To think the idea that schools won’t be back full time by September is an absolute disgrace?

[LovingLivingInLockdown]

The government and teaching unions need to pull their fingers out. There should be no excuses.

The effects of 6 months out of school is going to be damaging enough, both educationally and mentally for hundreds of thousands of children. Not to mention the unnoticed abuse and neglect.

Teachers should be wearing PPE with spit screens if they are vulnerable and this should be being organised now. Temporary classrooms should be being built in playgrounds and school fields. Random testing routines in all schools should be being devised as well as guidelines regarding children’s contact with others outside of school and home. Whatever it takes, it must be done.

Our society expects parents to work while their DC are at school and if they want to get the economy moving again, schools being back by September should be non negotiable surely?

pigeon999

SO maybe you should be campaigning for regions to be able to decide what to open and close?

Which is something the government isn't allowing.

Whereas we have a grandparent die, a parent test positive and a member of staff in hospital.

It is simply not true that the unions have discouraged teachers to go into school. They have asked that it be safe and members be safe but they have also recognised the important role teachers can play in keeping schools going.

This is an extract of an email I got before the Easter holidays from my union about working in the holidays. Have had many similar throughout. ^"NEU does strongly urge teachers to volunteer if you can, both at their school and with XXXX (local council hub). Previous teachers have fought and won the rights we are now benefiting from i.e. full pay not counted as sickness if you have an infectious or contagious disease. Our Sisters and Brothers who are key workers need us if they are to feed and keep us all safe."^

So do we let children miss out on education forever if it's not safe. Children are at a low risk of catching the virus. Why is it safe for everyone else to go back to work?
I'm disgusted by how our children are being treated. They need to go back at least part time. If they can't what's the point of sending them to school in the first place?

Rosebel, most teachers would agree with you. We didn't want R/1/6/keyworkers back in full time and other children not at all, we wanted part time provision for all and we had plans in place to ensure this. But we weren't allowed to do this, part time schooling was not allowed.

SO maybe you should be campaigning for regions to be able to decide what to open and close?

To be far frip I would settle just to get them open first, to every child, and then work on the finer detail afterwards.

PS for what it is worth I think most teachers are great, I don't think this forum or thread is reflective of teaching generally

Why the massive goady posts then?

Smile I think I have already answered that question.Please read the whole thread.

Pigeon

No, you said “I’m not being goady”. Which you are sooo....

I don't understand why these posts keep happening when schools have been open the whole time for keyworker children and now ALL teachers who can teach are teaching bubbles of Nursery, Reception, year 1, year 6 and keyworker children. full time.

Schools are open! We're in full time! Leave us alone!

You do realise that the teachers who you think are "great" are the same ones that are posting on here, don't you? There isn't a secret store of teachers we bring out for special occasions, there isn't a hive mind. Different teachers will have different ideas and opinions. Pretty much the only thing teachers have in common is wanting to educate children!

On a serious note, I imagine the independent sector will be thrilled. This may well save some of them from demise. Those that can stretch to afford to move their children probably will if this continues for much longer. So it will be the most disadvantaged that will suffer the most as always.

The private sector definitely can not afford to stay closed come the autumn, so they will reopen regardless. The country will then split into two, those that have all the advantages of full time, engaged schooling, and those still languishing at home. The resulting impact on equal opportunities for all and social mobility will be then be enormous for those children left far behind. Anyone who has even passing interest in social equality should be very worried.

Can we please can the narrative that teachers are lazy arseholes loving the fact that they don't have to work and that this is why schools are still shut to the majority of children.

Teachers are employees. They are doing what their employers (governing bodies) are telling them, which is, in turn guided by instructions from the government. Nobody else would suddenly start doing something at work that had been explicitly directed against by their employers. Why the expectation that teachers must, and that if they don't, they're lazy, or cowardly?

It doesn't matter what an individual teacher does or does not want, they have no say in the matter. Like any employee, they do as they are directed.

Temporary classrooms would be great, but what about the kids in inner city schools that have very little outside space. Remember when schools sold their playing fields so they could be built on?

Temporary staff would be great, but what happens to the kids with a placeholder person not a subject specialist in secondary? Schools can't recruit maths and science teachers as it is.

Be angry if you must, but be angry at the right people...this is not the fault of the teachers and cannot be solved by them all going 'you know what, lets all go back to work on Monday'. The vast majority of them HAVE been working full-time (or is working from home only work if you aren't a teacher?), and, like the rest of us, would just like life to return to normal.

@pigeon999

I am not being goady, thank you. I am appalled that the schools are still closed, we have zero infection rate her for 17 days. As in no one anywhere has tested positive.

Where (roughly) is 'here' and how big an area are you including? Street/town/county/region?

If you genuinely think teachers are great - Why the incredibly inaccurate & goady posts?

The country will then split into two, those that have all the advantages of full time, engaged schooling, and those still languishing at home. The resulting impact on equal opportunities for all and social mobility will be then be enormous for those children left far behind. Anyone who has even passing interest in social equality should be very worried

That is already the case. Or have you only just noticed the massive gap between the advantaged and the disadvantaged?

Teachers work with this all the time.

ilovesooty
Also very true. I didn't see many objections then either.

We can guarantee that come September whatever ways forward schools find, there's going to be hundreds of threads like this:

• AIBU to think we should be able to choose the days out DC are in school? I don't want DC in on a Monday because Wednesday is more convenient.
• It's really unfair that key workers during lockdown were allowed to send their children in to fit their shifts but I can't.
• Teachers have no idea what it is to be a working parent! I have 3 DC in different year groups and they have staggered starts and ends to the day. Teachers have no idea about working in the real world or they'd realise that this is a stupid plan that penalises working parents.
• I'm furious that my child in Y10 had been put in a bubble with someone who was on the low attaining table in Year 5/in a bubble without all their friends?
• I might have spent lots of time on MN saying there's no issue of children getting Covid and schools should open fully, but AIBU to complain to the head that a child my DC doesn't like dropped a pencil in DC's table area?
• One child coughed in school today. AIBU to keep DC off school for a fortnight just in case?
• Why is my DC's school that's over capacity only doing part time on site when the prep school with classes of 12 is fully open?
• My DC messaged a teacher for help with remote learning at 9am today. It's now 4:30pm and they've had no response. What ARE teachers actually doing all day? (Other than teaching bubbles on site obviously)
• many variations of 'our local private school...'

And that is a brilliant idea cant as most keyworkers no longer need to take priority. Hospitals here are empty.

We cannot change keyworker priority until the Government tells us to.

We have the letters ready to go to all year groups not yet in as soon as the Government ends the need for keyworker bubbles to take priority, and we have a plan for how the small number of truly vulnerable pupils can continue to be in school full time alongside 2 days a week for every other child.

We are waiting for the Government. Not unions. Not teachers. The government.

Sloth all secondary schools are closed, some, not all are offering the odd day to Yr 10 and 12 and those that are open if you can call it that, are working with a small number of key worker children are not teaching at all, they are baby sitting.
Those children go home to parents in the NHS who are then expected to teach their children the curriculum after a 12 hour shift on the CoVid ward.

Indeed Lola

Heaven forbid there’s another closure. I think teachers might actually get burned at the stake 😂

I think everyone suggesting ideas is misunderstanding the scale of the budget difficulties state schools are facing.

The government is not going to fund anything. They aren’t even funding the additional cleaning which they themselves recommend as a safety measure - we can only claim this cost back if we actually have an outbreak.

Secondary schools are more difficult, because of three things:

• Transport
• Increased age. While there is some evidence that small children may sopread the virus less, it is not at all clear whether e.g. 14-18 year olds fit the 'child' model or the 'adult' one. This is (in combination with my third point) why 2m social distancing is in the secondary guidance but not in primary.
• Movement around the school and to different teachers. This is the biggest issue. Primaries are working on single consistent bubbles with 1 or 2 members of staff per day with the children all the time. Secondaries cannot work like this - different teachers, different combinations of subjects, different sets.

smile the gap is just about to widen significantly as you well know, it is already too big and just about to get even bigger when the private sector starts firing up the motors to make up for lost time, they will be throwing everything at it so their kids won't fail, whilst state languish. It is not rocket science. The two speed education system is going to look like a walk in the park when you think about how the independents are going to respond to this. They are no way going to stay closed - or go part time, Their very survival depends on being open.

You may think this is okay, but I don't.

**There is no way they are going to stay closed

Pigeon

Have you ever posted about the disadvantage gap before Covid? Have you ever done anything about it?

Stop lecturing me and stop suggesting I think it’s ok, you absolute patronising, goady lemon.

Anyway one good thing to come out of this nasty teacher bashing thread is that I've sent a message to my secondary school saying how can we help and support them during this difficult time. I may not have done that if it hadn't been for the arseholes on this thread. So thank you.