AIBU to think that the government have fucked up literally everything to do with schools and education this year?
Evidence:
Chaotic school closures and keyworker provision (couldn’t decide what a keyworker was until the very last minute)
Forgot that kids on free school meals would go hungry so heads had to go round delivering sandwiches while the DfE put together an utterly shambolic voucher system that crashed and was pretty unusable.
Issued no guidelines for minimum education requirements during lockdown leading to vastly different provision between schools. Even Ofsted said they couldn’t judge schools on lockdown provision as there were no standards to judge them against.
Had to be shamed into u-turning on their insistence that free school meal children should go hungry during the holidays by a celebrity footballer (well done Marcus Rashford you absolute star)
Fed stories to friendly newspapers about schools re-opening in May to judge public reaction, leading to anxiety and uncertainty among parents and school staff
Announced that primary schools would open to all pupils before the summer holidays, an announcement that had surely not been run past anyone who worked in schools given that under the government’s own guidelines for schools for bubbles of 15 and no rotas, this would require double the classrooms and double the teachers available. Then backtracked on this a few weeks later (getting the friendly press to blame the unions) again creating uncertainty, anxiety and disappointment for parents and pupils.
Ignored education select committee questions about Ofqual’s algorithm when they raised issues in July
Lied and said they didn’t have early access to the data from Ofqual’s algorithm
When Scotland u-turned on their use of an algorithm, instead of making a considered response, came out with the bizarre notion that kids could use their mock grades - a suggestion that had obviously never been put past anyone who worked in schools. Again.
Took 5 days to realise that their mock suggestion created more problems than it solved, then u-turned on awarding CAGs creating problems for Y12 next year.
Fed stories to the friendly press that the unions are blocking the re-opening of schools in September so if it goes tits-up, they can blame them again (unions are asking for a ‘plan B’ in the case of local lockdowns, and for working conditions comparable to those of all other workers, no strike action has been proposed or balloted for so they couldn’t block re-opening even if they wanted to)
Blamed Ofqual for the algorithm they were told to create (prioritising statistics over teacher assessment)
Branded a teacher payrise that was agreed back in January a ‘reward for work during lockdown’, knowing this was incorrect, and deliberately fuelling outrage that they themselves had caused by having no minimum requirements for education in lockdown leading to vastly different provision.
Not funding this payrise so teachers probably won’t get it as otherwise it will lead to redundancies for other staff members due to having to fund it from already dire staffing budgets.
Issued guidelines that said that schools should reopen with increased cleaning schedules, increased handwashing, hand sanitising but providing no extra funding for this.
Instructed heads not to take any measures that would improve safety but would require more space (e.g. use of village halls) or not have pupils in full time (rotas, staggered timetables).
Didn’t realise that kids wouldn’t be able to get to school on public transport under current social distancing requirements as there aren’t enough buses until three weeks before schools reopened, and decided to throw £40 million to LAs to sort this (what? buy more buses?) so that they could blame the LAs when it inevitably goes wrong and kids can’t get to school.
And these are the people currently running a campaign to convince parents that they are capable of re-opening schools safely.
YABU: I have full confidence in the government and am perfectly happy with how things have gone so far
YANBU: It is mind-boggling how incompetent they have been, and how little thought they have given to the education of the nation’s children.