O/T. The Government's handling of Covid

[swaledale]

I agree with you about how unacceptable it would be for children to be ‘roaming the streets not socially distancing’ and I haven’t actually mentioned ‘vulnerable teachers’...they should simply be confined to online provision...end of.

You’re also right that medics, retail - in the area of food/supermarkets anyway - and transport staff have been very much in the front line.

Having said that...my health centre waiting room remains out of action, I understand that many GP appointments are being carried out via the telephone, clothes shops don’t allow the fitting rooms to be used and even supermarkets - where staff, imo, deserve just as much of a clap as those in the NHS - are employing some sort of equation involving square footage of the store and the number of people allowed in at any one time.

Schools are, in all other situations, a known hotbed of viral transmission and even if, in general, younger people do not suffer such a potentially serious version of the virus they still have the capacity to take it home and trigger a new spike/second wave.

Obviously having a daughter who works in a primary school I have a personal concern for her welfare just as I would if she were a doctor, nurse or a supermarket worker. She was teaching half a class - thus giving social distancing a chance - throughout June and July with no apparent problem however, it is the prospect of teaching a full class - in accordance with Johnson’s ‘moral responsibility’ demands - that concerns me...not so much from a personal point of view but because the comparatively cramped conditions of most classrooms are the very conditions we are avoiding in all other buildings and are the conditions that are likely to encourage transmission of the virus which will then be taken home to parents, siblings and older family members.

As I said rA, other countries including Denmark have managed to return children to school, it can't be that difficult to come up with a plan that enables schools to reopen with as little risk as possible.

The Government will follow its usual line, which is to blame others for its mismanagement!

[ramAnag]

As I said rA, other countries including Denmark have managed to return children to school, it can't be that difficult to come up with a plan that enables schools to reopen with as little risk as possible.

The Government will follow its usual line, which is to blame others for its mismanagement!

I entirely agree with you about the Government, Swale...and the completely incompetent Williamson in particular.

I know nothing about Denmark but I am familiar with German schoolchildren, who seem to follow a Scottish type of academic year, and have indeed gone back...but only, in my experience, on a 50% timetable.
One of the differences between here and there appears to be the extent to which employers appear to be going out of their way to accommodate employees’ child care complications.

[Geoff Parkstone]

I entirely agree with you about the Government, Swale...and the completely incompetent Williamson in particular.

I know nothing about Denmark but I am familiar with German schoolchildren, who seem to follow a Scottish type of academic year, and have indeed gone back...but only, in my experience, on a 50% timetable.
One of the differences between here and there appears to be the extent to which employers appear to be going out of their way to accommodate employees’ child care complications.

Bloody hell, rA, I must have completely misread your views, I thought you were a government apologist and that you would be up in arms at Swale's suggestion.

Anyway I have a client in Denmark who I regularly chatted with about their experience with Covid. They havent had it anything like as bad as many countries and were one of the first to reopen schools. Sensible pragmatism, didnt change much and have experienced little problems with reopening. It was staggered, with the youngest classes returning first. However to contextualise their success, class sizes there were nearer 20 and classes were split in half. Unsurprisingly teachers there moaned because it meant more work for them (seemingly a common complaint). Social distancing was enforced and new H&S rules re hand washing etc. All good sensible stuff, not too different to what you are hoping to see here. Some classes were taken outdoors, although obviously that isnt a long term solution, and parents had the option to keep kids at home.

Can we manage that here? There's no rocket science to what the Danes did but they had the advantage of lower class sizes to start with so that helps with your concern over physical accommodation.

What does baffle me though is the seeming imperative that we return to how it all was last year. Surely covid gives us the opportunity to reevaluate things and how we do them. In offices, that means working from home using technology. What is wrong with making this an integral part of the learning experience on a permanent basis? Students have 3 days in school, 2 days out learning remotely, rotating week on week. Class sizes halve, teacher contact time increases during the "days in" and remote help is provided for those days when the kids are at home. I appreciate that this has its own issues - particularly in the early years classes where face to face is maybe more important, and it has childcare implications, but, whats wrong with thinking outside the box and reevaluating education, as well as many other things.

We can learn many things from the last few months in the way we work, shop, educate etc which will stand us in good stead for the future when COVID 23 comes around or whatever. Covid 19 should be treated as the stimulus we need to change life practices that technology can make happen. Lets not run scared of it, lets embrace the change. yes, it will change everyone's lives - but then so have other pandemics, wars etc yet we are still here, surviving, economically better off than ever, albeit losing that human touch as we huddle in houses crounched over our internet portal on the world.

Then, when we are herded into this mostly insular existence, the illuminati can switch off the internet and cause blind panic !!! :-)

[ramAnag]

Bloody hell, rA, I must have completely misread your views, I thought you were a government apologist and that you would be up in arms at Swale's suggestion.

Anyway I have a client in Denmark who I regularly chatted with about their experience with Covid. They havent had it anything like as bad as many countries and were one of the first to reopen schools. Sensible pragmatism, didnt change much and have experienced little problems with reopening. It was staggered, with the youngest classes returning first. However to contextualise their success, class sizes there were nearer 20 and classes were split in half. Unsurprisingly teachers there moaned because it meant more work for them (seemingly a common complaint). Social distancing was enforced and new H&S rules re hand washing etc. All good sensible stuff, not too different to what you are hoping to see here. Some classes were taken outdoors, although obviously that isnt a long term solution, and parents had the option to keep kids at home.

Can we manage that here? There's no rocket science to what the Danes did but they had the advantage of lower class sizes to start with so that helps with your concern over physical accommodation.

What does baffle me though is the seeming imperative that we return to how it all was last year. Surely covid gives us the opportunity to reevaluate things and how we do them. In offices, that means working from home using technology. What is wrong with making this an integral part of the learning experience on a permanent basis? Students have 3 days in school, 2 days out learning remotely, rotating week on week. Class sizes halve, teacher contact time increases during the "days in" and remote help is provided for those days when the kids are at home. I appreciate that this has its own issues - particularly in the early years classes where face to face is maybe more important, and it has childcare implications, but, whats wrong with thinking outside the box and reevaluating education, as well as many other things.

We can learn many things from the last few months in the way we work, shop, educate etc which will stand us in good stead for the future when COVID 23 comes around or whatever. Covid 19 should be treated as the stimulus we need to change life practices that technology can make happen. Lets not run scared of it, lets embrace the change. yes, it will change everyone's lives - but then so have other pandemics, wars etc yet we are still here, surviving, economically better off than ever, albeit losing that human touch as we huddle in houses crounched over our internet portal on the world.

Then, when we are herded into this mostly insular existence, the illuminati can switch off the internet and cause blind panic !!! :-)

All good sensible stuff indeed, GP and partly what I have been suggesting...in the absence of alternative building provision...part time attendance made up for by online provision.

Unfortunately it’s a little more complex. You are a capable and professional person as, one imagines, is your Danish client.
Likewise, my near neighbours have children who attend (board) at a quite well known public school. They haven’t attended school since March but have received a more than acceptable online education because certain conditions have been met...they are bright and well motivated kids, they have access to the necessary equipment, their parents are very committed, particularly academic and able to work from home and the school has everything in place to be able to provide the service required.

Those children have probably missed out socially over the last four or five months of education but in no other way.

At ‘Bash Street Academy’ somewhere in the Inner City things aren’t quite the same and while relative poverty doesn’t necessarily equate to bad parenting - far from it - it doesn’t help, and without the necessary ‘resources’ and conditions in place there is, imo, a need for the Government to provide additional support (buildings and staff) in areas which are already proving to be ever more commonly associated with increased outbreaks of Covid.

P.S. Agree 100% with MA’s post #39. Says it all.