone has.

So if people don’t want to send their kids to school they can do this. What they can’t do is dictate everyone else shouldn’t be able to send their kids to school either.

those more concerned with living can keep theirs at home.

Yup, that's absolutely right. Everyone who sends their kids back to school wants them to die and wants everyone else to die too.

What a pile of absolute horse shit.

The economy will survive with just one of you working or both working pt, to cover raising your children

Fuck single parents then, eh?

Seriously, in your world, what happens when mortgages can’t get paid on one wage or two part time wages? The Government will re-house them, pay their rent. House will stand empty cos no one on one wage will be able to afford to buy it. House prices collapse leaving people with thousands in debt when house is repossessed. Yet more people need housing and the rent paid. If we all work, as able-bodied adults, just part of the time, what does that do to the taxes we pay to keep the country going? Schools? The NHS? To pay benefits at current rates with all this part time work?

I have a high risk child and at the age of 50 and overweight, am also high risk. Also a single parent and a teacher. I am very concerned about the impact of schools opening on my family but there is no other choice but to suck it and see.

My youngest daughter is shielding due to Severe Asthma so mine won't be going back until a vaccine is made available I suspect. Very upsetting as I'm worried they will both be left behind!

@bluntness100 I don't think my boss would appreciate me staying at home to homeschool my child but thanks for the helpful suggestion.

I'm sorry but this is ALL pure speculation and noone anywhere has said schools are opening on 1st June...
Untill I am told my childrens schools are open and it is safe there is no point discussing it...
Nobody knows when schools will open, it could be the 1st June, it could 1st week of September...

Untill I am told my childrens schools are open and it is safe

Unfortunately this isn't possible. Even when schools open again, no one can tell you it's safe.

I have two children, one in year 1 the other in year 8. Both are doing fine at home. My youngest child is actually loving the extra time with me and is making amazing progress because of one to one learning. My eldest child is doing really well with online lessons from her school and is spending lots of time FaceTiming her pals to keep in touch. It's not perfect but it's not bad and I don't think either is likely to suffer mental health issues as a result. I am working from home and managing to do both by working in the evenings and at weekends. It's not perfect but it's not bad either.

I don't get the rush to return. Our rates of infection are still high. Our death rate is still high. Yes, we seem to be past the peak but only just.

There seems to be two arguments here- "children don't get it/don't pass it on" and "open the schools now so children get it and pass it on before the winter". They can't both be the case can they?

I'm not a scientist but maybe someone else can shed more light on this for me- it seems to me that the infection rate in children SHOULD be lower because the schools are closed. Wasn't that the point?? Children aren't going shopping/mixing with their friends/going to workplaces. Far fewer of them are coming into contact with others than us adults who have no choice but to risk it. Once schools open this completely changes. Do you want to test the theory on your children because I certainly don't.

*You might be happy to risk your family dying for the sake of schools being open before the summer holidays

Some of us are frontline nhs and keyworkers. Who "risk our family dying" every fucking day, and I can definately say none of us are fucking happy about it.

Don't you dare sit there in your privileged position of being able to stay at home and judge others.

So basically fuck off*.

This.

I've been working at the hospital every day. I'm 'risking my family dying' for you and yours am I? Wish I'd not bothered if that's your attitude. How fucking rude. Make sure you deregister your child and stay at home but don't even think about using all the essential services so you can stay at home if you feel strongly about not risking life. Then see how easy it is. What a twat.