Secondary Teachers, what do you think about going back to school for the last term with social distancing?

[sunshineanddaffodils]

My year 8 and year 10 dc are in the best possible situation at this point. Both have their own computer, space to work, pretty good home learning from school and both are cooperating. However, I am so worried about the impact being off school until September will have on them socially, on their mental well-being let alone the academic side of things. When I think about dc who are less fortunate than mine I feel so anxious and concerned. I’d be so happy to see some sort of phased return to school as soon as possible really. Looking at the stats I’m not concerned about the health any of the dc or staff at the school although obviously wouldn’t expect anyone in the vulnerable categories or dc of the vulnerable to be expected to return (there’s only one teacher at at their school who is shielding because he’s diabetic). I think school should reopen and the vulnerable remain isolated so the virus cannot be passed on to them if dc fo pick it up at school.

I work in a secondary, we're not expecting to be back before September.

We have started planning for September, but have been warned that even then it might be part time in some way (eg half the pupils in the morning, half in the afternoon, or one year group per day).

Good question about contact tracing and schools. I dont know how it works although I thought it was based on anyone coming in to contact or being within a certain diameter of someone. I think it's done on an app in other countries? I suspect they will get round it by saying if you show symptoms after being in X proximity of someone then you should self isolate, unless you are high risk in which case you definitely should self isolate.

@greathat please don’t think I don’t care I think I worded my op badly. I just feel there needs to be a way to get dc back to school.

I work in the kitchen of a large secondary and sixth form... I am very worried that we will be over looked when a return to school plan is formed.
Our working space and layout is not at all practical for social distancing. The dining hall will be a nightmare and the till operators put at massive risk unless some kind of Perspex booth is created for them, the finger print/keypad would need to be removed so names would have to be searched which takes forever so lunchtime would be an incredibly long process

Please come into my classroom, which was built in the 1920's with tiny windows, one tiny cliakroom, and for about 20 kids, and tell me how I can socially distance appropriately. I have 34 kids in my class and we are 3 to a desk a lot of the time.
I suppose I could always stand outside and shout through the window. At the 4 or 5 kids who could possibly sit in there appropriately.

Even supposing I do overcome my fear of catching it as an asthmatic with a high risk child and a high risk, senile parent living with us, and edge back into the classroom with a really effective home-made mask on, the absolute bedlam of lunch, breaks, toilet trips and lack of sufficient loos and sinks will mean i'll get it anyway. Or the cleaners, cooks, parents, grandparents, TA's, office staff, bursur or nursery staff will.

And don't tell me kids are fine. My 6 year old nephew is only just out of hospital with it.

I can see an argument for getting year 10 and 12 students back in as a soon as possible though, and focusing the staff at giving them as complete a timetable as possible.

Sorry op but this is not about you.

People have to be safe . Everybody.

And in my opinion they should be open only when it is safe to do so.

I’d love to go back - I’m working every school day (even though I’m actually pt) and I volunteered twice in the hols. However, my classes are no smaller than 29; school cleaning is v difficult when our lovely cleaners are super stretched and overworked, with very little time; two out of my dept of 5 are shielding; and there is absolutely no way practically to get teens to self isolate. We have to do something to get kids back into school, but it is a massive headache and when I asked very strongly for PPE before lockdown (you know, the basics: tissues), we had three boxes in a school of 650. We split them. I was also told to not let kids out of class to wash their hands (ignored that) and that we had no hand sanitiser.

Are schools each thinking about what to do or are they waiting for government direction? They were saying on the news this morning that all environments that had to shut need to be spending this time working out how to work the environment to fit with the 'new normal' that won't be going anywhere - installing much more hand washing facilities, rearranging work spaces, all the Perspex screens going up etc. Just got me thinking whether headteachers are already thinking about what changes could be made and getting on with them.

Realistically, everyone knows schools will go back sooner rather than later. They aren't just going to stay shut indefinitely. Maybe they will be like hospitals, a higher risk but high need environment.

Chinny that article focuses entirely on the children - children don’t get it as much, children don’t get very ill etc. Children can’t be in school without hundreds of adults. None of that applies to them.

Looking at the stats I’m not concerned about the health any of the dc or staff at the school

Nice.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-lockdown-restrictions-uk-new-normal-dominic-raab-a9484416.html

This popped into my notifications as I pressed post. It’s the very opposite of the suggestion of schools going back sooner rather than later and it looks unlikely to be a full return when they do.

Its not practical for teachers to teach full PPE surely? Even just a mask would make communication very difficult I would have thought

. What would perhaps make more sense would be for the government to get the current online schools to work in cooperation with schools so the teachers from school would teach their own pupils using the facilities via the online school platforms already out there and set up.

Schools could then have access to online school facilities set up which would give them capacity to target the children who dont have laptops/internet or who additional needs etc, so perhaps ik that case those children come in to school I'm very small groups.

@cardibach That's the point of their conclusion, that the adults would have to socially distance from each other but not the children. A lot of posts I see about children not going back is the fact that it would be impossible for the children to socially distance from each other. Would it be impossible for the adults to socially distance from each other?

We are still on a wartime footing with this disease so no, we can't rush this as the stakes are too high for children, their families and staff.

I work in a secondary and we are planning for a phased return in September at the earliest. I'm not a teacher but have interaction with students and I don't want any until we have reliable widespread testing/contact tracing or a vaccine.

Two neighbouring families and their DCs have had the virus and been v ill with it, although not hospitalised, with one having lung issues remaining, so it can and does affect young people.

I’m a secondary teacher in an independent school. I’m teaching live most of the time from home via zoom and teams and juggling a toddler at the same time. I can see both sides of the debate here, my students will all be fine academically when they go back as they are affluent children with access to the right tech and have switched on parents who are supporting their learning. Their studies are largely the same as what they were doing before and and they will not suffer much. However, they are going to have a massive advantage over less affluent children who do not ah e the same resources as they do, don’t have internet or even a space to sit and read a book. If schools are closed long term e.g September opening then they will fall further behind and the gap will widen. This will be seen in public exam results Jacob will then have an even longer term effect on these students who will perhaps not be able to access higher ed or jobs they need. Lots of state schools are not providing the level of teaching my school and other private ones are, many are doing nothing live and simply using the gov lessons for example.

It’s really tough but I think they do need schools to open again as normally as possible to redress this imbalance and try to level the playing field. It will be hard but I think teachers also need to think about the bigger picture here and the futures of the children in their care.

I know that some people will respond with the ‘everyone will die!!!!’ Argument but it has not been proved that children are in fact ‘superspreaders’ as the death and infection rate has not dropped exponentially since schools closed. It cannot be delayed for ever and this virus is not going to go away by September.

@catchingzzzeds I thought the opposite was true - that dc don’t really spread it.

Quite sensible article, @rafals

Thing is we can’t shut schools until there’s a vaccine it would be absolutely devastating.

Of course we can keep schools shut. What would really be ‘devastating’ is if your child, my child, someone else’s child, a teacher... died because people like you pretend it’s ‘devastating’ to keep schools closed.

@ChinnyReckon123 it might be possible, but it would probably adversely affect planning and CPD. I really don’t think it would be enough though. Even if you say children aren’t particularly nice level ‘spreaders’ of disease, they wouldn’t have to be to infect their teachers. If you are in a room with them for 6 hours (and in the case of secondary, 6 separate hours with 30 different ones) you are going to catch it.
Plus the social issue - if you tell me I have to be in class with 30 random teenagers, there’s no way I’m then taking any other social distancing measures seriously.

Particularly high level

It is totally impossible for children to socially distance in a school.

^ This. Even if you had a school entirely full of extremely well-behaved, rule-following kids it would be difficult. In real schools with normal kids it would be totally impossible.

Lots of state schools are not providing the level of teaching my school and other private ones are, many are doing nothing live and simply using the gov lessons for example.

I'm not sure what evidence you are basing this on?

Every aspect of society is affected. We are never going to return to normal in the short term so we have to create a new, safe one and our expectations of education, economy etc are going to have to be reset ie kids won't achieve as before etc. Using past expectations isn't realistic.

@Oakmaiden

But if kids are staying in the same groups and teachers are moving round, how do you reconcile the fact that pupils have picked different subjects? As a PP said, the complex timetabling of secondary subjects makes this a horrendous logic puzzle with no easy answer.

Absolutely agree with you that if we’re teaching a part-cohort on a rota in school, the online learning will have to stop. There just won’t be time to plan, set and mark online work while also teaching face to face.

FYI teachers have died. At my school a member of the support staff died from corona two weeks after lockdown. We had confirmed cases but were not allowed to close (only clean the block that student had lessons in) so a student did transmit the disease in and kill a member of staff. This will happen repeatedly if schools open too quickly.