year 11s sat on high stools for the rest of the year, all have back ache after one day

[bimblingonagain]

Hi be grateful of some guidance on this. All the year groups are to stay in their bubbles, sat in one classroom with teachers coming to them. This is intended to last until next May. They were in school on Monday, will be in again today and are back 5 days/week from next Monday.
The year 11s are in the science block. This is high benches and high stools. Great to science practicals (which are actually banned for this academic year). But to write they have to lean forward. The boys and long legged girls cannot put their legs forward. They all have back ache after one day. Many of them don't want to go in today.
Surely the school (and yes I know it is difficult times etc etc) have to ensure that they have an ergonomic learning set up in place?
Any suggestions? Its a massively underfunded state school (we are in an area that receives the lowest amount of funding per child in the whole UK).
thanks hive mind

yes the OT parent has offered to go in, but we haven't heard if the school will accept this. I hope they will, as it is free and we all have the same goal.
Sounds like trying them as standing desks might be the simplest and quickest and cheapest option.
Will see what state DD is in when she gets home!

Standing desks should ideally be at elbow height @bimblingonagain. I would guess that the benches might actually be at the correct height already for the lower years so they wouldn't have to make any adjustments. Perhaps you could suggest that they could swap classrooms? Also in year 7/8, there will less variation in height between boys and girls... It's also a less crucial time in their education.

I guess part of the issue might be that year 11s need to use the science labs for practicals. My DC are at university and their timetables have been arranged so that all lab sessions/face to face tutorials are in one week so there is no intermingling of years/tutor groups to reduce the risk of transmission and the rooms can be deep cleaned in between.

All practicals have been cancelled for the year 11s.

I think part of it is the science rooms are bigger than the other classrooms and the year 11s are huge.