Deciding on whether to send my child back to school during lockdown – Mummascribbles

I thought the decision had been taken out of my hands. When schools started re-opening, it was only Reception, Year 1, and Year 6 who were asked to go back. There was talk of the other years returning, but then the Government did a u-turn and realised it was impossible for the majority of schools, and so it looked like I didn’t need to make a decision on Zach returning until September.

However. Because in their guidelines, they stated that schools could take more year groups back if they had the capabilities to do so, and that once a parent was offered a space and rejected it, they didn’t need to save that space for that child just in case the parent changed their mind, our school decided that they did indeed have the capabilities to accept more pupils back. They offered spaces to Years 4 and 5 first, returning from 29th June, and then said that they would be opening up to Years 2 and 3 from 6th July. Zach is in Year 2.

Suddenly we had to do a lot of thinking about what we wanted to do.

I was always pretty relieved in the early days of the school re-opening talk, that his year group weren’t being recalled. I didn’t have to think about whether or not I wanted him to go back, and it seemingly looked like it wouldn’t be happening until September. But now I had to make a decision and I genuinely didn’t know what was the right decision.

We have done pretty well with home learning. The early days were great, but it has of course tapered off a bit. There are many days when I have struggled to get him motivated and interested, and most days we do the bare minimum of Maths and English. But, we have done well.

We got fantastic support from the school throughout lockdown. Daily videos from the Year 2 teachers on Maths and English, and then when school started returning, another teacher took over the videos for a week. But then it stopped. We were suddenly getting absolutely nothing from school and told to use the Oak National Academy website, which was good, but wasn’t exactly captivating for Zach. I knew he thrived on having that access to an actual teacher.

So I started to look at online tutoring services to see if there was anything out there. I found a local tutoring service and thought about signing him up, and then realised that I could ask my Sister if she wanted to tutor him. She is a Year 2 teacher, so she was the perfect candidate to teach my Year 2 boy. I asked her and she said yes, so that tutoring has just started and he is certainly thriving with that. She also sends us all her weekly planning for her Year 2 kids that are all still at home, so we have videos and resources to use throughout the week. So when it came to deciding whether to send him back to school or not, his learning wasn’t really a factor because we are back on track with that with the help of a professional!

Going back to school on the 6th July would mean 10 days in school before breaking up again for the Summer holidays. I mean the whole thing just felt pointless. The risk of him getting the virus for the sake of 10 days seemed pointless. The having him have to settle in to the new school normal for the sake of 10 days seemed pointless.

He wouldn’t be going back to his teacher – she is teaching a Reception bubble. Chances are, he possibly wouldn’t even know the teacher if they had used up all the other teachers on the bubbles who had gone back before. He also wouldn’t be in his classroom that is so familiar to him. He would also be left at the gate every day and picked up from the gate every day. All whilst trying to remember that he had to social distance.

Another disadvantage of him going back is that my Mum is about to join our bubble. For various reasons we have delayed her entry, but as of this Friday, she will be like a member of our household. I will be able to cuddle her, and the boys will be able to cuddle her. The boys will be able to play with her without worrying about social distancing. She will be able to come in and out of our house as she pleases.

If Zach went back to school, we wouldn’t risk her being in our bubble. This would mean that for the 2 week period that he is at school (including the weekends), and the 2 weeks after he finishes, she wouldn’t be able to be in our bubble. A whole month. And Zach has been desperate for her to be in our bubble. I genuinely felt that it is far more beneficial for him at this stage, to be able to spend his time with his Nannie, not having to worry about staying apart from her.

Ultimately, the only benefits that we could think of with returning to school, were to see his friends (whom we aren’t even sure are going back anyway), and to have that finalisation of the end of Year 2. But again, this will be all so different to usual anyway. There would be no saying goodbye to his Year 2 teacher. And there would be no visiting his new Year 3 teacher and his new classroom. It just wouldn’t be school like he knows it. And for 10 days, it just didn’t feel worth him having to get used to it all.

And so, after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, a lot of discussions, and some really hard decision making; we decided not to send him back. After I informed the school, I explained my reasoning to Zach and he completely agreed with us. He too didn’t see the point in going back for such a short space of time. I even showed him on the calendar, the amount of days it was, and he thought it was completely pointless. He also thought Nannie being in our bubble was far more of a benefit, and in his words, he really love being at home with Oscar.

It isn’t like we are going to get this time again, to have them both at home together, for such a long period of time, so we might as well make the most of it (along with the many, many arguments they have).

And so we are remaining just as we are. My Sister is still supporting us with school work and tutoring. I am doing what I can on top of that. And we will just carry on as our normal has been for the last three months.

I fully intend for him to return to school in September. I fully intend for Oscar to go into nursery in September. I even had a chat with them this morning about him since they can’t do home visits. But right now, for the very small amount of time that he was asked back for, it just wasn’t worth it.