School won’t open despite new 10 day self isolation rules

[WinstonmissesXmas]

Just that, really! AIBU to expect school to reopen on Monday now that children who should have been isolating until the latter part of the week no longer have to? The school my friend’s children attend announced they would reopen Monday (similar situation) and yet ours sent out a message saying they won’t be open Monday. They also said the kids should continue to isolate. All the kids will have been isolating for over ten days as of tomorrow so they should be allowed back, shouldn’t they?

The timing of this announcement and lack of coordination with the DfE is a nightmare for schools. I know a school that were expecting 3 year groups (over 500 kids) to be isolating for all of next week. That’s over half the school. Their caterers will have cancelled orders. The HT must be having a nightmare of a weekend now trying to scramble together to see if they can have them back and feed them on Tuesday.

A week ago my school would have been in an identical position. It’s just not good enough. They need to stop making sweeping changes to policy on Friday evenings and need to make sure they have coordinated across government departments to make sure they are all ready to issue updated guidance when the announcement goes out. None of this is the fault of headteachers. There seems to be no appreciation of how far in advance things are usually planned in schools.

Being a headteacher is an absolute nightmare at the moment. No one understands how schools work or how damaging late policy announcements are. Then the public just blame the schools.

What the last two posters said. In spades.

Our school (primary) is still quoting 14.

Your teacher friends should also have been able to tell you that teachers and TAs aren’t really in bubbles. They are permitted to cross bubbles, and in many cases have to cross bubbles in order for the school to function. I genuinely don’t see how my school could safely operate, let alone provide an adequate education if adults crossing bubbles and collaborating in person when needed didn’t happen. The head isn’t allowed to force staff into masks, thankfully the government haven’t gone quite that crazy.

Can they not collaborate and communicate with other bubbles via Skype, phone, or by standing 2m apart in masks?

How do you think we manage on NHS wards? We’re all in masks (forced by the government) yet still manage to function and communicate effectively and safely, including core training and supervision.

Our school is closed completely but before they closed they had been advised to extent the isolation periods by a few days so we were isolating for 17 days until they closed.

"That must be very annoying! I thought household mixing is banned? I don’t know how they’re getting away with play dates and parties, visiting family etc."

I think people are getting away with ignoring a lot of the Covid rules because how the hell can they be enforced? Where I live you'd hardly know there was a pandemic, even though we are tier 3. Yes, some poor buggers can't open their businesses, but on the street there are people in close proximity, loads of masks below noses. Families are mixing in parks. The local market was allowed to go ahead with "distancing", which of course they couldn't enforce and was ignored. And in the midst of this are our schools, trying desperately to make sure the children feel safe and continue to be educated. They are trying to "fill the gaps" for those who did no work when the schools were closed. They are trying to juggle work for those in the classroom and work for those who are isolating at home. It's a nightmare and they need some support from the parents.

They are trying to "fill the gaps" for those who did no work when the schools were closed. They are trying to juggle work for those in the classroom and work for those who are isolating at home. It's a nightmare and they need some support from the parents

I think most parents are giving as much support as they can. We are home schooling whilst simultaneously trying to work from home or retain our jobs in the event of sudden school closures! Sometimes I feel like teachers forget a child’s parents might work full time.

I don’t know any families around here who are not observing lockdown rules.

Guessing some areas might be different.

@HikeForward and can you see why teachers are furious at constantly being blamed when parents are constantly wanging on at us about keeping schools open and then merrily mixing bubbles outside. We can’t bloody win .

@HikeForward teachers aren’t in bubbles in our school. We all teach different year groups so it would be impossible and that’s the same at most secondaries. We wear masks in corridors and do meetings over Teams. However when you are on a free period you have to work somewhere and there just aren’t free spaces (we are an overcrowded school!) so you work in your faculty office and there may well be other people doing the same. These are small and cramped and ours has no windows. People are going home when possible but you can’t do this when you’ve just had a lesson and have one next. This led to me having to isolate because another teacher with a desk near mine tested positive.
Also the classrooms aren’t big enough for us to stay 2m away from the students in the front row, so if a student tests positive who sits there then the teacher has to isolate. So a student getting it could lead to no or many teachers having to isolate depending on their classes. When you combine this with teachers getting coughs etc and having to wait for test results, we have had a lot of issues with staff being off.

I don’t think we forget that @HikeForward. Most of us are having to do the same for our own children! It’s just we can’t work miracles.
I teach 6th form mostly. Some students handled lockdown well and have completed all the work, some did absolutely nothing - for a variety of reasons, which I was very understanding of. I can’t magically find the time to fill those gaps. I am already giving up hours of my own time every week for intervention classes. It just rankles when people seem to think we should be doing more and we just don’t have the resources or time to do more. I have never worked so hard in 15 years of teaching. I am knackered and emotionally drained- we care about our students and it is hard to see them struggling, at least 3 of mine have been actively suicidal. Work is quite frankly shit right now

And yes I do know it’s shit for other people too! So many people are having a rubbish time right now.

OP here. Thanks for all the different points of view. I do appreciate it’s tricky. However, why are some schools NOT waiting for the supposed DfE confirmation on Monday (even though the rules are clear as it is 🙄)? Why are some children allowed to access education on Monday and others not? What gives the SLT at this school the right to ignore the legislation when other schools are following it?

It not just that the DfE haven’t confirmed. They are telling schools that contact then not to act yet. I presume the schools that have changed already did it without checking. It’s hardly too much to ask for the government to tell relevant departments about changes like this. If they’d just done that then guidance for schools would have been ready when they made the fucking announcement.
The lengths that people will go to excuse this level of incompetence is baffling to me. The DfE is part of the government, Matt Hancock and Gavin Williamson sit in cabinet together, I’m sure they also have each other on WhatsApp. How hard is it to let the education secretary know before you shorten the isolation period by 4 days, 4 working days before schools are allowed to start their holidays?
Why on earth would people be blaming individual HTs who do not sit in cabinet and do not have the PM and Health Secretary on speed-dial, for not acting yet when the DfE say they don’t know what’s going on.

Can they not collaborate and communicate with other bubbles via Skype, phone, or by standing 2m apart in masks? How do you think we manage on NHS wards? We’re all in masks (forced by the government) yet still manage to function and communicate effectively and safely, including core training and supervision.

I honestly have no idea how people manage on nhs wards. Clearly it isn’t easy to completely prevent transmission in hospitals or it wouldn’t spread in them, but it does.

I can only speak for my own primary school but I know our situation is normal, and no, we couldn’t only collaborate over technology. There aren’t enough adults available for children to have a full time education if some staff members can’t work in more than one classroom. There are not enough hours in the day for staff members to all eat lunch in the only room available without occasionally being less than two meters apart.

RaspberryCoulis

Nothing to do with me I am more than happy for your posts to stand.

MorelloKisses

This isn’t a contradiction! It’s the entire point:

Unless maths has changed, its a contradiction

it won’t catch any more people, statistically.

Still not true. even if its rare, statistically the number is still above zero.

Madame - I agree with you that the gov is a shambles. However, the new rules are the rules, regardless of who tells you to follow them and when. If they’re government rules, do schools really need an additional body to tell them the same thing a few days later? I’m sure if it had been the other way round, closing rather than reopening, many more heads would have been happy to act before receiving further advice 😬

I’m sorry but that’s just total nonsense. A HT who saw the news and then called the DfE to ask for guidance and is then told not to contact parents yet has done all of the right things. The people who have fucked up are the government. The DfE are not an additional body... they are the government, the same body and the ones responsible for knowing what the fuck to do. If schools shouldn’t need anyone else to tell them what to do then neither should the DfE. When HTs called them yesterday, surely it would have been easy for them to just say “yes, isolation times are changing next week. Please just follow those and contact parents”. What possible excuse is there for them not being able to do that?
You’re also bonkers if you think HTs are desperate for self isolation to be extended. A shorter isolation would mean 20% of our teaching staff who are meant to be isolating next week wouldn’t need to. Our financial situation is dire and like many schools have a contract with a private catering company that requires us to compensate them for a portion of their losses if the school is closed or partially closed and they are unable to trade. The cost of supply is crippling at the minute and we are paying for people to just babysit classes whilst teachers who are isolating but not ill actually teach the class remotely.

@WinstonmissesXmas

Madame - I agree with you that the gov is a shambles. However, the new rules are the rules, regardless of who tells you to follow them and when. If they’re government rules, do schools really need an additional body to tell them the same thing a few days later? I’m sure if it had been the other way round, closing rather than reopening, many more heads would have been happy to act before receiving further advice 😬

Heads weren’t ‘happy to act before receiving further advice’ in March - they were told of the ‘plans’ at exactly the same time as everyone else sand then had heaps of guidance to plough through.

The government has different rules for different but similar situations - you have to wear a mask in enclosed indoor settings for example, but guidance prevents this in the enclosed indoor space labelled as a classroom. The change in isolation timing was issued after schools closed on Friday, head teachers are not all clones and so there will be different responses, some immediate, others waiting for the fine detail - they’re probably sick of planning one thing only for it to be swept away moments before implementation.

Your last comment is goading and a smiley face doesn’t make it pleasant.

That’s not quite what happened in our case Madame. Despite all parents being able to read and interpret the new rules ourselves, we were sent a message to say that the children can’t go back and should continue to self isolate. That’s simply not true any longer! So we have half the school not going to school on Monday even though they’re allowed out within the community from tomorrow. No head needed to wait for a separate communication from the DfE.
They could have used their common sense, thought of the children and opened the school up fully.

"No head needed to wait for a separate communication from the DfE.
They could have used their common sense, thought of the children and opened the school up fully."

It. doesn't. work. that. way.

purple but it clearly does for some schools locally (and nationally, based on some of the responses here). Why is child A at one school able to attend school on Monday and child B at another down the road not? The head at one has decided to use their common sense and open. The head at the other hasn’t. And it’s the children who miss out again.

Right, you’re clearly not listening. People have told you repeatedly that general guidance doesn’t apply in school settings. The guidance that schools have to follow has not been updated yet. When HTs have contacted the Department in charge of schools they have been told that the guidance issued last night does not apply in schools. That’s the government telling schools not to tell kids to come back yet. I think this is the last time I’m going to bother saying the same thing over again for you to ignore and suggest that this is the fault of HTs. A shorter SI period would solve a lot of problems for my school next week. We aren’t reluctant to comply, but it hasn’t actually been changed for schools yet. No doubt it will be another last second bit of guidance that we have to scramble to implement.

@WinstonmissesXmas

purple but it clearly does for some schools locally (and nationally, based on some of the responses here). Why is child A at one school able to attend school on Monday and child B at another down the road not? The head at one has decided to use their common sense and open. The head at the other hasn’t. And it’s the children who miss out again.

You say common sense, but actually they're going against the current guidelines.

The headteachers and schools who are waiting for the updated guidance are correct to do so.