please read the guidance for schools....

[Ariseandsmellthetea99]

Key points:
-Since hospital grade PPE is neither obtainable (needed for medical staff) nor practical for teaching young children (scary and next to impossible to teach in) this is not recommended

• Since face coverings would need to be worn by all the children to have any effect at all (this relates to the science that a face covering only protects those around you not the person wearing), this isn't practical or recommended.

-They are NOT suggesting children are kept separate from all other children (as some fairly alarming photos on social media have shown).

-Children should be kept away from others who are NOT in their group bubble (the max 15 other children they WILL be mixing with). These groups should remain the same with the same adult to limit exposure for the adult.

• Any staff who are (clinically) vulnerable or live with someone vulnerable should be leading remote learning from home.

-Any children who are (clinically) vulnerable or who live with vulnerable should stay at home

• Parents should be socially distanced. To enable this, each bubble of 15 children should be dropped off at a different entrance or time.

If you disagree with these measures, please say what measure you think would be better, since children remaining home for up to 2 years is neither desirable nor healthy.

@Notsurehow2handlethis Very interesting comparison. But to be fair, the advice for other industries differs too, eg. Nurses and care workers are working without 2m distance.

I don't agree with comparisons ("nurses are cracking on with it so why can't teachers?") so I feel a but hypocritical thinking this comparison adds to the argument regarding schools. All workplaces are different.

@hippohector
Children are super spreaders of many viruses. This has always been known.

However, since March there have been studies to suggest that they may actually be relatively poor spreaders of covid 19. Although this is still far from certain.

Quite apart from the risk this presents to staff, students and students' families, how do schools accommodate this? Even if they divide classes into 15 (other countries are limiting the bubbles to 10 children and less) that still means twice the number of classrooms and teachers than schools currently have - where are they meant to come from?

they havent been given enough time to sort out all this. Any decent school will have prepared plans from day one of how to open back up with a variety of scenarios. I run a care home and the guidance changes every day. We locked down from everyone other than staff very early on. We will be one of the last things to allow visitors etc in again. But we have had a plan of a slow, staggered opening for ages and let all the residents and families know of our plans.

I understand it's difficult to try and keep distance between pupils. If we get an outbreak it will be impossible to isolate some residents to their bedrooms as some have advanced dementia and thankfully we don't sedate patients unlike the hospitals!

Some sectors require staff to adapt with very little notice due to guidance changing so quickly. Part of being a manager/headteacher is trying to plan as far as possible for the big changes.

I have 2 main issues with it. 1) it's completely unreasonable that the first head teachers heard about yr R and 1 going back was Sunday evening. It makes the whole thing seem untrustworthy. 2) the document doesn't address HOW to deliver half class sizes. Use TAs under the direction of a teacher (so 50% of children only see a TA) and repurpose lunch rooms. That's not going to work well in my dcs school of 21 classes, probably one TA per year group, 2 lunch halls and maybe 2 meeting rooms. It says talk to your local authority if you don't have enough staff. What I want it to say is, this will only be possible part time. Do what you can in 19/20. From September the curriculum will be adjusted and part of it will be delivered nationally online.

WaterOffADucksCrack

So if government announced tomorrow that you had to provide double the number of bedrooms and staff could you do that?

Do you think you'll be back at work in june @DamnYankee?

Both the primary schools I work in have cancelled all external going in. Basically, the only adults through the doors atm are staff members or SWs visiting children as part of their caseload

Schools won’t go back on June 1st. I think the governments ‘road map’ is incredibly ambitious and we won’t reach stage 2 anywhere near as soon as they think. I actually predict a spike in the next week or so after the ridiculous VE Day parties over the weekend...

All of the measures are to try to get back to normal as far as possible while keeping the R rate below 1 - I think a lot of people have lost sight of that in some sort of hysteria over risking peoples lives.

Its probably the same people who have been saying how important our children's education is and how schools must be a priority, who are now saying its ridiculous to open schools!

I look at the guidance and wonder how my kids primary is supposed to manage with 15 kids per class. That will use up 12 classrooms and 12 teachers just with reception, y1 and y6. Then what about key worker children who still need to attend who are in year groups 2-5? Then you have the children still at home for whom work must be set.

You can use TAs but that's not the same as the children getting their teacher back. Also TAs can be amazing in which case they'll be doing the same job as a teacher but for significantly less money. Some TAs though will struggle with teaching 15 kids at once.

Have you read the guidance?

1. If a child or staff member gets sick, send them home for 7 days.

1. Test that person.

1. If they get a negative result, they can come back. If positive, all people in that group isolate for 14 days and get tested if they have symptoms.

Great. But what about the days in between person A going home and them getting their result?? If they are positive, it's only at that point the rest get sent home, according to the guidance. So for days, they will continue to go to school, walking through entrances, corridors, etc. Because it takes at the very least 4-5 days to get a result (symptoms on day 1, order test. Test comes day 2. Test collected day 3. Results day 4 or 5).

Because it takes at the very least 4-5 days to get a result

My husband works with a man who had a test. It took 3 weeks to get his result back - it was positive.

Hearhoovesthinkzebras I don't understand why you're asking me that?! Schools haven't been asked to build extentions And there are many applicants looking for school hours roles so shouldn't actually be hard to fill! Especially since many people have been laid off at the moment so will need jobs.

WaterOffADucksCrack

I asked it because you said how your care home had planned for many eventualities and therefore so should schools. My point is that you can plan for events that you can control or can do something about. Telling schools that they suddenly need to find twice the number of classrooms and twice the number of staff than they currently have is just not doable. As for employing more staff? Really? Where do schools find the money to do this, where do they find the staff, how do they get DBS checks done in two weeks? Or are we saying we don't need to worry about the people we employ in schools now?

Schools haven't been asked to build extentions

Where should the schools put the students then? There are currently 30 students per classroom. From June they can only have 15 students per classroom, so they need double the number of classrooms, don't they?

Most Primary Schools were assuming the first Year groups back would be Y6 and possibly Y5, not the youngest ones. If schools have nurseries too you will be looking at 3 yo and possibly 2yo. Because although Gavin Williamson said this morning he has been consulting with schools and teachers' unions I am not sure whether that is correct, or maybe he consulted them and ignored anything they said.

Schools have been pretty busy sorting out remote learning and looking after key workers' children etc. So although have been thinking about how to manage the schools taking on more children there are even more logistics to think about.

I think 15 in a group is too many especially with the younger ones, Denmark suggests 3 in a group for the youngest age children.

Whilst you are explaining the guidance OP can you please explain the guidance for Secondary schools as I have Y10 DC and I am still struggling to work out what they are planning.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

@WaterOffADucksCrack
schools aren't being asked to double the number of classrooms. They're being asked to spread half the kids out across the current classrooms, initially. Then, magically, midway through June everything wil be fine again and we'll get all of the other children back too and be able to go back to normal somehow. I wish I were making it up, but read the guidance!

As for the comment about employing more staff, people are not leaping over themselves for jobs in schools. All local schools have teacher shortages, and ta posts don't get many applicants either (and a ta who has to act as a teacher, no way). Plus, dbs issues. Plus governments are not increasing budgets.

I’d have thought that bubbles of 15 kids can only work if they’re only in school part time.

Most classes in state schools have 30 kids, you’d need double the number of classrooms - and teachers - if they were all in school full time.
I struggle to believe that any school has that much spare space lying around.

Split the week so each bubble is only in for 2.5 days and it might work. But then, the teachers would presumably need to set online work for the 2.5 days the kids were at home.

And I’m concerned about the kids in the bubbles spreading Coronavirus between each other and then out to their families. Especially with the 1st of June coming so soon after the relaxation of the lockdown restrictions.

There is no.money in the budget and not enough rooms. DC's primary had one dining room, one hall that was also the link between different areas of the school so not safe, one other room. That leaves them 5 classrooms short. Not all classes have aTA.

My ds is in high school about to enter 4th year and should be sitting national 5s next year.

Now unless we achieve vaccination or herd immunity are the classes really going to stay at 10 or 15.

If they are then none of the kids will get a full time education for many years to come..
Is this really the model of UK education in the future

qweryuiop

The guidelines are just depressing to read.

The teachers that I know have been told that the 15 per class will be in place when the whole school is due back (I can't see that happening. We'll have the 2nd wave before then) but no one has any idea how to accommodate it.

My union has been trying to talk to the government about our concerns ineedaholidaynow, they're written several letters since this started, no replies and no interaction/consultation from the government to date. Read about it here. neu.org.uk/press-releases/coronavirus-pupils-and-schools

The guidance doesn't stipulate part-time but I think that is the only way schools can implement the proposals. Not sure what happens when the whole school is meant to be in for a month!

Split the week so each bubble is only in for 2.5 days and it might work. But then, the teachers would presumably need to set online work for the 2.5 days the kids were at home.

But then each teacher, and by extension each bubble, would be exposed to 30 children (the two bubbles the teacher is with) rather than the 15 the guidelines are based on.

Also, on the half day the afternoon pupils would be in a classroom contaminated by the morning students.

Saying that schools should have been prepared already for their return is absurd. How could heads possibly have predicted what the government would come out with?? What on earth would be the benefit of wasting time mulling over various potential strategies when ultimately the government would get to decide anyway?

Of course schools need more time to work through the guidelines and figure out how to implement them. There is absolutely no need for schools to return before September.

Also your suggestion that staff can be recruited in under two weeks is very concerning given your role, I really hope that is not how you recruit for the care home. Hopefully you take time to find high quality workers, check references and wait for DBS checks. Usually there would be some orientation time too I would think.......