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Re-opening Schools?

I’ve not really posted because it feels like our luck can’t hold, but for balance, we’ve had next to no covid this school year. No staff Covid at all. Currently about 6-7 kids in a school of just over 1000. It’s been like this since we came back in September. No omicron cases as yet in Lambeth.

I mean we really aren’t a paragon of damage limitation: our kids simply are not getting interested in masks this time round, and their vaccination rates are terrifyingly low - but so far we’re having a very normal year.
 
spanglechick said:
I’ve not really posted because it feels like our luck can’t hold, but for balance, we’ve had next to no covid this school year. No staff Covid at all. Currently about 6-7 kids in a school of just over 1000. It’s been like this since we came back in September. No omicron cases as yet in Lambeth.

I mean we really aren’t a paragon of damage limitation: our kids simply are not getting interested in masks this time round, and their vaccination rates are terrifyingly low - but so far we’re having a very normal year.
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I feel like it's coming though as lots of kids I know seem to have it at the secondary up the road, D.
I think people just aren't testing.
 
nagapie said:
I feel like it's coming though as lots of kids I know seem to have it at the secondary up the road, D.
I think people just aren't testing.
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Oh I’m sure. But we’ll get through next week to the holidays at least. We’re off tomorrow for the queen day, which can’t hurt.
 
Had this letter regarding my middle son today

In recent days we have been made aware of members of the school community in S5 & S6 who have tested positive for COVID-19. This letter is to inform you that your child has been identified as having been in ‘low risk’ contact with this person. This means they may have shared a classroom or had some other low risk contact in school. There is no need for your child to isolate unless contacted separately by Test and Protect and asked to do so. School remains open and your child should continue to attend if they are well.
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...which is clearly meant to be reassuring but I find anything but
 
kabbes said:
I think keeping schools open is really about keeping people at work. If they are WFH anyway, there will be less incentive to keep the schools open, but OTOH they still want to keep productivity up
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There are a lot of other reasons to keep schools open, although not sure if the government cares about them. I am very against schools closing but would have been happy to see other much stricter measures in place some time ago to protect school. This is sounding very familiar...
 
It does seem to me that the parents on here have been a lot less in favour of closing schools throughout all this than a lot of others tbh. Whatever the government's motivations might be I do think that's quite important.
 
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Monkeygrinder's Organ said:
It does seem to me that the parents on here have been a lot less in favour of closing schools throughout all this than a lot of others tbh. Whatever the government's motivations might be I do think that's quite important.
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Also teachers who have seen the impact on kids of the last two extended periods of school closure.
 
Yes. The effect of school holidays demonstrates why authorities are sometimes forced to vastly reduce the number of children in schools at times during this pandemic, but education and broader support/contact with children is very important.

I suppose the way I would tackle it would be to take much more pandemic action on other fronts, because if you can keep levels of infection in the community down to a certain level, there is much greater potential to avoid disrupting childrens education so much. Plus unlike other countries, our attempts to mitigate spread within school buildings etc was pathetic and done on the cheap.

Some government rhetoric about how much they prioritised childrens education would be laudible if only it were true, they were too desperate to keep pubs etc open for as long as possible and so often paid mere lip service to the stated priorities.
 
Just been told Ofsted have suspended inspections for the rest of term so schools and early years settings can focus on getting contingency planning in place for January :hmm:
 
Thora said:
Just been told Ofsted have suspended inspections for the rest of term so schools and early years settings can focus on getting contingency planning in place for January :hmm:
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So they've suspended inspections for one week, how big of them.
Mind you they're the first to cancel when schools start turning into hotbeds of infection.
 
Sue said:
Well that's because it's the parents that have to deal with homeschooling and all the rest of it so yeah.
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That's not the only reason. I want my kids in school because it's better for them, they learn better, they thrive with their mates and the structure and the normality. They're bright, capable and old enough to self-manage their learning at home. Still far better off in school.

Like nagapie, I would far rather see more stringent measures elsewhere in order to protect education and educators.
 
May Kasahara said:
That's not the only reason. I want my kids in school because it's better for them, they learn better, they thrive with their mates and the structure and the normality. They're bright, capable and old enough to self-manage their learning at home. Still far better off in school.

Like nagapie, I would far rather see more stringent measures elsewhere in order to protect education and educators.
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can't disagree despite this meaning less work for me
 
As a teacher, I quite liked online learning last time. It's much easier to just get up and teach rather than have to commute however far. There were far fewer behavioural issues online (for obvious reasons), but I want to avoid it happening again, because the knock on effect is that all school leaders and OFSTED are going on about now is the loss in learning gains/ the big catch up, which is, of course, concerning, but nobody is genuinely looking at the more important loss in social gains, whether pupils have lost the ability to concentrate irl or the ability to interact in a learning conducive way in the classroom. I mean of course some parents and teachers will be and staff involved on the pastoral side of things, but everything from the top is results driven, as usual.
 
Mattym said:
As a teacher, I quite liked online learning last time. It's much easier to just get up and teach rather than have to commute however far. There were far fewer behavioural issues online (for obvious reasons), but I want to avoid it happening again, because the knock on effect is that all school leaders and OFSTED are going on about now is the loss in learning gains/ the big catch up, which is, of course, concerning, but nobody is genuinely looking at the more important loss in social gains, whether pupils have lost the ability to concentrate irl or the ability to interact in a learning conducive way in the classroom. I mean of course some parents and teachers will be and staff involved on the pastoral side of things, but everything from the top is results driven, as usual.
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It seems to be universally accepted that things like concentration, emotional regulation, and knock-on effects on 'behaviour' have all slid backwards by the equivalent of at least a year of normal development. The kids themselves are aware of this, and it's a source of real sadness for many of them.
 
SpookyFrank said:
It seems to be universally accepted that things like concentration, emotional regulation, and knock-on effects on 'behaviour' have all slid backwards by the equivalent of at least a year of normal development. The kids themselves are aware of this, and it's a source of real sadness for many of them.
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Totally this. There seems to be many more who are experiencing panic attacks in our place. It's a hard world for many of them and not being made any easier by this stupid drive to identify and rectify gaps in learning (ie. positive data to put in front of the OFSTED inspector) and without applying a more holistic approach.
 
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