To ask how confident you are schools will be going back as normal

[demitrimendeleev1]

Excluding the changes with secondaries staggered start back
Yabu- I think schools will go back as normal
Yanbu- I don’t think schools will go back as normal
Please say why?

I don't know but I do know that when we are told it will be at the last hour no doubt. I am a teacher in Wales and our LEA even issued a statement saying they will be staying open until the 18th then bam 5.30pm on the Thursday a 3 day early closure was announced. This then followed by a decision on the day before the last day of term to move online for the first week. Again no inkling of this in school and means scrapping plans id written for the first week back and having to now do online learning planning instead over the holidays. So I imagine we will be told through social media at 10pm on 3rd Jan

Even though I don’t think they SHOULD, I think they will.

I had an email from school today for consent for them to test the DCs for Covid. Hopefully they will return to the classroom on the 11th but I think the schools are going to be wrongly blamed for a later return.

Going by the quick take backs happening I’ve decided to not expect anything.

I do, however, hope that they’ve at least had some
manpower developing a decent online school that will take the pressure of teachers to be teaching key worker children and online. You know, just in case. (Honestly, it blew my mind that this didn’t already exist)

I've got a year 11 who is currently doing mocks with more to do in January. I've said revise like mad - now, yay this like the real thing

Despite what we've been told, I really can't see GCSE exams taking place in England. I fully expect them to hold off announcing until the very last minute, probably the week before exams.

It's such a worry for our young people.

So wish we had an edit button - but I'm sure you catch my drift.

I can’t really vote I feel like it could go either way. I’ll be so sad if DS misses any more school. He loves it and last time it really was just a few worksheets and links to BBC.

@demitrimendeleev1 our schools are now going back on the 11th instead of the 6th and it's home learning until the 18th then it will be reviewed 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ I am not good at home learning

I am a teacher and a parent. I don't think schools should go back at the start of January. I don't see how we can possibly contain the spread of the virus with schools open as they have been. My suggestion would be to keep all schools closed for maybe 2 weeks (bar keyworker and vulnerable pupils), then open primary schools and special schools fully. In secondary schools I would have year 11 and 13 in full time and have years 7-10 and 12 in part time. You could split each class in half and have half in school and half at home on rotation, with the space to have some social distancing. Pupils wouldn't miss too much because they would benefit from more teacher time on the weeks they were in, and the workload for teachers shouldn't be affected too much because they would teach the same week twice.

the workload for teachers shouldn't be affected too much because they would teach the same week twice.

@bluechameleon What year and subject do you actually teach? Because if i was only teaching my yr 10’s and 12’s half the time, we would not get through the course.

I don’t think they will go back and probably they shouldn’t . With the new mutant virus strain which is spreading more and apparently infecting kids more . I think there may need to be a new approach to teaching . I want my kids back , I have 2 x yr 13 who really need to be in school as remote learning is not good for them and a yr 6 to whom I was an appalling teacher and who is now flourishing.
I know there is little or no social distancing at school and bubbles are mixing . So far we have been lucky and although all 3 bubbles have had positive cases non of mine have been sent home yet.

For the record we have not seen family since August and then it was outside for a few hours . We don’t / didn’t eat out or see friends when we could , we left all social interactions to the kids in their school social bubbles . Even before going into tier 4 we had no plans for Xmas .

Who knows!?!?
DD is Y10. Her school sent an email on Friday to say Y10, 11, 13 would go back Tuesday 5th as planned with the rest online for the first week.
I teach secondary a few miles away but in a different LA area. So far we've not had any information about a staggered return but were told 2 weeks before the end of term to have ALL week 1 lessons available on Teams before we start back.
It's chaos.

[quote Babamamasheep]@ballsdeep my eyfs classes are spending an hour a day cleaning every resource that children have touched, cleaning at lunch, no mixing outside of our bubble of 60, staggered starts and finishes and we’ve still had 3 closures in our year group (the rest of the school have had several too). There is no social distancing at all, because 4 year olds have no concept of distancing however much we try! Genuine question-How are you managing normal?[/quote]
We have steamers and obviously clean, have staggered starts but inside the classroom we are normal. We can't mix bubbles but tbh we have our own outdoor space anyway so that doesn't matter too much. We can't social distance, I am in fs too. We've had a closure but inside the classroom everyrhjng is normal. Normal lessons, activities, carpet time etc. I now accept that the staggered starts and no parents on site (hallelujah) is our new normal

I'm not voting either YABU or YANBU, as I'm not sure unreasonability comes into it.

I have one child still at school (Year 12, boarding).

They haven't had a single case of Covid. Their education has been completely unaffected. They have already said that they have to abide by the 'staggered re-start' rules in January. However, they could carry on just as they are, and I will be almightily pissed off if I end up with DC5 at home because of some sodding decree from the government.

I want her to be at school. She wants to be at school. Nobody has Covid. If they did have it, they would most likely be fine.

FFS, we all just need to get on with it (I say this as someone who's immunocompromised and who would like to have a job to go back to, which can't be done from home).

Scotland not going back until at least the 18th. If its necessary then course it needs to be done, but parents expected to work from home and do childcare and home school again. It's impossible, the strain on working families is too much.
We need some kind of furlough for childcare reasons to be allowed (my job isn't eligible for furlough).

@Msgiggles30

I don't know but I do know that when we are told it will be at the last hour no doubt. I am a teacher in Wales and our LEA even issued a statement saying they will be staying open until the 18th then bam 5.30pm on the Thursday a 3 day early closure was announced. This then followed by a decision on the day before the last day of term to move online for the first week. Again no inkling of this in school and means scrapping plans id written for the first week back and having to now do online learning planning instead over the holidays. So I imagine we will be told through social media at 10pm on 3rd Jan

Or as we roll up on the 4th

I think secondaries will have online learning till start of feb. Primaries will go back 11th Jan, nurseries remain open.

Beginning to doubt it. It's not a problem for us, as 12yo and 15yo dc far preferred distance learning to being at school. Dd is in her GCSE year. She'll be delighted if mocks (and actual GCSEs) are cancelled tbh. But it will be a nightmare for so many people.

Well as far as I've been told at the moment my Y6 dc is going back on 5th Jan and my Y8 dc on 11th Jan. I wouldn't be at all surprised if secondary schools end up remote teaching for at least the whole of Jan. I'm not sure about primaries; I think shutting them would be the absolute last resort.

and the workload for teachers shouldn't be affected too much because they would teach the same week twice

I actually laughed at this! I teach a GCDE subject re-sit.

We already cram a 2 year programme into 1. We've taken a week on/week off approach with different teachers delivering slightly differently.

Some teach the same topic for 2 weeks and set work remotely for the group at home

Some teach a different topic each week but adapt it for the online learners.

Either way it's 2 fucking jobs.

*GCSE, not GCDE

@ballsdeep a steamer sounds good, I’ll investigate this. Could definitely help with making our afternoons more normal, atm the soaking in Milton is taking such a big chunk! Thank you

If there's lots of staffing disruption, schools will have to close. Same goes for other essential services, supermarkets and food production and supply, not Covid secure and no social distancing, it's a ticking time bomb with lots of workplaces. In one of our local hospitals, the children's A+E had to close purely because of staffing issues.

I think they will because I work in a primary and noone gives a hoot about staff in primaries.

My sons college will start online. My daughter's school is planning to resume as normal bar any more restrictions. We are in tier 1 currently.