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?

Teaching is such a thankless profession. A little like being a mother. So much projection onto teachers from mothers lately. What have you failed to do in the last 8 weeks op? That’s the real question...

Welcome to MN, OP.

Oh and they haven't been back,

We've been busy . Plus we were originally told when schools closed it would be for 13 to 16 weeks and that was their reason for being reluctant. Guess what. That was a lie.

Can't believe I'm seeing this again. As a teacher this is so demoralising.

Waiting for state-approved budget here. They've waived some plans in front of our noses. But no real answers.
State cuts dictate cuts in education
CDC compliance plus cuts = #thenewnormalclassroom, staffing decisions, parent decisions.
I just had an interview. Turned down for an internal candidate. (I knew there was an I/C going in). Advised I am an excellent candidate and several positions are on the cusp of being open, but they have been advised to freeze hiring at the moment.
At least we have due dates:
Budget finalized = 5/18
Plan Presented = 5/22
Parent feedback? Not sure?

YABU. More teacher bashing

Take it up with the English Dept of Ed. They had weeks didn't they, they could have put their guidelines out earlier...except that doesn't fit your narrative does it? Oopsies.

Or are teachers supposed to be prophets now in addition to being medics, social workers and Eternally Wrong?

🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ the naivety of this post begs belief!

Teachers and staff are on a rota, when they are not in school supporting KeyWorker Children they are working from home, setting work, marking working, making resources, ringing children, answering emails, making videos, checking up on the vulnerable children, dealing with LAC, CP children, SEN children ..... arranging care packages and free school meals, printing and delivering work to those who don’t have online or printer access. This is the tip of the iceberg. We may not be physically in school as much as usually but we are working even longer hours than usual. It’s Friday night and I sent my last email 9.07pm, my first was at 7.17am this morning.

As for planning for reopening - how can you plan for the unknown - we began cleaning the school and resources top to bottom (on top of everything else) and then was advised by the government to limit the adults in school to just those who were needed for the KeyWorker children. The government only gave advice on how they would like the new normal to look on Monday afternoon - none of us are psychic!

Teachers are clearly all idiots. They took the job for an easy ride, the pension and the holidays. They don't need any skills to do the job and probably most of them failed at what they really wanted to do and ended up in a school out of desperation they don't care about the young people they spend all day every day with, it takes no effort to plan and deliver a lesson and they are all sat at home with their feet up now because there's no behind the scenes work involved in teaching at all. I am sure there are no children they are worried about, no safeguarding issues to look into and no follow ups at all

Maths hasn't changed for centuries, history is history and don't get me started on English, I mean it's not like they have to write the books or anything?I could do it with my eyes closed but I don't because I have talent in my field.

The reason they haven't planned how to socially distance in schools is because they wanted a few extra weeks holiday. They probably forced the British Medical Association somehow to back them up by saying opening schools was dangerous . I read somewhere that children can't contract the virus so the BMA must be making that up.

Makes a change to the anti NHS and Nurse bashing posts I suppose.

Most Primary schools were not expecting the younger children in, most were thinking Y6, and possibly Y5, not the 3-4 year olds. Takes a whole lot more planning. Planning also costs money which most schools don't have.

Once schools found out, at exactly the same time as everyone else, they would have started thinking about what needed doing. Then they had to wait for the Government guidance to come out, which came out late on Monday. So schools started planning in more detail. Our Primary school was pretty much ready to send out details of their plans to parents on Thursday, but then guess what, further guidance came out which scuppered most of those plans, so back to the drawing board. Whilst still trying to teach the children that are currently in the school, those learning at home, also doing welfare checks and making sure food hampers are going to the families entitled to free school meals.

And Secondary schools still haven't had their guidance through, so they have 2 weeks to sort out what they need to do.

[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqbk9cDX0l0 ]

Schools can't plan for every eventuality! They needed to know which year groups would be returning and what class sizes would be allowed. Schools had no idea what government would say about maximum group size and which year groups would be returning. Why are you trying to blame schools, OP? It was the government's job to give schools the necessary details on which to base their plans, but the government failed to provide that information.

Gosh I'd hate to be a teacher, the amount of hate they seem to get. Not just in social media either. I'm sure teachers are doing their best to adapt to the situation like the rest of us.

Apologies- I don’t want to ‘teacher bash’ as some say, I respect the professions those who have chosen teaching as a vocationall, but regular classroom teachers aren’t school leadership, so called school management which in many cases includes ‘Business managers’ ‘ operations managers’ and others dotted throughout trusts and academy’s.’ Most definitely not teaching staff. Other industries have had to step back and look at operations, and make the call on how & when they can resume work - major employers in manufacturing, distribution- many have done so. They have said what can be done, what can’t be done practically, and when they can resume operations. Some are now, some are soon, some are weeks away from what could be deemed reasonable. Either way there is proposal, there is a timeline.

I think it’s unfair (and I’m a parent not a teacher). Teachers are setting up homework, marking it, sorting out exams/ assessments , looking after key workers children, homeschooling their own children. They have worries, health issues, struggle to get deliveries, some of them have caring responsibilities as all services stopped working. Primary schools’s got quite an unexpected choice of year groups. So it’s not an easy situation.

Wasn't it firefighter bashing a few years ago? And I'm sure police had it at one point as well? Won't be long before the nurses will be the target!

hopefulhop

Businesses will have had a reasonable idea of what to expect, what their input is and what the required output should be.

Schools until boris' announcement didn't know the years going back, the requirements, or had any guidance.

In fact it would be fair to say that parliament had no idea either.

Many other industries did not have to wait for government guidelines, they are free to discuss and decide for themselves. You can't compare them to state-run schools.

Not all schools have those people OP. In all the schools I know it is the Head who is mainly planning this with the rest of the SLT who will also be planning. And as I and others have said the last guidance came out late yesterday, how quickly do you want the schools to react from that.

Early Years still haven’t had their guidance yet either so no firm plans can be made until that is received.

Here we go again. FUCK OFF!!!

MNHQ sort this constant bashing please .

The sad thing is, my comment will get deleted before this teaching bashing thread.

They probably didn't anticipate the reckless decision to suggest children barely capable of wiping their own arses should return back to school whilst still in the midst of a pandemic if I'm honest.

Because they have been busy teaching using new methods which all takes time, making welfare checks on vulnerable pupils, answering emails from others, responding to queries from parents, identifying accessible resources to use and a zillion and one other things.
I hope my DCs teachers aren't reading shitty OPs like this.