‘We’re not sending our children back until a vaccine is found’
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Like much of the country, Jane Brown has spent the past two months educating her children at home. But unlike the parents thrilled to be sending their youngsters back from next week, following the Government’s plan to begin reopening primary schools from June 1, and secondaries two weeks later, her sons Dominic, 17, Harry, 13, and Arthur, 6 will remain at home until a vaccine is found.
“Pro-co-vax” parents are the latest faction to emerge in the debate that’s been raging on Whatsapp groups across England: will you or won’t you be sending your children back to school on Monday? The phased reopening is initially proposed for the youngest pupils in Reception and Year 1, plus Year 6 – but only in England.
Meanwhile, neighbouring Wales’s education minister has said schools will only return when “it is the right time and the right thing to do”.
It’s all very confusing – as is what the classroom may look like when children do return for socially distant learning, with at-the-gate checks and chalk circles in which pupils must stay in playgrounds currently being used elsewhere in the world.
Research shows many families in England are feeling wary about a return to school. A survey of 20,000 parents by childcare.co.uk found that 62 per cent of the parents believed it wouldn’t be safe to return to school or any form of childcare until at least September. A further 10 per cent stated they didn’t think it would be safe until October.
Even teachers are offering little in the way of reassurance for nervous parents. In a survey of 29,000 members of the teachers’ union NASUWT, 85 per cent of teachers said they did not think it would be safe to return on June 1, citing a lack of PPE provision and the difficulties of ensuring social distancing.
Perhaps it’s not surprising then, that parents like Brown, a qualified accountant, feel only a vaccine can provide the kind of concrete reassurance protection they require to reintroduce their children back into the school environment.
“I wouldn’t home school my children by choice,” she admits, but the family are all asthmatic, meaning she has had to reduce the amount of paid work she can take on while juggling A-level Latin, GCSE chemistry and Reception-level phonics. And while it’s easy to dismiss parents’ – and even teachers’ – concerns about safety as overanxious, the Government’s message to “listen to the experts” has done little in the way of soothing them. After all, what do most of us really understand about that science beyond a quick google in between Zoom meetings and home-schooling sessions?
In the UK, three children below the age of 15 have thus far died of the virus, while under-10s currently account for around 0.7 per cent of cases.
An evidence review by University College London found that children were half as likely as adults to catch it, while a global study released last month suggested that their ability to pass on the disease to adults was minimal. Michael Gove, while insisting schools are safe to reopen, has admitted “you can never eliminate risk” – something mother-of-three Emma Blewden firmly believes. Her opinions may carry more weight than others on her class Whatsapp group: a mathematician turned science tutor with a keen interest in viruses, she says she “correctly calculated the R value to be 2.7, before it was published”, modelling it “based on Italy’s numbers when they first started to build” and consequently took her children
out of school the week prior to lockdown. Blewden is in Caerphilly, Wales, so isn’t faced with considering an immediate return for Eryn, 17, Dafydd, 10, and Dylan, 9, “but I wouldn’t be sending my children back any time soon”. She adds: “You never know when a child might have a serious underlying condition until it presents itself and that might just be too late.”
It’s not clear how long the pro-covaxxers will have to wait. While Alok Sharma, the Business Secretary, announced at the weekend that up to 30million Covid-19 vaccine doses could be available by September, these would be for emergency cases only – key workers and the vulnerable are likely to be prioritised.
Other estimates suggest 2021 may be more realistic for the general populace, by which time the children of pro-covaxxers will have missed at least eight months of formal education. Although, as Brown says, “I would be happy to pay for a vaccine to get it earlier.”
*Some names have been changed
My four-year-old daughter Sidonie’s primary school is only a short walk from our home along the Regent’s Canal towpath in north London. At 8.50am one morning four weeks ago, just as in normal times, I held her hand while she skipped beside me in the sunshine, and watched as she ran happily into the school to greet her friends.
Sidonie went back to her Reception class, part time, well before the Government announced that schools would be reopening on June 1. Having swum against the tide and begged the school to take her back, I am now convinced that I have done the right thing, and have watched the recent outpouring of anger, recrimination and fear with great interest.
First the teaching unions got involved, saying that teachers shouldn’t be put at risk and urging them to rebel. Now 13 local councils have said that they won’t be reopening their schools. Throughout, it’s parents – conflicted, anxious, bewildered – who have been caught in the crossfire, unsure which of the experts to believe, worried about letting down their employers, concerned about their children’s development and social needs, even scared about being shamed by other parents. Many say they are now too frightened to send their children back to school, even if they can. Some say they won’t contemplate it until a vaccine is developed.
Sending Sidonie back to school was not a rash decision. Although nobody has condemned me to my face, I’m sure that many people will disapprove and think I’ve put my daughter at unnecessary risk.
I don’t agree; before I acted I read as much scientific evidence as I could. I learnt that young children are less likely to catch coronavirus and, if they do contract it, they have either mild symptoms or none at all. Neither do they appear to be spreading it.
What’s more, since children went back to school in other countries, the number of Covid cases has not increased as a result. France, for example, has seen only 70 cases in schools and nurseries since 1.4million children returned to 40,000 institutions. When the lockdown started, like many others, I found it difficult to adapt. My partner was deemed an essential worker and put on 12-hour shifts and, suddenly, I found myself confined to a room in a small flat all day with a lively four-year-old who desperately missed her friends. Home schooling was a disaster. I felt like a poor mother, a terrible teacher and a hopeless writer: a failure at all three of my jobs. Sidonie, an only child, was bored, under-stimulated, lonely and unable to fall asleep before midnight, which made working late nigh impossible too.
But the final straw was the realisation that, as a limited company, I would fall through all the support gaps. Furloughing myself was not an option; it wouldn’t have paid enough even to cover the bills. The prospect of earning nothing until September and relying on bank loans and charitable handouts, having to turn down work, lose a forthcoming contract and possibly our home, was not a pleasant one.
I stopped sleeping, which made me anxious and impatient around Sidonie. Like many children, she was quickly becoming addicted to watching screens.
Other parents have told me that their four- and five-year-olds appear to have become depressed in lockdown, obsessed with cleanliness, afraid of invisible germs. That is not healthy for a young child. In central London where I live, most people live in flats; few have gardens and the playgrounds are closed. Children aren’t just locked down; they’re shut in. As for those in abusive or deprived households… it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Since she’s been back at school a few days a week, Sidonie has started sleeping normally again and is so much happier. As am I.
Having 17 hours to work and earn means I can be a better mother when she’s home. Now that her class is so much smaller, she’s even made new friends – with children she didn’t play with before – and her reading and writing are coming on. Lockdown had stalled them.
The virus is not going away any time soon. There is little hope of an effective vaccine before next year, and no guarantee that it will confer long-term immunity.
Parents seem to want certainties, when there are none. Science is essentially falsifiable, so studies often contradict each other, and experts will disagree. This is all so new; we have neither the benefit of experience nor hindsight.
Children need structure and normality and to play with other children. The risks are low. And while I would never tell another parent what to do, for my child school is the best option.
‘Having swum against the tide, I am now convinced I have done the right thing’