To be shocked at yet another last minute gov announcement.

[wantmorenow]

New guidance for schools just announced on a Friday night before schools return. Breathtaking incompetence.

As for having a parent who paid for cameras to be installed in each classroom

And of course, that is possible if you have 10 or 15 classrooms (or perhaps even fewer)

When you are talking about hundreds of rooms, it's a little less feasible.

[quote Mumratheevergiving]@CraftyGin

As the school Timetabler, I have changed all our rooming to have KS3 in their form rooms, and KS4 in their form rooms, as well as vacated KS3 lesson rooms for their options subjects. I will don my Teflon hat next week when teaching staff realise that they have to move rooms (which involves pro activity on their parts).

May i ask how many children attend the school you work at? It sounds like considerably fewer than the circa 2200 pupils at my local secondary school! As for having a parent who paid for cameras to be installed in each classroom that is a world away from the experience in state schools where some parents can't equip their children with pens and pencils.

I'm sure you have been working hard but your set up isn't representative of most secondary schools so please don't disparage teachers in school settings very different to your own.[/quote]
I have never claimed that it was representative. Did I?

I would never, ever ever work in a school of 2000. Crazy.

Maybe this pandemic can shift the move away from mega schools.

GetOff

I think the point being made is that if you have a relatively small number of staff, in a small school, it's OK for each to make fairly independent decisions on many things (obviously not whether the school should close or not, but e.g. to have a screen, how to arrange the classroom, to set up your own classes on a certain piece of software). If you are in an organisation that is 10 or 20x larger, there is much less tolerance or scope for a particular teacher to 'act completely independently', because it is not OK for one lab to be set up 1 way by 1 teacher, and another to be set up differently for another. things need to be much more codified and standardised and documented - which is why the impact of a last minute change of guidance goes from being a quick chat to being the overhauling of large numbers of documents and formal consultation with tens of stakeholders.

Maybe this pandemic can shift the move away from mega schools.

Sixth form colleges are often very large, and serve very wide areas - often rural ones, where individual schools could simply not offer the same range of subjects.

I guess CraftyGin is one of the people advising the government. Because the government plans work in the small private schools of their youth they assume that the plans work in all schools. Because they (the government) we're schooled in airy classrooms with unlimited budgets and less than 20 people per class they assume that the masses are taught like this. Because the parents of their schools can afford to install classroom cameras for online lessons they assume that other schools are being obtuse for not offering the same. We all know that assumption makes an ass out of u and me.

I have never claimed that it was representative. Did I?

Well, you claimed that what worked for you - make your own decisions for your own micro setting - should work for everyone, and disparaged other teachers / settings for not doing as you have done, without any caveat about 'of course, different settings will have to work in other ways, because mine is atypical as it is such a small, private school'.

@Morfin

I guess CraftyGin is one of the people advising the government. Because the government plans work in the small private schools of their youth they assume that the plans work in all schools. Because they (the government) we're schooled in airy classrooms with unlimited budgets and less than 20 people per class they assume that the masses are taught like this. Because the parents of their schools can afford to install classroom cameras for online lessons they assume that other schools are being obtuse for not offering the same. We all know that assumption makes an ass out of u and me.

Not at all.

Don’t work in airy classrooms with an unlimited budget. When I visit other schools, I am always gobsmacked by their facilities.

The point about what we are doing is all about planning, not the specifics.

@cantkeepawayforever

I have never claimed that it was representative. Did I?

Well, you claimed that what worked for you - make your own decisions for your own micro setting - should work for everyone, and disparaged other teachers / settings for not doing as you have done, without any caveat about 'of course, different settings will have to work in other ways, because mine is atypical as it is such a small, private school'.

I said that we came up with something that worked for us, and suggested that clever, educated people could come up with something that would work for them.

Economics says that we all have to manage scarce resources, not crawl into a hole.

@CraftyGin
I would never, ever ever work in a school of 2000. Crazy. Maybe this pandemic can shift the move away from mega schools.

Did you read the part of my post about not disparaging other peoples circumstances?

@duffeldaisy

The bubbles thing is almost meaningless in secondary schools. The children aren't able to distance in the classrooms (most schools are turning the desks to the front, but not sure how that's going to stop an airborne virus from spreading over several hours in a packed classroom). Then they'll be bubbled with classes throughout the rest of the year, which can be up to 300 in big schools.

And those children usually have siblings in another year bubble, or in another school. And the bubbles don't work at all when you have several years using a small block of toilets.

I am furious with the government for not coming up with much better solutions, but they seem not just happy to risk cases spreading, but threaten parents who would be able to take their children out temporarily, with fines and prosecution - or deregistration. It feels like they're trying to spread the virus. Schools are doing their best, but what are they meant to do with no extra resources or facilities?

This. Absolutely.

Feeling so sorry for teachers right now.

Deregistering my child on Tuesday 😭 to reluctantly home educate until Spring.

Expecting govt to do another u-turn, on fining parents, but will be too late to save our school place so thanks a lot Gavin.

Country run by morons, v depressing.

There will be a second wave Oct-Feb worst than first wave. Given the bad management, the public no longer bothering to stay even 1m apart (restaurant tables are a foot apart in my town), and the fact that this virus lives longer in cold weather and we are about to reopen schools without shutting pubs, hard to see how anything else can happen.

I said that we came up with something that worked for us, and suggested that clever, educated people could come up with something that would work for them

BUT teachers in larger settings - and the people working on Covid safety in larger settings - are working under constraints of consistency and scale that you can completely ignore.

were

suggested that clever, educated people could come up with something that would work for them.

I don't know what classrooms I'll be teaching in, what equipment and resources will be in any classroom, whether I'll be expected to do any cleaning, whether I'm allowed to use worksheets, what responsibility I will have for remote learning, how marking is going to work or even whether I'll have 2m space at the front of any of my classrooms and what state the kids will be in when I finally arrive in the room.

So yeah.

@Skysblue

Feeling so sorry for teachers right now.

Deregistering my child on Tuesday 😭 to reluctantly home educate until Spring.

Expecting govt to do another u-turn, on fining parents, but will be too late to save our school place so thanks a lot Gavin.

Country run by morons, v depressing.

There will be a second wave Oct-Feb worst than first wave. Given the bad management, the public no longer bothering to stay even 1m apart (restaurant tables are a foot apart in my town), and the fact that this virus lives longer in cold weather and we are about to reopen schools without shutting pubs, hard to see how anything else can happen.

Don't deregister, it would be crazy to do so. Call school on Tues and say you returned from France on Monday so are self isolating. That gives you two weeks. If nothing has changed call after two weeks and say you have tested positive (they don't ask for proof) so that's another 14 days. Then you dp gets a positive, that's another 14 days. In six weeks everything could be very different.

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'May i ask how many children attend the school you work at? It sounds like considerably fewer than the circa 2200 pupils at my local secondary school'

Isn't it all relative? The more pupils then the more buildings and staff you have. Surely it doesn't change the fact if there's an outbreak then whoever is in charge has to refer to the guidance? Whether you have 50 kids or 500.

Really, have you ever held a children's party? There's quite a difference between organising 50 or 500 children. That's like saying travelling by car is the same as travelling by bus as they both get you to the same destination but managing one of these modes of travel is more complex currently due to the pandemic.

You maybe missed my earlier post where I enquired whether you either work in or have children currently in state schools?

Do you really think it's best practice from the DFE to release guidelines at 11pm on the Friday night prior to the week thousands of schools are due back?

@noblegiraffe

suggested that clever, educated people could come up with something that would work for them.

I don't know what classrooms I'll be teaching in, what equipment and resources will be in any classroom, whether I'll be expected to do any cleaning, whether I'm allowed to use worksheets, what responsibility I will have for remote learning, how marking is going to work or even whether I'll have 2m space at the front of any of my classrooms and what state the kids will be in when I finally arrive in the room.

So yeah.

All of this - and while of course you COULD come up with your own plan for all of these things, it would be a complete waste of your time because the organisation-wide plan for all of this (probably being revised for the millionth time as we speak) rightly over-rules any one person's individual choices and plans in order to ensure consistency in safety approaches across the organisation.

(And one of the reasons why organisations have not sent out this detailed level of guidance to everyone yet - many have, but some haven't - is precisely because of the government's tendency to change things at the final moment. So the Government's approach is damaging not only because it creates 'direct' uncertainty - ie it changes what has already been decidedm, at short notice - but also 'indirect' uncertainty, because the likelihood of last minute changes means that information that could perfectly reasonably have been widely distributed weeks ago is delayed.)

Sorry to come back to one of the original points but I have got confused

Our schools policy, published before summer, was that one positive case means the bubble (secondary so whole year group) has to self isolate. Which seems to be the same policy as many schools

The school is still saying this will be the case as they are responsible for saying who has close contact with the pupil and they will say this is the whole year group bubble

I have mixed feelings about this.

But my question is , can they no longer have this policy.?
Thanks!

@sleepwouldbenice

Sorry to come back to one of the original points but I have got confused

Our schools policy, published before summer, was that one positive case means the bubble (secondary so whole year group) has to self isolate. Which seems to be the same policy as many schools

The school is still saying this will be the case as they are responsible for saying who has close contact with the pupil and they will say this is the whole year group bubble

I have mixed feelings about this.

But my question is , can they no longer have this policy.?
Thanks!

I suppose the problem is being able to say for sure, with setting and break times, who has been in close contact. It could quite easily be most of a bubble anyway.

I don’t disagree that in many cases but I can think of a few where it wouldn’t be appropriate, hence mixed feelings

I would rather it be a possible consequence rTher than an automatic default

Just wondered if they were actually allowed this policy now though?

They are supposed to discuss with PHE I think. Not sure now that they are being disbanded.

@Skysblue

I agree with @Morfin. Don't dereg yet, if you were previously happy with your school. The option to home school without dereg or fines this term may well still happen!

Just do as she suggested & say you've just got back from France (or somewhere requiring quarantine) that'll buy you two weeks & then some illness & testing etc and buy yourself some more time.

You can string this out for sometime to see how things go (you won't be the only parent).

@cantkeepawayforever

(And one of the reasons why organisations have not sent out this detailed level of guidance to everyone yet - many have, but some haven't - is precisely because of the government's tendency to change things at the final moment. So the Government's approach is damaging not only because it creates 'direct' uncertainty - ie it changes what has already been decidedm, at short notice - but also 'indirect' uncertainty, because the likelihood of last minute changes means that information that could perfectly reasonably have been widely distributed weeks ago is delayed.)

This!

But on top of that refusing to issue certain guidance and actively whipping up a frenzy against those who asked for it - then producing it adds distrust and unnecessary tension.

If they'd handled this better from June and reassured they recognised the need for this guidance - but that they needed time to produce it - the whole feeling of mutual respect would improve.

@itsgettingweird but if they had said this their house of cards would fall as people realised that no matter how many adverts are produced stuffing 2000 people in a school will never be safe.