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?

The OP wants to replace qualified teachers with hairdressers and sports coaches? I can't have read that right.

My hairdresser is qualified to do highlights but teach A Level maths? Not so much.

I never suggested furloughed workers should be forced to do this. Simply that they could volunteer and be rewarded by extra furlough pay.

Where I live we must have an abundance of community halls because I can easily think of several within walking distance of DCs school.

And, once again, I have never suggested that people be brought in to replace teachers. But my TA friends who work in Reception or up to about Year 3 tell me they spend a lot of time doing photocopying, cutting out shapes, laminating pictures to create displays etc. I'm suggesting volunteers could do those things and free up the TAs to help the teacher cover a split class.

Obviously this wouldn't work for secondary schools.

I don't think OP, or anyone else has said hairdressers should replace teachers or that furloughed people should be forced to do anything, but just imagine a world where people actually want to find solutions, some furloughed peope want something to do and there are self employed people with experience of working with children, often in schools, who aren't able to work atm.

Great idea! Lots of routine operations have also been cancelled because of Covid. Could furloughed workers do some of them? Hairdressers would probably have the transferable skills.

@BlackWhitePurple, I keep posting a variation of this sentiment :

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

Does that not seem ridiculous to you?

That and there won't be sufficient staff to process dbs checks... Because irony or irony, they're furloughed

@Pollypocket89 I don't understand what you're getting at. They would be volunteering to do this. By and large they'd probably be people with an association with the school - parents of current or past pupils, or indeed past pupils themselves (eg I've a friend whose daughter just graduated. She can't get a job as her industry has been affected by Covid. She'd be delighted to go back to her old primary school a couple of days a week and lend a hand.)

Look how many people volunteered to help the NHS a few months ago.

Nobody would have to do anything they didn't want to.

Personally, I think the best solution is as has been suggested above - spend the summer getting the number of cases really low, properly implement Track and Trace, and give up on social distancing in schools. But if that doesn't happen, we need to look at other options.

I believe at least one academy chain (Oasis Trust maybe) has said they're looking into using other buildings in addition to school premises.

So you're saying put older groups in community halls, we live in a large city with two football grounds and even those spaces could only have enough space for a year group in each plus staff to cover that. We have 250 students in each year. I think if the government provided proper risk assessments, funding and ppe more schools could open...but they're not bothered about state education and haven't been for years. Covid has just made others aware of it.

No.

Background checks are a ball ache and can take forever.

Also, the fundamental question - why should they?!

But my TA friends who work in Reception or up to about Year 3 tell me they spend a lot of time doing photocopying, cutting out shapes, laminating pictures to create displays etcBut my TA friends who work in Reception or up to about Year 3 tell me they spend a lot of time doing photocopying, cutting out shapes, laminating pictures to create displays etc

It probably feels like they do spend a lot of time doing that because it's boring.

Most of their time is spent teaching/supporting children.

Photocopying and laminating is a small part of their job that takes about 10 mins of the day. Laminating might be done at the start of a new topic half termly.

It feels like i spend a lot of time photocopying and laminating because I dont have a TA but it's not the main part of my job!

And as for teachers wearing PPA. I don't have any. We've been told we can't wear it around the children.

I believe at least one academy chain (Oasis Trust maybe) has said they're looking into using other buildings in addition to school premises.

You still need the staff. We are only able to open to a maximum of half the school under current measures because of space and staffing. We don't have any other buildings in our local area that people could use and even if we did, there are several primary schools all of whom need twice the number of rooms that their schools currently have. There's not the room for that.

In my own locality, we could probably meet the additional room need of one school.

Just because schools are looking into it doesn't mean its feasible or achievable. They just have to show that they ae considering alternatives.

The reality is that there are 1000s of supply teachers who are currently out of work. There's no need to start recruiting furloughed hairdressers. But schools don't want to use them currently due to the risk of cross infection and the fact children don't know them and they don't know the children or the schools. Maybe by september this will change but, at the moment, it's not happening.

Oh and there's no room for them.

I suggested on another thread that we may as well abandon social distancing in schools once they reopened them because parents won't follow it outside school. I have 8 children in my bubble (only half the school have elected to return) and they think social distancing in school is quite amusing given that, once their parents knew they'd be in a bubble together, they've met for play dates, been to each others houses and had sleepovers...

I agree, abandon the idea of social distancing in schools.

. But my TA friends who work in Reception or up to about Year 3 tell me they spend a lot of time doing photocopying, cutting out shapes, laminating pictures to create displays etc.

Working currently as a HLTA I do less photocopying etc than I did when I was working as a teacher.

Serious at my school it's the room space not the staffing. We have 9 classrooms that can fit 10 children in at a time under present guidelines. Even if we push it to 15, we need an additional 9 rooms.
Next door is a junior school which would need double the space. Within half a mile there are other schools - primary and secondary that would need double the space.

From what I remember there are two smallish church halls locally. The third type of hall is used as a nursery during the day so not available.

I agree, abandon the idea of social distancing in schools.

There is very little social distancing on primary, especially infants, right now. The children are sat spaced out to allow staff to get round them so the adults can distance, but the children are playing together, etc.

The bubbles are to reduce contact and overall risk, particularly for the adult, not socially distance the youngest.

It's the adults we need to consider really, if we follow the idea that children generally aren't as ill with it.

Once we increase the numbers of children we increase the number of adult contact, especially at primary level where parents need to do drop offs and collections, and have far more physical contact with school.

At the moment with bubbles we can limit the number of parents at those times. The parents are spaced out and distanced from one another in the playground. We don't have to mess too much with staggered starts and finishes. That's because we have around 60+ children coming in in any one day.

Once we up that to the 271 we normally have that's a totally different scenario in the playground.

If we scrap social distancing in school we scrap it for all the parents bring them too.

I believe at least one academy chain (Oasis Trust maybe) has said they're looking into using other buildings in addition to school premises.

Most schools are considering extra spaces, but that’s not an easy solution either.

Firstly there’s costs. Schools don’t have budgets to be hiring church halls or conference centres

Secondly very few places have only one school. So, even where there is two community centres, for example, it’s not just as easy to say “we’ll have that” when two other primary schools and a high school also want it. That’s why portakabins aren’t the saviour some people think they are; they’re simply isn’t enough portakabin classrooms to stick five or six in every school.

Then there are logistics if you do use outside spaces. How will the kids of that year group get to the other space? How will collections and drop offs be staggered to allow parents to go to two or three different schools sites?

I’m a teacher and don’t understand why the OP is getting such a hard time!

This sneering attitude of ‘you clearly don’t work in a school’ gives us all a bad name! It’s not a perfect solution but getting children in with some extra supervision and being overseen by the teacher is better for most pupils than months more at home! This nonsense about children catching up drives me mad! How will they catch up? Some children have done lots at home and are progressing mostly on track -others have done little or nothing. It’s the same people laughing at the OP who are proudly announcing they are doing no work at home to look after their child’s emotional wellbeing, completely overlooking how traumatic it’ll be for a child to come back and realise others have worked and have moved on. Those parents will then be the first ones to complain at the school!

Oh my! I'd just love to see Suzie The Hairdresser trying to negotiate a community hall full of our Year 6 kids 'behaving beautifully' 😂😂😂😂😂 (that is SO NOT going to happen 😱).

Have you ever seen a year 6 teacher in action OP? Or in fact ANY teacher? The monumental plate spinning required to keep every child on task is beyond breathtaking!

'Suzie' would be carted off rocking in a straight jacket by lunchtime on day 1...I guarantee 👍

Bless you 🥰

Whilst I get where your critics are coming from, in terms of the actual plan, OP. I love the fact that you're thinking outside the box and trying to come up with a workable solution to the mess. Maybe every person who's given the OP a hard time on here could come up with a "daft" solution to the problem and then maybe amongst all the "daft" solutions we could find something workable..... not ideal but workable as a quick fix.

For what it's worth I think that by September we'll have pretty much abandoned social distances within classes but will be sealing off each class (no assemblies, shared play, visiting teachers and starting/leaving school to be) so that if a case is identified then the whole class will isolate for two weeks but only that class (unless there are siblings.... that's the fly in the ointment!!)

If there's any part time schooling or children shielding so still at home, a staff member(or more than one) would be allocated to home learning. They would upload the same work as children do at school onto a learning platform, deliver weekly packs of resources needed for every lesson and then teachers would record their main input or do a live lesson so children could participate fully from home.

I suppose tech savvy furloughed workers could volunteer to be home-school support workers if schools struggled to staff it.

stuckindoors - surely the seeing of classes would only work for primary. In secondary, especially after options, it would be impossible.

I'm wondering how people come up with solution to any difficulties ever. Of course some initial ideas will turn out to be non starters but it is really important that people still have them, in all walks of life. Often a workable idea can come out of a crazy one. E.g all furloughed staff won't be suitable, some won't be willing or able, most won't be able to teach but there will be some who an contribute something valuable to help children have better provision. What we've got now isn't working, how can it be a bad thing for people like OP to throw a few ideas out?

It's particularly distressing that some teachers are so dismissive of original ideas IMO. How can the old way, that teachers continually tell us isn't fit for purpose, be the only way?

It's the practicalities like the fact that it takes weeks for a DBS check that people seem oblivious to

How can the old way, that teachers continually tell us isn't fit for purpose, be the only way?

Because it's the only way to do things with what we've got. Teachers have been crying out for funding and various changes for YEARS. All that has happened is that funding has been cut and cut again, to the bone. There is a shortage of teachers and TAs because of the rotten way education has been treated and schools have begged for things to change. Now we are in a CRAPPY situation and schools are being told it's their fault they don't have the money, staff, equipment, buildings that aren't crumbling down... Can you not see how distressing that is?