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.

@MarshaBradyo

At least isolation is now with one positive not two as it was previously.

Do you mean closing the bubble?

I think it said closing the bubble. I still haven't got enough caffeine in me and only skimmed the gov links posted.

If it is closing the whole bubble and yes I know at secondary, potentially this is the whole year if not more, then to prevent further spread absolutely.

If it's still with batshit criteria then it's still not enough.

When it comes to isolation advice needs to be consistent regardless of it's an office or a school.

Still waiting for your explanation why schools didn’t get their full quota.

Still waiting for you to say whether your MAT needed 20 laptops or 200.

A teacher up thread posted that if only the guidance came out a few weeks ago they would have given up their 'unpaid holiday' to plan.

That should be her choice rather than an expectation, yes?

Doesn’t matter how many they still need @Clavinova because they still need them, but for your information over 200

That should be her choice rather than an expectation, yes?

Yes -
"Schools are expected to consider how to continue to improve the quality of their existing offer and have a strong contingency plan in place for remote education provision by the end of September."

Can I think the one positive case equals closing of bubble was removed. It’s back to what it was before.

And now I feel just like I’m back at work saying this, but check you’ve got the latest version the DfE replaced it quickly on Friday night.

Noble, I'm not a HT and even I think the world beating track and trace is a pile of wank. 3 of us should have gotten an alert by now, still waiting over a week later. One has since also tested positive so who knows, might meet the threshold for an alert now 🤪

I think the senior leadership team at my DC's school have spent quite a lot of their "unpaid holiday" on the exam debacle.

As WELL as planning for the return to school.

And waited till the end of last week before issuing the best guidance they could to parents.

Which was superceded late on the Friday before the Bank Holiday by more Government instructions.

I suspect they haven't had much of a holiday.

Clav- Luckily, we started planning for lessons to be able to be delivered via remote learning for this term back in May (well before term ended and our staff all went off for the holidays). Back then lots of people were insisting that was a hysterical overreaction and we’d all be back to normal in September and there’d be no need. A few of our staff thought it was overkill and that we should wait and see. Luckily we had a bit more forethought than the government, who apparently only realised we’d need this in the middle of the holidays when it was too late to start holding staff meetings.

the announcement may have been unreasonable
but YABVU to be "shocked" at an 11th hour announcement.

Marsha, I've got the ones posted on here, updated on the 28th.

No doubt I will be back throughout the day asking what the fuck is wrong with these loons. If I don't I will give up chocolate.

I looked a bit closer at the shielding bit for students. From what I can gather is that unless the health professional working with the child says otherwise and was already shielding, assume they are still shielding? If not revert to RA's?

I knew one day I would regret getting rid of the caffeine iv when I quit education 🤣

'Oh the irony of @GetOffYourHighHorse's user name.'

Oh well done you! I'll say the same to you as I say to other people who unoriginally mention my username, I like a bit or irony.

'Are you suggesting that teachers should have spent their unpaid time off planning a remote learning offer in just three weeks'

Surely this was planned for from March to July when the then current remote learning was at a minimum. Please dont try and tell us that right up until the official end of term you were doing full school days preparing and assessing last terms work and not forward planning?!! Our teachers stopped issuing school work the beginning of July. I think that would have given them time between 9am and 3.30 to plan for Sep.

"Are you suggesting that teachers should have spent their unpaid time off planning a remote learning offer in just three weeks"

Why would they need to do this during the holidays?
If teachers weren't already working on this then questions need to be asked about why. Yes schools were open to students, however not all staff were supervising those students. Not all staff were making ppe.

It should have been obvious to any slt, teacher or governor that when the schools did open contingency plans would need to be in place.

@GetOffYourHighHorse Our teachers taught live lessons on Teams until the last day of term and we were planning for blended learning back in May. It’s interesting that you think it should have been obvious that we needed to plan for this but that the government couldn’t have realised that until the 7th August. Most schools have a healthy distrust of this government and so planned for this, but the government were telling us to expect a full return to the classroom and plan accordingly. Schools generally realised that some form of blended learning would be necessary this term. I think the government knew way back in May/June that would be the case too, they just didn’t want to say so as it would be unpopular to admit it then. I don’t understand why a government with a majority of 80, 4 years away from an election, is so obsessed with temporary polling data that they left that guidance for schools until August when, as you have pointed out, it should have been obvious that it would be needed well before the end of term.

highhorse DH teaches at a private school and was teaching a full curriculum until the last day of term, yes. (He's also now worked most of the holiday as well.) DS's primary school had every single teacher in school until the last day of term to cover all the classes (three year groups plus lots of key workers, all in groups of 15, meant that all the teachers - plus a couple of TAs - were needed to be in just to cover all the bubbles).

@canigooutyet It was! The question is why was it not obvious to the DfE until August? Did the science actually change and show a need that wasn’t clear to them before or were they playing politics by delaying any hint of blended learning until the last minute because they knew parents wouldn’t like it? A lot of schools were planning for it last term, even though the DfE were saying we should be expecting a full return of all students full-time.

The whole school thing has been political for a long time, just now more people are realising this.

Appease the working parent and introduce a deluded version of what things will be like. It worked. How many parents really believed and possibly still do, what was trotted will work, remember the magic doors and walls.

Maybe the DfE was waiting until the last minute to give government chance to use the track and trace that was available back in January that worked. Maybe a chance for the vaccine to come through after all what was the original timeline for that? Yea I know, grasping at straws.

I bet the U4T loons are feeling hard done by.

The schools I am a governor for and the local MAT all had their draft plans in place for September before the end of last term. But they didn't sign them off until last week, as they needed to ensure no more guidance was coming out. Obviously Sod's law that as soon as they sent them out to parents, further guidance came out.

Yes the latest guidance hasn't changed most of what was already in place but how are SLT to know that. And when new guidance does come out they have to trawl through it with a fine tooth comb to find any changes, because unlike most organisations, DfE don't think it necessary to highlight any changes. Such a simple thing could make so many people's lives so much easier

Primary is interesting, because it doesn't go part time at all, and is expected to be in except for a total lockdown.

Whether this is possible, if teachers become ill, is an entirely different question.

DfE don't think it necessary to highlight any changes.

I understand that track changes is on by default on government webpages. The minister has to specify that they want it off.

And again the question, if schools could make draft plans months ago, why couldn't the Government

"Yes the latest guidance hasn't changed most of what was already in place but how are SLT to know that."

And there we have it. Finally.

I've been asking for ages why the shock, why the outrage becsuse actually it doesn't change what was in place. As we all know this isn't the only guidance schools had, although reading some on here you'd think it was.

And sorry yes I know it was obvious for schools etc, and they have been planning. SLT might not always tell everyone everything, but unless it's your first year, you can kind of work out the scenarios for yourself.

Personally I think the timing of this one is more about getting the attention of parents. That although schools will of course try and do their best to remain open because education is important this will be the reality.

The school bus system, anyone who has used it should have realised that SD isn't doable, and over 11 if they aren't exempt why shouldn't they wear a mask just because it's not public transport?

@canigooutyet why grasp at straws to excuse the DfE for not having realised this earlier? In your last post you said “If teachers weren't already working on this then questions need to be asked about why.“
If it should have been obvious to your average classroom teacher, why reach so hard to excuse the DfE and a minister who has been privy to much more information than the rest of us, for not realising
until August 7th that schools should plan for some blended learning and not until the Friday before the start of term that a broader contingency plan was necessary.
ASCL, who represent headteachers and other senior leaders, have been asking for this contingency plan for months. We realised it was necessary, it’s the DfE that didn’t.