{"id":599,"date":"2020-05-29T19:48:24","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T18:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/?p=599"},"modified":"2020-05-29T19:48:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T18:48:29","slug":"school-reopening-top-scientists-say-not-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/school-reopening-top-scientists-say-not-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"School reopening? top scientists say not yet*"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cIt is clear from the evidence we have collected that 1 June is simply too early to go back. By going ahead with this dangerous decision, the government is further risking the health of our communities and the likelihood of a second spike.\u201d (Sir David King, Independent SAGE<\/a> Group)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This blog post could end there, but given the high\nstakes, it\u2019s worth pondering more\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teachers and their unions have been robustly rallying against the Government\u2019s decision to re-open schools as early as June 1st. Some sections of the press and government ministers have revisited Michael Gove\u2019s characterisation of these opponents as the \u201cBlob\u201d, who according to the Daily Mail<\/em> is<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cmade up of political opponents, union barons and local government administrations – is colluding to sabotage the reopening of schools.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

In 2013, I was one of the 100<\/a> academics who\nsigned a letter against Gove\u2019s damaging curriculum reforms, and this time it\u2019s\neven more serious, so much so that the neutral British Medical\nAssociation (BMA) have supported the call from the Independent SAGE<\/em> Group to keep schools closed for the time-being. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of misleading advice and data issued by\nDowning Street, renowned medical scientists<\/a> decided to set-up\nan Independent\nSAGE<\/a> group\n(ISG). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ISG\u2019s opposition to 1st<\/sup> June re-opening of schools <\/em>came after a meeting<\/a>, which included Mumsnet, and supplemented<\/a> by rigorous advice from expert educationists<\/a>. Professor Sir David King<\/a> concluded that there is almost zero chance of conditions being reached for a safe reopening of schools on 1 June. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report<\/a> makes clear that decisions on school\nre-opening should depend on low levels of infections in the community and the\ncapacity to respond quickly to new infections through a local test, track and\nisolate strategy. We are not there yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although children are less likely than adults to get\nill, they are still<\/em> transmission\nagents. Even<\/em> the DfE advice seems to\nreflect this concern:<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cSome studies suggest younger children may transmit less, but this evidence is mixed and provides a\u00a0low degree of confidence at best<\/strong>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

So, a child carrying the infection but not showing\nsymptoms could spread it unnoticed to other children and staff, and it could\nthen reach family members with existing medical problems as well as older\nrelatives. The collateral damage could be fatally serious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Government have been keen to stress that their decision\nwas about ethics stating that working class children are being\ndisproportionately disadvantaged because they do not have the learning\nresources that children from wealthier families have for home schooling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the ISG report stresses that rather than rushing\nto re-open schools, it would be safer to provision computer equipment and offer\ndistance learning. When the conditions are appropriate, outdoor (where transmission\nis minimised) summer activity schemes, including educational \u201ccatch up\u201d sessions\nwould be a viable option. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current situation opens-up existential questions about how we conceive of\neducation.  We in the Reclaiming\nSchools<\/a> network have (long) argued that it is necessary to\ntake a rounded view of children\u2019s needs, not just getting children (back)\nbehind desks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Education should be geared for developing children\u2019s social, emotional, and wider characteristics. In this context, one could imagine a school strictly adhering to social distancing being harmful for children. Stories of nurseries and reception classes having to remove all toys for a June 1st<\/sup> re-opening are clearly being forced to create an environment devoid of richness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, the Government instruction to get the\nyoungest children back first is questionable. In most nations in the world, the\nschool starting age is 6 or 7, so very few children of nursery and reception\nage are actually in school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mental health problems in children are always much\nlower in countries with admission at age 6 or 7. Children have had the chance\nto be children, and without baseline testing (followed by high stakes tests at\n7, 11, 16 \u2013 England tests more than any comparable country). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a strong case to postpone national\nstandardised high stakes testing, it would provide an opportunity to evaluate\nthe impact of tests on children and teachers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any given year, around 15% of teacher leave the\nprofession just after 12 months, and over 30% leave within 5 years. In most\ncases, that\u2019s 4 years of education\/training to find out that teaching is not\nonly hard work, the external pressures of tests and league tables make it\nmentally and physically damaging, ultimately impossible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond and C-19, we need to reclaim education to make\nit progressive\nand socially responsible, and a <\/em>National Education Service<\/a> provides a vehicle to do this.  <\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Alpesh Maisuria is Associate Professor of Education\nPolicy in Critical Education at the University of the West of England. He\nwrites widely about issues of social class, educational policy, neoliberalism\nand Marxism, as well the proposal of the Nationalised Education Service;\nacademy and free schools; private schools; Swedish social democracy and class.<\/em>\nThis blog post is written in a personal capacity.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Sections of this writing have been reworked from a Reclaiming\nSchools<\/a> blog post. Alpesh Maisuria is a Steering Group member\nof Reclaiming Schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is clear from the evidence we have collected that 1 June is simply too early to go back. By going ahead with this dangerous decision, the government is further risking the health of our communities and the likelihood of a second spike.\u201d (Sir David King, Independent SAGE Group) This blog post could end there, but given the high … Continue reading “School reopening? top scientists say not yet*”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,6,1],"tags":[198],"class_list":["post-599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-policy","category-social-justice","category-sociology-of-education","category-uncategorised","tag-alpesh-maisuria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions\/614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uwe.ac.uk\/education\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}