School not re opening

[Onone]

Just that really,just had an email from my daughter’s school to say that they won’t be opening on 1st June, don’t know when it will either,Thanks to the mayor of our town,I’m quite upset for my daughter,Hardly any cases in my town

Depends upon health advice. It is not just teachers

I, annoyed that my school is only opening 2 days a week, if it wasn’t opening at all I’d be really upset. My DD is desperate to go back.
It doesn’t seem very fair.

Lockdownlethargy

Presumably until the government says that shielding people don't need to shield anymore.

No school should be opening until test and trace is fully operational and the R number is low enough for it to be effective. Otherwise we'll have a second wave triggering a second lockdown and more deaths.

But no measure requiring the government to be ethical or competent seems within the realm of possibility now so I guess we're probably looking forward to an early school opening, a second wave and more deaths.

@CoronaMoaner lots of parents are desperate for their kids to be back at school. Likewise lots of staff want to be back at school. Though my online lessons are truly brilliant I would rather be speaking to students directly

Plus I am going to enjoy all their lockdown stories about who said what about who, who went where. It is going to be hilarious.

My school said they won’t be opening until they have up to date medical data,nothing to do with staff shortage

[quote StaffAssociationRepresentative]@Mummyoflittledragon - think it was Denmark.

We need

• to be able to book/pay for building
• get risk assessment approval
• need aporop[/quote]

Yes you’re right. I realise it would be necessary to do the first 2. Idk what aporop is. As I say, I am in no way blaming schools for not doing this and I imagine funding would be needed.

The government, from what I see on these boards, has just thrown the problem at schools. Has anything like this been proposed?

My DS has just had a total flip out about our school not letting year 6 back and is in his bedroom, having calmed down somewhat, designing "get us back to school" posters.....

We looked at using the village hall but it would only take 15 pupils, we would need extra staff we haven't got, no internet, no playground, no kitchen, ( well, a hot water point but nothing else) extra cleaning staff needed. It would be tricky! We have managed to fit everyone in the school who wants to come back in R/1/6 and key workers but couldn't manage any other year groups.

We are getting one day a week for my Foundation daughter - actually 5 hours. School has 14 classrooms (two are unsuitable as Foundation is heavily carpeted -impossible to clean ) So 12 rooms which need to be staffed. Due to the size of the rooms (Victorian school) classes could only take 10 kids and comply with social distancing. There are 60 kids in each year so that requires 18 rooms everyday just for Foundation, 1 and Yr6. 80% of parents wanted their kids to go back. So they have said one day a week each Monday/Wed/Friday. 4 key worker groups full time as well . Tue/Thurs rooms are being cleaned and teachers will use this time to provide home study. If the other years are required to go back provision will drop again.

One of the benefits of having all these "poorly" teachers - well, two actually- is that we are able to continue with home school learning throughout. The two members of staff working from home will be providing work for all the children still at home!

Again a genuine question - so if teachers can't come in how long do they not come in for? They can't be off forever?

They work from home preparing lessons for the children not in school. Either because they are shielded or because there isn't room.

Classes of 15 or less will still be what happens in September, the virus isn't going to go away. Hopefully, there will be better guidelines from the government about how distabce learning will work by then.

Government is giving advice. DfE gives advice

No solutions to budgets or staffing. We can not rebuild our old buildings overnight. A lot of schools are really struggling to balance the books and budgets were hit again earlier in the academic year with funding pension increases.

We have so many rules wrt safe guarding and risk assessments that we are caught in tangle of red tape. It only takes one thing to go wrong and there will be hell to pay.

Similar here. The day after the announcement we got an e-mail saying they aren’t opening the year group my child is in, but they are opening the other 2 years. I was wondering if a lot of schools might do similar in differing ways.

@ChilliCheese123

I understand the logistics it just sounds to me like teaching has a higher proportion of people with underlying or chronic illnesses and I was wondering why.

Well yes, because the number of people in the general population with one of these vulnerabilities is high. I've seen figures of between 15 and 22 million. That's roughly a third of the population so it's feasible that many teachers will be in that number.

I'm shielding. Ordinarily I work in a public facing role yet because of Covid I've now been told to not leave my home. What I was capable of pre Covid is not at all reflective of what I can do during Covid.

We had a long awaited letter from our school (all through provision so R to 13) saying that they cannot re-open as they were never closed and that any provision for year 10 and 12 will be AFTER 15th June not ON 15th June, lots of bold and underlinings.

So all teachers and school staff who are asthmatic, diabetic, obese, who are dealing with a cancer diagnosis etc etc etc should just give up? We should get rid of staff who become ill? Because that would apply to any sector not just education.

Do you believe there are teachers sitting around who could just step in?

Again a genuine question - so if teachers can't come in how long do they not come in for? They can't be off forever?

It's not just teachers. It's all employees who are clinically vulnerable who are advised to work from home or, if not possible, in a safer role at the work place.

So it depends on government advise, which will come from advisors.

Just watching Boris Johnson at the select committee, asked about other primary years getting a month of school before the end of term. Sounded very vague and unlikely, I think it's probably best just to plan for September now.

At GSs school they are having the little ones, EYFS YR Y1 in groups of ten as that is what they can fit in with the correct space. So take YR 90 kids normally 3 teachers and now they need 9. One is shielding so they've got 2 teachers for 9 classes/groups whatever they call them.

DS’s school building is old and the classrooms are only big enough for 10 children per classroom, which triples the number of teachers required per class.

Got an email to say DD early years class isn't opening for the foreseeable future, her one has 2 and 3 year olds in it. But the class with the 3-4 year olds in is meant to be opening on 15th June.
I can't see her going back tbh, quite annoying but it is what it is.

It's not that more teachers have underlying health problems than in other jobs.

It's just a job that 1 person being off affects 30 kids and up to 60 parents so more noticeable

15 children bubbles.

How will they have 15 child bubbles when a third or more of the children have siblings in other ‘bubbles’ and other children in those ‘bubbles’ will have siblings in different ‘bubbles’. Pretty much every child will be connected to every other child. One reason why I think they might as well have the lot of them back at once.

Ours is a Victorian building which can accommodate a maximum of 8 children in the bigger rooms, 6 in the others. We are a three form entry school. We have a total of 12 classrooms available. Which means that in order to keep to guidance, we would need to use all 12 rooms just for year six. We also need two adults per room, so that's a teacher and a member of support staff - we do not have sufficient TAs to work in this number of classrooms. In order to accommodate one year group out of four, every non-shielding member of staff will be working. If only 'vulnerable ', we have been told we need to work. I do not blame the headteacher. I do blame the government for giving guidance which makes it impossible for schools to open in a manner which is safe for everyone, staff and pupils alike.