Life

Leona O'Neill: Why my kids won't be back at school next month unless their safety from coronavirus is guaranteed

As England moves from a 'stay at home' to a 'stay alert' policy on Covid-19, the British government has revealed it intends to send children back to school next month. However, as Leona O'Neill writes, the handling of the crisis to date won't exactly have instilled parents with a lot of confidence about their ability to keep children safe from the virus in the classroom

Schoolchildren in England will be returning to class from June 1
Schoolchildren in England will be returning to class from June 1 Schoolchildren in England will be returning to class from June 1

THERE has been much talk about sending children back to school following the two-month coronavirus lockdown. At the weekend, British education secretary Gavin Williamson moved to reassure families across the UK that children should return to school on June 1 based on the "best scientific advice".

The world was almost shaken off its axis by the sheer weight of parents shaking their heads in opposition to this idea. After all, the 'best scientific advice' that the government is depending so enthusiastically on has left the UK with a quarter of a million people infected with Covid-19 and 35,000 people dead. A lot of us now feel that they're hardly a bunch of people we would wholeheartedly trust with the health of our precious children.

People here in Northern Ireland, perhaps because of our long history of looking after ourselves, did exactly that before Boris Johnson called us to lockdown. Shops and pubs closed down, in one of the busiest weeks of the social calendar around St Patrick's Day. People, including myself, withdrew their children from school and locked themselves down in preparation for what was coming.

In the weeks that followed some of us got sick ourselves, family members fell ill, we heard of friends and neighbours getting sick and people from our city dying and watched the news as the death toll rose to terrifying proportions, all the while hiding in isolation in our homes. It has been a challenging experience for all of us and hugely traumatic for some.

In England, the gears shifted last week from a 'stay at home' message to a 'stay alert' one. It was a narrative that made no sense – like much of the government's handling of this pandemic – and here in Northern Ireland we very sensibly chose to remain in lockdown for another few weeks.

The UK has the second highest death rate in the world: they in no way have this virus under control, yet there is talk of schools reopening in two weeks time.

With the gear shift in government, some of the media followed suit. A headline in Friday's Daily Mail called on us to "let our teachers be heroes" and I felt suddenly nauseous. Now any teachers who decide their health and indeed life is more important than being a hero will be regarded as cowards.

The headline suggested, to me anyway, that we sacrifice our teachers in another experiment to see how things go with the coronavirus. Much in the same way as the 'wash your hands' and 'go to Cheltenham' phase of the pandemic panned out.

There is talk of classes of no more than 15 pupils, a laughable notion since the Tory government stripped so many resources from the education system that many children are in merged classes of at least 30 pupils. There is talk of social distancing in schools. Clearly the education secretary has no experience in keeping five-year-olds apart.

Gavin Williamson lavished praise on our teachers and suggested that the best place for our children is in the classroom. I would suggest otherwise. There are a growing number of cases resembling the potentially lethal inflammatory syndrome Kawasaki disease in countries impacted by coronavirus. The disease affects children and a small number of young patients have died globally already.

This virus is still new and there is still a lot that we don't know about it or the impact it has on people and how it will behave as we move back into normalised society. Unless the education secretary has a crystal ball and can tell me that my children will be 100 per cent safe in school and that our teachers will be 100 per cent safe in their workplace, my kids will not be returning to school in June.