AIBU No going back to school I’m furious.

Furret I found the second article you posted really interesting, thank you. It came across as an informative, measured comparison between different country's handling of the return to school. The problem, as sodapops stated before, lies in the the fact that every country is different, every school is different and every child has different needs, particularly the vulnerable ones mentioned.
I wish every pupil could receive the best possible education and care but sadly there will always be huge divides. Private schools are going to be way ahead of the game at providing a safe return to school ... an abundance of space and facilities and an enormous wealth of personnel working for them. The richer children will be racing ahead in terms if their education which will in the long term cause even more of a divide and doesn't seem fair at all.

Yes Trisher we have been told that teachers will not be able to comfort those younger children who have anxiety about separating from parents, e.g teachers will not be able to 'take' children into school. They have strategies to reassure these children verbally but I could see when the head was informing us of this that it went against everything she has believed in for her entire teaching career and against the entire ethos of the school. It is very difficult.

trisher in regard to your post @10:56 today, I cannot understand your thinking on the Academy School "saying no" to our companies offer of assistance in setting up a Covid-19 safety regime.

Should you look back in regard to my posts on the matter in this thread then you will witness that we have never actually stated that we would be able to carry out any work for the School management due to the fact that we have never got as far as gaining access to the site for the reason I have given. Should it be that our Assignment Controller does receive that assess and cooperation at a time he and his team are available, then doubtless we will give our assistance if we can help.

In regard to myself condemning all educational establishment on the basis of our experience in our dealings with the one cited, then I have not stated that in any way. What I have stated is that I believe the education sector should be more pro-active in their actions to reopen schools for those schools are an integral part of Britons overall long term economic and social infrastructure and in that need to be fully functional as soon as practically possible.

In regard to offices and the Covid-19 safety of those who work within them, then all that can be carried out is to ensure everything reasonably practical is undertaken in that field of protection. The foregoing is the full amount that current safety legislation lays down as the total obligation on employers.

By example to the above, the wearing of face masks in confined areas such as lifts would be seen as very much practically possible and therefore should be enforced by an employer.

However, were two-metre distancing is available to employees then the enforcement of wearing face masks would not be deemed as necessarily enforceable especially where collaboration among workers is required or where voice or face recognition is required for online security purposes.

Further to your post trisher, many employees have not returned to their workplace at this point in time due to the well advertised fact that numerous organisations are gradually returning employees to work so as to ensure the resilience of their Covid-19 safety regimes.

I have not read the whole thread, so apologies if i repeat something someone else has said.

Children will not grow up scared of everything because hopefully the adults around them have will have explained the nature of this specific situation to them. There is no reason why this should be a cause for fear. Certainly my GC know that the virus is not dangerous to them, but that it is to older relatives, so they need to take the right actions to respect that, which they do - I have just been in a field with 3 GC from aged 5 to 8 and they have exchanged jokey distance fist-bumps, hugs and high fives with me, whilst chuckling and smiling. No sign of any fear there!

I believe the education sector should be more pro-active in their actions to reopen schools. I am a school governor and I can absolutely assure you that schools are working their tripe out to get children back to school in a manner that is safe for the children (physically and psychologically) - and also the staff and the family members (some of whom are vulnerable) to whom they return each evening.

It is impossible for schools to be pro-active - they are constantly being inundated with new information, rules and regulations. And some of the new rules they hear for the first time on a news bulletin. They do not have privileged access to the scientific information that is necessary to make these serious decisions, and are basically being asked to use their pupils and staff as guinea pigs in an easing of lockdown experiment.

I, as a governor, am required to read all of the stuff that is sent,so I can scrutinise the plans that the head comes up with to ensure that they follow the regulations.

A lot of things look easy from the outside, but when you drill down they are far more complex.

The idea of using public buildings like village halls for extra teaching space to enable social distancing sounds so very simple - but it is not. There are a raft of safeguarding matters which are hard to enforce in a non-school environment; and more but smaller classes (to ensure social distancing) require numerically more staff at a time when some are at home self-isolating, or ill.

Believe me, it is a huge sliding block puzzle.

Show me a March and I’ll be there! Talk of demonstrating against the government's (very very belated) efforts to control this virus is just plain silly. It is as if people think that the rules are there to annoy them rather than protect them. The economy is being wrecked by all this - would this be happening for no good reason? - or on some whim?

Grandad1943 if the shopkeeper says "No" when you want to buy a lolly it doesn't matter whether he lets you into the shop to look at his lollies or not it's still "No".
I believe the education sector should be more pro-active in their actions to reopen schools
You can believe anything you like it doesn't make it true. Have you any evidence apart from the incident you have already mentioned to show staff are not working all out to try and find a solution?
The long winded explanation doesn't answer my question do you believe that office workers aren't in the workplace because their managers don't have the "will" to get them in? But as usual you are attempting to make the answer as complicated and long winded as possible giving deails I didn't ask for, so I gather from this that actually you know that isn't the reason, that similar problems exist in all workplaces but you don't want to acknowledge it.
many employees have not returned to their workplace at this point in time due to the well advertised fact that numerous organisations are gradually returning employees to work so as to ensure the resilience of their Covid-19 safety regimes
. It is more difficult to get children into any setting than it is adults as they require a higher level of health and safety because they are sometimes unable to see dangers and it is the adults' job to protect them. There are also children in every school who will flout rules and behave erratically. If adults cannot be allowed to return to work until the safety regime is tested why on earth would anyone expect children to do so?

Exactly Trisher, you've hit the nail on the head. At least adults have some choice over their lives, including the timing and conditions of a return to work.

Of course, many parents are reluctant to send their children back until they're very sure that health and safety won't be compromised.

By the way Grandad1943 I don't think you are guilty of "mansplaining" I think it's obfuscation. (But I do love that word and I don't often get a chance to use it so I'm sort of pleased!)

trisher I find it greatly amusing when you refer to my posts in this thread being "long-winded" when your own post are as equally large with far less in the way of actual substance.

In regard to your "meanderings" in your post @18:22 today I believe I have answered them fully in previous posts in both the laying out the requirements of current safety legislation and the reasonable practicality of implementing that legislation in a number of settings.
Therefore I close my argument in that field, for as stated I have previously asserted all that is required to be expressed.

Hetty58, in regard to your above post, the schools should be made as safe as is reasonably practical for the return of children to there education as soon as possible.

If parents chose not to send their offspring on the opening of those schools, that would be their choice. However, I believe that those schools should be open to all parents who wish to pursue the full education of their children.

Many questions have been asked of myself in this thread. However, there has been no answer to the one question I have asked of others.

The above question being, it may well be that the Covid-19 situation may well be with this nation until a vaccine or cure is found which could be well into the future. Should the coronavirus pandemic situation be similar to that as of present in September, do members and previous members of the teaching profession feel that schools should remain closed indefinitely?

By the way, I see that this is yet another thread where the opening poster has not returned to the thread despite that forum members stated great anger at the continued closure of schools.

Could it be that we have who have placed so much effort into responding to that opening post have all been taken for "suckers" yet again.??

trisher, in regard to your post @18:48 today, as a person who so often post her total support of equality on this forum, I find your pleasure in the use of the word "mansplaining" totally reprehensible.

It would seem that your commitment to equality is conditional on what only suits your view of that status, and wholesale misandry does not fall into that view.

Some people just love to face both ways and in that demonstrate they have no core commitment on any matter they state they hold firm allegiance too

You see Grandad1943 enshrined in all the jargon is a major bit of misinformation. Schools have never closed. They have stayed open for the children of key workers and the most vulnerable. One of the real probems is that those children must be accommodated and strangely enough they are not spread evenly with just a few in each school, so the number of other children who can be safely introduced varies tremendously.
Your last 3 posts number 42, 27 and. 30 lines each. Mine have around 20. But continue to post inaccuracies it reveals how lacking in any real substance your argument is.

trisher, I feel your recent posts addressed to me in this thread are nothing short of meanderings mixed with misandry.

Sadly I really thought you were somewhat better than that.

trisher in regard to your comment on schools remaining open throughout this crisis, you obviously did not note or did not read when I stated in my post @19:29 today "I believe that those schools should be open to
ALL PARENTS who wish to pursue the full education of their children".

Ah so now pointing out a man's mistakes is "misandry". Who knew????
No I'm just an unapologetic, unrepentant virago!!! Long live obdurate women .

It's obfuscation I love by the way. Mansplaining is boring.

trisher
????

Sorry aren't I allowed to say words are boring? Obfuscation is a lovely word, mansplaining isn't. I know its personal but that's the way it is.

Now who is it on this thread who reminds me of the shop steward played by Peter Sellers in I’m All Right, Jack?

DGD tells me she will be going into school one day a week for four weeks.
I do hope she doesn't have to wear uniform as she has grown a lot in the last few weeks.
Someone will have to drive her there and back, probably Daddy who is working from home as Mummy is going to another school to work.

Is it worth it?

Grandad I hope you read luckygirl’s post.

Yes, it is an excellent post.

I was pleased to hear that my y10 DGS would be going in to school for a day next week, but less pleased to hear that he will have only two days' contact in all. He has been quite diligent in doing the work set for him on line, but my DS (his dad) who knows more than a little about how these things work, thinks the school could have made much better use of Zoom or similar app. I know that some schools have done better than others in this respect. If business people can manage to have virtual meetings, I cannot see why all teachers can't have virtual classrooms, as, indeed some have.

Lucca

Grandad I hope you read luckygirl’s post.

Yes Lucca I have read luckygirl's post?

Johnson is under pressure to come up with a plan for a sensible way forward in how schools will be reopened.

It seems to be too hard an issue for this rabble to get their heads around..

Anne Longfield the children’s commissioner warned Johnson that the right to an education was enshrined in the UNs convention on the rights of a child.

Scientists have advised that the risk of children returning is very low. However track and trace is an essential ingredient in the mix and this is something else that is struggling.

annodomini I think the problem with Zoom for schools is the unexpected expense. It could of course have been mitigated if the government had allotted schools some money to alleviate any extra expenses they have because of the virus. School budgets were stretched before, coping with the changes will be too much.

I think if you mean zoom lessons whilst people are at home there are also safeguarding issues, not impossible to overcome but require some very careful planning.