How will schools be able to go back in September?

wirelessdude01

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

So teachers don't want kids who travel abroad on holidays back but what about teachers who travel abroad for holidays?

Where are you getting that idea?

wirelessdude01

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

So teachers don't want kids who travel abroad on holidays back but what about teachers who travel abroad for holidays?

Where are you getting that idea?

lulublue22

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

So teachers don't want kids who travel abroad on holidays back but what about teachers who travel abroad for holidays?

You mean the NPAD - not teachers. Again as discussed earlier in this thread if this is to be implemented then for it to be feasible it would also need to apply to staff. However it’s a moot point as current public health guidelines indicate that only essential travel is advised.

lulublue22

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Where are you getting that idea?

President of the National association of principals and deputy principals spoke to an oireachtas committee according to RTE.

Treppen

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

So teachers don't want kids who travel abroad on holidays back but what about teachers who travel abroad for holidays?

Are you like Professor Xavier or something?

JP Liz V1

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Where are you getting that idea?

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/parents-who-bring-children-on-holidays-abroad-are-jeopardising-return-to-school-in-september-covid-committee-told-39347296.html

I may have picked up wrong

wirelessdude01

lulublue22 wrote: »

President of the National association of principals and deputy principals spoke to an oireachtas committee according to RTE.

Never spoke of not taking them. The point he was making was that if people bring it back from abroad and it becomes prevalent in the community again that schools might not be able to fully open again.

Treppen

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/parents-who-bring-children-on-holidays-abroad-are-jeopardising-return-to-school-in-september-covid-committee-told-39347296.html

I may have picked up wrong

That's Principals not teachers. Different breed altogether (although a lot of primary schools have teaching principals).

kowloonkev

Schools forced to close again in Hong Kong after a new outbreak and a number of teachers and students infected, although too early to know yet if it transmitted in the school buildings. All students and teachers were wearing masks as much as possible.

When you think that one asymptomatic person could pass to another, and then another, several weeks/months could go by without knowing it's in the community, especially when most cases are asymptomatic.

History Queen

Looks like the Department have got on board about funding, although as suspected social distancing issue going to be problematic. To be fair nothing we hadn't already said ourselves.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/major-funding-package-planned-to-help-schools-reopen-as-fully-as-possible-1.4300658?mode=amp

sideswipe

kowloonkev wrote: »

Schools forced to close again in Hong Kong after a new outbreak and a number of teachers and students infected, although too early to know yet if it transmitted in the school buildings. All students and teachers were wearing masks as much as possible.

When you think that one asymptomatic person could pass to another, and then another, several weeks/months could go by without knowing it's in the community, especially when most cases are asymptomatic.

Weren’t they finishing up for Summer Hols anyway?

morebabies

If by September we are in the same situation as we were at the peak or perhaps worse, has the Department given any indication of what will happen? If the outbreaks are not localised and pretty widespread for example.

wirelessdude01

Nice to have the IT as the mouth piece of the Govt/Dept.

lulublue22

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Never spoke of not taking them. The point he was making was that if people bring it back from abroad and it becomes prevalent in the community again that schools might not be able to fully open again.

I know however I presume that’s where the op got the idea that teachers didn't want children traveling abroad.

wirelessdude01

morebabies wrote: »

If by September we are in the same situation as we were at the peak or perhaps worse, has the Department given any indication of what will happen? If the outbreaks are not localised and pretty widespread for example.

Nope.

wirelessdude01

sideswipe wrote: »

Weren’t they finishing up for Summer Hols anyway?

Think they had two weeks left. Just told to lock up and start their holidays now.

morebabies

Special Oireachtas committee on RTE news now discussing return to schools in September and specifically what extra funding is available.

kowloonkev

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Think they had two weeks left. Just told to lock up and start their holidays now.

Yes two weeks left. Teachers still going in for the next two weeks if there wasn't a confirmed case in their school to do online classes.

iguana

markodaly wrote: »

I would have thought teachers were made of more hardy stuff.

It's a virus it neither cares what you think nor what profession whatever host it finds itself in has. You can't argue with it, you can't tell it, it's denying children their rights, you can't bluff it, or goad it, or shame it. It's literally just a noncellular entity with absolutely no ability to care about what any of us think, or want or argue or will really, really hard to happen. And I hate to break it to you, but teachers are just regular human beings with a variety of capabilities in their immune system, just like the rest of humanity. They don't get a special injection of medical nano-bots at Mary I. So regardless of the fact that the virus doesn't care about what you would have thought, it was still an utterly baseless thought to have had in the first place.

We are in the relatively lucky position of being on school holidays while schools in other countries are open. We can see that clusters have happened in schools in Israel. And now possibly in Melbourne, connected to what may be the harshest lockdown conditions in a western democracy. We can see that it is absolutely possible for clusters to form in schools, so the postulation from a couple of months ago that children can't spread the virus is now almost certainly wrong. The simple fact is that based on our current understanding schools absolutely pose a risk of creating a super-spreading event. If we have another wave in the 20-21 school year, the odds are schools will close. And I suspect that in a country our size, schools are more likely to close nationally than just locally because I don't see a scenario where we close all schools in Dublin for 6-8 weeks, while schools in the rest of the country plough on. It will create too much disparity in how the curriculum can be adhered to nationally.

As for a child's right to an education in this country the family is recognised as a child's primary and natural educator. The state isn't derelict in it's duties towards children if it has to close schools for public health reasons because it leaves the vast, vast majority of children with their primary educators. And yes, it can be very, very hard to teach some kids at home. Especially teaching an older teen in subjects like maths/science that the parents may have forgotten/never known or a language they don't speak. But it's 2020 and there are plentiful resources online to fill in gaps. I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't suck to be stuck home-educating if it wasn't a deliberate lifestyle choice but that brings us back to the fact that it's a virus and it doesn't actually give a shït how any of us feel about our lives.

JDD

iguana wrote: »

It's a virus it neither cares what you think nor what profession whatever host it finds itself in has. You can't argue with it, you can't tell it, it's denying children their rights, you can't bluff it, or goad it, or shame it. It's literally just a noncellular entity with absolutely no ability to care about what any of us think, or want or argue or will really, really hard to happen. And I hate to break it to you, but teachers are just regular human beings with a variety of capabilities in their immune system, just like the rest of humanity. They don't get a special injection of medical nano-bots at Mary I. So regardless of the fact that the virus doesn't care about what you would have thought, it was still an utterly baseless thought to have had in the first place.

We are in the relatively lucky position of being on school holidays while schools in other countries are open. We can see that clusters have happened in schools in Israel. And now possibly in Melbourne, connected to what may be the harshest lockdown conditions in a western democracy. We can see that it is absolutely possible for clusters to form in schools, so the postulation from a couple of months ago that children can't spread the virus is now almost certainly wrong. The simple fact is that based on our current understanding schools absolutely pose a risk of creating a super-spreading event. If we have another wave in the 20-21 school year, the odds are schools will close. And I suspect that in a country our size, schools are more likely to close nationally than just locally because I don't see a scenario where we close all schools in Dublin for 6-8 weeks, while schools in the rest of the country plough on. It will create too much disparity in how the curriculum can be adhered to nationally.

As for a child's right to an education in this country the family is recognised as a child's primary and natural educator. The state isn't derelict in it's duties towards children if it has to close schools for public health reasons because it leaves the vast, vast majority of children with their primary educators. And yes, it can be very, very hard to teach some kids at home. Especially teaching an older teen in subjects like maths/science that the parents may have forgotten/never known or a language they don't speak. But it's 2020 and there are plentiful resources online to fill in gaps. I'm not going to pretend that it doesn't suck to be stuck home-educating if it wasn't a deliberate lifestyle choice but that brings us back to the fact that it's a virus and it doesn't actually give a shït how any of us feel about our lives.

I get what you're saying about teachers being like everyone else. And I get what you're saying about clusters possibly closing schools. I don't agree that if there's a cluster in a school in Clontarf, every school in the country will need to close. Even if there's a cluster in four schools on the Northside, it doesn't mean that every school in Dublin needs to close. That's nonsense.

I don't agree with the home-schooling part. If schools are closed across the country during a second wave I will not be home-schooling my senior infant and third classer. I work full time, and that is how the mortgage is paid. While flexibility was given during the first wave, it will not be given during a second. No amount of online resources will mean that my primary school children will be able to educate themselves in the absence of me stopping work and teaching them for 3 hours a day. Even if I did do that, what they would learn is miniscule in comparison to what they would learn in a classroom environment. So it's pointless, and I won't be strugging to juggle those tasks again.

Similarly, if the schools only open for two days a week, the children will be minded by a childminder. She will not be home-schooling them either.

I know that you will think "well, that's your choice, you are the primary educator". The primary educator section of the Constitution is not there to say that actually, the ideal environment for educating a child is in the home, and as a far second choice, a school. The point of the primary educator section is so that parents should have the choice about where and how their children are educated. Enforcing home-schooling is exactly the same as enforcing outside-schooling. So please don't invoke that particular section as it is really not relevent.

If my children have to repeat senior infants and third class in 2021, so be it.

combat14

hong kong schools closing....

https://www.thejournal.ie/hong-kong-close-schools-5146566-Jul2020/#comments

iguana

JDD wrote: »

I don't agree that if there's a cluster in a school in Clontarf, every school in the country will need to close. Even if there's a cluster in four schools on the Northside, it doesn't mean that every school in Dublin needs to close. That's nonsense.

If we have a cluster in a school or four and those clusters are traced completely and cut off before they lead to community transmission, then absolutely, just closing those schools/businesses that are traced will be enough. If we have community transmission in a village or small town and it's contained then just shutting schools in and around the area could be enough. But if we get significant community transmission somewhere like Dublin or Cork then the odds are all schools in those cities and their suburbs will have to close. And I genuinely don't see a scenario where we close down a very significant number of schools for extended periods while leaving the rest open. To be totally honest, I really don't see a scenario where we have significant community transmission in one of our cities but it hasn't spread enough nationwide to trigger significant restrictions across the country. That doesn't mean I believe that kind of community transmission will definitely happen again. But if it does, I don't believe any school will remain open. I hope we can have a full, uninterrupted school year. I believe it's possible that we will. However it's also possible that a time will come that it's no longer safe and if it isn't complaining that teachers aren't made of 'hardy stuff,' is just pointless.

JDD wrote: »

If schools are closed across the country during a second wave I will not be home-schooling my senior infant and third classer. I work full time, and that is how the mortgage is paid. While flexibility was given during the first wave, it will not be given during a second. No amount of online resources will mean that my primary school children will be able to educate themselves in the absence of me stopping work and teaching them for 3 hours a day. Even if I did do that, what they would learn is miniscule in comparison to what they would learn in a classroom environment.

Do you genuinely find that? My experience of children that age is that they are basically hard-wired to learn. No matter what they are doing day to day they are learning at an enormous rate. My first class seven year old has been learning at a rate that far, far exceeds how he had being doing at school. (To be entirely fair though, there had been some issues at school that had hopefully been resolved in the weeks before lockdown.) But since March his reading ability has raced through several levels. His vocabulary has grown impressively. He has cracked mental multiplication and division, just from the joy of broadening his understanding of numbers and how they relate to real life. He has grown increasingly proficient at typing. He has designed, created and programmed a number of fairly complex multi-level platform games, complete with playable characters that he's designed to move with a range of motion through stop motion animation techniques, using Bloxels and Scratch. His understanding of history, social history, social responsibility, politics and viral biology has grown far beyond what I ever understood at seven to the point where he independently 'invented' variolation as an idea to end the pandemic. And that's with me having been sick from mid-March to the end of June and not doing any of the learning projects I'd planned for home-schooling.

I don't think there are any real worries about the academic learning of children that age. As a species we have evolved to learn through play and interactions at that stage of development. I do have huge worries about social development. It's clearly not emotionally healthy for a child to have absolutely no interactions with other children for months on end. In your case your children have each other but only children or children who's siblings don't live with them or have too large an age gap for meaningful child to child interactions are at a serious disadvantage. But ultimately the virus doesn't care. And that's the mistake way, way too many people are making. It doesn't matter how good our reasons are for wanting schools to open. It's a virus, the best reasoning in the world is still utterly futile. If it finds a host it replicates and looks for new hosts. If schools facilitate spread, schools have to close.

wirelessdude01

iguana wrote: »

If we have a cluster in a school or four and those clusters are traced completely and cut off before they lead to community transmission, then absolutely, just closing those schools/businesses that are traced will be enough. If we have community transmission in a village or small town and it's contained then just shutting schools in and around the area could be enough. But if we get significant community transmission somewhere like Dublin or Cork then the odds are all schools in those cities and their suburbs will have to close. And I genuinely don't see a scenario where we close down a very significant number of schools for extended periods while leaving the rest open. To be totally honest, I really don't see a scenario where we have significant community transmission in one of our cities but it hasn't spread enough nationwide to trigger significant restrictions across the country. That doesn't mean I believe that kind of community transmission will definitely happen again. But if it does, I don't believe any school will remain open. I hope we can have a full, uninterrupted school year. I believe it's possible that we will. However it's also possible that a time will come that it's no longer safe and if it isn't complaining that teachers aren't made of 'hardy stuff,' is just pointless.



Do you genuinely find that? My experience of children that age is that they are basically hard-wired to learn. No matter what they are doing day to day they are learning at an enormous rate. My first class seven year old has been learning at a rate that far, far exceeds how he had being doing at school. (To be entirely fair though, there had been some issues at school that had hopefully been resolved in the weeks before lockdown.) But since March his reading ability has raced through several levels. His vocabulary has grown impressively. He has cracked mental multiplication and division, just from the joy of broadening his understanding of numbers and how they relate to real life. He has grown increasingly proficient at typing. He has designed, created and programmed a number of fairly complex multi-level platform games, complete with playable characters that he's designed to move with a range of motion through stop motion animation techniques, using Bloxels and Scratch. His understanding of history, social history, social responsibility, politics and viral biology has grown far beyond what I ever understood at seven to the point where he independently 'invented' variolation as an idea to end the pandemic. And that's with me having been sick from mid-March to the end of June and not doing any of the learning projects I'd planned for home-schooling.

I don't think there are any real worries about the academic learning of children that age. As a species we have evolved to learn through play and interactions at that stage of development. I do have huge worries about social development. It's clearly not emotionally healthy for a child to have absolutely no interactions with other children for months on end. In your case your children have each other but only children or children who's siblings don't live with them or have too large an age gap for meaningful child to child interactions are at a serious disadvantage. But ultimately the virus doesn't care. And that's the mistake way, way too many people are making. It doesn't matter how good our reasons are for wanting schools to open. It's a virus, the best reasoning in the world is still utterly futile. If it finds a host it replicates and looks for new hosts. If schools facilitate spread, schools have to close.

Your seven year old is doing multiplication and division?

namloc1980

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Your seven year old is doing multiplication and division?

I was more taken by the viral biology myself as well as the complex computer coding.

s1ippy

The news at one there just had someone on there, not sure who, saying that children who go on holidays will be allowed to go back to school, but then put the caveat on it that the two week self quarantine might still be there by then.

Jesus Christ give just one bit of clarity.

JDD

combat14 wrote: »

hong kong schools closing....

https://www.thejournal.ie/hong-kong-close-schools-5146566-Jul2020/#comments

I don't really understand that though, unless it's part of a wider stricter lockdown.

They have 34 cases spread in the community, 32 of which appear to be in a nursing home. There is no indication that the new infections were spread in schools.

i'm not saying this applies across the board - there have been outbreaks in schools in Israel. I'm just saying in this particular instance the focus on schools seems...unclear.

meeeeh

I was talking to a teacher friend who basically said our kids (small country school in relatively middle class area) will be fine but she has a girl in her 1st class who doesn't know what 'red' means. She teaches some more disadvantaged and Traveler kids. For every child who self teaches themselves division and multiplication, coding and politics, there are kids who are struggling with basics and possibly suffering neglect. Saying every seven year old will be fine because my child is fine is neglectful and reckless. Unless we don't care about kids whose parents don't have time, desire or skills to plan their learning projects.

Edit: just to add considering how many countries went back to school or never closed schools there very very few issues connected with schools around the world.

wirelessdude01

s1ippy wrote: »

The news at one there just had someone on there, not sure who, saying that children who go on holidays will be allowed to go back to school, but then put the caveat on it that the two week self quarantine might still be there by then.

Jesus Christ give just one bit of clarity.

Was that the same person who also admitted that the announcement from the NI executive yesterday caught everyone by surprise and will probably lead to our government having to follow suit.

BonsaiKitten

meeeeh wrote: »

I was talking to a teacher friend who basically said our kids (small country school in relatively middle class area) will be fine but she has a girl in her 1st class who doesn't know what 'red' means. She teaches some more disadvantaged and Traveler kids. For every child who self teaches themselves division and multiplication, coding and politics, there are kids who are struggling with basics and possibly suffering neglect. Saying every seven year old will be fine because my child is fine is neglectful and reckless. Unless we don't care about kids whose parents don't have time, desire or skills to plan their learning projects.

Edit: just to add considering how many countries went back to school or never closed schools there very very few issues connected with schools around the world.

There are so many kids like that around the country. In my first teaching job I used to take a lovely Traveller girl for learning support, she was about 11 and couldn't read. She was desperate to learn and so sometimes when she'd come down to me, she'd ask me to teach her how to do something.

One day she wanted to learn to read a clock so we spent a few days working on the mini clocks, recognising the hours and half hours and what have you...she went off for the weekend delighted with herself. Apparently she was amazing her mammy all weekend by telling the time from the clock in her kitchen. She was the only person on the site who could read a clock. I often think of her now and wonder how she's doing.

Every kid will not have been learning during school closures and while that girl was in a loving family, plenty of kids aren't. In that same school we used to have a young lad who took home the leftover free lunches to give to his little sister. A lot of my colleagues teach in schools like this and they've been desperately worried about some kids during school closure.

JDD

Do you genuinely find that? My experience of children that age is that they are basically hard-wired to learn. No matter what they are doing day to day they are learning at an enormous rate. My first class seven year old has been learning at a rate that far, far exceeds how he had being doing at school. (To be entirely fair though, there had been some issues at school that had hopefully been resolved in the weeks before lockdown.) But since March his reading ability has raced through several levels. His vocabulary has grown impressively. He has cracked mental multiplication and division, just from the joy of broadening his understanding of numbers and how they relate to real life. He has grown increasingly proficient at typing. He has designed, created and programmed a number of fairly complex multi-level platform games, complete with playable characters that he's designed to move with a range of motion through stop motion animation techniques, using Bloxels and Scratch. His understanding of history, social history, social responsibility, politics and viral biology has grown far beyond what I ever understood at seven to the point where he independently 'invented' variolation as an idea to end the pandemic. And that's with me having been sick from mid-March to the end of June and not doing any of the learning projects I'd planned for home-schooling.

I think if I only had my eight year old, things would be entirely different. Trying to log in and out and in of different seesaw accounts to download/upload schoolwork, trying to print out templates on our ancient home laptop and printer, trying to get my five year old to pay attention in the first place, trying to regain her attention after stopping the three year old from climbing the bookcases, all while trying to input on a conference call is impossible.

Not "difficult". Not "challenging". Not "not ideal" Impossible.

I do think my five year old might be dyslexic. Which has had made teaching the basics to her more difficult and time consuming - not least because I don't have the first idea how to teach her differently in order to take this into account. I made her cry one day when practicing her handwriting - I clearly didn't mean to but when you're trying to teach a child to draw a line straight down, and they consistently go sideways, or start in the middle, and this is just a tiny part of the homework you have to get done that morning, with only one of your children, and you are frustrated and tired from working until 1am to try and catch up on the work from your real job, it is clearly not sustainable. I refuse to put us all in those circumstances again.

The eight year old has fared better as she is more academic, and had I had more time she could have learned other things. But there is no time, so she did the basics and then went off to entertain herself.

We are very very far from coding, or geography, or animation, in this house.