Could they get furloughed workers to help in schools?

[BlackWhitePurple]

We keep hearing that one problem with reopening schools is that there aren't enough staff to cover split classes.

Would it be feasible to ask now for some furloughed workers to help out in September? I'm thinking the likes of hairdressers, sports coaches etc who are unlikely to be back to work any time soon. If the government are still going to be paying furloughed wages (which presumably they'll have to, if the industries can't open), they could offer to pay 80% instead of 60% or whatever it is, do background checks now, and put some training in place to allow them to at least supervise groups of primary-school children. Also offer to pay SAHP the same amount if they help.

I'm thinking the school could then move, say, the older age groups (from primary) into, say, a village/scout/church/community hall, and spread the younger classes out over the remaining classes and assembly hall.

The teacher could then do the actual teaching, and then leave the class with the TA to complete work, and then go into the other classroom to teach there. An extra person in each class would help with supervision.

It's not ideal, obviously, but it would allow all pupils (in primary at least) back to school with social distancing in place. It would need money to be spent (to boost the furloughed workers' pay, add some SAHPs, hire halls etc), but they've already found billions, and it wouldn't be prohibitively expensive in comparison (plus it would allow taxpayers to return to work).

Obviously it wouldn't work for every school, but it would be a start for some.

It's not likely to go on forever (if everyone goes back to work then we either go back to normal, or Corona spikes again and we go back to lockdown).

Anyone have any other ideas for how things could work?

But yes, when your kids come home from school, they will have remnants of other people's fluids on their backside and thighs, plus clothes. They will then transfer that to your loo, next time they go.

Why bodilyfluids!? It's a respiratory illness spread by mucus in droplets from the nose and mouth.

Despite that, our toilets are currently perfectly currently clean, cleaned by the site manager before he goes for his break at 11am, I do them after lunch, 12:30, he does them again when he comes back from his break at 2pm and the cleaners are in at 3:30. You want more than that?

Door handles are done on a similar schedule and all classrooms are supplied with sanitizer spray for wiping tables.

On the basis that I take my turn , I'm happy to ask anyone to clean a toilet if it's necessary.

As a secondary teacher what strikes me on these school threads is that the calls for schools to re-open with volunteers or whatever needs to be done is aimed predominantly at primary.

And the hand-wringing about the damage to education is again, presumably, for primary children. Which therefore means we are talking child care, the need for parents to work, and anything else rather than actually quality 'education'.

Nothing is being touted, as far as I can see, about older teenagers who will genuinely be suffering as far as education and qualifications goes. What would you suggest happens here? Because as someone who teaches GCSE and A level I can tell you that no amount of keen volunteers would be of any use in a classroom. Students need a subject specialist teacher who is extremely familiar with the exam board specifics, has the subject knowledge and the skills to deliver the curriculum.

I am happy to return to work as soon as my school opens. But I can't teach in excess of 30 students in a small classroom as long as social distancing takes place. And I cannot see how 'thinking creatively' or having a 'can-do' attitude can help in this situation. We need double or treble the qualified subject specialists to get secondary schools back and actually be providing 'education' rather than childcare.

I don't think you realise quite how much work goes into DBS checks.

"Yet dozens of children are using the school loos throughout the school day (and let's face it, they're not always too accurate with their aim), with no additional cleaning at all.
You all happy with that?"

I can't see how this is particularly different to patient and staff loos in a hospital, neither of which are getting cleaned any more often than usual in my trust (and certainly not after each use).

@WowLucky

Why bodilyfluids!? It's a respiratory illness spread by mucus in droplets from the nose and mouth.

Despite that, our toilets are currently perfectly currently clean, cleaned by the site manager before he goes for his break at 11am, I do them after lunch, 12:30, he does them again when he comes back from his break at 2pm and the cleaners are in at 3:30. You want more than that?

Door handles are done on a similar schedule and all classrooms are supplied with sanitizer spray for wiping tables.

On the basis that I take my turn , I'm happy to ask anyone to clean a toilet if it's necessary.

It spreads around the body. Hence why there's non-respiratory symptoms too. Take a look at these, the first one isn't specific to covid, but looks at various microbes including SARS which is also a coronavirus. The second is specifically covid.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4692156/

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-20/fecal-transmission-may-be-behind-coronavirus-s-rapid-spread

OP I think your proposals are great as a start point to thrash out and refine with the input of teaching unions, teachers etc. To be honest you’re doing the job Gavin Williamson ought to be.

Nothing is ever perfect but something is needed to give children routine, structure and social opportunities (not on screens). In the absence of a vaccine, thinking outside the box as you are doing, is wholly necessary and it is neglectful of the government not to be doing so to establish something that can work for education in the ‘new normal’. This is what Williamson should have started doing in March.

The sad reality is we cannot go back to the system we had, potentially not for a long time. But we can’t accept the current situation of no education either.

I think there is an excellent opportunity to fund sports coaching, arts education and other “hobbies” over the summer at least by the government. These people are generally first aid and DBS qualified and often run private holiday clubs anyway. They could easily be set up in parks and the like using infrastructure from festivals etc which is not in use this year.

A better comparison would be if university lecturers in education, education department management, and Ofsted inspectors were asked to go and help out in primary schools.

I think there is some merit in asking if ex-teachers would consider taking on temporary roles in school - a lot of those people would have QTS. But the process wouldn't be that quick as you would have to do background checks - even just checking that people have a valid DBS and QTS would take a bit of time.

I am an experienced ex-teacher with QTS and a valid DBS. If I had been furloughed I would have considered offering help to my nearest schools. But I have a job to be doing, a child to homeschool...

using community halls
Quite a few of the community halls in suitable buildings are already used by pre-schools and playgroups within school hours.

My smallish seaside town has 5 primary schools - probably 180 kids biggest number.

That doesn't even include the secondary school of over a 1000 kids.

We have a guide hut, a scout hut, a community centre … probably get about 50 kids in them.

Oh! I know - all the closed cafes and salons - get them open and shove the kids in there. They already have tables and hand washing facilities. Never mind safeguarding and a cohesive curriculum - just shove them some worksheets and they will get on with it.

They say it takes a village to raise a child - or several class worths. I look forward to it.

Shove some in Greggs too!

I'm a teacher... I'm bemused by your suggestion. There are some stronger words I could use, but I'll go back to my HandS work.

There seems to be a problem doesn't there?

@BlackWhitePurple

What I'm thinking is that there is time now to do background checks and training.

Yes, it won't be anywhere near as good as having normal teaching. But for a few months it gets kids into school and getting some kind of learning.

Older kids would be in community halls which would be big enough for the whole class to be together, socially distanced. Extra hands could help with things like photocopying etc, carrying stuff from the school to the hall and so on.

The current plan is that teachers will teach one half of the class for 2 days, and the other half for a couple of days - they'll be in contact with all the kids anyway, so it's no more dangerous from that point of view.

Op where do you live to have all of these spare buildings???? In my small community there are 5 schools, 3 of which are heading towards 500 children in each. We are fighting over library visits, swimming pool times etc now. Do you think teachers or schools can just randomly pull buildings out of their arses and then expect people, who aren't trained, to sit with children who are strangers to them and teach? Wtaf. You have absolutely no respect for the teaching profession at best. At worst you are ignorant

In my immediate locality, we have 6 primary schools, one community centre and 3 church halls.

Thee simply wouldnt be enough room to accommodate everyone.

It is frustrating to read people saying teachers won't even consider these 'solutions'. It's because they're not, in many cases, viable solutions.

Some of them are comparable with saying to someone whose flight has been cancelled, "why don't you just flap your arms and jump until you take off and fly?"

"But that won't work - humans can't do that"

"Birds manage it. You never see birds saying they can't fly."

"Yes, but birds have hollow bones; they are designed to he able to fly. Humans aren't."

"See that's the problem. You're not even willing to consider a solution. All you're interested in doing is saying it can't be done and you haven't even tried!"

If people want children back to school in September then they need to push the R rate down so that it's snake belly low by then.

Don't ignore the guidelines & don't find ways to get around them

Don't go shopping for 'something to do'
Don't have friends around for BBQ's
Don't go to beauty spots
Don't let kids 'play out' unsupervised
Only use public transport if it's essential.

Wear face covering in public

WASH YOUR HANDS

If WE get the R rate etc down then schools should be able to go back in Sept without SC amongst the children & then set about making it as safe as possible for the school staff.

It's FAR more dependent on what WE do, than what the Govt says

How many community halls do you think are in each locality??? Compared to how many classes of pupils there are. The numbers don't work.

We have enough staff at this point. We don't have enough space. We can fit 10'pupils per classroom to allow some form of distancing for the adults.

You're also assuming all these furloughed staff would have the right nature and desire to want to be on a classroom all day every day. I know many who'd hate it.

@Aragog

You're also assuming all these furloughed staff would have the right nature and desire to want to be on a classroom all day every day. I know many who'd hate it.

Exactly. I am furloughed and the thought of spending all day in a school with other people's children? No thanks. Maybe I should try my hand at hairdressing, as I have no experience of that either.

Not to mention putting themselves at risk doing a job they didn't sign up for...because they can't do the job they normally do as it's not safe. It's beyond illogical

Maybe I should try my hand at hairdressing, as I have no experience of that either

Why not? After all, its evidently easy to do a career you have on training for and known nothing about. Go for it!

@Whaddyathinkofthis

Maybe I should try my hand at hairdressing, as I have no experience of that either

Why not? After all, its evidently easy to do a career you have on training for and known nothing about. Go for it!

Yes! This thread has given me the confidence to do something I have never done before! I will be taking bookings from 4/7-form an orderly queue.

So many of you have shut the OP down, but although her suggestion is far from ideal, it's a massive improvement on what a lot of children are getting now. Many are at home with no safeguarding checks. We know that teaching isn't just giving instructions and letting them get on with it, but that's what they're having to do at home while we work at the same time. Just having them near friends and doing something would be so much better than the current situation.

We need people thinking like the OP to start ideas, think outside the box, rather than just saying it's not possible, because at the minute anything is better for my DC than sitting in tears not understanding the school work on the website while me and DH ignore them as we are in work meetings.

The reason why this wont work is there isn't the space in schools to be 2m apart and not enough staff for all of the groups. My dh said there isn't enough rooms in his school to socially distance u der current guidelines

I doubt there will be anyone to do the background checks/safeguarding etc

*IncrediblySadToo

If people want children back to school in September then they need to push the R rate down so that it's snake belly low by then.

Don't ignore the guidelines & don't find ways to get around them

Don't go shopping for 'something to do'
Don't have friends around for BBQ's
Don't go to beauty spots
Don't let kids 'play out' unsupervised
Only use public transport if it's essential.

Wear face covering in public

WASH YOUR HANDS

If WE get the R rate etc down then schools should be able to go back in Sept without SC amongst the children & then set about making it as safe as possible for the school staff.

It's FAR more dependent on what WE do, than what the Govt says*

This by far the best thing you can do....

@Lalallama she's getting shut down as you put it, in part because the furloughed aren't slaves to be shifted into enforced employment

Ideas are great. Ideas that make sense are even better

@BlackWhitePurple
Not a fucking hope! I'm on furlough from a minimum wage clerical job working for an agency that I took after leaving teaching and working in schools and nurseries for years, including as a volunteer. Why on earth would I ever volunteer to go back into schools now? Been there, done that, no way ever again!

Here we go again.

This reminds me of the threads where OP wants all unemployed people to be made to work as HCAs.