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.

Repeating the year causes me to have a stabby feelings. I will fully admit to being biased. My particular child is completely constrained academically by same age placement, but is simply not socially or emotionally capable of being placed in a higher year that better meets her academic needs. I know she is an outlier, but I have to imagine a good portion of the students would be bored out of their minds being held back a year. Academic boredom leads to poor study habits and behavioral issues.

@Liverbird77 so it is fine for every other profession just not teachers? The same applies to the rest of us. I have to run public meetings on video, big conferences, training sessions. Sorry but it might not be perfect and there might be risks but for goodness sake every other professional knows they are the way to deliver some kind of business as usual.

@Purpleartichoke 2 of our children are the same, and we both were as children(and got moved up year groups, because our schools couldn't think what else to do)
I agree, socially not being with your age group is fraught with difficulty. But being academically bored makes one of our boys depressed and makes the other one misbehave.

We have to keep educating them (at a cost for now) because their brains need it

But I am concerned that they won't ever slot back in to the state system.

My school is in a deprived area. A massive number of our kids don't have the technology for on-lessons, we've been sending paper packs out. Also as more parents have been furloughed or aren't working in their zero hours contract jobs a few have admitted they can't afford to pay the broadband bill.

I am afraid that any suggestions always appear to be met with avoidance and barriers rather than a proactive approach.

Well those are the children who ought to be being allowed back into school.

@maddening it's weird isn't it. Because my work place has astounded me with the proactive and problem solving approach they have taken to continue to deliver services. So many amazing people doing things in new and innovative ways. And noone saying "can't" or "won't"

The stance of the unions seems to be : won't have them in school, won't teach them out of school. That's untenable. Unless their goal is to destroy all respect for the teaching profession I guess.

NeverTwerked Some of them fall into the categories that are allowed in now and they don't charge me in and we can't force them.

Prior to lockdown we did a survey of how many students had internet access, the majority of them said they did, but then the majority meant just on their phone, (some only on data plans). It's impossible to do the work on their phones. Some of them had tablets, which don't have the necessary software, barely anyone had a printer. Those with laptops have one laptop to share for a whole family and with parents and siblings working from home it's impossible.

We've bought 20 laptops for the most in need but there are risks to be taken into account such as them being sold or pawned to pay other bills.

There is something they use (or did when my cousins were little) in Australia and that is the 'split class'.

The split class do two years work in one year, it is made up of children who are more able to get them a year ahead and the other half, hence the name 'split' are ones who have missed a lot of work due to illness or circumstances.

So for a child in year 3 if they are able to do the work they will go into the split class for a year (doing year 3 and 4 work) and then year 5. A child in year 4 who has missed a lot of year 3 will also be in the class and then go up to year 5 with their cohort.

I don't think it is done too often so that no one is more than a year ahead of their peers. It seems crazy that shildren 'go up' a year just duew to age.

I can see some merit for the Jan to December year but I do think the weather is an issue. A 4 year old going to school in the dark and coming home in the dark, even with a parent walking them, is going to get cold and wet and may not have the road sense they develop over a few months.

NeverTwerkNaked|

Literally all other professions are ot dealing with a 5 or 10 year old at the other end of the internet.

Safeguarding is complicated by video conferencing, some issues

a) children being exposed remotely to innapropriate parenting

b) while a 5 year old is being 'taught' by video conference may have a 2.5 year old sibling who likes to run around naked, that child, perfectly innocently running around, could be recorded and put online for reasons that are not innocent.

c) following on from (b) and the person recording knows where the sibling attends school and can fairly easily find out where that child lives.

Then you come to teenagers, and a whole new set of problems.

Sorry, first bit should read, they don't come in and we can't force them.

There are already videos on Youtube edited by the kids to make the teachers look silly or creepy. @NeverTwerkNaked

I'm guessing it's not a problem you are likely to encounter.

Just to say, I am a sahm so I have no personal involvement in this. I did work as a teacher for 15 years though, so I understand where the unions are coming from.
I worked in the private sector before teaching, in a high pressure role. I can say that the level of scrutiny was nowhere near that of teaching. Furthermore, I've seen people driven out for spurious reasons because, in reality, they are too old and expensive. I do not blame the unions one bit for looking out for their members.
I am sure teachers want to get back and teach bit it just isn't safe at the moment. Just this morning the Gvt has been advised to delay until June 15.

@LemonPudding I have to host but public meetings by video link now. Of course it is a risk. But one I can absolutely live with to do my job.

sashh is correct. When other professions use teams or zoom it's colleagues on the end of the line. We've already had to deal with vengeful teenagers secretly videoing classes on their phones and uploading supposedly funny videos to social media. Christ only knows what would happen if classes happened on line.

You can run video lessons so only the teacher sees all the videos!

And what do you think the rest of us are doing? There are children popping up in my video meetings all the time.

And some schools are doing it. And very successfully.

The NHS have been amazing but I would disagree that they have found ways to work around COVID19. They have dealt with patients in emergencies amazingly well. But massive parts of the NHS have closed down just like schools. My son has hearing aids, he hasn't had an appointment for months, his hearing aids don't fit and the volume needs adjusting. We have had a telephone appointment to discuss all of this but there is nothing they can do to help until the hospitals reopen properly. My other son can't have his allergy test. All of our dentist appointments have been cancelled with no new dates given. We haven't been able to
see our GP. I am absolutely ok with all of this, I understand. But the NHS is open for emergencies or it is online and via the telephone.... this is exactly the same as schools. Schools are open to key workers and vulnerable children, the rest is online and on the phone.

My daughter would like to start in September thank you so I'm very against the suggestion of a delay, she's ready.
A friend of mine had heard from their school and the new starters there will be going in September but starting a week later than normal and starting on a couple of weeks on half days.

NeverTwerked OK so in this perfect world where every child has their own laptop. Where every perfect child agrees to sit down and log on (without incident) at the same time and where their perfect parents are at home able to encourage them to do so. What happens when that lone teacher, remotely teaching, witnesses a parent give the child a clip around the ear for not listening?

For my school the issue with online lesson delivery is more that students don't have the technology at home. I have families of 7 children with no access to the Internet other than a mobile phone, even those who have a laptop are sharing with siblings. By contrast, my local school is full of children from professional homes - everything is online as the children have the technology they need. My neighbour bought her son a new laptop so he could access the online lessons from his school. The children I teach often don't even have a pen, never mind a laptop!

Witchcraft. That seems like a good reason to do the lessons, not a reason to refuse.

Plenty of schools are managing to do video classes now..... so why not ask them now they overcame all these seemingly insurmountable obstacles?

Honestly, it's either going to be half days for everyone, to allow social distancing, or full days with risk reduction strategies in place across the community (e.g. a track and trace system/fast testing).

We don't have the space and time to double schools capacity.

Most people can't afford to live on one wage nowadays!

This is such a big problem, it’s not feasible for families to survive on one wage so for the majority there is no option to have a SAHP.
Which personally I think is less then ideal for society generally, but right now it’s making a bad situation worse.

NeverTwerked You're clearly not listening to me and others who have said that some students do simply not have the technology to do this.

I'm afraid you lost me at "schools go back in September".

Covid is here to stay, we need to learn to live with it. That means getting on with it, moving on and getting children back into education as swiftly as possible.

The mental health issues are massive for children. It's nothing to do with education and all to do with socialisation.

What I cannot understand is why there has been no distancing at all with key worker children at the two schools we're involved with (DC's school and DH's school - teacher) and yet suddenly there needs to be this massive project for distancing. There haven't been massive outbreaks at schools from key worker children who, by rights, should be at most risk of having the virus by dint of the fact their parents are in touch with all and sundry. It would stand to reason that there won't be massive outbreaks in schools going forward.