To wonder how schools can realistically reopen when there is still a killer virus about with no vaccine?

[JustCantShakeIt]

I’m not talking about them reopening now, in May or June or even September.

Who is prepared to send their DC into a school with hundreds of other DC, where social distancing and keeping a germ free environment is literally impossible, even with the best wills in the world, when there is a life threatening disease floating about which is highly transmittable and you have no guarantee it won’t make your DC severely ill or die.

Social distancing just between parents will be impossible at my DC’s school of over 500 where we all have to wait outside the main gates at pick up time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m desperate for schools to reopen before my DC turn completely feral, but I don’t see how that can happen until we have a vaccine. We’re being told to stay home and keep our distance now due to the risk, the risk will be the same next month or in 5 months won’t it?

I also don't quite understand where the idea that teachers aren't working at the moment comes from.
I have planned next week's work, which is by necessity very different from what it would have been in the classroom, although it covers the same curriculum as far as possible to avoid huge curriculum 'holes' on return to (primary) school.
I have created specific resources for it.
I have uploaded it to the relevant places.
I will mark the work that is produced (my aim is to turn it round very quickly, because that's a key way of giving guidance and feedback).
I will spend many hours per day next week supporting both pupils and parents when they have any issues, while marking, planning the following week, following up 'absent' children, vulnerable children and children with parents who are ill.
And repeat.

But no, I'm not working. Not at all.

For the remainder, unwilling to go to work - you should be ashamed of yourselves
Again. You have imagined these people.

Government? I call on you to recruit volunteer teachers. Just like the NHS. Will we be comprable? Hell no. But will we try our damndest to fill the gaps? Hell yes!
Your rhetoric is wearing.

I'll ask again.

Who has said they are unwilling to work?

Just because you keep repeating the same lines, doesn't make it true.

...And education finally becomes childcare.
Actually I refuse to be told that wanting adequate risk assessments and a protocol in place to keep everyone as safe as possible is a poor attitude, and a gung-ho, let's fire folk in there willy nilly without precaution and hope for the best is a good one.
Does that work on building sites? In the military? Do doctors operate with that attitude? I don't bloody think so.

For the remainder, unwilling to go to work - you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Where are these fit healthy and unwilling teachers? Certainly none of the ones that I know!

Government? I call on you to recruit volunteer teachers. Just like the NHS. Will we be comprable? Hell no. But will we try our damndest to fill the gaps? Hell yes!

This remains the most ridiculous idea on this thread.

Actually I refuse to be told that wanting adequate risk assessments and a protocol in place to keep everyone as safe as possible is a poor attitude

Absolutely. It is actually because teachers DO care - both for the children they teach AND the communities they serve - that they have such a clear two-fold message:

'Yes, I will go into school and teach BUT FOR THE SAKE OF MY PUPILS AND COMMUNITY I want to see evidence that someone has worked out what the risks are, and explained how they will be mitigated."

I think the idea that volunteers should be recruited to ensure that pupils wash correctly is excellent. Just the sort of thing that unskilled volunteers should be used for.
If there are no teachers who are unwilling to go back to work at schools? Great! My apologies for reading incorrectly on the thread. I suppose that's why you're all teachers and i'm the unskilled, huh!?
As for education = childcare - I've always thought that this is bogus. But - I understand the importance of childcare in enabling the skilled to get back to work. Again, this is something I'm scarcely qualified for. Yet again, it's something I (as an unemployed person, and likely similar to the 3/4 of a million unemployed people willing to help the NHS) am willing to help with.

Have faith in your unemployed, UK. We're here for you.

Do you know what other role where the pay is shite for? NURSING.
They're fecking CRACKING ON though, most for much less pay. And almost none from home!

This is not a competition between NHS staff and teachers. Since you don’t seem to work for either, why are you trying to make it one, tasty?

As a teacher, when I read parts of this this thread and comments on some news articles I feel so depressed. Deleted my longer reply because I really think, what’s the point trying to explain to people what teachers are doing right now and in normal times.

I personally will be sending mine back the first day I get the green light to do it, be that next Monday or next September.

This is not a competition between NHS staff and teachers

Indeed. We have much in common. We’re much stronger united.

This is not a competition between NHS staff and teachers.

Absolutely. The line 'well, there has been a shortage of PPE for healthcare staff, so teachers should be entirely happy to go back to work with no thought for risk management or infection control' would be laughable if it wasn't so commonly spouted.

The country got it wrong for PPE for healthcare workers. Shockingly, appallingly wrong.

As schools are partially shut at the moment, there should be a vow to get it right for school staff, because there is time and opportunity to. Not to use a previous appalling, unplanned failure as an excuse - indeed a reason - to plan a similarly appalling future failure for school and childcare staff...

Tasty

Can you explain why you're trying to use the example of nurses to make a case for why teachers should go back to work when nurses are all over the internet saying please stay at home?

You mentioned hypocrisy. You're aware that nurses are making this request for their own sake and on behalf of their patients. Yet you're using them to pressurise teachers to do the opposite of what nurses are begging us all to do. How are you justifying that? Do you not care about what the nurses think? Do you not care about what will make they're lives easier? Either way it seems a bit off to use their sacrifices to make your point, given their request. What am I missing that makes this ethical?

But when schools open business will start to open so everyone will be ask to take the risk? Schools wont open in a vacuum when everything else stays shut.

It will stop being about staying at home and will start to be about going out as the cost of staying in outweighs the risks of going out

But it wont be for at least one hopes another six weeks in which quite a lot would have changed and transmission would hopefully be suppressed.

There is going to be an issue when schools etc are re-opened. Pre lock-down most people were still merrily sending their children off to school and nursery. Post lock-down, there is quite a different fear factor. The week before lockdown, mine still went to swimming lessons and nursery as normal. In hindsight, that was probably wasn’t wise. While I am desperate to get back to normal, I worry about my children who are prone to respiratory issues.

I’m not sure that they can make attendance compulsory in the normal way. For anyone shielding, the risk of their children bringing it back will be too high and there will be lots of children who are more vulnerable. It will make things quite tricky

The other thing that I’ve not seen people talk about is the roll out of the vaccine. Inevitably there will have to be prioritisation of the population. We won’t all get it in week 1. I’d guess older and more vulnerable first but t may mean that children are not vaccinated for a number of months after the first people get it. I hope they ban private sales and distribute it on a needs basis by the state only.

I would send my children back no problem. We're all going to get this in the end anyway. Hiding at home for months on end won't solve anything and will fuck the economy which will then fuck the NHS too.

I’m happy to go back into school and teach as and when we are told to do so.

I'm so glad to hear that teachers are raring to go back to work as soon as called upon.
I don't know where I got the idea that they were reluctant to do so unless it was declared safe, or that they were guaranteed PPE/children with no illnesses in their class!

I'm very relieved to hear that it is so - cos let's face face it - considering what lower paid key workers are facing, it would be super embarrassing if teachers were to balk, eh!?

So glad to hear I'm the ignorant one on this. All of my apologies to you all.

It would be so much easier to be in school with access to my computer, colleagues and of course being with the students. The schools were closed by the government and as soon as they open, I will be in with my fellow teachers, support staff, catering staff, coaches, pastoral staff, HR along with many others who play such an important role in young people’s lives. I’m sure any staff who are on the vulnerable list can be covered and supported as we usually do when there is absence.

There's no way I'm sending my children back to school until it is 'safe'. Likewise, I will not be returning to my job either.

I have worries for each one of my children. I am nervous about them returning. My 2 youngest are in the same school, a local high school that is smallish but in demand. I went to an options evening recently, just before lockdown. It was jam packed and claustrophobic. I hate the thought of them returning there. My older children use public transport to get to 6th form and uni. I don't like the idea of them being on public transport, in crowds with others. Psychologically I hate all this talk - let's see the numbers going down first please, and start to feel relief. I'm sure the teachers know that schools involve crowds and close contact - they see it everyday - that's why they get exasperated with all the talk about returning. It's not just concern about themselves, or trying to get out of work! It's concern about people in general, including young children. Some people just don't seem to get that food (supermarkets) and health (hospitals) are more essential than education (schools) at this moment in time. We go to them for a basic need. At this moment we need schools for childcare and as a safety net only.

tasty. You tanked that

@nobodyimportant
I don’t know where the extra space is going to come from, but if that is what is needed it will have to be found, look at the nightingale hopsitals, it can be done. Better to start working it out now rather than on the day your told to reopen. Outside? Conference centres? Leisure centre? Hopefully head teachers are thinking about this now and making plans.

I do get that trainee teachers do some teaching already but I though they also had lectures and were supervised by a teacher for some stuff. That might have to end for the duration. Maybe more TAs could take on independent teaching roles and one from the unemployed taken On as TAs. (Clearly not ideal and would need dbs etc but could be done) if for older kids where the child management bit is less important than the subject matter recruiting people with the relevant degree and throwing them in at the deep end with one qualified teacher supporting more than the usual number of trainees (I’m sure this is far from good but needs must)

I guess the point I’m trying to make is the solutions must be out there and people who actually work in the sector should be trying to figure out what they are and make plans to be able to minimise the risks as far as practicable and work out how to do social distancing as well as can be before the schools reopen, which will be well before there is a vaccine. Teachers on here just appear to be saying it can’t be done, it’s going to have to be done so now is the time to make plans.

For vulnerable teachers, is there any way that some could perhaps teach remotely (can IWBs be used with Skype/Zoom?) while a teaching assistant is in the classroom undertaking the actual physical wrangling of the kids?

Could volunteers also come in and help with classroom management (circulating around the room, shushing kids and keeping them on task, handing out worksheets, hearing younger kids read) as well as hand washing?

My work will be very quiet so I would be prepared to commit some time for this kind of thing.

And yes, volunteering to clean classrooms and supervise the kids' hand washing, corridor distancing etc. A lot of people could totally do this. I could do this!