Nurseries & primary schools

Nurseries and primary schools are places that provide nurture and go to great lengths to support every child's health and wellbeing. If this ethos doesn't exist then development will not flourish.
For some it is also the first formal step on the education journey that aims to promote a sense of life long learning.
We must therefore preserve the safe and nurturing environment and not turn into a military base. Our youngest children cannot and should not be expected to socially distance, or potentially damage their mental health by associating school with staff who enforce strict social distancing rules and even stricter hand washing routines. This potentially breeds resentment and does not promote the environment young minds needs to feel safe, happy, and secure in order to allow curiosity, enquiry and engagement to happen.
Those children who continue to be safer at home, with parents/carers should continue to be there, with more robust education programmes put in place online for older school children, our nursery children just need to play!!

Also how useful are nurseries and schools to the economy if they are not open as usual; proportionally how many staff have children, at 1,2,3 different settings? How can this work? Grandparents should continue to be shielded and after school care costs way too much money and brings similar issues to those mentioned above.

The psychological damage that could be done to our children by opening schools that are military style is not worth the possible social aspects and learning that will easily be caught up on in safer and happier times.

Why the contribution is important

We must continue to nurture and protect the children. The potential delay in learning will be easily offset by skilled professionals, this will also be far easier to repair than the damage done by forcing our children into strict, psychologically damaging environments where staff, through no fault of their own, have to enforce regimes.
Our youngest children should only return when it is safe for them to hug and be hugged.

by Mumof2 on May 06, 2020 at 02:43PM

Current Rating

Average rating: 3.8
Based on: 7 votes

Comments

  • Posted by Pandamamma May 06, 2020 at 15:54

    I agree that children need to be able to attend an environment where they feel safe and valued, where they aren’t disciplined for stepping over a particular line or needing their hand held if they scrape their knee. Very young children of nursery age need a lot of physical interaction from both staff and their peers, they shouldn’t be in an environment where this is prevented or even punished. Children also can’t be taught confined to a desk all day, that isn’t the teaching model used anymore and I certainly wouldn’t want to encourage a return to that model

  • Posted by Balderdash May 06, 2020 at 17:54

    It is going to be impossible to social distance with primary school children when the emphasis is on learning through play. I would rather home school until such a time as schools can go back safely to a pre-Covid environment. I have no problem with enforcing / encouraging hand washing but I would be completely against children having to wear face coverings at school.

  • Posted by RitaH1981 May 06, 2020 at 18:38

    Completely agree with this idea. Children in nurseries are much less susceptible and there are small studies now suggesting that they do not actually spread the virus either. Children this age do not learn formally, they need interaction, and need to interact with their peers. Allow nurseries to trial whatever (reasonable) approaches they have for the ‘new normal’ and let’s see how it works, and allow parents the choice of sending their children to nursery or not.

  • Posted by LB39 May 07, 2020 at 00:00

    I am very concerned about the long term affect on my 5 year old’s social development and that of my 17 month old. He has only started waking during lockdown and he has never been able to run around with a toddler of his own age or visit a play park to run and climb. It is extremely worrying about how this will affect 0-5 year olds. I don’t want them growing up to think it’s not normal to interact to with other kids - this could lead to all sorts of problems as they get older.

  • Posted by CM46KEL May 10, 2020 at 09:05

    Totally agree with the point that schools should be nurturing and not military like. Some children would be terrified by adults in PPE.
Log in or register to add comments and rate ideas

Idea topics