Schools 3 day a week?

[Sunflowerkeep]

Is this for real or just media again? Is it seriously being considered?

We have some TAs who are pt as TA and pt as UT as they do some teaching, they are very experienced and run small groups or foundation level qualifications. Would make excellent teachers but don’t want to do a degree.
We’re outside outer London weighting but in an expensive part of the UK struggling to recruit across the board.

You know what this really shows tho? The governments complete and utter disdain for state education. No one could ever say that this government has prioritised our children's education over the past 12 years.

I've said so many times on other threads that this energy crisis isn't just about the poorest people being able to pay the gas bills. If schools/hospitals cant run their heating, then we then start to see the breakdown of society.

If they go to 3 or 4 day weeks, who looks after the children when the parents are working? The BBC has an article today about the chronic lack of childcare available because nurseries are shutting because they can't afford to remain open. If that forces parents into part time work, who covers their bills? Because with no disposable income, that means shops/gyms/hairdresses and our entire service sector collapses.

This is a monumental crisis and no one seems to be getting the urgency other than Martin Lewis

Our school building isn't fit for purpose. The windows are so rotten that in the winter, ice is INSIDE the windows. The wooden frames are so derelict that quite frankly you would only need to push them with a small shove and the whole frame would fall out. The government has let these buildings become so derelict that I'm not surprised that they are costing a bomb to run.

In an ideal scenario, I'd love to see the government putting the money into solar panels for every single school. Yes it would be a huge infrastructure investment - but for the long term, it would save hundreds of thousands of pounds in energy costs. The more we can make our buildings more efficient, the better for everyone!

Media/unions/head teachers/local authorities whipping up a storm to force the government to increase their budgets.

Schools will NOT go to 3 days a week.

Legally schools and teachers are contractually required to cover the bare minimum. It’s not possible to simply decide mid stream to knock off 2days!

The source is unnamed unsurprisingly. Either created to pressure government into more funds or causing more problems

I don't think it will happen, but I don't think anyone is proposed 3 days in school and 2 days online. Some academy chains heads are threatening that they can only provide 3 days in an attempt to get better funding. Which is needed, but also those execs are on 6 figure salaries! My nearest secondary academy reports a salary for the highest paid memebr of staff of £135k -£140k plus £40k pension contributions. There's a few teachers there and there will be other senior salaries on high salaries too (they only need to report over £100k)

I do think some schools could make savings by looking at who is delivering what. Absolutely, core lessons should be delivered by qualified teachers, but not everything needs to be and actually, some unqualified pastoral staff are really very good at what they do.

Good. I hope it works. It's criminal that our schools are being run on shoestrings. We should all want better for our kids.

You need to step away from the Daily 'Fail' 🙄

I doubt it but budgets are in an extreme situation.

Probably schools will make redundant even more TAs and/or reduce SENCO hours, so children with SEN will be even less well supported and then parents of NT children will go on mumsnet understandbly outraged that their child has got hurt but in many cases still flipping willing to vote Tory.

Meanwhile my autistic child has been signed off from all services because they now will only provide OT or EP for children where they have an ECHP… and LA are blanket refusing to access for ECHPs - their policy is to delay, deny, obfuscate and delay some more to balance the books. My child is lucky that they won the lottery of having middle class parents who will advocate and go to tribunal and write to PALs etc. But how many children are not in this situation? How many parents just can’t write legal letters when their child is put on 3 year waiting lists for any kind of medical service? I hate that advocating for my child potentially delays another child. It’s terrible.

I feel deeply sorry for support staff and teachers (I was a SENCO and got out to charitable sector), for children who are in a class with an unsupported child/ren and I’m beyond angry for my child and others like them.

As a technology teacher I would be refusing to allow children to move boiling water around a crowded room for the purpose of washing up.
You as the SLT would be signing off the risk assessment and taking responsibility for any accidents that happened because of your short sightedness.

and before you say 'no you wouldn't'

We have already stopped some practical lessons due to the room being overcrowded and unsafe.

Most parents WFH these days, so how hard can it be to sit a 5yo in front of the TV with Peppa Pig (on mute) and a bag of crisps for 8hrs?

No they don't?! Most healthcare, teachers, retail, hospitality, transport, sports, arts, animal care, emergency services, lots of social care, prisons/probations/courts and dozens of other professions I haven't thought of all work full time out of the home. Plus lots of people in offices. It's only a majority of office workers who work from home a majority of the time.

I can't see this happening at all. How many teachers would continue to work, if they were reduced to part time hours and salary? It would be too difficult trying to work 2 jobs, for a full salary. They'd end up joining agencies, and working part time for more money. Schools would be forced to over pay for agency staff. It wouldn't work at all.

They could reduce down the salaries and the perks and second home funding from MPs and give it to schools instead. MPs earn way too much for what they do. It’s the civil servants who keep the country running. I think we need MPs but they really should not be paid so much. It’s a total disgrace.

I don't think they're proposing that teachers are put on PT hours, or more that some teaching will be done remotely so they don't have to put the heating on every day.

That's the question that no-one seems to be answering. Schools need more money to pay for the staff pay rise and higher utility bills, but our government doesn't have a history of sufficiently funding schools (or other public sector organisations) and simply has a vague notion of increased costs being met by savings elsewhere. But the problem is that after over a decade of this, the time when there is savings elsewhere to be made has long passed.

Short sightedness? What would happen in practice is I'd meet with the food tech teacher and work out something that she was happy with. Neither of us would be looking to cancel the lesson. It would probably mean asking a TA to go and help clear up, if there wasn't a safe way to get students to do it, or I'd go and do it myself, as I have in the school kitchen on a number of occasions.

What I do known with absolute certainty, is that no one would be taking a position of there no way we can make this work.

BarbaraofSeville

The problem with remote teaching is that it doesn't work. it might work if a lesson was online and the next face to face. bu7t even then there is no guarantee that the pupils will do the work at home.

It would probably mean asking a TA to go and help clear up, if there wasn't a safe way to get students to do it, or I'd go and do it myself, as I have in the school kitchen on a number of occasions.

That just shows a lack of knowledge about what goes on in a practical lesson.
And the lesson wouldn't be canceled it would be theory based inline with the curriculum.

But the problem is that after over a decade of this, the time when there is savings elsewhere to be made has long passed.

I have had the impression with both Tory candidates but especially Truss do not understand this.

I know that. But they're not talking about putting teachers on reduced hours either.

But somehow the books need to be balanced. More money is needed to pay for the staff pay increase that has been agreed and higher utility bills.

But will that money be forthcoming? It can't be found from efficiency savings because there's no more cuts that can be made.

This was on the BBC and in the Times as well. It's not the Heil making things up.

The government need to get back in session and get an emergency budget in place that covers both support for households and funding for vital services such as schools, they also need to rein in the energy companies to mitigate these price rises.

DC school sent a letter out the week before last about this issue. Last year their energy costs were approx £120,000 (they're a federation with three schools across three sites for first, middle, and high), this year they're looking at approx £620,000 and they can't afford it. The letter was basically saying that they're looking at a range of options including condensing the schools/mothballing buildings so middle and high will share one site using portacabins for extra classrooms, cutting extra curriculars, cutting staff, cutting the school day by shortening the lunch break/breaktimes, closing the afterschool club/wraparound provision, or a combination of all of the above. They also made mention of one day a week remote learning where all but one building can be shut for day to save energy costs but said this was a last resort and not yet at the planning stages, it's the "not yet" that concerns me as its clearly being discussed as a possibility.

Then she's not fit to be PM then. <talk about stating the obvious>

These are not complicated concepts and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.

We've had over a decade of low inflation and a government that has squeezed funding of public services. So when there's a large increase in essential costs, funding must be increased to cover it. Otherwise the cost cannot be paid.

Maybe head teachers should send their unpaid utility bills to the chancellor of the exchequer when the bank account runs dry?

Everyone said the possibility of lockdown was scaremongering too.

Ask parents to pay? What a lovely middle class school your children must go to. At my DS’s school a lot of parents are so destitute that the headteacher doesn’t even ask for £1 charity donation for Children In Need or anything else.

The government created this mess, they can sort is out. They’ve got the money for a fucking high speed train that most people will never be able to afford to use. My DH is higher rate tax payer, the government need to have along hard think what they’re squandering tax payer’s money on.

Absolutely, core lessons should be delivered by qualified teachers, but not everything needs to be and actually, some unqualified pastoral staff are really very good at what they do.

Yes, many non-teaching pastoral staff are really very good at what they do, and would like to keep doing it. Why would they want to be roped into doing the job of a teacher instead for a lot less money? If they wanted to teach, they would train to be teachers. Also, who is going to do the job of the pastoral team if they're busy delivering lessons? Speak to any non-teaching member of staff with pastoral responsibility in a school and they will tell you that they are busier than they have ever been.

It’s absolutely crazy that pay increases for public sector come out of existing budgets. And not for the first time.