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?

I can’t explain why as it would be very outing but I have insight into the ‘higher up’ workings of trying to get the schools back.

Essentially the gov says yes but the unions say NO. Teachers in and around our city have been banned from meeting with, speaking to or in any way engaging with their schools to plan modifications/return. The schools are annoyed as feel this is childish and that teachers should be willing to help make their classrooms safe and try to plan a way back, at least engaging in hypothetical conversations.

Unfortunately it’s turned into a bit of a ‘union says no’ situation. Some teachers from our city have even reached out to voice that they don’t agree but are too scared to act against the union. It has been pointed out to them that once CV is over they belong to the category lease affected in terms of job security, pension...etc and that by refusing to even talk about a return to work is stopping millions of workers without that security from returning to their own jobs...but union says no!

Haven't some of you got better things to do than join in with teacher bashing?

I'm not sure it is bashing, we've had to severely modify our service to be able to continue face to face work, (public sector) we've had regional contingency plans for all different kinds of easement for weeks now. Same with prisons and the ever changing early release scheme. It's not schools who should have had an eye on what is to come but the DFE who should be issuing guidelines around how to enact different stages of lockdown lifting and working with LEAs to ensure schools are getting the right support to draft specific plans for their site. THEY should have had a variety of contingency measures planned , it was only going to go one of a handful of routes.

Fuck off OP. And also anyone else who feels like having a go at teachers. I'm fed up of it. On here, and irl.

My dads widow (head teacher in England) has been working on a plan the entire time but she's had very little guidance on how many children would be allowed in classes at any one time and what other measures the government would suggest until very recently, she also didn't know what year groups would be going back first.
The first she heard of children going back from 1st of June was at the same time as everyone else.

The school lay out means the year groups that are going back make things very tricky and things will need to be moved around, they also don't know when other year groups are going back.

She's also been trying to coordinate home learning as well as having a huge number of key workers children in the school everyday to plan for as well as children with SEN.
And dealing with staff shielding / self isolating etc.

She's also a human with brittle asthma who has been told she has to shield and can't even think about being near the school.

She's dealing with all of this as well as grieving for my Dad who only died a few months ago.

Because they’ve been a bit busy? Planning marking and working in school? Because it’s impossible to plan for a situation when they have no idea what the expectations and requirements were going to be? Because despite the PM saying on Sunday, some of the guidance only came out on Monday and some of it only yesterday.

Many schools were trying to make plans, but it was all pie in the sky until the Government actually announced what it wanted. That was only a week ago.

Obviously we have all been thinking about it, but there are a million different solutions depending on the guidance we are given by the government. I think you’ll find schools have about 20 possible plans but we don’t know which one to take yet because we still don’t know if we are going to be told to open or not, so we haven’t announced it.

If we did announce our plans now and had to change it due to the drip feed of information we are getting from the government, then we’d have a line of people complaining too

Can’t win, but that’s not new

hasn’t ANYONE thought or wondered what to do when kids return?

I work in a school. It’s all we’ve thought about. But while goalposts keep changing we can’t make concrete plans.

Thanks for the assumption we’re doing nothing though, super helpful

Another FYI.... The secondary school guidance hasn't been released fully yet.

To the PP re unions I understand HTs frustrations when staff won't engage. It can feel personal when it isn't. Our HT hasn't asked for any info yet re avaliability as he's v much a union man. The unions are right to ask questions when HSE guidance for working has been completely disregarded if you work in a school.

I think people forget not all schools are huge with massive staff bodies. One school nearby has only 40 students and 3 staff. One member of staff needs to shield so they can only have max 30 students with no break for teachers at all.

@hopefulhop
I'm not sure I understand your point about the luxury of time.

I don't claim to know about the inner workings of industry, but I'll do a retail example that I think I understand.

McDonald's are a big employer, just like the dfe. They could have stayed open throughout, as staying open for takeaway was borderline allowed under Lockdown rules. They closed - I would presume because they risk assessed and decided that closure was the right thing to do.

As of this week, the country was told that people who can't work at home should go back to work. McDonald's still only opened 15 stores. Again, I imagine this is due to risk assessment, and maybe due to worker availability or the characteristics of particular stores.

All this despite knowing that the company will have been losing money fast this quarter.

To me, this parallels to what schools are doing.

I think my school ripped up plan a, plan b, plan c and are now on plan xyz as the government keep changing the guidelines.

Schools cannot just reopen overnight not under the guidelines given.

Where I teach it is infant and junior schools - 2 totally separate schools but have been working together throughout the pandemic.

Next week all the available infant school staff will be in preparing the 6 classrooms they have for yr R and yr 1. Staff room is also being used as is the deputy's office as they don't have enough space for 120 children in bubbles of 15. Each classroom has to be a self contained bubble with many of the resources removed - not sure where they are going to put everything not needed ( not small stuff spare desks chairs etc are being taken out of year 2 classrooms)

Individual resources have to be prepared for each child - we might only get 20 children back but need to prepare for all children as parents might decide they are going to send there child anyway.

When they do return junior school staff will be sent to teach as each bubble needs 2 adults because of children's ages.

Staff at junior school will be rearranging year 5 and 6 classrooms.

Staff at junior school also looking after key worker children in the year 3-4 classrooms.

And at the same time teachers are remote teaching, planning and report writing.

Well that was the plan yesterday, no doubt the Sunday briefing will change everything again.

McDonald's reopens slowly as they needed time to make sure it was safe for employees and customers I didn't see endless bashing of them in the press and on social media. Disclaimer I know Maccy d's isn't essential but they were first company my tired brain could think of.

Schools closed in March when there were under 40 deaths a day no one could reasonably expect them to be opening schools in the middle of a pandemic with over 400 deaths a day .
Any planning being done would be for a much much lower risk of infection.

(obviously tesco/nhs/social care and many other professions carried on throughout. For this, they should be rightly lauded. I don't envy the planning that anyone in the top levels of any of these had to do, while continuing to serve the public)

The situation is constantly changing. So schools can’t make long term plans.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to socially distance in the vast majority of school sites. (Let alone trying to get small children and teens to comply.)
Our schools have bent over backwards to support students in any way they can. We have had online learning, packs to collect, welfare phone calls from school, email contact. And all whilst they are providing daily care for the children of key workers.
And STILL it’s not good enough?

I was in school yesterday. The head spent all day. 8.30 - 3.30 without a break in mwetings planning for the return of students. No doubt he will work all weekend. Every week the guidance changes and he finds out no earlier than anyone else. He also has to deal with questions from parents who could read the guidance themselves, but think that he has the answers.

YAWWWWWWNNNN

FFS, not another effing teacher-bashing post....

My daughter's school had had a few vague discussions about various different scenarios but literally no one had a time scale or any indication of who would be back first. It's hard to plan for multiple scenarios whilst also running a school.

And for all those complaining and saying how other bodies/organisations/companies have adapted and carried on, when schools were told to close (with 24 hours notice I hasten to add) they didn’t actually close. They ‘closed’ on Friday afternoon but were open again on Monday morning for the vulnerable pupils, the ones with EHCPs and the children of key workers. Obviously on the Friday they didn’t know who were children of key workers. They also didn’t know until then that they would be asked to stay open for these children. They all had to be identified and then they had to know who would be coming in and when. It then needed to be decided whether all schools would open or whether it would be hub school. Teacher rota then had to be organised, bearing in mind a number of teachers were self isolating, ill, vulnerable. School meals had to be organised for those at school and for those who were entitled to FSM who weren’t in school. Oh and then they had to plan for work for those who were staying at home, when teachers had never had to deliver remote learning before. Not bad for a weekend’s work.

Business managers ffs

DC2 school:

Infant school 90 kids
Only non teaching staff are
pt secretary/receptionist
pt bursar
pt caretaker
Headteacher

3 classrooms
One hall
Sort of IT suit/ storage cupboard/food store
The one corridor contains library and all pegs.
Staff room in an old lean to
Head teachers office bout the size of a small bathroom.

That is it.

& I am a lean practitioner, if I’d be modelling this from the start I’d have said at most half offered place and 75% take up. That would have been my top estimate based on nothing (because that is what the govt have them). No one in their right minds would have assumed they had to make place for 60 kids by start June

Why daffodil?

On Thursday evening we received further guidance that meant my four days of planning needed to be completely revised. Last night at about 7pm again, they issued further guidance, some points contradicting the guidance from Thursday night.

I'm told to plan for three year groups plus key workers. I'm to phone the parents of vulnerable children everyday to discuss why they've not brought their children in. That will go down well. Now don't think that statement means I don't care or prioritise those who are vulnerable - I do - I put a lot into building up relationships so that I can support, and not all those vulnerable families are vulnerable for the same reasons. But trust me - a daily phone call as dictated is not an answer that fits all and takes up lots of time. I phoned a vulnerable family the other day and an hour later I had finished dealing with the issues - none of which were linked to safeguarding. Why do it then I can imagine you're thinking, because how can you phone and further develop those critical relationships to then say - no - don't have time to do that for you - it meant the other work on my to do list moved to later in the evening.

Then, in three weeks parents and Government are expecting the whole school back. How? Half sized class bubbles in the same building and same number of staff. Some will think but you know lots won't send their children in - easy. But I'm told to plan as if all are in as they suspect numbers will increase quickly and I need to future proof my bubbles. My plans had allowed for the whole school - I was thinking ahead - but now I'm told to focus on the first three weeks.

I want to get back - I want to make plans that will see us through to the summer but every time I put pencil to paper another email arrives with another update. I'm told it's guidance and I can do what I think is best but, and it's a big but, if someone falls ill you will be challenged on why you didn't follow the guidance.

I know many think as a profession we are cowardly, we just want to stay at home on full pay but it's not true for the majority of us.

We were told we would have three weeks to plan. We now have two (one is half term but that's fine - it's a pandemic) but we still have updates arriving. When will the updates that mean my plans have to change again and update risk assessments stop? The day before?

As many, many of us are, I'm mentally exhausted, frustrated, fearful for my staff and families and vilified by the media. I want to do my job, I want to support our children, so yes - we did plan to answer your question, but they keep changing the rules.

& anyone with lean six sigma or whatever would be telling the govt to run a fucking pilot or two to work it out (see Isle of Wight and contact tracing). Supporting those areas heavily, learning from them before rolling it out wider.

They might also have considered speaking to customers of the process in order to understand their concerns and asking them for solutions on their models and scenarios (yes right them first). Including organisations such as the BMA who don’t think schools should open.

Every school in the country trying to work this out themselves is the opposite of good business, the waste in multiple solutions is ridiculous.

I think the government are the ones who need some business training