Time to get children back to school

IT’S all systems go as we work to prepare for children to return to their classrooms on June 29.

Our education team are working around the clock with schools, governing bodies and colleagues in other council departments to ensure that we can do this as safely as we can.

Of course, adapting our schools to ensure social distancing can be maintained presents many challenges.

We recognise how important it is to keep parents, pupils and staff informed, and we will be doing that over the coming days and weeks to provide as much information and reassurance as possible.

For some children, especially our youngest, I’m sure it will be quite daunting to step back into their schools. So part of our planning is to show children what their schools will look like, so they have a better idea in their minds before they return.

Parents will naturally have their own concerns, and at this point I would like to pay a special thanks to all those who have played such a huge role in their children’s education over the last 10-11 weeks. Home schooling is not easy, especially when you may be working from home or in a frontline service that means you’ve had to go out to work.

We have been overwhelmed with the response to our parents’ survey. We’ve had thousands of replies, and this has helped us gather vital feedback and a clear picture of concerns moving forward.

SINCE the lockdown, many of us who would usually be out and about working during the day have had to stay at home – and it’s not been easy.

A great help to many of us in Wales is the availability of local radio stations and newspapers.

Okay, I would say that about the papers, but our local radio stations and BBC Radio Wales have more than proved their worth during these past months.

Apart from Owen Money’s sterling efforts every day on BBC Radio Wales and Kev Johns’ lively breakfast show on Swansea Sound, there are also many other local radio stations that really help isolated listeners feel that they’re not alone.

Unfortunately, ITV makes little effort to supply the UK regions with local news, particularly during ‘Good Morning Britain’ which only finds room for three brief visits to ‘where you’re watching’ in its entire three hours.

And what do we get? A couple of hastily delivered news items, a five-second weather forecast (recorded the night before) and an advertisement for the company ‘sponsoring’ the weather forecast.

Then, it’s “Back to Piers and Susanna!”

And if that’s not insulting enough to people living in the regions and nations, listen to this!

Bauer Media, the owners of Swansea Sound, want to rebrand it and most of the 48 other local radio stations they own, as ‘Greatest Hits Radio’ this Autumn, after which most of the programmes will be broadcast from London.

While they say they intend keeping ‘a presence’ in local communities like Swansea to reflect major events and local interest stories, it doesn’t sound like they’ll be providing the current level of local news and content.

It’s also likely some of our favourite presenters who have made the station popular will be ‘surplus to requirements’ if much of the content is London-based.

A petition to keep the Swansea Sound brand and content has been signed by more than 2000 people who don’t want it

THERE is so much to write about at the moment and my head is overflowing with stories, ideas and concepts to explore, with much of my inspiration coming from you, the reader.

Your positive messages have been most welcoming over the past few months, it seems we share similar views and sense of humour, well - most of the time!

I don’t know about you, but I think that events over the last weekend will make it to lose its individuality and go the way of all the other radio stations playing the same old hits over and over. to the history books for sure. If you honestly think that humans have evolved as a species, just spend 10 minutes catching up on the social media news over the past 10 days. What is going on?

How is it that we went from fighting Covid 19 to fighting stupidity?

I’m all for supporting a worthy cause and standing up for human rights, but what good does throwing bricks at defenceless police horses gain? Utter madness.

Where do I sign?

You can follow Phil Evans on Twitter @philevanswales or visit www.philevans.co.uk

Thinking about it, 2020 is similar to being five minutes from the end of the longest film ever and it starts over because it forgot another plot twist, or as my good friend Donald Melrose put it, “the audience are determining the ending not the government”.

“Encore!” shouted masses.

Let’s not let all this negativity beat us. Stay strong together, stay safe and keep washing your hands. the gathering