My sons primary school have measured their classrooms...

[DonLewis]

And if social distancing is how schools will be able to open, they can fit 9 children in per classroom.

Reception is 3 form entry and totally open plan.

It's a virtually brand new building, so not like the school I went to, a tiny voctorain thing with portacabins in the playground as dinner huts.

So, how does this work? Most classes have 32+kids in them.

Oh, that wasn’t the impression I got. I thought generally people were expecting a phased return from the 1st June.

I think it will be phased return and there will be smaller class sizes

Drivingdownthe101

Don't get me wrong I think that most people are quite sensible about how the return will happen but some, not so much.

As others have said, there is no real social distancing at school. I’m a TA working on a rota now. Only 8 children in one classroom, but they can’t maintain social distance at all. Nor can the staff. However, we all queue up 2 m apart at the entrance gate and for lunch. We eat far apart. It’s ridiculous really to think students or staff can maintain social distancing at school. There are some situations where it’s not really practical and that fact needs to be acknowledged and accounted for.

8 children in my school last week. They and staff all maintained social distancing..

Small country school here, only 5 in dd’s year group & no child has left the village. Would be easy for our school... they need to consider this too. Some areas (like ours) have had no “victims” & we’ve all been locked away anyway....

@Peppafrig but that is still a lot less contact than 30 in each class

Unless the schools start again, it'll be difficult for business/the economy to get started, plus concern for children's learning and mental wellbeing. Many parents are furloughed or working from home as best they can, but there are limits to this. We will need to think how we can try to maintain some kind of social distancing at school. We are likely to be in this situation for the long haul, so we need to consider how to make it work. Perhaps half days, 2-3 days a week, with no school dinners or outside playtime. It'll be tricky.

The classroom in one thing but what about play/break time? Especially small children they are not going to be distancing themselves.

Call me a cynic but it’s amazing that we’ve had the two metre rule hammered into us but now they need schools back maybe one metre would be enough. Also beginning to hear there are doubts about the effectiveness of social distancing at all. Would have thought a look back into history and what happened in Eym village would have told us what needs to happen.

Eyam

Also beginning to hear there are doubts about the effectiveness of social distancing at all

Certainly the PM of Australia thinks social distancing does not apply in schools. Conveniently. To be fair the arsehole, (Scott Morrison) believes SD does not apply to children, only to staff. Go figure.

Twat.

For the first time in ages my head teacher actually heard from the LEA this week. The LEA say they've been advised - no idea who by though so they may well be making their own rules up - that schools will be given at least 3 weeks notice and that schools should prepare to not be full time for all, that it will be a phased return and will begin with key groups of children - this may be linked to parent's jobs, child's needs, certain year groups or splitting classes due to class size. The local schools were asked to measure classrooms, etc to determine how many children can fit based in different social distancing measures.

Again, the lea could well just be surmising however.

We won't really know until the Government actually decides.

Aragog

I think (and I could be wrong) that three weeks was mentioned in one of the briefings.

Although that could just be a number that was made up after they said schools would get plenty of notice before going back.

True.
Especially as schools were given less than two days notice to close and set up home learning provision.

I'm jumping in here as a school cleaner to say there is also no way we would be able to disinfect an entire school every day either.
We don't have enough staff generally to do a normal nightly clean at my place. I'd feel incredibly uncomfortable if I was made responsible for cleaning to a virus-free 'safe' level. It's just not possible without a lot of extra support, cleaning staff, and specialist training and equipment.

No one thinks about that aspect, just the logistics of the teaching process.

We teachers think of it hannonle. I have tried to explain to people just how filthy schools are and how few cleaners there are and how little time they're given which means with the best will in the world you only have time to vacuum floor and give a very light touch to surfaces. People don't comprehend it.

The school staff are thinking if it hannonle.
Whilst the general parenting public might not, or the Government, the schools really are thinking about the whole of their staff and how the whole of school life will be affected when we return, and that includes all of the support staff.

Lack of adequate cleaning is my biggest concern tbh. All school cleaners should have adequate training along with appropriate cleaning materials and of course a higher number of cleaners. Many schools local to me have to had to close at various times in recent years due to norovirus outbreaks. Our school has been short a cleaner for more than a year. I believe this is a local council issue. Who should we all be contacting to raise this issue? The council? The school? Our local MP's?

what this crisis shows is that schools are not (able to) providing the most basic of provisions.

adequate toilets & hand washing facilities.
clean rooms in well maintained buildings.
I would also say inadequate instructions by teaching staff to encourage hand washing.

plus possibly inadequate sick leave/sick pay policies that force staff to work if they really should better recover at home.

and no, I don't blame the teachers.
the ones I know across a few countries do a grand job.
often with shackles around their feet due to funding restrictions of some sort.

My school uses teenage boys as cleaners. Enough said...

How can we give inadequate instructions when there’s hardly any sinks?

We've got great sickness policies actually (if you're permanent staff). The reason people struggle in when ill is not to increased workload for others/worried about what kids would miss, not about money or being in trouble.

I disagree. I think teachers are under enormous pressure to not take time off and in my own department I have to listen to the total derision of colleagues who are off sick or have had to take a days parental leave. Absence management is a pretty stressful palava too that makes people fearful and guilty about having been ill.