Schools And Teachers

[lady-janine]

Can someone please explain why the teaching unions want to close schools?
Would they be pleased if all health workers just downed tools and went home saying we'll be in touch online?
Would they appreciate the thought that all supermarkets should close because the workers might come into contact with the virus so why should they work in a shop or deliver by lorry or van?
Would they like it if all other key workers just said 'It's not safe for us.' 'We're not going to come into work any more'.

It is so cheering to know that they are considering the future of the next generation and ensuring they are doing the job they trained for.

Any thoughts?

[dannyk13]

The problem is that if any of the schoolchildren contract the virus there is a danger of them passing it to elderly parents or, even worse, to grandparnts.

[Maydup]

All key workers are rising to the challenge I agree, and doing thier jobs under really difficult circumstances. However they are still doing the job they are trained and paid to do.

Teachers on the other hand are being asked to keep hundreds of children safe from an increasingly contagious virus, test them all regularly and continue to teach them in the meantime. They have no support or additional resources to help deliver all of is and we're expecting them to have spent their Christmas break getting ready for all of this on Monday. Its not a child care facility, they should close like any other crowded place.

[lady-janine]

Danny - do you mean that teachers are not observing hygiene recommendations?

[dannyk13]

LJ, no, but it's hard for the children to keep to the 2 metre rule.

[vulcan42]

I don't think you can compare schools with any other establishment. Every school day, thousands of children are crammed together and social distancing is impossible. I remember a head teacher saying months ago that to introduce social distancing she would need fifteen extra classrooms plus the same amount of teachers.

[dannyk13]

I think Maydup has probably hit the nail on the head

[Sqad]

//////Can someone please explain why the teaching unions want to close schools?/////

There is evidence to suggest, that schools are offering a reservoir for Covid transmission.

//////It is so cheering to know that they are considering the future of the next generation and ensuring they are doing the job they trained for./////

For those students who care, then one year off will make no difference to their long term prospects or success.
Where there is a will,there's a way.

To the vast number of students and their parents who couldn't care a toss about education, restrictions are a God send.

All schools should close.

[diddlydo]

What many people fail to recognise is that schools simply can't function properly when whole classes or year groups have to be sent home and staff have to self-isolate themselves. Far better now to have schools closed and teachers at home setting up a robust programme of online learning for their pupils - many schools already have arrangements for this and it works well.

[tiggerblue10]

Schools will be open for children of key worker parents.

My son's school is preparing online Class Dojo teaching to start on Monday.

[lady-janine]

Danny - I understand that but not all parents are good at home schooling and the children really need the stimulus of the classroom. School closure will just emphasise the divide of have and have not and I am not just thinking of material goods here..

[emmie]

and all the parents in full time work, both parties perhaps need to keep on working, to support the family, pay the bills, what are they supposed to do meanwhile, their companies may not take kindly if one or the other asked to work from home, so schools shut and then what, for how long -

[dannyk13]

LJ, I realise that the education of some children will suffer, but what is the solution, other than home schooling?

[lady-janine]

Danny - keep the schools open.

Surely teachers should be designated as key workers and expected to report for duty as so many others are.

[emmie]

i have a sil who has home schooled her children last time, but what about all the parents who either have full time employment or indeed are useless at home schooling, i know i would be hopeless at it, and wonder if parents just give up and let their children watch tv or games -so the children could lose a year out of their school life, the way this is going.

[Prudie]

The many who think it doesn't matter what happens in the world as long as covid is contained are bound to have this view and I can understand their viewpoint. What it does make a complete and utter mockery of though is those parents who were fined for taking their children out of school in term time because missing 1 or 2 weeks of school was apparently so detrimental and ruinous to their children's education. To miss a whole year of school will without doubt have a massive effect on a huge bunch that will never ever recoup those losses.
I don't what the answer is mind you.

[emmie]

i don't either, but surely parents who have no choice but to go to work, to keep their families afloat.

[lady-janine]

exactly emmie. Who is supervising the schooling of children of key workers? sometimes both parents or of single parent families. How many child minders are ensuring the children in their care are receiving any education at all. After it is not in their remit to make sure their charges are following lessons anywhere.

[mushroom25]

// we'll be in touch online //

unless you need covid hospitalisation, it's pretty much how the NHS is operating already.

[sherrardk]

The whole situation is a complete mess and I’ve no idea what the solution is. My kids in high school can’t socially distance but have to spend their breaks and lunch outside, regardless of the weather, with no shelter (and this is at a v small school, with no over crowding). Boy #2 is at sixth form college and they’ve tried to reduce numbers by introducing block lessons so he has three hour long sessions (not ideal from a learning point of view) but is threatened with a fine if he is with more than one other person on the way to or from the college (kind of impractical when all the kids are walking in the same direction at the same time). The four of them are currently home schooling until at least 18 January and we will do the best we can but I can’t personally see them going back before half term.

[lady-janine]

Thank you Prudie.
Teaching unions seem to be thinking and acting in a very confused way.