Covid may be deadly for adults, but our children are becoming the forgotten generation amongst the chaos and the lasting impacts for them are far greater.

Our children missed 24 weeks of school last year. Twenty four. This petition is for us to say collectively as parents that this is not ok and under no circumstances do we want that again for our children in 2021.

That's 120 days out of the 210 school days in a year, more than half. 120 days of missed opportunities for social, intellectual, physical, mental and emotional development, conflict resolution, feelings of achievement, abstract thinking, empathy, friendships, healthy boundaries and building their guiding morals. These formative years are the basis of learning who they are as a person, what kind of adults they will grow into and the type of world they will create.

Instead of spending their days playing with friends, working collaboratively and building their social skills, they're glued to screens and sitting around the house. And this is contributing to the widening socio-economic gap as well, with less fortunate children not having access to technology, internet, support from others or sometimes, the presence of an attentive parent.

Let's get our kids back in the classroom.