For Those About To Send Their Children Back To School

For parents and teachers alike. And spare a thought for those who are both.



'Twas the night before school When all through the house
Not a creature was stirring except for the spouse!
Schoolbags sat by the front door with care
She had bathed the kids and blow dried their hair
Lunches were made and shoes had been shined
"I hope they don't catch it" raced through her mind

The children were sleeping fast in their beds
With dreams of reunions with all their friends
Where classes are bubbles and tables are pods
Their safety in the hands of the "government gods"

When down in the kitchen arose such a clatter,
Husband ran down to see what was the matter.
Away to the kitchen he flew like a light
His wife sat crying at the table, somethings not right

"I want them to go but I want them to stay
I want this bloody virus to just go away"
For the first time in months her bubble had burst
She thought she'd feel happier but now she feels worse
The 'what-ifs' were racing around in her mind
Her husband hugged her and tried to be kind

We've waited for this day for schools to reopen
But the mixture of change and fear had her quite frozen
She feigned a smile and sipped on her tea
And persuaded herself "I'll have more time for me"

But six months has passed, and we're none the wiser
Schoolbags packed with masks and hand sanitizer
But this is a good thing, for schools to reopen
The children deserve it, its what they've been hoping

Children of Britain have shown such resilience
Positive attitude and absolute brilliance
You might feel nervous or perhaps feel okay
To release your babies back to school today
But whatever you feel, know it's not for forever
We'll get through this and we'll get through together


For every mum, dad, partner, spouse...……. and for all the teachers too who have worked incredibly hard to overcome every hurdle put in their way by a useless, ruthless government that doesn't give a damn...……. you have been magnificent.

Your children have been strong, and so have you. Think of it as one more challenge to overcome.

Good luck.

So how’s the back to school thing going across the pond?

Hopefully better than the dumpster fire that is the us.

I know the rest of the world is being more responsible and going back to school makes more sense than here. I’m not opposed to the idea, we do have to go on. Just responsibly.

I don’t have little ones, I work in higher education. It’s been both a time of great innovation and massive failure in infrastructure.

It's a cluster-you-now-what.

There's no clear advice from government. One minute they say they're "following the science", but when the science says "Er, hold on a minute, this isn't such a good idea" the immediate response is to say that we HAVE to get children back into school regardless.

Confidence in this government is in freefall. I doubt that all but the most blinkered and brainwashed have any faith left in Johnson and the Education Secretary has no credibility after the exam results scandal / fiasco / utter-balls-up. It's simple, hun.... they don't know what they're doing, have no plan and the messages being put out are so confused and tangled parents are tearing their hair out in frustration.

Parents are still anxious about risk, but the children want to go back. My seven year old misses her friends, she misses her teacher... hell, she misses all of it and as much as she's a very level headed little girl and understands that there is a nasty illness going around that we don't want her to catch it's still difficult.

Multiply what it's like in my one household and multiply that by the whole country.

And so parents are torn and with no clear guidance coming don't know what to do. Schools and individual teachers are doing their best and they really are brilliant. Many now believe they're being set up to take the blame if sending the kids back turns out to be the wrong thing to do.

How the hell can we go on like this..?

Here people are just doing what they want, and I’m talking about both sides, not just those frolicking everywhere maskless (although there certainly is that).

Maybe it’s a loss of trust in our government due to Trump, but nobody is really listening to what any of our leaders in government want us to do on this. The people who want to stay home will stay home, and the people who want to intermingle with the hoard of humanity will. Whether school doors open or not isn’t going to change that.

I think my state is on some kind of quasi slow rollback of closures of sorts, with multiple tiers and qualifiers for each. But nobody understands it or cares. My wife’s company already decided a month ago everyone is working at home through the rest of the year, and we likewise decided our kid is staying home.

There is a distrust of government here already and it's growing all the time. Unfortunately, it hasn't yet reached a tipping point where their grip on the country becomes untenable.

Parents WANT to send their children back to school. The kids have already missed three months of their education and they don't like it any more than the parents do.

Government tried to send Infants and primary schools back before the summer holiday commenced but parents were still so nervous that most rebelled and said they were keeping their children at home regardless of what Johnson said.

Secondary schools and Sixth Form have been slated to return this / next week, depending on each school's state of preparedness and that is likely to be accepted even without the threatened fines for those who continue to rebel. The threat of fines for non-conformists is seen as heavy handed and unnecessary. All that threat is achieving is to annoy people who don't like to be intimidated in this way.

This government continues to shoot itself in both feet.

I'm looking forward to getting back to work. I'd only been back in work for a few weeks after 7 years a housewife / full time mum before the lockdown. I was just starting to settle in and then this.

I was certainly kept busy during the lockdown, and the preparations for going back have been long, arduous and complicated but we think we're ready now.

Roll on next week. Fingers crossed. Wish me luck.

Good luck!