Crooked Spire vicar’s column: Recognise other people’s views about schools reopening

The Derbyshire Times carried a video piece last week of a father standing in front of the Parish Church with his own protest group calling out that his children would not be going back to school, and saying that they were being used as guinea pigs.

Apart from the other organisations supported by the Parish Church, education is an important part of its role within the community.

In normal times, many hundreds of schoolchildren visit the church each year, and in the area covered by the parish, there are two schools.

I am a governor at one and a trustee at the other.

I’m also a qualified teacher (seven years in a downtown comprehensive, since you ask) so I have a personal as well as pastoral interest in this issue.

Let’s look at the facts.

First, there are many parents and others who fear either for the safety of their children, or for the safety of those at home they might come into contact with.

The schools I know have made it clear they respect parents’ views and decisions, and the legal obligations of those parents are currently suspended, so they don’t have to send their children.

Second, schools are simply not suddenly reopening and teachers are not just coming back to work.

Vulnerable children and children of key workers have been in school all throughout the lockdown, and together with this, teachers have been making every effort to supply support and work to children at home.

Teachers are themselves key workers, and they haven’t been just baby-sitting those children who have been at school during this time.

Third, while regulations at national and local levels have been changing by the day (and sometimes by the hour) school managements have been diligently putting into place the arrangements that will minimise any risk of Covid-19 infection to children and staff.

I do not know of any school leader who would allow staff or children to be endangered, and while at present Covid-19 is a serious risk in any context, being in a school can carry other risks too.

So we have groups of professional people who care, we have groups of parents who care, and we have all of our children, who need socialisation, education, and to be kept safe.

I know these things give rise to strong feelings, but do they have to lead to protest or conflict?

If we’re to make progress out this situation, the first thing to do is to recognise the goodwill of people whose views we may not share, and allow those views to challenge our own.

Digging in to silos where the only people we listen to are those we agree with, or climbing trees to be like monkeys throwing nuts at each other – surely we can do better than that?

Keep safe and keep well.