School's Back for term 2 in WA

Following a week of Facebook organised events, “Clap for Mark McGowan” and “Have a Beer for Mark McGowan” in appreciation of our West Australian Premier and State government, with more than 1,000 people joining in, we have yesterday’s announcement that school’s back for term 2 from Wednesday, 29 April 2020. This causing mixed reactions within our local community, and none more concerning than that of our State’s teaching community.

The move is said to be cautious, careful and considered in approach, with all WA public schools open to students, meaning all parents and carers can choose to send their children to school, though all parents will be banned from entering school grounds. Private schools are encouraged to follow suit, and are now reviewing the situation to make their own decisions.

Parents therefore have a choice to send their children to school or keep them at home provided they are continuing their education.

This placing huge stress on our teachers, many of whom had been prepping online learning programs and hard copy packages with the expectation “schooling as usual – within school grounds and the classroom” would not resume to end May/June.

Having previously written an article on “Schools or No Schools” on 23 March 2020, I expressed my view of “distant learning” for senior education should remain in many cases the “norm”, where these children are for all respective purposes “little adults” capable of self-learning and if not online learning, working through text books and set home works by their teachers, but for those students under 15, I remained hesitant.

"With schooling returning to the classroom, I'm again not as concerned for senior education whom comprehend the seriousness of the virus and the importance of physical distancing, as I am for the younger years, but for differing reasonings, as they re-enter the classroom as of 29 April."

My major concerns remaining within the early childhood years, that of our students from Kindy to Year 3, that don’t quite understand what’s going on and can’t comprehend the importance of not touching, keeping their distance and not playing together in the playground. These young minds are our future and also the most vulnerable. So processes and procedures and of course, human resource (relief teaching and assistance) to keep these young students safe will be of priority within our local schooling community.

$43m has been committed to an expanded cleaning regime to disinfect high contact areas, inclusive of play equipment resulting in additional cleaning staff and a schooling focus on personal hygiene and social distancing.

Does this soft opening of our schools help to contain the the spread of the virus, or does it open up an environment where those families that haven’t been following the rules, few as it may be, send their children to school, opening risk to teachers and other students, therefore creating a second wave of the outbreak.

On "The Virus: latest developments on COVID-19 for April 17 | ABC News", Associate Professor Hassan Vally of La Trobe University stated that it makes intuitive sense for children not to be going to school, yet the actual evidence that exists suggests that there is only a marginal benefit from closing schools, but it comes at a massive cost to our economy, social disruption and overall education.

This being the conundrum our State government faces in its decision making.

The link below being a great up-to-date source of the latest information and advice from our West Australian government on schools and education.

Being a parent of three young children, experiencing first hand over the past weeks, the stresses of what teachers are faced with in their everyday lives, educating young minds of typically 25-30 students of varying stages in development, ability and personality, placing more pressure on this industry to duel educate both in the classroom and online, not only creates more workload on our teachers, but may also have longer term effect on our minds of the future.

With majority of students in years 11 and 12 reattending classrooms, this will be an easier transition and students will welcome the support of some face-to-face time with their educators and be well aware of the importance of physical distancing. The issues will come with the teaching pressures on younger years, where educators may be faced with more 50/50 splits of the classroom and online learning. Teachers will require both hard copy packages and online materials, placing additional pressure on how these learnings are to be delivered to the students in both environments, at the same time.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr Nick Coatsworth reported today, it is safe for children to attend school claiming, "We've had a very clear message that this is a virus, for whatever reason, is a virus more readily transmits between adults than it does from child to child or from child to adult." Are we convinced this is the case?

Let’s not also forget about educators in the vulnerable age category of 60 years plus within our high schools that are faced with 30 different students every 45 minutes, or teachers and children with low immune systems. These individuals and their families placed at risk every day and rightfully, our State School Teachers Union of WA (SSTUWA) wants more clarity of the situation moving forward. With winter fast approaching, let’s hope this move is regularly monitored; and should there be an increase in infection connected to our educational sector, we can modify our practices to minimise risk and disruption without serious casualty or loss of lives.

Yes, all other States, territories and countries are in similar positions and facing the same challenges, but as WA has been low in virus case numbers over the past week, let’s not be complacent in resuming a “new normal” too prematurely; and especially prior to our winter flu season and within a vulnerable community.