New school set up.

[stayingaliveisawayoflife]

I know this may be the wrong place but it gets a lot of traffic so maybe is the best place!

So your child is in reception or year one in a two form entry primary school. They are due to go back on June 1st. The class sizes can not be bigger than 15 so where you had two classes you now have 4, same in year 1. Year 1 classes are split into year 1 and 2 classes. Reception classes are split into where? Ok year 3. It's in a different building as many key stage 2 classrooms are but needs must. Need to move a load of resources and the tables and chairs are too high but ok.

Teachers next. Year two teachers have the other halves of the year one classes. They will be having them next year so ok. Reception teachers? Well we need two more teachers but early years is a specialised area and none of the year 3 teachers or year 2 teachers have any experience, no time to train, TAs are not all able to work so not enough for one each class even if we had that many anyway.

So basically your reception child could go back to a different classroom in a different building with a different teacher who is following someone else's lesson plans. Believe me they will be doing their best but it won't be easy. Oh and we can't alternate teachers as Dfe guidance says it has to be the same teacher every day.

You can of course demand that your child needs their teacher and insist on them being in their class, well that's the same for all of that class and no-one should have preferential treatment.

Honestly would you like to be a head having to deal with this? Yes we may not have all the children in but we have to follow Dfe guidelines and prepare.

I want my class back and my happy teaching life but I do feel we need to be aware of the whole situation so these young children can be prepared. It will not be any where near normal schooling for them.

Will teachers be expected to set work and plan for children in school? I don’t just send a link but am currently providing lessons, videos, phoning parents and then spending ages commenting on every single piece of work uploaded. No way can I do that and ‘teach’ (with the stress that will bring).

My own daughter I assume won’t be in the teachers group because she has no particular needs and can just get on. I am bit happy for her to be taught by a teaching assistant for weeks. Teaching assistants are great but they’re not teachers. The impact of one half of the class benefitting from the skills of a teacher and the other half not is massive.

‘not happy’

Will teachers be expected to set work and plan for children in school? I don’t just send a link but am currently providing lessons, videos, phoning parents and then spending ages commenting on every single piece of work uploaded. No way can I do that and ‘teach’ (with the stress that will bring).

This is what my DP is concerned about. Even if full classes are allowed back, no way all children will attend.

PinkMic

I think those parents saying their child won’t be going back need to be made aware of what that means. This could end up as a hierarchy!

1. Children with the teacher
2. Children with a teaching assistant
3. Children at home indefinitely where they have to shield with input from school (I would hope)
4. Children at home with some/no input from school where parents have chosen to keep them off

Now this will vary depending on the individual teacher/teaching assistants and quality of input at home. Some children will receive a better education at home. However, you can see the point I’m trying to make.

What happened to children being superspreaders ..I thought they had been spreading it to older people .
So now they say children back in school,and you can mix with a family member
Aren’t the children just going to spread it to older people ,realistically kids are not going to be able to stay 2 meters apart from everyone in a school ,they are children,they will forget..
Clearly the virus will start spreading again
It’s far to soon for children to be back in school

I teach 4 year 10 classes in a room with fixed desks which mean I'd only be able to fit in 8-10 children and maintain social distancing. Instead of being able to teach them 1 lesson in 4 hours of teaching time, it would take me 12-15 hours. I actually have them twice a week, taking me to 30 hours of teaching time. Unfortunately I'm part time anyway so it's totally impractical, even with the older children.

From what my colleagues in work say, the vulnerable and key worker children (around 25 pupils per day) are crap at social distancing anyway and keep forgetting. When we get the children back who'd purposely ignore the rules,nit's pointless and you may as well just assume everyone will get the virus.

Many adults are seemingly incapable of following social distancing in parks and supermarkets so why the Government thinks teenagers and five year olds will be any better is beyond me.

Oh, and by the way, I do want to get back to work but i can't see a way any school can do so safely.

Far more likely that groups of 15 mean they will be in part-time than have the full class split over different classrooms, especially as they've mentioned having other classes in soon after. No point starting the existing children off full-time for 3 weeks in different classes then having to reorganize everything again.

I shouldn't imagine for a minute that any of them will be back for the same amount of hours they were before? I would imagine it'll be either mornings or afternoons, or one week in one week off (the second one would allow a good deep clean in between cohorts). Schools simply don't have the space to have all the children back full time safely.

Half the class in on Mondays and Tuesdays, the others on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Fridays the teacher is planning the online supplementary work for the other days and for the kids who can't come in at all.

The first school here laid off all but three of the teaching assistants due to budget cuts.