There’s now a strong chance schools will NOT go back full time in September

[Redolent]

Schools have been set up to fail by the careless summer relaxation of lockdown.

• No mandatory face masks in shops and indoors. The UK is an international outlier here.
• Reduction of 2m rule to 1m which is basically the normal distance people talk to each other. Factor in alcohol and social distancing is now non-existent in pubs and restaurants. Oh, and nobody cares about the 1m ‘plus’ bit. They just hear 1m.
• Reopening of too many indoor venues at once, including things like places of worship which are high-risk for transmission anyway.
• Bypassing the idea of social bubbles straight to unlimited two household meet-ups indoors. You can visit different pubs/restaurants over the weekend and go inside multiple households throughout the week. Zero attempt to break chain of transmission.
• No functioning app and poor test/trace system (see SAGE’s Stephen Reicher on the latter)
• ‘Pausing’ of shielding in August

All of the above will led to a rise in cases.

Meanwhile:

• Shit is absolutely hitting the fan in the United States, India, Pakistan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, other parts of the Middle East. Our quarantine policy is so terrible it may well be scrapped anyway. Will see more imported cases.
• The weather will turn cooler and allow perfect conditions for the virus to thrive

So by end of August/early September, our cases and hospitalizations will be rising significantly. Flu season will kick in. The NHS is already groaning under the weight of its huge 10million waiting list - another shut down cannot happen. A full time return to school under those circumstances will be untenable. Blended learning will see a turn as will part-time schooling.

YABU: we need to get the economy going in all its forms as quickly as possible, and schools will also go back with no issues.
YANBU: you cannot have things both ways. This summer relaxation is setting us up for an autumn/winter spike and more part-time schooling.

Eeek that is scary.

I know in our school its full on social distancing and constant cleaning. HOW is it spreading in schools under these conditions!?

I really think the government need to DO something.

What's your suggestion?

What the government is doing is leaving it to schools to sort out their own arrangements. A bottom up approach; trusting governors, heads and staff to use their professional judgement on how to deliver education safely.

They're not micromanaging schools by telling them how to do it, but leaving it to the professionals (who are usually quite strident about how they would rather be left to run schools with less government detailed input)

I feel sick at what the gov is doing to teachers. No Ppe just crack on. Value for life = zero.

Before all you bashers jump in as you love it so-It would be nice if the gov acknowledged many recommendations for teacher’s to wear face shields and masks. I’m a secondary teacher. The kids are adult sized.

Or setting them up to be the fall guys, depending on your perspective.

@RoseAndRose that is about as far from what they are doing as possible.

Gov don’t know their arse from their elbow and have no idea how to make it work so leave it up to schools very carefully writing into the guidance that all liability falls with the schools.

Then they rewrite guidance every few days at midnight and also invent things that they recon they have already said.

Rose,

I agree with you.

I know two schools really well and a few less well. They are all temperature testing and using bubbles.

However, although they are trying social distancing, it just does not come naturally to pupils (even sixth formers).

I am just so jealous of anyone who’s kids are allowed inside the school grounds. We walked past yesterday en route to the shops, and felt like outsiders. As if education was something for a select group of kids and we are not worthy enough. I absolutely know this is not the reason they’re not back. But that’s the way it felt at that moment.

@lemons1571

I literally feel exactly the same. Like my DC isn't one of the chosen ones. It's absolutely horrible.

Then they rewrite guidance every few days at midnight and also invent things that they recon they have already said.

None of which is remotely true. There are websites that give a history of the Gov.uk webpages on the internet. A clear "audit trail" of the official guidance and the dates on which their webpages were updated is there for anyone who wants to check what guidance was given and when.

I think you may be referring to the abysmal inaccurate reporting by the media, particularly BBC news which have been consistently wrong and ambiguous with their reporting of the guidance. Shame they didn't bother reading the official guidance on Gov.uk before peddling their half truths.

They issue a long guidance note for schools to follow. They then issue an updated guidance note with different wording but nothing to say what has changed, you have to trawl through and find the minute detail that has been amended. So you change the arrangements in school. Then out comes the next guidance note, again with some tiny little amendment you need to search for. After 41 different versions, you give up the will to live!

kazzy that is not the feedback on the DfE guidance that you will get form any headteacher whatsoever in any school. There have been 180 versions of the primary guidance. Much of it contradictory.

In any other sector, key changes are highlighted.

They also told a whopper of a fib in their latest update which caused considerable upset.

And they do release guidance on Bank Holidays, on Fridays at 7 pm, and/or with a few working days notice.

I don't know why you would try to claim none of this is the case.

What the government is doing is leaving it to schools to sort out their own arrangements. A bottom up approach; trusting governors, heads and staff to use their professional judgement on how to deliver education safely.

No, they are deflecting responsibility and passing the buck.

"on Germany's localised outbreak they have shut the schools down but not restaurants."

piggy The localised lockdowns shut restaurants too

Schools are not regarded here as especially likely to transmit the virus,
but they are shut down along with everything else if a local outbreak is serious enough
Schools here break up anyway at the end of June, so it made sense in recent outbreaks to shut them a week early

"At the beginning of the pandemic all advice was school shout early, reopen latest

Germany took a deliberate decision to repopen schools pt on 4 May,
before most non-essential shops
and weeks before restaurants were allowed to open even outdoors

This was to prioritise education and children's needs,
in an epidemic where they had been restricted for a disease that is v low risk for them

The first grades to return were the senior year and primary school and the 2 years at secondary school studying for exams
This clearly was for their needs, rather than choosing the youngest children first, which would have helped working parents the most

I don't think the govt could politically afford to keep UK schools pt after the vacation, if most other European countries have ft schooling.

Unless of course the situation is then much worse for some reason in the UK than elsewhere - which they would have to explain

"What the government is doing is leaving it to schools to sort out their own arrangements. A bottom up approach; trusting governors, heads and staff to use their professional judgement on how to deliver education safely"

"No, they are deflecting responsibility and passing the buck."

Must remember this for next time they are accused of micromanaging and interefering!

"What the government is doing is leaving it to schools to sort out their own arrangements. A bottom up approach; trusting governors, heads and staff to use their professional judgement on how to deliver education safely"

"No, they are deflecting responsibility and passing the buck."

So you expect Boris and govt ministers to visit every school to tell them exactly what they should be doing in their particular circumstances?

I thought schools had head teachers and governors to run them??

Either the government tell schools exactly what to do (which will be seen as overly dictatorial), or they allow them to make their own decisions.

Which do we want?

Obviously not kazzy but the advice is chaotic.

And, to be fair, in countries we are apparently aping, such as Denmark, every school did get an advisory visit, yes,and every school followed the same ( fully funded) regulations.

In the case of public health, clarity is very very important. What heads want is to be listened to about the workability of some of the solutions. Don't forget this is the government that announces things to the public before they tell the school leaders, and had to backtrack on having all primary school pupils back because they hadn't even realised it wouldn't be possible for nearly all state schools.

I have no idea what people not in education who haven't read the guidelines (and had to consult them every single day to locate any changes) don't trust teachers when they say is it a shambles.

Piggy,

I think it has been left to heads to use common sense.

At the end of the day, schools are not homogeneous, their buildings, classrooms and outdoor space are all unique. Which means each school can give less or more education to their classes while remaining as safe as possible.

It is a tough time to be a head but, on the whole, they are embracing the challenge.

You just cannot have precise guidance in a rapidly changing situation with many variables.

Our kids are in two different school.

Headteacher 1 - calm, collected, makes decisions and sticks to them

Headteacher 2 - cannot stick to a decision. Has variously decided (and communicated) the following to parents in the last month:

• we will take y6 back
• we will only take some of them back
• we aren’t sure if we are taking all of them back
• we will take them back full time
• we will take back all years R-6
• we will only take back y6 part time
• we will be having leavers ceremonies on X date
• we are not having leavers ceremonies
• we haven’t decided whether to have ceremonies
• they must bring packed lunch
• they must have a hot dinner
• they can’t bring a coat
• they can bring a coat if they need one

I don’t think some people make good leaders

Common sense and global public health crisis aren't happy bedfellows.

Some heads are better at this than others.

I can't seem to get non teachers to see that 180 amendments to guidance is nonsensical. Guidance to businesses came out very rapidly. Teachers had to wait two to three weeks after an initial announcement . This is far more complex than reopening a shop and needs clarity.

I am sorry I can't get people to see this is not good enough. The DfE are the ultimate leaders here and are showing no leadership. They re the ones with scientific advisors and officials.

They even lied about what it originally said last week.

Piggy,

I think you are a bit stubborn. The DofE cannot come into every school and review every classroom, lab and playground.

What they can do is issue broad guidelines.

It is up to heads and SLTs to use common sense in doing the best they can to stay safe while educating as many pupils as possible.

The Heads are battlefield leaders now. They can see how the battle is playing out in their schools and adapt accordingly. Some have run with this challenge and are doing brilliantly, others are not doing very well at all.

This is really showing up the leaders versus the administrators.

If I was a private school I’d be creating some sort of provision state could dip into.

Reduced fees, early termination of contract. But effectively duplicating online lessons for state children enrolled in a state school.

I’m convinced you’d make a fortune.

Evil,

Private schools are mostly Teaming/Zooming. At the moment they are just fire fighting too. They need to justify their fees although they cannot yet fully open for pupils.

For a while, though, there have been questions about whether they share enough to justify their charitable status and VAT exemptions. Covid will, in the medium term, make them address this more urgently or end up being taxed more.