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?

Schools aren't allowed to use common sense, if they do they get threatened with cuts etc! This is Christmas week in school anyway so unlikely to be missing out on all that much learning (though some of course) even if they have been off. Children simply don't seem to have the same ability to concentrate at this time of year!

A lot of this just sounds like typical teacher/HT bashing.

We really are doing the best we can.

And we have children in other schools, too, and understand that their staffs, too, are doing the best they can.

FFS.

I agree it’s unreasonable to complain if they’ve already started the 14 days quarantine for many reasons it may not be able to be altered at short notice. I wouldn’t expect any notified next week to do 14 days but it’s irrelevant to the school issue as it will be the holidays anyway

Head teachers are being told NOT to make any changes to isolation by both the DfE and the public health people.
SLTs are the ones doing the job for track and trace or whatever they're calling themselves now. Not the people we've paid billions to do it.
In most secondary schools i know of it is impossible to maintain the 2 metre rule. I'm lucky that our school has chosen to wear masks in classrooms. But even that is not enough as we can't control what happens on the trip to and from school.
Your anger is being directed in completely the wrong place! It is the government at fault not HTs who are trying to their best for everyone despite repeatedly getting changes to guidance after 4pm on Friday.
There was already a recruitment crisis in senior leadership in schools. They way the DfE have treated schools recently mean it will get a LOT worse!

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

We manage because we have to.
We have very strict rules, enforced by our matrons and ward managers, that require staff to be 2m apart, masked and stick to a set no of people per room.
We take a lunchbreak when we can grab one, sometimes we eat in our cars if there’s no space in the staff room or offices!
Staff are split into teams and yes it is hard. Patients are restricted too eg have to be isolated and swabbed on admission, then once they’re negative they can mingle within their ward, but only so many can use the dining area or lounge at once, so everything has to be staggered. No relatives or visitors or leave.

Most hospitals have a ‘covid budget’ for extra staff, extra furniture for social distancing, laptops to enable staff to write notes at home. Do schools not have this?

I thought all primary classes have a teacher and a TA? Isn’t that a ‘bubble’? Why do staff bubbles need to mix? Can lesson planning and things not be done online?

@HikeForward

*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*

We manage because we have to.
We have very strict rules, enforced by our matrons and ward managers, that require staff to be 2m apart, masked and stick to a set no of people per room.
We take a lunchbreak when we can grab one, sometimes we eat in our cars if there’s no space in the staff room or offices!
Staff are split into teams and yes it is hard. Patients are restricted too eg have to be isolated and swabbed on admission, then once they’re negative they can mingle within their ward, but only so many can use the dining area or lounge at once, so everything has to be staggered. No relatives or visitors or leave.

Most hospitals have a ‘covid budget’ for extra staff, extra furniture for social distancing, laptops to enable staff to write notes at home. Do schools not have this?

I thought all primary classes have a teacher and a TA? Isn’t that a ‘bubble’? Why do staff bubbles need to mix? Can lesson planning and things not be done online?

No. There is £0 extra budget for schools related to covid.

Teachers can't "grab a lunch break" because other people need to be with their class. These people are not part of their bubble.

Pupils aren't swabbed on arrival. They have to mix with other people. We just have to cross our fingers.

Also, no, all primary classes don't have a teacher and a TA. Many only have a teacher.

Not saying it's harder than working on a ward. It's just different.

Not saying it's harder than working on a ward. It's just different

Yes very different. I don’t understand how schools will manage long term if new infection control rules aren’t introduced?

Hopefully the government will bring in daily temperature testing for children and lateral flow tests/regular covid swabs/vaccines for staff. And the tech, extra staff and extra space teaching staff need eg extra mobile pods for lunch breaks (our hospital has just installed extra mobile pods for changing and laundering scrubs, I don’t see why they can’t provide the same for teachers to eat and work in?)

If teachers and TAs from all year groups have to teach different classes, having bubbles for the children doesn’t make sense?

I've never had a class TA and I've been a teacher for donkeys years! Funny the incorrect assumptions people make.

The government initially said that they will not provide any funding to schools for covid costs, including cleaning costs. This situation hasn't improved. They won't even provide money for supply teachers if staff have had to self-isolate.

@purplewaterfall

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.

This, in its entirety.

@HikeForward

Not saying it's harder than working on a ward. It's just different

Yes very different. I don’t understand how schools will manage long term if new infection control rules aren’t introduced?

Hopefully the government will bring in daily temperature testing for children and lateral flow tests/regular covid swabs/vaccines for staff. And the tech, extra staff and extra space teaching staff need eg extra mobile pods for lunch breaks (our hospital has just installed extra mobile pods for changing and laundering scrubs, I don’t see why they can’t provide the same for teachers to eat and work in?)

If teachers and TAs from all year groups have to teach different classes, having bubbles for the children doesn’t make sense?

No, it doesn’t make sense, you’re right there. But we don’t make the rules. I work across at least three ‘bubbles’ every week and when one of them has to isolate, I am only asked to isolate in if it’s the bubble I spend the most time in.

Most hospitals have a ‘covid budget’ for extra staff, extra furniture for social distancing, laptops to enable staff to write notes at home. Do schools not have this?

Where have you been for the last six months @HikeForward? There is no extra money in schools to cope with this pandemic. Why do you think schools staff are complaining?

And we have two TAs for a school of 1200 pupils!

I think only primary schools have TAs in any number. They did use to share between classes but seem to be more or less fixed since covid

We have loads of part-time staff, many of whom provide PPA cover or are TAs in different classes according to absences. They bubble-hop constantly. They're not happy about it, but needs must.

Where have you been for the last six months @HikeForward? There is no extra money in schools to cope with this pandemic

On an acute medical ward, working flat out. I haven’t been inside a school since pre-covid (and only for parents evenings).

I’m horrified the government’s not giving funding to schools to cope with the pandemic. If schools keep closing more people will lose their jobs, the economy will deteriorate further... how can they not see how essential it is to provide teachers and students with adequate space, funding and rules to reduce transmission?

Absolutely no extra money for schools no. So no hope of pods. All a bit pointless for schools like mine. We share transport with 4 other schools so they all mix anyway.

@HikeForward they don't care. Because everyone will blames schools not them.

@HikeForward you clearly don’t have one iota of a clue how schools work and that’s fair enough. I don’t expect you to. I don’t know how hospitals work except from observing as a patient. But then I don’t come on MN and make daft observations and sweeping generalisations about something I know sweep FA about.

People will read your posts and then not read on and then think, “yes why aren’t schools doing more”. Not understanding that we don’t have one extra penny, one bit of PPE, no extra staff; no extra time, no extra support and much of the time not even basic support from our parents.

Please don’t come onto a thread blaming teachers for spreading Covid and just making our lives harder when you have no idea.

Thank you.

We just got told today DS (y9) isolation is being cut to 10 days and he's back in on Monday. Head said they just heard from Trust/LA today.

@TheRuleofStix

My head is spinning at the moment from the amount of parents posting on social media that we should open shouldn’t open should open shouldn’t open! As usual we can’t do right for doing wrong. As usual the government has thrown us under a bus. As usual we can never please everyone: I expect your Head has had enough. Like all of us tbh.

This. Oh so much.

People will read your posts and then not read on and then think, “yes why aren’t schools doing more”. Not understanding that we don’t have one extra penny, one bit of PPE, no extra staff; no extra time, no extra support and much of the time not even basic support from our parents.

Sorry for my ignorance. But don’t worry, I doubt my initial assumptions will affect others. The parents at DD’s school had already drawn the same conclusions as I had, if the school FB and WhatsApp is anything to go by. Schools give out limited information. Parents get upset when a school closes suddenly, as they have to tell their employer they can’t work (and many lose income or even their job). Many parents don’t understand why teachers are crossing bubbles and attending meetings face to face. Especially if their own workplace is very hot on infection control. So they think schools are being careless.

Please remember most people who don’t work in a school know very little about school funding, lack of covid budget, lack of space, lack of infection control, lack of government support. Schools don’t publish this, they just send you a text at 2pm saying ‘please collect your child immediately due to an outbreak of covid’ then close the school for a couple of weeks leaving all working parents stranded!

Two of my teacher friends from school then phoned me to moan about how they’d been exposed thanks to a meeting they’d attended with the head. They didn’t mention anything about budgets but then I didn’t ask.

Schools are saying this repeatedly. But the Rod Liddle and the rest of the press accuse us of whining. Schools are not giving you limited info we are giving you all we can. We don't get extra info nor do we find out before you do.
Teachers on here have been saying the 2m thing is impossible since it was introduced. I don't think teachers have said anything else since this began!
This is not our fault. The DfE are still giving contradictory guidance on the 10/14 issue depending on who you speak to when you call.
It is a total shambles. But NOT because of schools.
The real question is why is the press ignoring this and more importantly the corruption of paying millions to a friend of the cabinet for a job that they then just add on to the responsibility of heads (whether in school or not) with NO extra funding.
The government have made no secret of there being no extra money for COVID for schools. We will see many schools fo bankrupt as a result before the end of this year.

Exactly @GrammarTeacher, we’ve tried to speak out but just get accused of moaning. There was a post on here on another thread only yesterday accusing teachers of “moaning and moaning and moaning”.

So we give up. We carry on and we do our best. And we are slowly beaten down by the endless vitriol spewed our way by parents and the general public who all think they’re an expert on education because they attended school as a child .