It’s week 8- why haven’t schools looks at plans before now?

[hopefulhop]

Just this? We have bee. In lockdown for 8wks. That’s 8wks of social distancing etc. Why is this a sudden shock to schools? Did school leaders and unions think we could return as usual after an international pandemic or just never go back? I appreciate this is unprecedented times, and that your regular school leadership team aren’t six sigma logistics gurus, and more so that many schools don’t have space etc for social distancing- but the move to bring kids back. is not a shock- it was going to happen sometime and would need to be different in some way. There are literally 1000s of teachers ‘working from home’- they cannot all be marking, many are on Rotas for key worker children support- hasn’t ANYONE thought or wondered what to do when kids return?

For fuck’s sake, this again. Yes, they are all “working from home”.

Here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3894500-To-think-we-could-just-collate-all-the-teacher-teaching-related-information-here-and-have-done-with-it

Also,

Wow I have spent a disproportionate amount of time on here today.
Posts bashing teachers really do go on morning until night don’t they
I need to step away

ODFOD

YABU.

They've been working on it the entire time. It just takes more than 8 weeks to completely redesign a school.

The guidance from the government came out last week.
We had no idea how many children to plan for or when.
Don't be so stupid. How could schools have planned without knowing any of that.

Planning for every eventuality whilst teaching key worker children and providing distance learning?

Also, if you look down the trending page you will see other posts exactly like yours. You could read them.

Given that guidance was published last night, what would have been the point spending eight weeks planning things that the govt would contradict?
Assuming one had time amongst the planning and setting and marking of work, and assessing our exam classes...whilst enabling school to remain open to key worker children (60 on a regular basis).

Maybe they didn't have a crystal ball and know that the government would prioritize the younger rather than older kids. If I was Boris in 2 tier areas I would have sent y5, y10 and y12 in June and y6 in July.

Some countries simply expanded the eligibility. So keyworkers and vulnerable children right first then single working parents next etc

What a silly thing to say. Schools have been making various speculative plans but to decide on anything firm prior to the announcement would have been insane. I actually think it’s incredible how much has been done in just a week, considering we’re all still working full-time.

Not many schools have a Professor Trelawney on their staff.

Divination has not yet been added to the curriculum.

Wow OP. Just wow.

And so it starts. And yes I am taking the bait.
Because there had been zero information given to us until Sunday evening. Because we have spent the past 8 weeks trying to make contact with the students and check they are alive (maybe if more than 23% of students could answer the welfare check email we would have more time to plan), set them up with work and the means to do so, trying to provide students with resources at home, when we don't have resources in school. Trying to sort exam grades for students not sitting exams. Trying to transition new year groups remotely. Trying to do the already really time challenged job, remotely while trying to home school our own children (ironically most teachers' children are spending hours each day watching tv while we try to do our jobs) and help elderly relatives and neighbours. Can you imagine how long it takes to download 90 essays to mark? To respond to individual queries. My day starts with 2 hours of replying to emails before I start setting work, marking, welfare checking.
Fwiw I have been working the same hours at home that i would do during term time.

And probably key to your question... we have no idea how to get 500 people (that's my school's y10, y12 and key workers, beore we look at the other year groups) into the space we have with the staff we have and we were only told 5 days ago who would be expected back.

Odfo, dear. We’re delivering lessons to 6 classes, minimum, if you’re in secondary. We’re doing centre assessed grades and adjusting them according to the Progress 8 scores from last year. That was fun, ranking 180 kids from 1-180. Ooh, is Calum better than Harvey? Or is Andrew actually slightly better than Dan?

We’re marking the work. We’re making assessments and working out grade boundaries and how we’re going to get the work in and mark it, whilst moderating it. We’re responding to multiple parent emails a day asking for the bloody passwords for the thing we’ve been using for over 2 years with the kids, daily. And can you please re-set it because Ollie forgot it. Again. For the sixth time, to my recollection.

We’re also working out next year’s timetable for the entire school, GCSE and A level being a priority. (Do you have any idea how long that takes? Especially when there are 3 schools involved?) Oh, but whilst doing that, we’re also working out how to get kids in whilst social distancing and which staff/students are shielding.

Now DFOD.

Interesting first post OP, not goady or inflammatory or anything 🤙

Because it came out the blue and the age ranges theyve chosen probably weren't the expected ones?

Many schools did have ideas but until the government gave us some guidelines it was all guesswork. You can't plan for every single eventuality.

FFS. This shit is non stop and is enough to make me want to walk. Teachers are anxious enough at the moment without the added pressure of so many twats who have no idea questioning everything. When is this going to stop? I'm done with polite explaining. Just sod off.

There is a pandemic.
Teachers are not in charge.

So you expect teachers who are already doing their own job in strange circumstances to do better than the government has managed in planning how to come out of lockdown? You don't ask much, do you?

Yet another bot! I think we must invest in an anti-bot spray Mumsnet!!!

I would love to write an eloquent reply but I've had wine, fuck off covers it I think.

Obviously, people have thought about what will happen when children go back to school. It’s not a sudden shock to schools, but guidelines and rules have been changing constantly. It would be impossible to have had detailed plans of every one of the possible ways the government could have decided to dictate things.

Agreed lynda.
I am done with the CONSTANT put downs, now but also in the past. Teachers have been treated like shite in this country for too long and these threads are disgusting. People believe what they read in the press, or think they are suddenly senior school leaders in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic. It's laughable, really, if it weren't so utterly damaging towards teachers and the teaching profession. I don't think people realise what caring, lovely, capable people are looking after their kids within a culture that does everything it can to denegrade those very people. What happened to kindness? Understanding? Empathy? I thought this pandemic might make people appreciate the key workers we have, but perhaps I was naive.

My local McDonalds still isn't open! Why not? They've had 8 weeks of lockdown!