To think they should have stopped team teaching?

[tiredmum2468]

So just had an email
Dd5 is in reception and they "team teach" basically 3 teachers and 3 TA's
2 of the TA's are also dinner ladies/ lunchtime supervisors and 1 of them works as a 1-2-1 with children who need support
It's 2 classes of 30 so 60 kids and 6 staff

1staff member has tested positive and so they are closing the entire year group bubble

Because they team teach
aIBU to think they should have split into 2 classes during a pandemic and not mixed and matched staffing etc???

Wow thats a fantastic staffing ratio. Would you split one of the teachers down the middle?

Our primary has whole year group bubbles. I think its just one of those things and they'll benefit from the team teaching and extra staff longer term.

It's probably more complicated than that- shared toilets, resources, outside play area, even rooms.

I get where you are coming from but it really isn't that easy in most schools.

I think the professional people who run the school made professional decisions and maybe you should not assume you know better. I guarantee there will be many many factors you know nothing about that will have impacted on how they have chosen to run the class.

I'm also jealous of the ratio of staff to children.

As for the Covid issue, it's much more complicated than splitting the class / staff. The TAs will likely work on inteventions / groups within both classes, and if they're also working as mid day supervisors they will be in close contacts with children from both classes. In addition the children will be sharing resources, toilets, the same outdoor provision etc.

I'm sorry your DD is off school already, but staffing in schools is complicated and the school will be doing the best they can.

2 teachers job share for one class and 1 is full time

I just think they could have organised it better

To be fair they've been pretty organised on home learning and other things and it's a shame this has happend especially for the staff member who is ill only a week into this

However there is 2 classrooms and the outdoor space could be timetabled so one classes used it then another.

Just feeling their lack of organisation is causing further disruption

I don't feel year group bubbles are a
Very good idea for this reason and it was raised at the extraordinary governors meeting we all attended via zoom by lots of people and they just haven't listened now this has happend

I can work at home but many can't and face a week/ 10 days unpaid and it might not even have been affecting heir child had they organised people better

OP, what do you actually think the school staff are doing? Do you think they are just going 'tra lala' with their fingers in their ears? They will have made the best decisions for the school wide setting that they can with the childrens educational best interest and staff wellbeing at the roof the list parental childcare issues are somewhat lower down.

Sorry for typos. Ti's late

We've split our EYFS into two but technically we are all in the same bubble. We've only one TA so she's moving between bubbles which isn't ideal. It's a case of doing the best we can in the circumstances.

We can't have anything outside that we both use. So no equipment and the children aren't allowed to use the climbing frame etc. So that's all very miserable.

@HugeAckmansWife

Are you a staff member at this establishment

@QuacksLike

I appreciate that staffing comes into this - and with people doing jobshare especially it's difficult

It's a shame the government didn't give schools extra money and funding for extra TA's so they don't have to be shared with 2 groups of children

TAs were cut years ago so there are hardly any in some schools outside of EYFS which has become an issue now with all the extra hand washing and wiping everything all of the time. Not to mention the recovery curriculum.

they just haven't listened

They listened, but couldn't do it. It would have been considered but, for whatever reason, whether it's staffing, toilet facilities, the size of the classrooms and other communal areas like the stairs, corridors, dining hall, playground, the main entrance, there being a couple of sets of twins spread across the classes, after school childcare, arrangements for breaks, catering, etc, it would have been deemed unworkable in practise.

No but I a a teacher and sick to death of the malady that is always present of every person who ever sat in a classroom thinking they have some magic answer that the trained and fully informed people are too thick / lazy / self interested to work out for themselves. Because that's obviously the problem. If only we let random parent X run the school all these issues would just be magically solved.

2 teachers job share for one class and 1 is full time

That ^ is very different from the picture you painted in your first description.
So they actually only have normal ratios, in that 2 of the teachers split the one FT job between them.

I assume they use the same toilets, and probably eat lunch at the same time

tiredmum2468

Its a shame that the government didn't listen to the teachers, unions or the scientists that said that this would happen.

Its a shame that so many people believed the government campaigns to discredit teachers.

Its a shame that the government decided to not put any measures in place that could have prevent this.

On a side note, what job in a hospital do you do that allows you to work from home?

Usually it’s because they are set up as a unit and share resources in order to teach the full curriculum. It’s not as simple as split the staff in two. If they have to be amongst each other due to layout/resources/toilets then they’ll be counted as a bubble anyway.

This will not be about the school not being organised or not listening. They will have made the decision that best balances covid bubbles and efficient teaching of sixty 4- and 5-year-olds.

Anyway, when covid went through our primary school, 6 unrelated staff in 4 year groups caught it at the same time. None of us use the staff room and I hadn't even seen 3 of them for at least a month. It spread to kids and their families too, of course. Covid spreads incredibly easily and quickly; you're all probably safer if they're all isolating for 10 days.

I thought you meant team teach as in the behaviour management training... that’s what it means in our school

@Cactuslockdown

I thought you meant team teach as in the behaviour management training... that’s what it means in our school

I am so glad I am not the only one who saw team teach and thought of something completely different to what the Op means!

Most TA and teachers have their own children in other schools some with kids in tow or three different schools

May I suggest you contact the head teacher and ensure they only employ single people who live on their own so they reduce contact with any other human being?

I’m sure they’d love the idea!

Do feel free to contact the school and offer your support in organising their resources. I'm sure they'd welcome your ideas.

I wish you would give a tiny bit more thought to the logistics.

Schools are, fundamentally, not designed for any sort of distancing - in fact, the absolute opposite. It would mean separate everything - toilets, entrances, rooms, meal areas, equipment, staffing, for each class bubble of 30 or however many are in this school you are envisioning. And secondary also?

It is like the pictures in the media of socially distanced children in classroom - about 15 of them max, with screens in between them all. Absurd!

@BackforGood

2 teachers job share for one class and 1 is full time

That ^ is very different from the picture you painted in your first description.
So they actually only have normal ratios, in that 2 of the teachers split the one FT job between them.

And one of the TAs is a 1-1 so focussed on on or two children, and two of the other TA are also middays which means they will not be in the class full time as they probably have a break before lunch .so actually we are now down to the perfectly normal ration of 1 teacher and 1 TA per class, and since they also have outside space to cover that means that quite often one person will be in the class and one outside ............

And as for closing the whole bubble the children are mixing freely at playtimes, the staff who are middays are mixing in the dinner hall , the teachers team teaching are spending time together, socially distanced I expect, but they need to discuss organisation and lesson planning. It is what it is, schools have to work how schools need to work.

There might be other reasons than sharing staff for the group bubbles?

My DC’s primary school has bubbles of 2 classes each.
They have bubbled the classes this way because, the way the toilets and cloakrooms are set up, each 2-class bubble is sharing the same set of toilets and cloakrooms.
They’d need to double the toilet / cloakroom provisions to be able to effectively separate each class from the other.

So in a situation like that at our school, I suppose it wouldn’t make much difference if the 2 classes in each bubble were to share staff.