What are we doing to our children ? 4
Education is life-changing and it is shameful to deny it to children
Isolation, lockdowns, quarantine, masks, no hugs, no sport, no friends, no pantomime, no educational visits, no clubs.
Isolation, lockdowns, quarantine, masks, no hugs, no sport, no friends, no pantomime, no educational visits, no clubs, no choir.
Those once in a lifetime experiences lost.
School closures are the single greatest generator of inequality according to Dr Bhattacharyya renowned professor of epidemiology and population, he calls it an “incredibly unequal unfair immoral policy”
And the most vulnerable are most affected. When pupils are out of school, teachers cannot pick up the early warning signs of abuse or neglect and children have no one who they can tell.
Ofsted calls it “the invisibility of vulnerable children”
For many, school provides the most stable and secure part of their lives, The care and support they receive in school is crucial to their well-being.
Time at home leads to a loss of independence, fear of going out, fear of going to school with an accompanying large increase in eating disorders especially amongst the vulnerable. The British Medical Journal (BMJ) reported a “significant” increase in depression during school closures which will have a “long term negative effect on their overall psychological well-being” and are “destroying” a generation.
For children with special needs, the lack of multi-agency support has been traumatic, many parents too are on the verge of breakdown, a child on the autistic spectrum needs consistency, the in/out nature of school is doing irreparable damage.
Even before Lockdowns child and adolescent services were stretched thin, lockdowns will exacerbate this with the education service and schools likely to bear the brunt. Schools will need a massive increase in resourcing to cope.
On top of this, young people are stressed about their futures due to uncertainty about whether exams will take place and confusion regarding grades. Universities and employers may be sceptical about what a grade actually means in terms of suitability for university entry or employment and this is compounded by concern regarding their currency because of the different processes used in other UK jurisdictions which have traditionally provided higher education destinations for our children. Many are resorting to self-harm to express their anxiety.
And they are being denied those activities which would relieve stress- sport, work, meeting friends, a social life, travel, church involvement
Pupils have been sent home in 7 out 10 of our secondary schools, in addition to the 2 months lost in the Spring and the weeks at Hallowe’en., some 130,000 school days were lost in N. Ireland during 2 weeks in December.
It is no surprise then that our children are going backwards educationally- the majority according to Ofsted.
The normal reading regression caused by transition from primary to secondary has hugely increased, this can only be attributed to a loss of reading focus due to closures; it is repeated practice which drives improved reading. How much this additional regression can be reclaimed in the current disrupted schooling system is questionable and the effect on life chances is worrying.
Clearly practical subjects will be badly affected due to limitations on lab work.
Further school closures are almost certain to increase educational inequalities. Many parents are not equipped to support home learning. Pupils from better-off families spend longer on home work and their parents are better able to support them.
There is overwhelming scientific evidence regarding the damage this is doing to our children-when will someone listen?
Education is life-changing-it determines what you work at, where you work, what you earn, where you live, who you meet, your life style, to deny our children education is shameful. their future is at stake.
Children need to be at school, schools promote the social, emotional and mental development of children.
Professor Gupta expresses it thus:
A tiered approach or some version of lockdown leaves open the enormous harms of lockdowns, lockdowns are a luxury of the affluent, the harms are too extreme. They don’t solve the problem. We keep saying schools are open, but they are not operating in a way that prevents the harms that accrue, particularly in deprived children not going to school, their attendance is interrupted regularly by someone in their class testing positive. Youth suicides are rising.
There will be a very restricted future for the younger generation already.
Technology can apparently deliver education to children which is so neglectful firstly of those who do not have that option and secondly of everything else that accompanies education which cannot be delivered by technology. Schools and universities should open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities such as sports should be resumed. Young low risk adults should work normally.
The costs of lockdown are too high.
We need to consider how pernicious lockdowns are particularly with regards to school children.
(reprinted with kind permission of Professor Sunetra Gupta, Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at Oxford University-available at
Haven’t they lost enough? Isn’t it time to put the children and young people first, allow the older generations to take responsibility for themselves and protect the genuinely vulnerable
Thank you for your comment--can you please just clarify your opening remark
"the last people I want to monitor abuse and neglect are teachers"---is this at odds with the sentence which follows?
. . . the last people I want to monitor abuse and neglect are teachers, 99% of them went along with the abuse the so called " education system" forced on children by the big scamdemic LIE 🎶 🇨🇦 ☮️
"And the most vulnerable are most affected. When pupils are out of school, teachers cannot pick up the early warning signs of abuse or neglect and children have no one who they can tell."