To think schools should not reopen in Sept?

[SusanFrimp]

I think that schools should not fully reopen in September and instead be partially reopened to some years. It is just not safe enough to reopen yet. I'd say December at the latest for full reopening. If they can't reopen other smaller places, how can they reopen schools with 1000's of kids? AIBU?

[quote Parker231]@CallmeAngelina - children want to go back to see their friends, teachers, have a routine back to every day. Parents want their children to receive an education, and enable the parents to return to work to hold onto their jobs.[/quote]
Do you care about safety/community transmission?

Yes of course - I’m married to a GP who volunteered to work on Covid wards but we can’t put life on hold any longer.

Re the anxiety of teens going through the roof in lockdown.

This is true. I am one of my school’s safeguarding and mental health leads and have been monitoring this on a weekly basis via surveys of our students. However, what has emerged is that they are mostly increasingly anxious about the uncertainty, about their families getting sick, about the not-knowing. And a significant number are anxious about returning to school. Working with teens who are diagnosed with anxiety or depression, I can tell you: school is rarely the cure for these kids. It’s quite often (sadly) part of the problem. It’s not being off school that is making most kids anxious. It’s the uncertainty and general effect on life that Covid has had, which we’re all feeling.

I want schools to open. But I want them to do it safely and that cannot be done with secondary students all in full-time. In many schools, year group bubbles will be 240 kids. 240 teens going to an illegal rave at the weekend would be vilified by the press as irresponsible. But in school, there’s a magic bubble which protects them and the staff? Personally I would like a rota system to reduce numbers in each day and PPE for staff and masks for all. I’m going in for Results Day this week and it will feel really odd to not wear a mask in a public building, having got used to wearing them in shops. But of course, I won’t catch it in school.

@Parker231

Yes of course - I’m married to a GP who volunteered to work on Covid wards but we can’t put life on hold any longer.

You may have to if schools open without proper safety measures. They'll close again within weeks.

Most teachers want to get back to their jobs, which they must surely do as a vocation, given the shit pay, conditions, and being used regularly as a punching bag by far too many parents and politicians. They also want to be as safe as possible when in the performance of their jobs, just as bus drivers do, supermarket workers do, optometrists do, NHS workers do. . .

Teaching isn't a job you go into expecting that you might be required to lay down your life for your profession, I imagine.

@Hungrypuffin - do all your pupils have a laptop with WiFi, suitable desk or table to work at and access to zoom/teams lessons?

Parker, no. We surveyed them in lockdown and supplied the majority who didn’t with tablets or laptops, although I appreciate data is an issue. I would be happy for those who don’t to be in full time, along with the more vulnerable. But those who can continue to do some work at home ideally should, for some of the week, purely to allow for SD in classrooms. It’s laughable that newspaper images of classrooms currently seem to be showing them set up for ten children in the room. That’s impossible to achieve in any secondary school with all students in all the time.

Parker231

Why are you promoting this binary solution?

It doesn't have to be in with no protection or back in total lockdown (not that we ever were).

Everybody could go back to school with suitable protective measures if the government stopped this incessant spin of teachers and their unions are the enemy.

But the government is to busy trying to hide its own incompetence and the children, teachers and communities are going to end up paying the cost.

If I was teacher (huge respect to anyone who can teach children - I imagine the majority of parents have now realised they can’t) a condition of me returning to the classroom would be that I could wear PPE - make it a personal choice.

Parker231

That is what the teachers and the unions are trying to do and look at what they are being called.

Sadly our unions are being reported as being very obstructive, and to be honest a lot of what is in their emails is very obstructive. Telling teachers to not even engage with Heads about their concerns was a real low point, how can they even start to work through concerns if we don't communicate.

I am a secondary teacher and really feel the students need to be back in school, I am seriously worried about a lot of my students who have struggled over the past few months. Not all are managing this all well, lots have ceased all communications with friends - there is nothing to talk about, they want some normality - even those who don't normally like school.

My own children are at Primary and I think their school did so well in July, it improved them so much, just having interactions with friends, teachers etc.

Am I worried, a bit, but I am confident that every school has their staff as a big consideration in all of their plans.

So not all teachers are thinking they don't have to return to work.

@FrippEnos

Parker231

That is what the teachers and the unions are trying to do and look at what they are being called.

Exactly!

@Parker231: "children want to go back to see their friends, teachers, have a routine back to every day."
And during a global pandemic, that has not been possible. The extent to which it may be possible in the short-medium term is up-in-the-air. Therefore, it is your job as a parent to do what you can to provide that for your child.

I am confident that every school has their staff as a big consideration in all of their plans.
Are you? I'm not.

So not all teachers are thinking they don't have to return to work.
Can you name me any teachers on here who have said this?

Noodledoodledoo
Telling teachers to not even engage with Heads about their concerns was a real low point, how can they even start to work through concerns if we don't communicate.

That wasn't what was said and as a teacher you should know better.

Teachers were asked not to engage with the planing for schools reopening as it is not part of our job to do so. At no point were we asked not to approach the SLT etc. with pour worries.

@CallmeAngelina

I am confident that every school has their staff as a big consideration in all of their plans. Are you? I'm not.

So not all teachers are thinking they don't have to return to work.
Can you name me any teachers on here who have said this?

Well the two schools I have dealings with, my own place of employemnent and my childrens school, plus my sister works in a school in a completely different area and my nephew and niece go to different schools, all 5 have put in place a lot of things to protect staff.

There is a strong implication in all these many threads on MN and the media that teachers are unwilling to return to work. I do know some in my own school who seem to be following union line and unwilling to return.

You said "thinking they don't have to return to work."
Disregard what the Daily Mail says, and understand that the teachers on MN who are expressing misgivings, are wanting to return to work SAFELY. Most are not satisfied that anything remotely "safe" is being rolled out in schools, especially at secondary level.

Noodledoodledoo
There is a strong implication in all these many threads on MN and the media that teachers are unwilling to return to work.

But that is not from teachers, it is from those that are blatantly anti teacher and spreading their rhetoric all over the boards.

@FrippEnos

Noodledoodledoo Telling teachers to not even engage with Heads about their concerns was a real low point, how can they even start to work through concerns if we don't communicate.

That wasn't what was said and as a teacher you should know better.

Teachers were asked not to engage with the planing for schools reopening as it is not part of our job to do so. At no point were we asked not to approach the SLT etc. with pour worries.

The email I got from my union quite clearly told me not to communicate worries to SLT.

You must be in a different union to me.

Not in uk but my 14 and 16 year old go back to full time school on Monday. Masks are compulsory inside school buildings except when sitting down at single desks in classrooms. A couple of plexiglass protected desks in each room for vulnerable students. Fixed seating plan. Contract tracing app should be switched on on phones. No attending school with cold/cough/fever. Teachers and parents here seem happy with this plan.

@bontopia that seems a reasonable plan. On average how many children in a class?

@FrippEnos

As a parent (even if PTA or governor) we are not privity to the background positioning of all the relevant parties (school heads, local authorities, education department(s), and teacher unions etc) so is it as most of us parents imagine a complete mess and fight over policies, politics and resourcing?

I can imagine there is not much cooperation or love loss for the sake of the children and society as a whole involved with or without children as somehow we need a new Covid safe(r) system to spring into action soonish if possible so that it can set off the usual chain of economic events to pay back all the government “freebies” like furlough and NHS costs etc.

Just wondering as I guess you are a teacher and in a teacher union or possibly a rep etc.

Thanks!

@ResIpsaLoquiturInterAlia

Sorry, I am not sure what you are asking.

And I am a teacher in a union. In education you would be a fool not to be in a union or a union alike. If only for the legal cover.

I work in a school as additional support staff. I've not been at work since 18th March and for reasons I don't know, I've not been furloughed but instead kept on the rotas as working in case I was needed. My personal income has dropped to £250 per month as per my permanent 'contract'. This is from £900pm. I cannot claim UC or any other benefit as my husband works and our joint income is above the threshold, despite not even covering our basic living costs.

Not reopening the schools in September would mean I wouldn't be needed to do my job and would be deeper into financial ruin. Life has to go on and we have to adapt to our new normality. I literally cannot cope with no work for any longer than I have to, I cannot afford to live and my mental health is struggling.

My son is struggling being out of school for so long too. He has ASD and is due to start comp in September, putting this back further will be more detrimental to him and many others.