Will Schools Close after Christmas?

According to some news I heard, they will remain closed for January due to the new strain being easily transmissible between children.

When they closed before there was a lot of criticism about disruption to education, parents unable to work, and exposing grandparents to risk by having to provide childcare. It also impacted harder on less affluent families, and there were concerns for children’s mental health.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to afford to be able to stay at home, or pay for additional childcare. Lots of these Covid threads advocate closing everything, (and I can see the attraction), but if we do, there is a huge human cost to that as well.

Schools should close to stop the virus spreading.
Teachers are much more skilled at providing online lessons using programs like Seesaw, Google classroom etc. to provide online teaching than they were at first. At least if schools are closed, they are not trying to juggle 3 types of provision as described by geekesse.
No problem if parents can’t work, because they need to stay home and do childcare so have no money coming in and businesses close.
No problem if children don’t have access to the facilities to do online work and parents aren’t able to help them even if they do have enough online access for all the children in the family. My DD called me for help with things like the nth term, or identifying sequences like 1,3,6,10. My DGD could complete the sequence, but the question asked what was it called. Do you remember conversion between fractions, percentages and decimals?
A lot of the terms in English weren’t in vogue when we, or even our children were at school, so faced with an exercise on modal verbs, determiners, past progressive or fronted adverbials . . .
I’m glad I’m not in charge of making decisions, and I think schools should close - except they won’t. They’ll still have to be open for children with SEN and children of key workers just like they were before. Has anyone told the virus not to attach itself to those children?
What ever the decision, people won’t be happy, but they might be alive to grumble.

I feel teachers should be offered vaccination as front line workers.

My youngest missed 5 weeks of school this term & he is in an exam year. We’re in a tier 2 area so god knows what it will be like when the new variant takes off here. I also heard this morning that the lateral flow tests miss more of the new variant cases so the mass testing in schools sounds even less viable than it did.

I wish they would just recognise exams cannot go ahead as usual and put in place a sensible alternative - rather than the last minute changes of plan.

Schools will have to close for at least a couple of weeks - teachers are being expected to become paramedics now and they need training (always provided the union doesn't take exception to this which would be perfectly understandable). The news of this change was at the 11th hour as usual so if teachers who are already exhausted mentally and physically with the uncertainty and additional work they've been dealt for nine months now, are to have their contracted time to re-charge their batteries, there's no possibility of new testing structures and processes to be implemented at the start of the new term. It will be the third week in January in my opinion before any schools go back and it may be later. And of course, there's a strong possibility that more parts of the country will go into Tier 4 so there'll be more parents at home to take on the additional role of home-schooling/child-minding.

Agree trisher as a school worker I'm glad that at last the light is starting to dawn on some people

It is so difficult to plan anything. I run an education charity for adults, and we were finally told on Friday 18th, the day after our end of term, that we were not being "encouraged" to open the first week of Jan but to delay to the second week. Frustratingly after all our learners had already left so then had to communicate to all of them, and many don't have text or email connectivity all the time, not to come in the first week! Who knows if we will be delayed further - it is out of our hands for sure. We can only do what we are told!

I think secondary will !

Teachers and other school staff really have been at the sharp end of all this. Front line workers without the scrubs so it is good to see they are being appreciated. I would close the schools in January to give everybody a break and prepare properly for the challenges ahead. It also is a chance for the virus to subside but I think the children need to be back in school as soon as possible having seen the impact on my 7 GC of the last school closures.
On a personal level, I am looking forward to homeschooling 4 of ours via Facetime and WhatsApp - it certainly kept us on our toes in the sSpring!

There should be a national lockdown to try to break the cycle for all. Tinkering with different tiers is just not working. Christmas is an ideal time to start as schools and a lot of industry are already closed so extending for another couple of weeks would have the least adverse affect for most. Students should not return until end of January or until figures show a massive slowdown in transmission.

I don't think any of it will do much good now. My husband and I got a cold at the same time, with muscle aches and fever of 38degC. We have not seen a living soul since last April, having all our deliveries left in the porch for us to pick up after the driver has gone. All outer packaging is removed and disposed of by myself, followed by hand washing and alcohol-based cleaning. If anything had got onto me during that process, it would have made me ill first, followed by my husband catching it from me a few days later. We got ill at the same time! The only way that could have happened was from the inner packaging of food that we both helped ourselves to, or the food itself. Now if a cold can get into the house that way, so could covid. For all we know it might have been a mild case of covid. My husband has had another cold since, which I caught from him a few days later. Again the only way he could have caught it was from something that was delivered.

In Scotland the schools will open for vulnerable children and key workers' children on the 5th and online learning for others on the 18th, with no full return until at least the 11th. At the moment.

In many parts of the country schools finished at the end of last week, but in Glasgow (and maybe other areas) they go on until tomorrow. One of the teachers in our family, who was ill with Covid last month, has had 25 children out of 28 yesterday and 20 today. Other teachers in the same school have got as few as 5 in their classes today. Where is the sense?

At the end of the summer term they had all done a lot of preparation for blended learning, which had to be scrapped, and now presumably the Senior Management Teams will have to spend Christmas working out plans for going back to online learning for however long that lasts. At least here our DGC who should be sitting Highers in May now knows that that is not happening!

Judging by the crowds queuing down the road for about half a mile outside my local Sainsbury’s today, I’d be very surprised if we’re not all in lockdown immediately after Christmas.

When will people learn to stay at home?

to answer the question

Yes,

I think the whole country will be in lockdown,
call it what you will.

I fully understand that it may be necessary for schools to close. However let’s spare a thought for the parents. It will be so much worse for them than in the last lockdown. My 3 DDs can all work at home but this time their DHs will not be there as well. One of them was furloughed last time and the other 2 worked at home. They are both now working in their (COVID safe ) offices on the instructions of their employers. The DDs will have to home school and work on their own. When they most need our help
we are of course unable to step in. This means too much tv and other screen time and not enough fresh air and exercise for the GD. Also the weather is so very much wetter and colder now. All this is very worrying and not all children are as lucky as my GD who have spacious homes, IT facilities, gardens and dedicated parents.

Schools in Scotland will be closed after Christmas. What is baffling is that John Swinney, education secretary, has said cases are so low it’s perfectly safe for children to be at school this week, as they are in my area, yet we’re also told we can’t see family, except for one day, at Christmas because it’s too risky. Which is it??

Asian 'flu affected children because I remember GP's running ragged doing umpteen house calls at the time. Nobody wore masks ? Not even the doctors. It was really contagious too.

I wouldn't be surprised if the schools closed and don't know the correct answer. Does anyone? I agree with the poster who said teachers are front-line workers, even if they are not medical people, and ought to get vaccination priority. Their job is so important.

Aepgirl mentioned Sainsbury's. I understand the sentiment expressed in some ways but, if everyone shopped online, the whole system would break down. I do accept that some people are doing unnecessary shopping and perhaps go several times into the shop within a week.

Today, i agree with Vegansrock. Yes they should close them, and colleges & uni's. If its so transmissible, and especially by children (who touch everything, even when told not to, lets be honest!) then they should, despite the fact they were using teachers as free babysitting so some parents can work! Also, if they had the vaccine and were insisting on keeping kids in schools then they should have vaccinated them first along with the elderly, care workers, & NHS staff! And they should do definitely before returning them to ALL education, not because they get ill,(though a portion undoubtedly do, and some even die) but because they could spread it and fast, to more people!!! They need to make this vaccine compulsory as well, as far as its safe to do so.A reaction to vaccine surely can't be as bad as dying from covid!!!?

Half of me would like to see the vaccine be compulsory although I know some people have genuine medical reasons to not have it.

The trouble is I do like people to have freedom to choose.

These two viewpoints don't sit well together.

Yes they need to give vaccine first to teachers and tutors also, as well as the kids, alongside the nhs, frontline workers, care homes & elderly.In fact id have thought they would have vaccinated kids earlier as they are given all their other vaccines as part of their health programme, from a few weeks old, and even go to schools to dish out the flu jabs/nasal sprays etc, and the childs health vaccine programme is usually second to none! Plus kids are well- known super-spreaders of all bugs! & Have they forgotten already how many cases of covid were found in the universities recently?!

Tangerine- I myself have several health problems, which would probably be considered 'unsafe' maybe- but i know which id do and given choice of a much less risk of any reaction to the vaccine, or risk of covid then id rather risk the vaccine!!

Im sure the health professionals could give measured advice on a persons individual health problems versus the safety. But who knows how this virus will effect their medical condition in long run anyway? Or even shorten their previous expected lifespan? Especially this new version of itself? Which will surely mutate even more as time goes on?! I'd rather chance the vaccine.

I predict schools will be online within a few weeks. How do I know? Because Johnson is insisting it won’t happen!