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?

[gluteustothemaximus]

Chill. It’s not 6 months. Lockdown happened 23rd March.

April to august is 5 months.

Summer holidays, easter holidays and may half term happen during that amounting to around 10 weeks.

So nearly 2.5 months out of the 5. Effectively 2.5 months missed. That is all.

And weekends they're not at school anyway.

[SallyLovesCheese]

My comment about teachers going to the pub was referring to the risk of the more lax social distancing that’s going to happen there, so where’s the argument of not getting back to school?

Should have made that more obvious

It's because you prefaced:

I wonder how many teachers are going to go to the pub when they open!

with:

Everyone else has to get back to work, so should teachers. What makes them so special, more so than shop staff?

That's why.

And you do realise that pubs are only allowed to open socially-distanced seating OUTSIDE when they do re-open? And that teachers and school staff are expected to be in small rooms with up to 15 people with no social distancing, windows that only open about 2 inches if they open at all and confusing research about whether children do or don't spread the virus?

Or can't you see the difference between having a drink outside 2m from someone for an hour and spending six hours in the classroom conditions I described above?

[Regretful123]

I’m in the minority and think the children should go back.

[Muh2020]

YABU.
You might change your mind once the second wave hits.

[TimeWastingButFun]

So you don't love living in lockdown?

[DomDoesWotHeWants]

Yet another goady thread where the ignorant can come and give teachers a good kicking.

And the usual suspects gather.

Social distancing is helping stop the spread and will still be happening for months to come. Get used to it and try to think of practical ways to support schools and children.

Slagging off teachers, although fun for so many on this site, achieves nothing other than demonstrate the ignorance of so many posters.

[BramwellBrown]

Temporary classrooms should be being built in playgrounds and school fields.

magnificent, who is going to work in these temporary classrooms?

As for I wonder how many teachers are going to go to the pub when they open! Damn straight I'm going to the pub. I'm in work looking after the keyworker children, I've been in through lockdown, school holidays and bank holidays, with no PPE, I cant see any of my family as my parents are shielding and my siblings are staying with them coz of uni being shut, I don't have a garden so I can't even have a friend round for a drink, so yeah, actually I think I deserve a drink or two.

[slothbucket]

The children have missed 8 or 9 weeks so far, not 6 months.

I’m a primary teacher and I’ve worked 60 hours this week teaching my bubble full time and then making resources for children still at home.

All my colleagues and friends in every other school locally are doing similar hours, I don’t know any teachers at home unless they’re vulnerable because we’re all needed in to teach all the bubbles.

OP and people like them disgust me. You have no idea what you’re talking about.

[SuperMumTum]

Our school has worked so hard to accommodate key worker kids and Years R, 1 and 6 and it's taken so much planning, communication, long hours and damn hard work from all the senior leadership and class teachers and TAs and caretakers. On the first day after dropping my DS in his reception bubble i see groups of parents from different year groups huddled together on the pavements, chatting, back slapping and generally not social distancing. I presume the teachers see this sort of thing too and wonder why on earth they bother.

Anyway, my point is that we are hardly bothering with social distancing now. I see it everywhere, so if the R rate hasn't gone up significantly by the end of term we should just get kids back in school in September as normal. No more disruption to kids education when the adults are breaking the rules all around us.

[newpuppyexcited]

OP you do realise that the GOVERMENT have set this 2 meter rule and it's that rule that is preventing schools going back for the most part. Because of that rule classes need to be split into about 3 groups. So in the school where my DP works which has just under 2000 students, I'm sure that you can understand that suddenly coming up with classrooms which need to much more than double the amount of current classrooms, isn't quite as simple as putting up a few portacabins.

And even if they do put up about 100 or so portacabin classrooms, I'm sure you understand that each of those classrooms requires teachers! And obviously those teachers need to be capable of teaching the variety of subjects at secondary level.

And after that logistical nightmare, who is going to pay for all of this? Because the government certainly aren't putting their hands in their pockets for it!

And that's not even touching on the extra tables/chairs/whiteboards etc

Maybe you could join your local schools board of governors and help them figure it out OP?

[milveycrohn]

From what I understand, the Gov do NOT expect school kids (especially primary) to socially distance. (As in the 2 metre rule). Instead they have asked for social bubbles of a max of 15 pupils in each class. Presumably spaced out where possible.
It is this 15 child bubble that is the problem. If class sizes are normally about 30 children, then each school need to double the classes, and double the staff.
Using church halls, etc does not provide the staff.
I guess schools could divide up and do half in the morning and the other half in the afternoon, but this fails to take into account a 'deep clean' between each bubble, and presumably if using the same teacher, then a 'deep clean' (shower, change of clothes) for the teacher !
At the moment, it is just classes R, 1 and 6 (primary), but even this has proved difficult for some schools. I read one school were planning on half the class Mon and Tues, a deep clean Wed, and the other half Thursday and Friday!.
I guess if the bubbles remain, schools could do, half one week, and the other half, the following week.
The use of church halls, huts, community centres maybe could be considered in some instances, using retired teachers?
Obviously the real solution, is to scrap the social distancing, and the 15 people bubble.
To do that, they would need the infection rate to decrease substantially, and maybe not helped by mass demonstrations (after demonstrations 2 weeks running, there will have to be a wait to see in there is another spike)

[Sockwomble]

"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."


Thousands of children were already spending months or years out of school due to lack of funding for buildings and staff. Why do you think there will be funding available now? Were you involved in campaigns for more funding then or does children being out of education only matter now?

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

As much as I would like my DC back in school full time... (Plus COVID to disappear completely overnight, BLM protests to not have been necessary in the first place, and a unicorn for Christmas)...

1. name 10 spaces in close proximity to your school where it would be possible to put a group of children. Must include toilets and some outdoor space.
   
   
2. would you be happy in a room with 30 other people right now.
   
   
   In answer to 1) I can think of 1 place, a social club. Maybe the library 10minutes away. Maybe the boarded up church could be cleaned up.
   Another school in the area is more lucky... Only a one form entry. Scout hut and 2 roomed church hall right next door. Plus the church just up the road. If they could find an extra 7 teachers, they probably could fit all the kids in.
   Another local school has a church next door, which they already have to use for school events as the school hall barely fits a year group in.
   
   As for 2)... No I wouldn't. I know many people scared of leaving the house. I see young and fit people having to walk down the road 2m apart to stop spread. So I wouldn't force their teachers to spend all that time with 30 other people.
   
   What does need to happen... There needs to be plan that enable all children to have the opportunity to attend school, even if it can only be part time. Proper standards for home learning taking into account the range of demographics. And better long term investment in schools.

[DomDoesWotHeWants]

Obviously the real solution, is to scrap the social distancing, and the 15 people bubble.

That would be stupid. Social distancing is important to stop the spread of the virus.

Parents are told to wash children's clothes daily. If the chance of infection is that high then teachers and other school staff have to be protected, as do the children.

The only reason to lower SD to 1m is for convenience and to reduce costs.

Not good enough reasons.

[Kokeshi123]

I’m not sure why they don’t currently have much more centralised planning given we are supposed to have a national curriculum. Not to the extent of set lessons, obviously adjustments have to be made for the particular children in a class, but online school, moving school etc would be an awful lot easier if we could just decide every child does Romans in year 2, every child reads book x in year 3 etc. One set of maths resources, one nationally specified set of reading scheme books (online, free on e readers, by all means varied in type and style within that scheme).

You are getting a load of stick, but actually this roughly describes how many (most?) countries organize their curricula. Some counties even have standardized textbooks (Finland included. Yes, really!).

I live in a country where the curriculum is standardized and we have textbooks that come home. I much prefer it for a number of reasons:

a) Parents can easily see what is going on.
b) Parents can work ahead of the curriculum and introduce stuff to kids ahead of time if they need to.
c) Parents can go back and revise stuff easily, referring to the book. A single record of all work done so far that year (as opposed to a jumble of battered worksheets that get lost and thrown away and lost down the back of the sofa)
d) You have a reference source if they are struggling to do their homework. "Let's look at what the textbook says!"
e) It prevents the problem of children in more deprived areas being given a "relevant" (=less academic) curriculum.
f) It makes life easy if you move from one school to another.
g) It means that everything builds systematically from one year to the next. So you don't end up with kids who, over the course of their school curriculum, wind up "doing" the same topics two or three times, while missing out on other topics that should have been done. Or teachers in secondary struggling to work out what content to do with their pupils because they have all studied a whole bunch of different stuff at their various primary schools (I suspect that this is part of the reason why transition to secondary seems to be such an issue in England and similar countries with no standardized curriculum).

It doesn't stop teachers personalizing their lessons and teaching things this way or that way, adding in or substituting their own choice of resources as they choose. It provides a skeleton that they can build on.

[ukgift2016]

I am pretty sure soon Boris will be reducing the 2m social distancing guideline to 1m. With that in place, schools should be able to open.

If teachers still don't want to come back, then their jobs should be given to another professional.

[Walkingwounded]

Petition at petition.parliament.uk/petitions/305525

Also //www.usforthem.co.uk

It is fucking ridiculous how state school kids particularly are being thrown under the bus.

The health sector has risen to the challenge - education needs to as well.

Write to MP, Children’c Commissioner, Sec of State for education.

[Kokeshi123]

Oh, and I forgot to mention, but: when teachers don't have to spend loads of time on curric development, making their own resources and so on, it frees up a lot of work for things that their time is-IMObetter spent on. Like, working one-on-one with struggling kids to bring them up to speed or work intensively on areas that the child appears to be having difficulties with.

[DomDoesWotHeWants]

@ukgift2016

I am pretty sure soon Boris will be reducing the 2m social distancing guideline to 1m. With that in place, schools should be able to open.

If teachers still don't want to come back, then their jobs should be given to another professional.

Even at 1m classes are too large so still part time. Do the maths.

You do realise there's a teacher shortage? Give their jobs to another professional?Too silly.

[GalesThisMorning]

I just wanted to pop up and say that this mumsnet narrative that all of the children are suffering and that this will be a generation lost etc etc is false. As is the narrative that teachers are lazy and should just get on with it and fix this already .

My kids mental health is FINE
My kids education is disrupted. It is not irrevocably damaged. They will still, in their lifetimes, become educated and qualified.
As long as there is 2m social distancing in operation our children will not be in classrooms all together, full time. It's not possible. We don't have to like it but we do need to prepare for it.

On a separate note I agree entirely with @Kokeshi123. Standardized textbooks seem entirely logical to me, it's how I was educated (not UK) and seems like a good baseline.

[Spinakker]

I think for the families who want to send their children to school they should be able to and teachers who don't want to teach replaced with people who can. I do understand people who need to shield etc but for healthy families willing to take a risk for their child's education there should be an option.

[gerispringer]

As it’s so obvious teachers do bugger all, and it’s so easy it’s surprising there is a shortage and people aren’t queuing up to join the profession. This is usually from people who find it difficult to look after or teach their one or two own children. Maybe all the teacher bashers on here could volunteer to go in and do the deep cleaning of the classrooms and toilets needed during the day. Provide your own cleaning materials of course.

[gerispringer]

I’m surprised that all the teacher bashers want to send their kids to school, anyway, since all the teachers are lazy and useless.

[Oysterbabe]

I feel confident that bubbles and distancing will be scraped in schools in time for them to open fully in September.

[Witchcraftandhokum]

As a teacher I've gone from getting angry at these posts to just shaking my head and laughing at how dense some people are.