Schools should be shut in face of coronavirus threat

The following will, undoubtedly, be condemned by some as too difficult to organise and by others as unfair, however, life is unfair or thousands across the world would not be dead from a virus which originated in an illegal wildlife market. Everyone needs to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this ‘close the schools quandary’: the need to limit community transmission by closing the schools versus the need for vital key worker staff to be able to work.

Sorry for the length of this, it was not my intention but it is a complicated situation.

So, my humble opinion is this:

1. Close the schools to all children except the children of two key workers or one key worker in one-parent families. In other words, if one parent is not a key worker, send the children home. Allow children of key workers to go to school so that the key workers can work because we need them.

2. By key workers, I am thinking of all medical personnel, all hospital staff, all care/residential/nursing home workers, utility services staff, food and medicine shop staff, food production workers, e.g. farmers and dairy staff, workers involved in bringing our food, basic supplies and medicines into the island and all teaching staff. I expect I have forgotten key workers, but you get the idea.

3. This will substantially cut down on community transmission and enable key workers to work. Yes, there will be complaints from children that they have to be at school and none of their friends are but, frankly, that’s life and there are far more important issues to deal with right now.

4. For secondary school children: provide online work, run classes via tools such as Google Classroom, send them home with text books to study, exercise books to work in and a list of websites to use.

5. For primary school children: share out the school’s supply of reading books between all children of each reading level and provide them with a list of websites to use.

6. For children with no access to a suitable computer/tablet, send them home with a school laptop or tablet on special loan. Someone will say that some of the laptops/tablets will not be returned. Correct. They will not. But, in the circumstances, I believe the vast majority would. Special times, special measures.

7. Provide special paper learning packs for those without access to the internet at home.

8. Even more radical: excepting the special needs schools, arrange that the children who are going to school and teaching staff go to the school building which is closest to their home address to further reduce movement around the community. This is radical, but in a small community like ours it could work!

9. Keep the SN schools’ children and staff at those schools due to the need for specialist equipment which only those schools have.

10. At the mainstream schools, allocate children to infant, junior and secondary groups. Sub-divide groups further if large enough and staff are available. Establish which groups have SN children, establish staff specialisms and allocate SN specialist staff as appropriate. Similarly allocate the remaining staff based on their specialisms, etc. Secondary school staff can each mind a classroom of secondary school children doing their own private study and teach, mark and administer their own normal classes via Google Classroom. Difficult? Yes, I am sure it would be. Difficult times, difficult measures. Secondary groups will have their own work to do, enable them to access web-based material as provided by their schools and as their class mates are doing at home, so should need minimal supervision, thereby having more staff available for the younger children who are more likely to be distressed by the unusual situation. Most, if not all, primary school teachers can teach all primary children even if it is outside the age range they prefer. For the primary groups, concentrate on the basics such as literacy and numeracy. Support them to do the activities sent home for them just as their classmates are doing at home supported by their parents.

11. If there are spare staff in school, keep a few extra in school to help with children who are upset by the odd routines, send some to the next closest school which is struggling for staff and send some home as reserves for staff sickness.

12. Some will say that they can’t work from home and mind the children. Yes, it is difficult. I know. Maybe parents could team up with a friend as close as possible to their house and one of them mind all the children one day and one work from home, then swap. A few children together will give them more the sense of being in school and they will have school work to do. It is not the holidays, don’t treat it as such. Based on some projections, the schools could be shut for many weeks, children’s education is very likely to suffer. Let’s minimise that.

13. Yet more radical: for parents whose work is not shutting down or allowing them to work from home or maybe it is not possible: find a friend who can take care of and accommodate the children for days, maybe weeks. Radical? Yes. Very? Yes. Experience of a lifetime? Yes. Approaching the 75th anniversary of our Liberation? Yes. Ever thought children would really benefit from an evacuee-like experience like their grandparents or great-grandparents had? Yes. This is their opportunity. Am I being light-hearted? Partially, but mostly I am saying think outside the box and deal with a situation which is being forced upon us in innovative ways rather than trying to take a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. Would this be difficult? Yes. Is this realistic? Yes. If you don’t think it is, think again, I do. Think how you could do it, not about the barriers against it. Weeks ago, as this all started, a friend said to me, ‘What if they close the schools here? I can’t do my job from home and neither can my husband.’ My immediate reply was that both of her children have stayed with me before, at least once at just 15 minutes’ notice, both of her children come running to see me every time I walk in her house and so I said, ‘Give the children to me, I shall take care of them.’ My friend and her husband know that I shall step up to the plate and do it when it comes to it, and I shall.

In case anyone is not yet convinced of the need for radical measures, consider this. Using the statistics of one ICU specialist (https://www.facebook.com/adamvisser/posts/10152043531379953):

n 50% of the population will get infected, here that would be 31,400 of our 62,800 population.

n 5% of these will need life support, so 1,570.

n Let us suppose that only 100, even 50, need an ICU bed at the same time. Even if only 1% need ICU care at one time, that is 15.

Now let’s put this in perspective for Guernsey: we have seven ICU beds, I repeat, seven.

Stay home if you have the tiniest cold or flu symptoms, even just one. It is not about protecting you, it is about protecting the vulnerable.

Send home as many children as possible.

Don’t let grandparents care for grandchildren. Don’t even visit them. Talk to them on the phone, WhatsApp, etc. Do I mean this? Yes. Am I prepared to do it? Yes. I stopped my parents from coming to lunch today and my mother will send me her weekly shopping list tomorrow.

Talk, too, to single parents with underlying health conditions who are worried what will happen to their children if they succumb to coronavirus and who are going to be stuck at home with their children for weeks, possibly months.

Shop for the elderly and vulnerable.

Leave it on the doorstep, don’t hand it to them.

Send home as many children as possible and support our key workers.

E. J. BROWNING

Address withheld.