To thinks something like this would be a good option for schools going forward?

[Notplannedforthis]

Like most on Mumsnet, the topic of Covid and schools has been on my mind recently.

Whilst suffering from another night of insomnia, I was musing about how we could reopen schools safely and came up with the below plan.

Have any of you been sat at home thinking "If I was in charge, this is how I'd do it" If so, what suggestions have you come up with?

My thoughts:

1. Schools don't go back until September.

1. All of the young and fit TAs and some of the teachers are allocated the job of providing childcare for key workers children that can’t manage with them at home, AND for people who will lose their jobs if not at work (they'll need to provide evidence for this). No rota system for staff. Their usual working hours.

1. Companies must be told that if their employees CAN work from home, they SHOULD get them the equipment to do so, and should allow FLEXIBLE WORKING where possible. It’s bloody hard trying to work from home with kids and allowances need to be made for this.

1. All teachers not working in the hubs are responsible for providing quality home learning for those at home. They can fit their hours in flexibly around their own children, but work their usual number of hours where possible, doing things such as:

-filming themselves teaching lessons (if more than one teacher for a year they should communicate and divide up lessons for the year rather than for the class)
-having a system where kids can submit work and have feedback
-posting work packs for children with no online access (with stamped addressed envelopes so work can be returned for marking)
-ringing children and parents to see if they’re managing to access work etc.

1. Parents will be advised that all work provided is optional. So kids have access to high quality home education, but there’s no pressure.

1. Senior leadership teams in schools have the time from now until September to come up with how they will manage a September return for ALL children with some degree of social distancing. This is likely to involve using playing fields or even land on different sites to put up porta cabin classrooms and hiring more staff. I appreciate this will be an extremely challenging task but having observed the mammoth effort and innovative solutions that NHS leaders have come up with to change their working over the past 3 months, I believe it can be done. Not perfect, but workable. The NHS have managed by doing things including: -people who have left the profession returning – staff changing their roles -students qualifying early. Needless to say this will require a large injection of cash from the government who will HAVE TO SUPPORT TEACHING LEADERS to do this.

1. When schools go back in September, children will go back to the year that they were already in.

1. New reception starters start in January, year 6 kids move up in January, new university entrants start in January.

1. The country changes permanently from a Sept-Aug school year to a Jan-Dec school year, but keeps the age cut off date as is. Meaning the age of reception children will change from ‘4-5’ to ‘4yrs4months to 5years4months’ which is much more sensible anyway as there's plenty of evidence that starting school at JUST turned 4 is detrimental.

10. Teachers who will need to shield for the long term work with Oak Academy to continue quality home learning for children who need to shield long term.

We can't assume there will be a vaccine as some are suggesting

Resentment is building up with some furloughed ,in my dh work some have been furloughed for 6 weeks and allowed to defer holiday whilst others such as dh worked all through and any holiday booked has had to be taken even though we can't go anywhere , others enjoying their holiday and not all but some floating so to speak whilst others working are picking up the extra , plus furlough is only until Oct and from August I believe companies have to contribute so I can see a lot more wanting their staff back working once they have to contribute to it . How parents will manage god only knows

@TrustTheGeneGenie where will this money come from though we can't keep spending with no economy up and running fully

Furlough is not available for those without childcare, furlough is only available for staff where the companies to not have work for their employees and would otherwise make them redundant, it has absolutely nothing to do with childcare availability.

@sirfredfredgeorge

HMRC disagree with you. Employees who are unable to work because they have caring responsibilities resulting from coronavirus (COVID-19) can be furloughed. For example, employees that need to look after children can be furloughed.

@lyralalala furlough has an end date. So what happens after that?

To save a very very small amount of people. It's a really good idea that.

It isn't a small amount of people, though. You know that, don't pretend otherwise. And saving lives is always a good idea. I would rather myself and my sons and other medically vulnerable people carried on living for a while longer, given we are very likely to be very ill if we do catch it.

Do we not care about the future of our kids?

Do we not care about the old and the vulnerable? Who wins? We have to try to care for both.

Online teaching is likely to get better. It's been a chaotic situation but hopefully we are coming out of the other side. I would foresee vulnerable children still being shielded for a while and the rest split into two groups and doing half time each.

I think some schools want to move to almost all online as they have so many key workers' children they have to accommodate. Maybe that will change come September and keyworkers' children will no longer get priority. That's been suggested.

It doesn't have to be a disaster. A lot of children are home schooled very successfully. Both my boys missed a lot of school through illness and both have degrees and are doing well.

@Waxonwaxoff0 By that point schools will be up and running, we’ll know how it’s working and will have a better idea when/if schools will get back to normal and will know then if there needs to be an ongoing, but temporary solution or a major rethink to the benefits system on a long term/permanent basis

In terms of our population it is a very small amount of people.

I do care about the old and vulnerable. Which is why they should continue to shield and distance.

Yes I am sure some children are very successfully home schooled but a lot of parents would be utterly shite at it. Me included.

A lot of families NEED two parents working. Again. Me included.

Are we happy plunging children into poverty?

Some issues:

1. Teachers should not be expected to film lessons, especially from their homes. The unions would not support this either.
2. Would all teachers be provided with phones to do the calls you suggest?
3. Would they be provided with computers/internet access printers to produce all this work?
4. Who would collect it from the teachers and return it? It couldn't be sent directly to their home address by parents or students. Also teachers may not have easy access to a post box.
5. How many calls would they be expected to make to the same house, if parents didn't answer?
6. If the work is optional, how on earth could that be chased up?
7. Assuming some children do complete the work and some don't, how could further work be set? It would be impossible to differentiate for those who have worked hard and those who have no grasp of the material through choice
8. Is it safe to mark physical pieces of work? The unions said not the other day.

I can't home school my child successfully on a long term basis. I've got no qualifications and did rubbish at school myself. Many other parents will be the same. Children will suffer.

It's just going to create an even bigger divide between the haves and the have nots.

Teachers should not be expected to film lessons, especially from their homes. The unions would not support this either.
The unions are stuck in the dark ages. Most professions needs to be online and on videos in the moment. its kind of a minimum requirement for most office or people based jobs. Its a bit like insisting on papyrus instead of paper

But distancing has to happen in schools as well @TrustTheGeneGenie. And will have to for some time.

It will not be possible for all children to go back full time for goodness knows how long. We have to adjust to that. We all have to try to find a way through that doesn't mean saying "there aren't many of them, let them die".

That, fortunately is totally unacceptable to most people.

There will always be poverty, sadly. I would hope that we are more enlightened now than in previous centuries. There is no easy solution but we have to work with what is practical and you have to accept that schools will not be "back to normal" for some time.

I know I have to accept it. Presumably I just have to accept losing my income and my house as well. My child being educated by someone with only GCSE's (me) and coming out with less chances in life than previous generations.

Perhaps I have to accept it but I'm not going to pretend to be fucking happy about it.

At the very least they need to implement UBI and some sort of support system for online learning.

If there was some sort of way we could measure mental health I'm sure it would show a massive decline in school staff. I know children are suffering but their needs do not trump anyone else's. No-one's does. I'm tired of the attitude of some parents that school staff are just collateral damage.

Or.... we could realise this is OVERKILL, expensive and a wildly disproportionate response to the real risk here, which to young people is very low.

We must focus on the real risk areas (care homes & the very frail/elderly, the obese & those with high blood pressure or heart/lung conditions).

The lockdown is excessive & unnecessary for everyone else, and is the result of crazy hysteria.

At the very least they need to implement UBI and some sort of support system for online learning.

Absolutely. Meanwhile there are a lot of teachers here on MN who, I'm sure, would be happy to support you if you asked. We are all groping in the dark but we can try to help each other through.

. Teachers should not be expected to film lessons, especially from their homes. The unions would not support this either

Why not? Pre recorded lessons
Shouldn't be a problem.

Would all teachers be provided with phones to do the calls you suggest?

Most adults have a mobile phone with unlimited minutes, it's easy to block your number when making a call.
If not you can get cheap phone deals from £7.50 pm. Schools should look into that for people not willing to use their own phone.

is it safe to mark physical pieces of work? The unions said not the other day

No different to touching things in supermarkets, good hand hygiene should be in place

Teachers won't be able to support kids on their days off because they'll be teaching the other kids.

It seems to me from this thread that part time in school education is inevitable with the remainder of the curriculum delivered on line/remotely. Planning for this properly takes time - it needs teachers who know the curriculum to work out which topics/modules can be delivered remotely and which need face to face delivery. I’m sure this can be done and done well - and if we are this position permanently it’s the way to go. But I doubt it can be done by September so inevitably we’ll still be muddling through.

If we do move to a part time solution we’ll need to work out to support working parents - and there needs to be a debate and agreement as to whether 1/2 days, every other day or every other week is a more workable solution. Again, to get this right will take time so that all the implications and knock on effects are thought through.

It’s clear that the education experience is going to be different for all involved in the future and I think we should take the time to do this properly. I realise that this means there is a cohort of children who have really drawn the short straw in terms of the next few years. But I don’t think either doing nothing or pretending it can revert to previous ways are better options. I’d rather our politicians and education managers and unions were realistic and engage in a constructive debate about the trade offs involved, recognising that there may need to be subsequent policy decisions to deal with transitional impacts.

( I have no dog in this fight - my dcs have finished school and no family members are teachers)

I do see what you mean and that's great but teachers shouldn't be doing unpaid question answering on MN there should be a proper system in place!

To save a very small amount of people
In terms of our population it is a very small amount of people.
I’m not sure what you count as small here. Current estimates, aside from the 2.5 million the government says are now shielding, suggest that 20% (1 in every 5 people) of the UK population are at serious risk if infected because of common conditions such as Diabetes.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/12/millions-with-health-conditions-at-risk-from-covid-19-if-forced-back-to-work

This is not to mention how these numbers intersect with the percentage of non-vulnerable people who recover but only with hospital intervention, and the one in 20 who have a form of the illness that doesn’t require hospitalisation but lasts for several weeks. That’s millions of people potentially dying, seriously ill, at risk of dying if there’s a surge in cases putting pressure on hospital resources, or off sick from work so impacting on services/businesses. Not to mention accompanying absence from bereavement, caring for those sick at home etc…

In addition, a lot of talk on MN about impact on cancer diagnosis from the anti-lockdown brigade, how many people would also opt not to take up treatments for conditions like this because of the wider circulation of the Coronavirus? The MacMillan website makes it plain that common cancer treatments put patients into the high-risk category. A friend who recently died from Coronavirus was in the process of cancer treatments, which made their system particularly vulnerable to the disease.

Right so we should lockdown forever then?

Because those people will still be at risk regardless...

I don't know what you think the solution is?

I don't want people to die. I also don't want a whole generations education sacrificed. I don't want people plunged into poverty!

Current estimates, aside from the 2.5 million the government says are now shielding, suggest that 20% (1 in every 5 people) of the UK population are at serious risk if infected because of common conditions such as Diabetes.

I will get absolutely flared for this (and my own cousin is a type 1 diabetic) but a lot (I know, not all) of the conditions that make you vulnerable to coronavirus are caused/worsened by poor lifestyle choices.
Smoking. Obesity. Poor diet.

But we all have to pay the price? Isolate those people. And let everyone else get on and keep the country going.

You mean all children? No social distancing measures? That won't happen, far too dangerous. Until there's a vaccine there cannot be more than 15 in a class.

What modelling are you basing this on?

With the current prevalence of virus bubbles of less than 15 distancing from other bubbles is sensible. If the virus is suppressed with only minor outbreaks controlled by test and trace (as in other countries), what science are you basing your statement on?