Australian parents want their children vaccinated against COVID-19 and back in the classroom for face-to-face learning due to their overwhelming concerns about learning loss caused by the extended periods of lockdown, a recent survey has found.

In a national poll conducted by leading children's charity UNICEF Australia, parents called on state governments to provide more support for home-schooling and want them to urgently make up lost ground with funded tutoring, extended school terms once lockdowns end and make up classes to be held in the holidays.

Parents have clear opinions on what measures should be taken to protect children when they return to school, including vaccination for school staff (64%), masks (50%), limited class numbers and vaccinations for students (43%).

Two thirds (65%) of the 1000 parents surveyed said they would vaccinate their children ‘tomorrow’ if they could, and that they would like their children to continue with face-to-face learning at school during lockdowns (53%).

The main reason parents cited for wanting children back at school was for socialisation and mental health (69%), followed by learning (68%). Home schooling is also clearly a stress on parents, with more than a third saying they want their children to return to school to take the pressure off at home.

Learning loss is a major concern for 63% of parents, with more than one in four (27%) saying they are concerned their child won’t be able to catch up and 69% saying they would like their child’s learning to be measured after lockdown.

Three in four parents (83%) said they would like to see more teaching support for learning at home and when asked how they would like learning loss to be managed, 42% said they would like to see more 1:1 teacher contact during lockdown, followed by government funded tutoring, and one in four said they were open to extended term dates after lockdown finishes (31%) and subject specific classes during the school holidays (23%).

Guardian Essential poll also found that two-thirds of parents are concerned that lockdowns are affecting the mental health of their children, with half worried about emerging behavioural problems.

The risks to children and school staff in schools from the Delta variant was examined in a recent article in The Conversation - Poorly ventilated schools are a super-spreader event waiting to happen

The article outlines a number of measures that can be used in schools to improve ventilation.

It says: 'According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the Delta variant is about twice as infectious as the earlier strains. And preliminary data suggest children and adolescents are at greater risk of becoming infected with this variant, and transmitting it.

'The Australian Infection Control Expert Group (ICEG), which advises the federal government...have recently amended earlier advice that COVID-19 was only spread by contact and droplets:

'ICEG has also recognised broader circumstances in which there may be potential for aerosol transmission […] ICEG […] notes the risk may be higher under certain conditions, such as poorly ventilated indoor crowded environments.'

'“Poorly ventilated indoor crowded environments” accurately describes conditions at many schools. Even in lockdown, schools are still open for children of essential workers and classrooms in use can have relatively high occupancy.'

And this one about ventilation in schools