Are there any secondary teachers on here? Please share what your school is doing and what you have been asked to do to facilitate schools opening in Sept. Some of you seem to think schools are going to open with no thought put into it and no SD in place. I highly doubt that.
Not a Teacher but I work in a large Secondary school.
Year group "Bubbles" of 280+ students. Teachers and TA's will move between Bubbles. There are a high proportion of students with siblings in another year group so bubbles will naturally be burst but there's nothing anyone can do about that. Bubbles will also mix on the journey to school if they travel by Bus and obviously we can't stop students from different year groups walking to and from school together or socialising in the local community.
SD is simply not possible as the classrooms are not nearly big enough. In most of our rooms, the Teacher would have to stand in the corridor to be 1m away from students. For students to SD from each other we would have to halve our class sizes and there aren't enough rooms to make that possible. The DofE have stated that staff should SD from each other and we will all do our best, but again most of our offices/rooms don't allow for this.
Staggered lunch times and break times. Canteen will be open as normal.
PE is still happening but no clubs, at least initially.
No parents allowed on site unless by prior appointment. External professionals such as counsellors, speech therapists, Educational psychologists, social workers, specialist teachers and OT's etc etc will still be permitted to come in to work with students. Assemblies, parent events, open evenings etc will all be virtual.
One way system in (tiny) corridors- unfortunately this proved very difficult to enforce even with the small number of keyworker/vulnerable students who were in school during lockdown but it remains an expectation.
Students will be asked to sanitise their hands on entering and leaving a classroom. Staff will do the same.
Students will be asked to avoid sharing equipment, passing notes etc where possible- again this proved very difficult to enforce during lockdown but we will persist. During lessons that rely on a lot of shared equipment like Music, Tech, Science etc I expect Teaching staff will spend a lot of time frantically wiping things down. Obviously, students will all be using the communal toilets, sinks, canteen furniture etc and it's not possible to clean these between each student but again, not much we can do about that.
Staff can wear masks if they choose to do so but the vast majority won't. Students will not be expected to wear masks in school. They are supposed to wear them on the Bus but as there will be no adults supervision and the bus is like Lord of the Flies anyway by all accounts I have my doubts! Staff will use PPE when administering first aid.
Extra cleaning has been put in place- although we have no money to hire any extra cleaners so I worry for our existing team of cleaners who all seem to be well over 50 and a couple in particular reel off a long list of ailments whenever I ask how they are. They are going to be knackered.