To be pissed off that secondary school are doing next to nothing about Covid?

[MushyMushi]

Despite the huge risk assessment, reassuring letters, promise of bubbles and social distancing, segregated classes, coloured badges, separate entrances and staggered times for year groups, masks in corridors etc...

Absolutely none of this has been enforced.

Small class bubbles have become bubbles of full year groups of 150 pupils. The segregated break areas have been mixing with all year groups with no enforcement by teachers. Masks aren’t being worn. Pupils are entering and leaving school whenever they feel like it.

Not to mention that if one case of Covid hits, the entire year group will be expected to self isolate for 14 days!

AIBU to think this is really poor or is this the reality of secondary schools now? They’ve only been back two days and it’s all gone to shit.

I work in a secondary school with 1800 students and 200+ staff. There is absolutely no way to SD in our tiny corridors. The one-way systems we've implemented simply don't work in many areas of the School. Despite all the signage and floor markers kids are constantly forgetting or just not being bothered.
We have had parents complain about packed corridors (sorry, we can't magically make them wider!) but we've also had parents complaining that some staff are choosing to wear masks as it makes their child anxious. Whatever schools do it will be wrong.

Are you in a local lockdown area? Masks only required if you are.

It's not government policy YET to enforce mask wearing in schools
But don't be surprised if it's on the way

Also HT's can still mandate the wearing of masks in their own schools, even if it's not government policy. Although not many have gone down this road yet, I suspect they will if the parents complaining about "nothing being done" and tweeting pictures of crowded corridors continues.

Schools in my area are recommending masks in communal areas etc. Not a high rate area

Young people are at almost zero risk if damage or serious case of covid. They need to not just be educated but to socialise with their peers. Their brains are still developing.

Adults who need to should be protected. Teenagers should be given back their freedom

@trinity0097

Are you in a local lockdown area? Masks only required if you are.

Not true.

according to the guidance

Masks are required at the discretion of the head.

We are in local high risk area.two of mine attend same school years 8 and 6th form.basically hand gel entering every classroom and wear masks in corridors-exceot many aren't or with noses hanging out.my girls are both low and withdrawn not wanting to go back.how is that in the best interests of their mental health?

Also HT's can still mandate the wearing of masks in their own schools, even if it's not government policy. Although not many have gone down this road yet, I suspect they will if the parents complaining about "nothing being done" and tweeting pictures of crowded corridors continues.

DC school has taken the middle road on this. Not making them mandatory but pupils can wear them if they wish.

I think I will send the head an email to say thank you, it seems they are giving it their best shot to make it work.

So on here we have parents complaining that the schools are not enforcing measures and parents complaining that they are! Multiply that by a thousand in a secondary school!

It's all smoke and mirrors, both by government, and by the organisations (including schools) who have to pay lip service to the impossible task the government has set them. Both the government and schools have to be seen to be doing something.

As @millymollymoomoo says, the whole nation has been brainwashed by the legacy of Saint Boris, the patron saint of scaremongering (with help from the media), and said scaremongering was also smoke and mirrors, telling us that there would be bodies piled up in the streets, to terrify people into complying with lockdown.

When teachers and TAs said what schools would be like with everyone back they were told time and time again to have a can do attitude, to stop moaning and get back to work like everyone else and legitimate concerns about social distancing were ignored or the poster ridiculed.

I can’t believe that anyone who has read the government guidance and seen the inside of a school believes that there will be social distancing or anyway half decent measures in place to prevent the spread of Covid.

Some teachers were even on here saying that there is no soap in the toilets of their school and others were saying they have no opening windows in their classrooms.

With no additional government funding for Covid but massively increased costs and the guidance schools have to work within there are limited measures schools can put in place and as a PP said due to staffing schools have to rely on students to follow these measures when not in the classroom.

Teenagers should be given back their freedom

Well, all the teenagers I've seen all over the local parks during the summer don't seem to have been missing out on much "freedom."

Yes, @Cookiecrisps
We’ve been saying this for ages and been accused of being lefty teachers who wanted to stay home on full pay. Told we were exaggerating. We weren’t. This is how the government (all governments in the U.K., not just Westminster) have mandated it. It’s shit. It won’t keep schools open.
We told you this.
Why didn’t you listen?

Well we'll have to try it and see what happens.

Maybe the teachers at the two schools my DC are at are liars and / or very good actors but they seemed genuinely happy for the children to be back and determined for it to work. The primary school has already made a tweak after the first day today. We will just have to see how it pans out from here.

I was genuinely happy to see the kids back today. Bit emotional seeing them pour through the gates even.

Teachers like teaching. They like the kids. They weren’t acting in being happy to see them.

That doesn’t mean that it’s not a totally shit and incredibly stressful situation to be in.

Yep. We tried telling parents.

I am sure all the teachers on here are happy for the pupils to be back and will do what they can. But they would prefer that there were better measurements in the school.

It was all I could do not to scoop up some of my last year's class and kiss them when they screamed "MRS ANGELINA!!! WE'VE MISSED YOU!!" across the dining hall.

But I hate, hate, HATE teaching with all these restrictions. It's so stifling of creativity.

@bumblingbovine49

DS's school hasn't started fully yet but we don't have staggered start times they are using different entrances for different years

We've had maps of the areas each year can go to and some of them are 'fenced off' or delinated. This means years have to spend all of their break times in certain parts of the the playground (or their tutor room if it rains) Break and lunch times are staggered.

We were told that any chld touching another even if they are hugging to say hello would get an immediate detention that day the idea being that after a few days of zero tolerence, the pupils would get used t the no touching rule. I think it is a pretty good idea for behaviour control as well as the Covid thing so I don't mind that at all. We were told to expect more detentions than normal in the first week or so and an advance apology about that that but they fully expected things to settle down after that.

A detention for touching someone, due to the risk of them passing on a disease that they are vastly unlikely to have, that’s completely ridiculous and disproportionate. I’d be telling our school to stick it up their arse if they came up with that nonsense, thankfully they are more sensible

@ineedaholidaynow

I am sure all the teachers on here are happy for the pupils to be back and will do what they can. But they would prefer that there were better measurements in the school.

Yup this. Lovely seeing the kids - my fab KS4 group and a new KS3 group today. I praised a child who had tried really hard and he smiled from ear to ear. That warm feeling of the best of teaching reappeared after absence for months. However I want staff to be safe. At the moment safety is the priority for all, or it should be.

There was never going to be SD in schools anyway. No one can be surprised?! My son went to high school for his induction in June and there was no SD with half of one year group in, it was never going to happen with the whole or half the school if it couldn’t work with a fraction of kids.

Well one tries to be supportive of teachers.

In the same way teachers won't tell pupils/parents that they are fed up with the funding situation in schools, that they have to pay for various resources out of their own pocket, how they are fed up with the draughts coming through the rotten windows, the leaking toilets, the cramped classrooms etc

@SomewhereEast

I'm not sure what else is going to happen TBH. This is just part of a wider issue - you can have strict 24/7 social distancing or you can have a functional society, but you can't actually have both. I just wish we would all engage with that reality.

Correct