Thread by @edujdw

The government is wrong to tell parents to send their children to school.
Johnson keeps saying the risk to children is small. It is. But that's not why schools should go online (not close, schools have never closed). He is avoiding the key issue, the spread of infection 1/10

Children may not suffer serious problems from covid 19 (BUT a very small number will, especially those with underlying health issues). It is how they act as carriers and transmitters of the virus that is the problem. 2/10

This is the point NO politician will address. Initially, they tried to say children didn't transmit the virus to others. That was wrong, they do. The problem now is politicians refuse to address how the virus can now pass to older generations within families. 3/10

Many children live in multi-generational households or mix with others who may be clinically compromised. If transmission rates are high in households, there's a good chance the driver of this is a school age child passing the virus they caught from other children in schools 4/10

Moving online keeps children from different households apart. Add other restrictions of a full lockdown and you start to address the high R number and growth rate of the virus. Before Christmas the scientific advice (from Sage) was to move learning online this was ignored 5/10

I can see the following happening. A shambolic chaotic 'return' to school where nobody can keep track of who is in & who is online. The situation will continue to deteriorate, DfE will be forced to move learning online. We'll get 'fast moving, couldn't be predicted' excuses 6/10

* All in all this situation WAS predicted by teachers, school leaders, LAs, unions etc. The DfE refused to listen.
* No teacher wants online learning over F2F. It's more difficult, harder work, less accessible.
* Too many children still have no access to online learning 7/10

* DfE claims about distribution of laptops only scratch the surface of actual need.
*online learning, even in households with WiFi and laptops will still be difficult if adults home working and children online learning compete for resources 8/10

We cannot fix the large number of mistakes the DfE has made to date, but we can demand fewer mistakes in the future. But this requires a wholesale change in governance and leadership in the DfE and government 9/10

We need genuine leadership. We don't have this at any ministerial level. We have no genuine leaders with the ability to learn and understand. They're beholden to an egotistical Prime Minister who demands loyalty. We'll continue to suffer until this changes 10/10