Displaying items by tag: schools reopening

Boris Johnson has said reopening schools is a national priority, and the return of students to the classroom will be ‘the first sign of normality beginning to return’. He acknowledged how ‘frustrating’ the news will be for teachers, parents and carers, as well as the mental health impact on pupils stuck at home for such a prolonged period of time. Despite pressure from backbenchers and parental pressure groups calling for schools to reopen, the Prime Minister urged that they should do so only when it is safe to do so. Please continue to pray for stressed and weary parents working from home and educating their children; may they find a peaceful and quiet time in their busy schedule to be spiritually and mentally refreshed. Pray also for isolated and vulnerable children, particularly those falling into depression and/or rebellion. Ask God to help them have positive internet conversations with teachers and friends and discover ways to combat anxiety.

As schools across the UK reopen, teachers could face an influx of children facing an emotional and mental health crisis. Pray for teachers, parents, churches, and agencies who will be working to alleviate an expected emotional health crisis. Pray for the teachers, who will already be aware of the specific challenges that their community faces. May God anoint each one as they draw on their skills to provide emotional and academic guidance. Some children may not have held a pen or got up at 7am since March; consequently different pupils in the same class will have had different experiences of the lockdown period. They will also have varying levels of coping skills and resilience in dealing with those experiences. Teachers attempting to help these children may feel overwhelmed themselves. Pray that they are wisely supported by outside agencies and community groups. Pray for children displaying challenging behaviour to receive appropriate extra mental health support.

Many of England's pupils are set to miss six months of lessons. There is a call for the Government to organise a task force to prevent the potential inequality around children's education. Pray for practical, workable plans to ensure that children can continue to reach their full potential. English schools and colleges must submit their estimated grades for GCSE and A-levels by 12 June. Pupils will be ranked from highest to lowest in achievement. Exam regulators have issued guidance on how to make the process as fair and accurate as possible. Many pupils are nervous about their estimated grades. Pray for those unsure of achieving the grade 4 or above needed in maths and English. May peace replace panic. Plans for all primary children to return before the summer have been dropped. The education secretary said there was a cautious, phased return to school: ‘if schools had the capacity, they could take more pupils if they chose.’

There is a lack of certainty about the safety of children returning to school. Reception, year 1 and year 6 pupils are able to return; however there are mixed local pictures. Some schools reopened, some remained shut, and some have not brought back all the pupils mentioned by the Government. Please pray for: the only child in the family, still at home with no one to play with; children still missing lessons and friends; returning pupils having to learn new ways of behaving in school and playground; children readapting to school and joining children of key workers who have continued education; teachers reorganising teaching plans for mixed abilities and keeping classrooms safe. Pray for teachers unable to keep to curriculum for classes because half the children are absent or the classrooms are too small to facilitate the whole class.

The big debate over the past few days has been whether it is safe to open schools to children other than those of key workers or classed as vulnerable. Many are saying, ‘We need to get children back into education, but a locally managed approach using testing and tracing is the only way.’ There will never be ‘no risk’. In a world where Covid-19 remains present in the community, it is about how we reduce that risk, just as we do with other kinds of daily dangers, like driving and cycling. To judge whether schools are safe enough to open, there need to be data with which to make informed decisions. Pray for concurrent accurate monitoring to be developed at local levels to tell us what the daily number of new cases and rate of transmission is. May actual, reliable numbers be what drives policy.