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.

One of the things that might have been an idea, when schools first closed, was an immediate survey to understand what facilities people had at home....wifi, devices, printer etc. Nobody has even asked us that

What would that achieve? The school doesn't have the means by which it can provide wifi and devices and printers. Even in houses like mine where a printer, paper and ink is available, I am not letting my children just print anything and everything - I can't afford it! Work is completed online and uploaded or sent to the teacher. And with the best will in the world, different houses having different situations is not something that can be managed when you look at the numbers involved - 1000 plus students in many high schools. X student needs half their stuff printing (which half? have we reached the half quota this week?) for them 'cos mum wont' do anymore, Y student needs a laptop that we have to keep sending someone round to fix when it stops working, Z student needs everything printing, A student needs wifi and we need to get it reconnected every time his abusive father pulls it out of the wall when he's pissed up.....impossible to manage on any kind of practical level because so few parents will be able to provide the same thing.

Nobody asked the teachers what they had either. I wonder how many are working on equipment they have bought themselves. Some I expect specifically because of this?

We were asked (private school) because there was foresight and hasty planning in the last 2 weeks in school. Teachers who didn't have devices where found one in school. I have maintained my 'endless ink' account so I can print what I need at my own personal expense (I tutor so use it quite a bit but would have stopped paying as I have no one to visit at the moment!). I suspect there will be schools with SLT who have the ability to think like that but plenty of schools will have been at the mercy of the MAT or the LA in terms of just what they could or couldn't do.

One of the things that might have been an idea, when schools first closed, was an immediate survey to understand what facilities people had at home....wifi, devices, printer etc. Nobody has even asked us that

They may not have asked you directly, but they likely surveyed a number of families.

There's no point setting up the work to be suitable for the percentage of families that have tablets, wifi, laptops and a printer if they are very much in the minority.

3 hours a day would be enough to deliver an excellent education

Ahahhahahahahhahahahhaa

If that were true we'd have been doing it all along.

Why is September magic? There's no reason not to start using the the capacity we have sooner than that.

It isn't, there will be little change. Still small classes and online learning.

@Lostmyshityear9 I have been in an abusive relationship. I have an incredibly nasty and abusive ex. I still do video meetings and not just with professional colleagues but (as I said) open public meetings.
I could make a hundred excuses why I "can't" do them too.

Lost it would achieve knowing what thre actual problem was rather than assuming. And then tailored what they could offer accordingly.

Turns out we've had every class member online for social chats, so wifi and device access not such a huge issue in our school.

They didn't survey other families, it's a small school, they're surveying now, after two months.

What we have had, with no warning, is exercises like... take two pieces of blue card and two pieces of red.... which nobody in the class could do because they didn't have the materials to hand. I'm just saying... understand what there is and what the limitations are, then tailor solutions accordingly. One size really doesn't fit all in this case.

I know some schools have figured this out really well, but others haven't, so I don't think one can declare that the status quo is acceptable.

I could make a hundred excuses why I "can't" do them too

Yeah, so we’ll change all this child protection and safeguarding procedures whilst we’re at it..,and wait for the headlines.

Well if some schools are doing it the problem clearly isn't as insurmountable as you are claiming.

NeverTwerked you do understand that schools are different don't you, that budgets differ, that the student cohorts differ wildly, that family incomes are different, that not every household has broadband.

It's an interesting idea about changing the school year - if it could be arranged carefully (e.g. holidays would need to be considered given exam marking and results day would need to move to December).

As much as it completely sucks, we have to face facts that we're not having most year groups back this year, and come September it's unlikely to be the same as before. If we're lucky, the scientific knowledge will have determined that children are less likely to transmit c19 and we can go back full time. But the more likely scenario is that we either won't know that, or children are found to transmit it as much as adults in which case part time schooling, lots of cleaning and good online learning will be what happens in September. Or perhaps the test, track and trace plan will actually work but given the current track record of the government I'm not convinced

My school keeps talking to parents and making tweaks to our provision to try to improve things; I'd have expected other schools to do the same. It's not reasonable to have expected schools to be ready for remote teaching back in March but we've all been learning and sharing lots of ideas about how to make it as best as possible, and will continue to do so.