Topic: Kids returning to School

[Andy @ Allerton!]

So.. kids about to return

Reading lots about mental health and kids needing contact and many other things.

I know teachers that are going around the bend and I know parents likewise.

How do we feel about the governments ideas of getting everyone back to school?

[Nobby Reserve]

I think all school staff should have been vaccinated by now.

They haven't been because of political reasons:

1. Tory governments despise teachers (think they're lefty revolutionaries poisoning the minds of kids with pinko, do-gooder shite)

2. Bozo's 'base' are the sort of twats who will whine about [undeserving] teachers [who only work half a year anyway] getting the vaccine before them, and Bozo knows their support for him is a touch fickle.

[Circa1892]

Not sure I’m in agreement about teachers being top of the queue for vaccines. It’s nowhere near the highest risk profession (outside of healthcare I think retail and bus drivers etc have a bigger risk?)

[ljycb]

I have the same reservations that I had last September but I’m hopeful that the vaccine roll-out will mean that this isn’t reversible. It’s not fair to keep kids away from school for so long, but it also won’t be fair if they’re pulled out of that again. I’m hopeful it won’t come to that though.

[Hij]

I've voted got kids but not sure.

But in reality it's a bit more like got kids, not sure, but also thank fuck in terms of working in the morning.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Feeling the Llama love in this thread

[CraigDS]

Not sure I’m in agreement about teachers being top of the queue for vaccines. It’s nowhere near the highest risk profession (outside of healthcare I think retail and bus drivers etc have a bigger risk?)

I’m really unsure why it keeps being said by the Govt that it’s not high risk.

We saw the huge increase when schools went back, we’ve been told kids spread it, and we’ve seen the Govt think it’s enough of an issue to shut schools for over 6 of the last 12 months.

So how is it not pretty risky for an adult stood at the front of 30+ kids, in a tiny room they are packed into due to under funding and over crowding, all facing them without masks?

Anecdotally, my missus was a teacher up until the end of 2020, so has lots of teacher friends from training spread around different schools. They all have some absolute horror stories about fellow teachers in their school contracting and really (talking 8 weeks on ventilators, unable to walk again type stuff) suffering from it.

[12C]

Not sure I’m in agreement about teachers being top of the queue for vaccines. It’s nowhere near the highest risk profession (outside of healthcare I think retail and bus drivers etc have a bigger risk?)

The “who gets what, when” argument is divisive, which is exactly what this shower want.
They have done their level best to demonise teachers. That clueless whelk Williamson telling parents to complain to OfSTED, when he has completely failed in his duty to provide a plan to protect the workforce and the children.
He has screwed up the laptop provision contracts to help with home learning to the extent that charities are asking for obsolete kit - criminal.
Schools have had to plan at individual level to cope with this pandemic. All that Williamson has done is send out confused messages and vague ideas and platitudes.
Think back to Tepid getting totally changed instructions on a Friday, and having to try and implement them for the Monday.
Think about them threatening schools with legal action because the schools knew that the Kent Virus was something totally different and was rampaging through schools. Johnson wanted to keep a lid on any news of it so he could lift the lockdown for Christmas. Remember he lied about not knowing about the variant until the Friday night when in fact Hancock warned of it the Monday before.
Now we have a situation where parents are expected to self isolate the family if one of their own kids tests positive, after taking a not very accurate self administered test, providing they can actually get their teenager to take the test. I can see low income families being delighted with that prospect.

Yesterday we had another set of mixed messages coming out from junior ministers, regarding testing and tracing.
The upshot was “schools know better than anyone who a child’s contacts are”.
Let that sink in.
Schools are expected to know who a child mixes with. In school? In a full school working normally with no chance of social distancing. And what about outside of school. How many parents have come out with the line “you can’t know where they are all the time” when asked about what their children were up to.

The upshot is, the rich want everyone one back working, regardless of the cost in lives, and to do that then schools have to open fully.

Remember it was only a year ago that a senior government advisor was quoted as saying something along the lines of “if a few old people die, so what...’

[Andy @ Allerton!]

I’m really unsure why it keeps being said by the Govt that it’s not high risk.

We saw the huge increase when schools went back, we’ve been told kids spread it, and we’ve seen the Govt think it’s enough of an issue to shut schools for over 6 of the last 12 months.

So how is it not pretty risky for an adult stood at the front of 30+ kids, in a tiny room they are packed into due to under funding and over crowding, all facing them without masks?

Anecdotally, my missus was a teacher up until the end of 2020, so has lots of teacher friends from training spread around different schools. They all have some absolute horror stories about fellow teachers in their school contracting and really (talking 8 weeks on ventilators, unable to walk again type stuff) suffering from it.

Yeah I know a few teachers and they are far from happy with the way things have been dealt with.

As it happens, most of them have now been vaccinated, but it was mostly good fortune that this has happened rather than design from all accounts.

[diggerling!]

Not sure I’m in agreement about teachers being top of the queue for vaccines. It’s nowhere near the highest risk profession (outside of healthcare I think retail and bus drivers etc have a bigger risk?)

There are riskier professions in terms of mortality, but the argument for vaccinating school staff is that it's more likely to allow schools to stay open. If a teacher has a positive test it can mean a whole year group has to stay away from school.

[Jono69]

My 10 year old daughter went back yesterday and from a selfish point of view then I'm glad she has . She needs normality and getting out of the house ( Wasn't sure what fresh air would do to her )  back into her life and we both felt the school have been very proactive in dealing with it all so we had no worries in sending her back

From September up until she finished in December they only had to isolate one bubble . Think there are around 350 pupils there as well

Ultimately all teachers should have been vaccinated though and can't really understand why they weren't as Boris and his gang of mercenaries could have used this as great PR .

And that's the problem i have that I'm glad she has gone back but feel sorry for teachers /staff etc

[rob1966]

There are riskier professions in terms of mortality, but the argument for vaccinating school staff is that it's more likely to allow schools to stay open. If a teacher has a positive test it can mean a whole year group has to stay away from school.

There are other professions that can claim that they are more important to the country though. I keep going on about this, but if Covid went through an RDC at the likes of Tesco, Asda, Morrisons etc, thats not 35 kids going home for 10 days, thats hundreds of stores not getting restocked and food shortages within days. As an example, if you shop in a Tesco between Carlisle down to Cheshire and then across to the East coast, everything ambient comes out of a single RDC in Goole, if you live on the West side, all chilled comes out of Widnes.

[Indomitable_Carp]

Never had kids. But my sister has been struggling badly this last year as a single parent. Not only that, but my niece with no siblings or young cousins living close by has been largely devoid of physical social contact with her peers throughout that time. She seems to have handled it fine - but no idea what sort of damage that might do long term to a kid.

Kids here in Catalonia have been back in school since January. Even last year they were back in school a lot more then British kids. I am a bit more distanced from the arguments here, but so far as I can tell the idea of having kids back in schools has been a lot less controversial and lot more widely welcome then the UK.

With the vaccination programme in the UK leaps and bounds ahead of the vast majority of other countries (all bar Israel and the UAE so far as I can tell) I don't think there is many more reasons to be keeping them shut.

[CraigDS]

There are other professions that can claim that they are more important to the country though. I keep going on about this, but if Covid went through an RDC at the likes of Tesco, Asda, Morrisons etc, thats not 35 kids going home for 10 days, thats hundreds of stores not getting restocked and food shortages within days. As an example, if you shop in a Tesco between Carlisle down to Cheshire and then across to the East coast, everything ambient comes out of a single RDC in Goole, if you live on the West side, all chilled comes out of Widnes.

It should be a lot easier to prevent spread at those places though, I mean they certainly aren’t packed 35 to a small room without masks.

They also don’t have as much of an issue if a handful are off. They may be a bit slower, have to get extra staff in, but the work will get done. In a school with a handful off you run the risk of schools having to close.

[Kekule]

I have a 7 year old, and a 3 year old.  The 3 year old has been allowed to go to nursery since about July/August. We were unsure, but it seems to have not caused any issues.

I’m really torn about schools though. Our 7 year old was fine all last year, and even up until about mid February, but the last few weeks she’d really gone downhill. She had trouble sleeping, was very clingy and quite withdrawn. Obviously feeling lonely, missing people her own age, and just being a kid around other kids. The difference on Friday evening when she realised it was the weekend and then school on Monday was remarkable.  So from her point of view, day to day, it looks like the best thing.

However I think it delays the chances of her seeing her Gran, Grandad and cousins which she idolises for a lot longer, and of course it increases the chances of many more people getting ill, and worse.

If I didn’t have kids I would be massively against it, possibly selfishly. As I have kids I’m happy for them to go back, again, possibly for short term selfish reasons. 

[Nobby Reserve]

It should be a lot easier to prevent spread at those places though, I mean they certainly aren’t packed 35 to a small room without masks.

They also don’t have as much of an issue if a handful are off. They may be a bit slower, have to get extra staff in, but the work will get done. In a school with a handful off you run the risk of schools having to close.

Additionally, schools have been used as childcare facilities for essential workers. If schools close, those essential workers need to take time off to look after their kids.

With the general reopening of schools (and soon a much wider range of retail/leisure, meaning more parents having to go to work), it will be even more important to keep schools open and teachers in place and free of Covid.

I'm not disparaging workers in any other essential sector, by the way, and there's certainly a case for prioritising all essential workers for vaccination.

[rob1966]

It should be a lot easier to prevent spread at those places though, I mean they certainly aren’t packed 35 to a small room without masks.

They also don’t have as much of an issue if a handful are off. They may be a bit slower, have to get extra staff in, but the work will get done. In a school with a handful off you run the risk of schools having to close.

Look at what happened at Greencore in Northampton, 300 tested positive last August. Wifes office, 30 out of 35 tested positive in January and they have all the covid measures in place.

I've not worked inside the RDC much, but I assume you need to undergo a decent bit of training to learn how it works, what to pick and from where to ensure each trailer is loaded correctly - theres about 48 cages go on each 13m trailer, then there are the multidrops, where you do 3 or 4 stores, they need loading properly per the route plan. I know you also need training on the pallet trucks and forklifts, I had to to do deliveries to Lidl and Aldi as they are self tip.

Additionally, schools have been used as childcare facilities for essential workers. If schools close, those essential workers need to take time off to look after their kids.

With the general reopening of schools (and soon a much wider range of retail/leisure, meaning more parents having to go to work), it will be even more important to keep schools open and teachers in place and free of Covid.

I'm not disparaging workers in any other essential sector, by the way, and there's certainly a case for prioritising all essential workers for vaccination.

I can totally see the case for getting teachers vaccinated, like you say they are needed, both in the wider thing and also for the kids well being. The priority has been cutting deaths and hospital admissions, so essential workers haven't been prioritised sadly. A lot of HGV drivers have been done now, but that's because its all arl farts who have the licence, so we've been done due to age.