Amen to what Monique said.

 

I do think the same my friend. I have already anticipated to homeschool my little one ....

 

 The new school year in France is scheduled for September 1st.

 

But there has been radio silence from the Ministry of Education, whose latest directives date back to July 9 and which had

 

planned a completely normal start for the school year....Wonderful isn it ?

 

From the "no more distanciation and hygienic procedure"  to "run for shelter" there is only one tiny step with our government !!!

 

With all the people  who criss-crossed france without taking any precautions (Plus the laxity of our so called leaders) I have

 

serious doubts and fears for the future.

 

In our case lockdown -as much as possible- is the key word as we are people at risk at home.

 

Take care of yourself my friends from all other the world.

 

PS : Very interesting topic Lynne thanks for bringing it up !!!

 

 

 

In Texas, school started last week virtually.  It is planned that instruction will  be online for 3 weeks.  Tablets have been made available to students who are in need of one. 

 

For parents who must work, the first day was a disaster. 

 

Teachers sent the wrong zoom links to students, and very late (the night before the first school day).  The zoom links should have been sent to the parents instead of the students for the lower grades.  Little first graders and kindergarteners, who cannot read well, needed help gaining access to the apps and links for instruction.

 

Supervising several first grade children who were trying to work online independently, failed.  The  teacher could not determine who needed help.  Parents were needed to alert the teacher that their child needed help. But monitoring their child was not possible for parents who had to work uninterruptedly.

 

One parent wondered what the teachers had been doing all summer long to prepare for online instruction, since they could not give the parents guidance  to an organized curriculum or plan--just last minute e-mails with the wrong links in them.

 

In Spain the kids will go back in September but it all depends on each autonomous region on how it is handled. I think, all schools will be doing their classes with masks, teachers and students. My wife works in a official state school of languages (kind of like the night schools we had in the UK until they got rid of them in the late 70s/early 80s), all her classes will be streamed live for those students who are not comfortable with live instruction. Everybody must wear a mask. But with the way things are going at the moment, there could even be another lockdown.

For my part, as the company I work for give mostly business English classes, for the most part, most of our classes will be online via Skype or Zoom. Some of the students who we were teaching during the lockdown said it was much more convenient for them as they didn�t have to rush to class and try and find parking spaces. Nor did they have to cancel because of business trips.

However, I have been furloughed for now and I am not sure if I will even have a job in September/October as we lost a lot of customers from the hospitality sector.

At the moment, it seems as if everybody is playing it by ear.

 

One interesting and very positive thing, though. I was reading a couple of articles about the low mortality rate in many countries for this time of year. Because of social distancing, obsesive hand.washing, mask-wearing and the likes, people are not catching so many colds or flus or other nasty little bugs. Consquently, given that colds and flus can lead to other more complicated, and life-threatening, conditions, people are staying healthier than they normally do for this time of year. Ironically, it would seem that the COVID 19 thing is actually starting to save people. Mind you, the conspiracy theorits will proably have a field day with that one. 

Interesting! Thank you for your replies. We are living in strange times, indeed. Nobody really has a clue, it seems to me:(. Will there be a vaccine? Let�s hope so. I have read that, as the virus continues apace, it is becoming less deadly. That would be good. In England, we are due back at the beginning of September, with full classes. It�s a bit scary but maybe it�s reaching the point where we have to take our chances and hope for the best?

 Stay safe, everyone.  

Lynne 

Hi everyone,in Italy we are supposed to start school on 14 September ... but we are living day by day, the government may change their mind in a blink of an eye ... as it often happens ... we’ll see.

stay safe,

RiSo from Italy