Ground Reality Of School Reopening | Are Schools & Parents Really Prepared For It?

0:00 for the last one and a half years education across the world has been disrupted by the pandemic as vaccination picks up schools and colleges are slowly opening up across the world but not in india with some experts warning of a third wave that could probably affect kids and no vaccine in sight yet for children we have a long way to go before reopening of educational institutions welcome to ksp speaks today is this exclusive webinar by kid stop press

0:30 which we will be discussing that one thing that is on every parent's mind today about schools reopening to do or not to do will i send my child if they open that's the big question many states across india have announced reopening dates with either limited capacity alternate days or just for admission purposes the message is out loud and clear but are we as parents ready to accept it how will this impact our

1:00 children if we send how will this impact our children if we do not send we discuss all this and more with a wonderful panel today who has supported kids top press time and again and i keep thanking them each time because all it takes is just a whatsapp and they're always there for us um starting with uh dr swathi poppadz who is the president of early childhood education miss fatima agarkar founder of a sports edu suzanne perkowski

1:32 co-founder of new nordic school finland and dr fazal navi consultant pediatrician at just look hospital mumbai swati mama i'd like to ask you here you also mentioned about uh you know the school in dubai and and how they have been on um and of course cautiously what were the protocols followed there versus what you are looking at what the government is saying if india needs to restart schools yeah we have schools in the uae and uh

2:00 right from the start of the pandemic they did close down for the first eight months after which they all started opening and we have children uh we have been on nurseries which means we have children from four months old to four years old and uh we started following the protocols given by the government uh there the protocols were very specific to bubbles and bubble sizes uh protocols were very clear about testing the staff once the vaccinations came in it was

2:32 that all staff need to be vaccinated but they are still tested sanitization of everything that is used in the school a bubble does not only mean stay with the bubble it means that only those bubbles can use certain areas of the school which means every bubble is not using every area of the school and the bubble concept helps you because if any child or any family member of the child is found with kovid then that entire

2:59 bubble is quarantined and not the whole school and which means if three bubbles in the school have got some quarantine then the school is closed down so it is very very specific and in the last three months the bubble size now has been increased by the ua government so it's it's very specific and if i would say that the government of india has also come out with very good specifications and the early childhood association has come out with a whole

3:27 manual uh with for how to open and it's applicable to every age group it details out what you should do for parents what you should do for children and what you should do for teachers uh the question that fatima raised is playing on parents minds about masks that it is difficult to stay with a mask for so long i think what needs to be taught to children is how to take an air gulp because after wearing a mask for an hour

3:56 you need to breathe if we teach children where to go and take that little air gulp where they won't be contaminated by another person those are the kind of practices that we will have to inculcate in the in the children and the parents for them to feel comfortable one most important thing which we have done in dubai is we're very strict with the parents about what they do beyond school hours which means uh if parents are going to

4:26 keep on partying uh they are going to bring the virus home and uh that would affect the children there so it's like you know mansi there is a small town in italy called reggio emilia it was devastated after the second world war and the entire community of reggio emilia came together after the second world war and said what do we rebuild first and they all agreed we will rebuild schools first and that is how the reggio emilia schools in italy came

4:57 about they are world famous now right but look at it the community thought of their children first here we are thinking of malls and cinema halls and whatnot and we are not thinking about the one thing that can destroy this nation is the lack of education in our children so i think if we listen to common sense we will be able to reopen schools in punjab we have reopened schools last year also right up to pre-primary and punjab is given

5:26 permission now also for our pre-primaries to be open so from today we've reopened our free primaries in punjab but we are taking precautions we are ensuring that everybody is vaccinated we are ensuring that they are tested we are ensure we had an online session with the parents and children telling them what to expect in school we told the teachers to wear a mask on that online session so children know who they are looking at we've told teachers to wear a big

5:52 photograph of themselves on their chest so that when they are masked up young children can see who they are talking to so it's simple things like this which will help us to reopen school faster if schools don't open there is a large population who needs to go back to work for survival um there is also a large population who's saying that listen my kids have lost two years of school time um the kids are facing a learning loss

6:19 of of two years um what is the impact going to be on on this learning loss and i know parents are in a rush to cover it all up what's the take on the educators how are you guys going to pace it up yeah i think the education uh community has been talking about it for a while uh because they've always been pitching for normalization and resumption of schools because they were concerned about the emotional well-being of students and lex

6:46 vatima mentioned there are several cases not just in government schools with progressive families and i think all psychiatrists and counselors will vouch for the fact that perhaps the urban population has seen a lot of trauma that's being exercised including addictive habits yes uh okay so those are problems um so so what are educators thinking educators are thinking and you know rightly so we call it the settling period every academic year we move from one academic year to the other we focus

7:19 on pre-assessment we recognize it's been a year of online learning we recognize that the content has been delivered in an alternative manner we also recognize some children did receive that information some didn't some understood it well some were supported some did not receive support so initially educators will be focused on pre-assessment understanding concept wise what children know it's our it's our starting ground these are your trade secrets our parents sharing it all

7:50 with you so we have a lot of science behind before we admit children in any academic year physical and now uh post uh your you know uh what we've gone through uh with that nancy the focus is going to be on a refresher course they have understood certain terminology rushing it through will not serve the purpose so you revisit certain concepts you bridge them up if 75 of your class has a benchmark receive that means that 25

8:20 percent needs bridging that can be handled through support teachers but by and large you know where your cohort stands with that you build i mean you can't build a building uh you know where the foundation is weak it is going to fall so this this desire appearance to play catch up should be resisted unless of course you're in the business end of life which is ninth and ten please parents a plea from us educators don't believe you can catch up two years

8:49 within two months or two days it's not going to happen give your educators time give the experts time to decide when they want to scaffold they know what they have to do if the foundation if that bridging up the transition is smooth and is solid you can you can just build nancy children will catch on but the first bit like swathi mam said is familiarization you know what our kids have not won mars for nine hours or eight hours or six

9:18 hours and you tell me malls are opening why on school's opening you go to the mall for two hours if you're in the mall for nine hours i'll be scared yeah okay so let's understand what we are talking so they need to get used to uh you know it's like a model like number of shields so first is you know brushing up second is getting them used to this new normal um my concern uh mansi is also going to

9:42 be three things sharing of snacks that's that's going to be tough restroom protocols you're going to have to have them in bubbles because that's where the that's where the spread happens disposable uh you know stuff they cannot be using each other's stuff so they you know sharing is caring a concept now suddenly goes away where you're saying hey listen stay in your territory so it's going to be a lot of unlearning that we were initially talking about and

10:10 also those kids who've never seen physical school is going to be like what there is a world outside of a screen i can't mute my teacher i can't just run off i have to be in this room i mean i can't open the door and run up so you know what it's going to be transition i think educators are thinking about transitioning with a lot of science and fact and customization you will see this we've learned that that works we are going to

10:38 customize the content or provide it parents trust us now that is a component that always happens because nancy you're in another school i my son goes to another school we're comparing notes and i'm saying she's doing so much more why is our school stuck on fractions when that one has gone ahead stop comparing trust your school because your cohort is very different from the others i think educators are very aware they've been planning for 12 months monthly we

11:04 actually spoke about this last year as well you know i'm going to echo what suzanne said um i'm actually going to echo what dr nabi and swathi mam said as well we have to look at normalization if we are thinking of it we will think about vaccination we will think about families getting vaccinated all our teachers unfortunately swati mam has been a big pioneer of this our teachers were not a priority we were way lower down in the pecking order and

11:30 unfortunately we didn't treat education as important enough we were happy with online till it lasted and served our purpose now we're realizing hey listen this is longer than we expected so we need to start thinking we need to start normalizing by rotation all of that but all of this will depend on the the covet protocols maintained at home uh and i am going to emphasize this point it's in schools they will wear masks there will be social distancing

12:00 they will sanitize we won't allow them to touch etc my worry is friday afternoon saturday and sunday was three days because all all protocols are broken and then you're jeopardizing the community that is back in school and remember the teachers and the admin staff so i think it's going to be a partnership start trusting um and you know what start believing that we have to make these steps uh uh to normalize for the sake of our children

12:29 because there are now alarming statistics that children haven't learned as we thought they would uh the continued education perhaps has not worked for everyone uh more importantly there has been trauma if we have to get them back and this is the future of our country if that impact has to be mitigated we're going gonna have to take steps to do it now so let's start on a positive note let's start being more careful and more respectful

12:57 to these protocols um swati i'm ending with you concluding notes and key takeaways or parents so one uh some acronyms to remember uh bc ac and cc bc is before corona ac is after corona and cc is corona culture very important that we imbibe the corona culture there are four things to do wash your hands wear your mask social distancing and vaccination we cannot afford to forget these four

13:29 ever till corona doesn't become history that's very very important for everybody to remember download your arrogatu app get your vaccination certificate from the government and not from some event management company because it's very very important that we understand this imagine imagine if adults in our society were duped like this i i can imagine the kind of mistakes we will make for children i would urge the

13:59 parent community that schools is not just a transaction between children and schools schools are a community you will have to stand strong with the school if you really want your children to come back on track where education and life is concerned so stop treating schools as just a financial institute school is a place of learning and your problem if you didn't choose the right school but schools are not all bad

14:30 they are not all governing and it's very very important for us to now stand strong we have to become that village that raises children right absolutely and we're not last last question from me actually forgot to ask this we're not talking of but school buses and lunches and canteens etc i saw somebody pop that in the chat box fatima yeah uh we're gonna have to be concerned about those things parents you have to understand that these are your potential

15:01 hot spots as i call them these are the uh areas that um i think need more time um you know you've got to support the school as far as transport is concerned about lunch as far as lunch is concerned hard as it is i think let's prioritize learning like swati man said like suzanne said like dr nabi said let's get them back emotionally ready uh the logistics are going to take time and they should my worry is if you start

15:30 school start bus start lunch you're potentially putting yourself up for failure you know we need to take it baby steps i think suzanne mentioned it time and time again let's start with that let's prioritize um transport is going to be difficult till everyone's vaccinated and i would worry uh uh you know about that uh because then it's difficult you know children will want to sit together at least in school we're physically distancing them uh through our desks

16:00 through our partitions etc lunch strict no no it has to come from home you will eat from your box you will eat from your plate and you will pack it and take it home and wash it it cannot be washed or reheated even in school avoid those things avoid where you are putting them in clusters because you are then potentially putting them at risk when you get comfortable when your community is vaccinated when everybody's safe in

16:24 that bubble then you can um so i think those are the things that are going to be important and uh you know you've got to support the school you've just got to support the school wait for these these are logistics i think priorities on learning we may not start lunches in school but children will still need to eat their snacks and the only solution is because at that time they will have to remove their masks the only solution

16:50 is in the school canteen all the tables have those four transparent uh you know demarcations you know you put those partitions uh so that only four children can sit on a table and each one is uh is separated from the other by two partitions so that when they are eating they're maintaining that social distancing and uh uh they're not going to fall into trouble so we will have to take these kind of precautions but a school bus

17:19 total no no right now because in school bus the poor bus attendants are not able to control the children these people will all throw their masks on one another and it's the total chaos right right no absolutely um thank you so much for um chatting with us this evening and of course um for just helping us prioritize education over everything else and and i'm i'm guilty as charged when i say that yes friday to sunday i am not responsible i'm going to

17:50 be honest i'm going to be very very honest about it but now that my children if i have to prioritize education i will have to be more responsible um and and we cannot afford to jeopardize the hundreds of different families that come into school um maybe sometimes these are thoughts that don't cross our minds as parents um and and i'm so glad that we had this chat today because it it really helps us um uh you

18:18 know just realize that it's not us alone it's the community of parent teachers educators and uh i'm gonna just conclude with what swati man said that when um when that little town in italy was um brought down to bare bones they built the school first and that's what we all need to prioritize um so i hope everyone here is going to take efforts to do that