COVID-19: Parents will value teachers more after lockdown
18 May 2020
Professor Helen Bilton, Professor of Outdoor Learning in the Institute of Education at the University of Reading, said:
"I hope parents will value their children’s teachers, and if they didn’t before, they will now. Teaching isnt easy.
"I spoke to the staff parents forum last week. I think the overwhelming feeling is that parents need reassurance that they are doing a great job in an almost impossible situation. The meeting where I spoke they clearly needed that reassurance.
"Children dip in the summer holidays. So letting children go back to school before then might help them rise and not dip so far in the summer vacation. Also it brings life back to some form of normal for them.
"Greatest anxiety will be those children who don’t come from homes where education is or can be valued (eg: poverty). The gap between them and those from more supportive environments will be growing.
"Getting transition right is crucial to ensuring children do well in schools. So it would help if schools can prepare children who will be moving on eg: year 6, 2 or nursery.
"Some questions that arise in this scenario, however, are: what happens if a child wets themselves, hurts themselves, or need comforting as they are struggling with returning to school? Does the 2m ruling still stand?
"There are concerns about parents congregating in playgrounds and passing on the virus. Comments by Michael Gove about there being low levels of the virus in children do not seem to be convincing parents nor staff that it's okay to return their child to school.
"What many of these children need is playful learning, but that does involve getting close to others, so how will this central aspect of learning be managed? Small people don’t sit at desks."