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?

Business employ adults who they can expect to follow social distancing and hygiene rules so therefore much easier to plan for. Children are not that cooperative and as they are less likely to show symptoms are higher risk for community spread. Mangers can not magically produce staff, money and space to build the extra classrooms needed to follow the rules laid down.The government are now paying the price for not chasing unpaid taxes and now are struggling to provide the services they now need to pay for. Simple economics.

We have catering staff rather than catering contract. We have been told we can’t furlough them so still paying them. Nursery staff still being paid. Still get the funding income but we had additional hours but not getting that money.

surly everyone knew that for example hand washing was going to required. It doesn't seem like many schools have been installed extra sinks though, they're all trying to do it now. That's the kind of thing I meant

Ah yes, with our copious school funds we could have been installing all these extra sinks. Or we could have made use of the extra funding provided by the government for this....oh wait.

Extra cleaning before schools open is pointless. It's an ongoing cleaning cost that schools can ill afford so teachers and TAs will do more work and clean.

Extra sinks is a mad notion unless you expect schools to have built a new block to put them in as well. We have NO SPARE SPACE and we are a relatively new school. Older buildings are even worse.

As always with education, the issue lies with the constantly goalposts of being a political football.

We looked at other countries and started our modelling in that direction.

And then the government said something completely different.

So we re-planned and then four days later the government added new stipulations that made the new plan impossible.

So then we planned again. And they released another set of stipulations.

Who are the ones making this impossible: teachers or the government?

Schools have 15 days to make the site safe and meet the regulations. Some small schools only have one member of site staff and two or three cleaners and perhaps four teachers. How are they meant to achieve this?

Our Business Manager has been in school running the keyworker children's facility alongside the senior leadership. Now she's having to work out how to keep 130 under 6's and 90 under 11's

I think she needs tights and a cape, not a fucking bashing from people like OP that know the square root of fuck all.

Hand washing worked so well for Boris, didn't it?

WTF is a six sigma logistics guru and why is it remotely relevant?

WTF does they cannot all be marking mean?

I think you'll find, throughout the academic year (which is 190 days of teaching time - yes a teacher's full salary is only for that many days of contact with children!) each subject teacher is responsible for marking the work children produce.

That doesn't change because the work (of the children or the staff) is being done at home.

@withgraceinmyheart

Thankyou. I really was just asking a question and I do appreciate I could have articulated myself a bit better, I really wasn’t trying to teacher bash- I just expect more from SLT and DFE I guess.
The majority have told me I am being unreasonable- I’m big enough to ignore the swearing etc

The real question is why we need several of these threads every day. Can't people just go and read the gazillion others?

The problem, as always, is that most parents utterly fail to understand, or don't really even bother thinking about, the reality of what actually happens inside schools every day. Quite apart from having no clue about what's involved in a full-time teaching job, many on MN also blithely compare managing social distancing in a building full of compliant adult colleagues to managing a school full of small children or potentially difficult teenagers. And how on earth they think schools are going to magically summon into existence double the number of teachers in order to reduce classes to 15, who knows?

WTF is a six sigma logistics guru and why is it remotely relevant?

It's OP trying to be all clever and compare a school to a corporate environment. Which is fine if you're planning to outsource the cleaning and catering arrangements.

Doesn't work so well with EYFS which is more like herding cats and getting them to walk in a parade without a pandemic ,guidance that's changed 3 times this week, duty of care to everyone and teachers unions to contend with.

Then it's all a bit more 3 dimensional and needs a bigger flipchart.

I don’t think that anyone really thought going back to school would involve social distancing for 4 and 5 year olds, no. Because it’s fucking bonkers. Schools should go back when it’s reasonably safe to do so. If you’re having to make 4 year olds sit 2 meters apart and provide PPE for teachers - a huge change from how school life usually looks for them - then it’s obviously not reasonably safe in the slightest for them to be there. Key worker children at school so far have not been doing this.

So do you think schools should have planned for reopening guidance months before the guidance was released?

Some of these threads are getting comical. No wonder many posters, teachers and parents, are getting fed up of them.

That was replying to the OP's first post

And how on earth they think schools are going to magically summon into existence double the number of teachers in order to reduce classes to 15, who knows?

Or double the number of classrooms, that would take even more magic.

I still don't understand why you still expect more from SLT OP, when SLT are bound by what the Government and DfE are telling them, when the last guidance they received was at 7pm last night

And Secondary schools still haven't received their detailed guidance yet.

ffom a grateful parent. Please gjve teachers a break.
So much teacher badhing going on right now and they do not deserve it

From and bashing

Yes, how dare teachers not plan on how to reopen before they have been told who to plan for, how many and what the rules around safety are.

These threads are getting beyond ridiculous.

And Secondary schools still haven't received their detailed guidance yet.
There you go. Typical Mumsnet, always making excuses for the teacher Gods. Everyone knows schools have to reopen so they should have a plan for it, not waste their time waiting to be told by the government what the government plans are.
Seriously, what ARE they doing when they're lounging around on full pay?

Unions and schools should have been planning.
However, so should the government, which rather seems to have been doing nothing at all in the way of planning, presumably because Johnson is so used to winging it that he thought he could with this too