How do teachers feel about schools being open in Sept?

[Meangallery]

So kid's education is to get priority, schools are to open in Sept and if infections rise the Government will close down everything else.

Will the Unions tolerate this? It feels like teachers will be on the frontline next year...

@CountessFrog

"Well I’m married to an ITU doctor, so I wouldnt say that.
But I also think there’s a lot of huge, huge drama. Your post is very dramatic and shouty. And patronising.
Seems anyone posting optimism or hope on MN, or even just a balanced view is shot down and told they must be wrong.
Which does suggest that a lot of people think this is total doomsday.
And I say that as somebody whose husband went to work without adequate PPE in the early days. On actual Covid wards for diseased people. In a hospital.
I coujd have run around the garden screaming that he was definitely going to die. Wouldn’t have helped much."

I totally agree with you. I just wish more people looked at facts and stopped ramping up the hysteria.

People seem to not be thinking about the idea that the kids can get ill too. My son (14, slim, no underlying health conditions) was extremely unwell and almost hospitalised due to dehydration and a very fast heartbeat. A totally healthy 9 yr old has died in US from Covid.
I’m a tutor and ex teacher. I work with many teens and firstly they are daft and think they are immortal so there is no way they will totally comply with the rules.
Secondly, even though I lay on the bed beside my son for hours each day ( he was so ill he was scared he was dying and wanted me to hold his hand) and I am an obese nearly 50 year old woman with mild rheumatoid arthritis, I was far, far less unwell than my son.

Also uni remember from my teaching days in new build classrooms, how cramped the conditions are and the poor lack of ventilation. Schools need to address these issues too.

Uni = I

They aren’t voicing the opinion of any of the staff at my school, that’s for sure.

The teachers in my school have been back since June and it was all fine, but the main worries around September are-:

Vulnerable staff returning (we had high numbers shielding).
Vulnerable children returning.
Full sized classes so no chance to socially distance.
Poor ventilation as the windows don’t open
We will barely be able to get outside like we did inJune/July as there’s hardly any outside space and ALL classes will be back
Children in rows all breathing forward....onto us.
Masks banned.
No funding for additional cleaning.
No funding for additional soap.
Bubbles of 90, including all teachers, support staff, visitors and volunteers.

I predict we’ll be closed by the end of September. If teachers over the age of 50 are told to shield-we will have insufficient staff! All the supply teachers we know were either shielding and not reforming to do supply yet, or late 50s.

DC education is important, I think there comes a point, where we all need to get on with life.
Covid-19 is here to stay, better get used to it.

For those claiming that they ‘won’t have time’ to wash hands between classrooms, can I ask what is this based on? Government mandate? Or just another obstacle that is easily overcome. It takes 20-30 seconds to effectively wash your hands. What is the furthest you will realistically be from a sink/hot water at any location in a school?
And is providing your own supply of hand sanitiser as a feasible option really so unreasonable?

‘No funding for additional soap’This is SERIOUSLY being cited as a reason to keep schools closed?

This means they don't have a covid secure workplace. In all other businesses the company would have to provide it, and time.

It takes 20-30 seconds to wash hands but maybe 2mins to get to bathroom, 2mins back - because teachers can only use staff toilets presumably - and in that time, who knows what the kids are doing?

I think some parents have never been in a school!

And I would say no funding for extra soap shows how little the government cares about keeping schools open.

@Dominicgoings

‘No funding for additional soap’This is SERIOUSLY being cited as a reason to keep schools closed?

Are you a teacher, @Dominicgoings?

@Dominicgoings

In the last school I worked in, which took roughly 6 mins to walk end to end at lesson changeover, there were 2 sets of staff toilets. One set at the staff room, the other set at one end of the school. I worked on an English corridor, in the wing of the school without staff toilets. The nearest sinks
were in science, 3 mins there and back. Approx 50-60 staff would be looking to use 2 sinks. 8 if we used the ones in classrooms.

Now you tell me how practical that would have been to hand wash between every lesson?

Do you have any clinically vulnerable staff or children at your school, Trinity?

What is being done by the school to ensure they are kept safe in September? Are you not even slightly concerned for them at all?

The comparisons between what has happened in schools between March and July and what will happen is September doesn't work. They are two totally different situations in most schools.

Very few schools, if following the government guidelines, had full classes of ALL children and ALL staff full time with no social distancing, no protection, etc. If they did then they mist have huge rooms, no clinically vulnerable staff and children, etc or not have been following government guidelines properly.

What is the furthest you will realistically be from a sink/hot water at any location in a school?

Just a couple of minutes there and back, plus hand washing and drying equals nearly 5 minutes. If it's free and you don't have to wait for the other stuff to use it first.

Who is looking after the children in the mean time?

I work in primary and we have staff and class movements due to PPA etc. We have 4 staff toilets for all adults.

@Dominicgoings are you kindly going to provide soap/hand sanitizers for all schools, because it quickly adds up, and no way should teachers be expected to pay for it.

@Dominicgoings Genuine issue in two of our classrooms is getting to the sinks! Since we’ve had to face all children forwards, we’ve had to add in 50% extra desks (used to have three to a desk - Victorian primary) and in two rooms this means that sinks are now inaccessible in order for all FF children to see the board.

It’s fine, we’re getting portable sinks just outside the affected rooms to address this, but it’s not cheap. Would have been nice to have the option to claim something back for this.

@Aragog I cannot urinate at all on a Monday next year! I’m in the only upstairs room, not allowed to leave the children unsupervised while I go downstairs and to the other end of the school to use the only staff toilet. Bubble system now means that we’re with the children for all breaks and lunchtimes, and on a Monday I don’t have the luxury of TA support to split shifts for breaks.

Doable but thank goodness I’m not pregnant this year!

Petrified. Paltry safety measures which will be ineffective despite being very common ('bubbles' in year groups, attempted staggered start,teacher distancing in classrooms). Absolutely petrified. DH and I are both overweight teachers (well I'm technically obese) nearing 50....

@labyrinthloafer

And I would say no funding for extra soap shows how little the government cares about keeping schools open.

Yup.

I know, it's madness isn't it?
The bubbles only work if there are two adults permanently attached to the classes. We were able to do this last term as we had enough staff to cover the bubbles - we had 7 (sometimes) 8 bubbles rather than 9 full classes. Our trainee teacher kindly agreed to stay on after her time finished with us and we have one permanent volunteer who did so too which made this possible. It meant all adults could get a coffee and toilet break and a bit of time for lunch.
Come September this won't be possible every day all day.

I do PPA cover all day every day across all classes and rarely have another adult in the room with me. I'm hoping I'll be lucky enough to get a bit of time over lunch.

I should also add that some of this is unpaid time as, although a teacher I'm employed as a hlta, so I am paid hourly and I have 45 minutes unpaid lunch and mid morning break as part of my contract. This will be the same issue for all the TAs. We will lose much of this time but it will remain unpaid.

Teaching staff already find a lot of stuff in schools from their own pockets. It looks like extra cleaning materials and soap will be yet another thing they'll end up paying for ourselves and the class, just like the boxes of tissues we all already buy for our rooms.

Yep. Petrified. DH and I are both teachers and we have updated our wills and life insurance. Just in case.

@Dominicgoings

For those claiming that they ‘won’t have time’ to wash hands between classrooms, can I ask what is this based on? Government mandate? Or just another obstacle that is easily overcome. It takes 20-30 seconds to effectively wash your hands. What is the furthest you will realistically be from a sink/hot water at any location in a school? And is providing your own supply of hand sanitiser as a feasible option really so unreasonable?

I'm envious of the posters who are only two minutes away. With a clear run I might be three minutes, but a corridor at changeover is an obstacle course of students - hundreds of them - all in theory moving in the same direction (thanks to one way system) but obviously with 30 stopped at each door waiting to go in. Even more will be waiting if their teachers have all gone to wash their hands! It's more like trying to get to the loo at half time in a football match.

Dominicgoings you can fuck right off.

Secondary schools are the size of small towns. Hardly any sinks and millions of kids.

And not o lay do we have to work in this, we have to pay for the privilege of working there by buying sanitiser.

Winter is going to be carnage whichever way anyone looks at it.
I'm dreading it.
Agree with pp about teens. My youngest has been brilliant with her hand-washing etc the elder one
.. Not so much. Teens can be very inward looking, they do feel invincible and at odds with being told what to do. Even the most sensible ones may not fully understand some aspects as indeed many adults don't.
Eg boasting of wearing masks when they are disposable, being reused and touched all the time!!