Teachers: What is your school doing?

[noblegiraffe]

The DfE have said DO NOT CLOSE YOUR SCHOOL. Ofqual have said KEEP PREPARING FOR EXAMS AS NORMAL

My school seem to have taken this as an instruction to just keep on trucking. They might have put some posters up in the toilets about handwashing tbf.

Other schools, from what I can tell on here, are gearing up to teach lessons remotely, cancelling trips, stopping assemblies, wiping door handles with disinfectant, making kids wash their hands before lunch.

I can’t see much chat about it on edutwitter, even after the Times article suggesting that A-levels might be postponed and GCSEs put back to September.

I just saw a TES story about a school that is gearing up to teach ‘AM and PM’ sessions via Skype for Business.

I think I’d rather go into school and risk the plague than Skype my Y11s.

I just think of all the kids who already can't do things like hw cos they don't have interner. As if we'll be teaching them! Disadvantaged kids could do appallingly here.

Secondary.
Cleaning is awful.
A few posters, a letter to parents.
Staff toilets have more hand soap.

No plans for Gcse or anything ..... think they are sure we will not close.

Schools won't close - it'll have a massive impact on the economy, which the government won't allow to happen. Everyone would have to be off work to look after their kids.

We're not doing much really. Bit more hassling about them washing their hands, no sharing of water cups.

ME independent school here.

School production has just been postponed/cancelled (dd2 gutted!).

No trips. I was due to take 20 students to a competition at a neighbouring school - we've had to pull out. I've a visiting author booked to come from U.K. & expect to probably be instructed to cancel that.

Emergency meeting tomorrow re work from home procedures in the event of closure - it'll be death by Google classroom/meets I expect.

Two competing rumours going round: a) we stagger on until Easter then stay shut for Ramadan b) we shut imminently (qv UAE/Qatar).

Seems increasingly unlikely we will be functioning normally for term 3 - possibly just opening for exam candidates.

Having said that, official word from SLG is 'carry on as normal - nothing to see here' but also 'who knows - we are waiting on the government to make a decision'. If they order us to close/stay open, that's how it will be .

Awash with hand gel & tissues, armies of cleaners steam cleaning anything that stays still for more than 5 minutes, but nowt new there as mild hypochondria is a national obsession at the best of times .

Kids all talking of nothing else & freaking out every time someone sniffs. All armed to the teeth with antibac - not that that will help much - & sucking zinc lozenges as local rumour is this is guaranteed to zap any stray virus. They're still chewing borrowed pens & strewing dirty tissues with abandon though! Grotbags.

How many cases are there round your way, purple? You sound slightly ahead of where we are.

Reminding students to wash hands.

Everyone in school. Not one parent query.

If you close schools lots of nurses and doctors will also stay home to look after their children.

The Governors take the decision in our schools and presently we stay open, might deep clean if necessary and keep an open mind.

My money's on nationwide school closures from Fri 27 March if cases continue to multiply they way they have been.

Wonder if our school trip to Italy will still be going ahead now whole of Italy is on lockdown - I asked a few days ago expecting it to be cancelled and got told of course it's going ahead, DFE guidance is it should go ahead. Hopefully someone will work out there's a problem soon.

noblegiraffe we’ve had parents voluntarily taking children out of class this week and asking for worksheets. They have been ignored!

Part time so not been in yet but we've got a lot of staff absences as it is, (a flurry this week) so it won't take many more to lead to closure. We are sen so there's a range of other pressures. We would be unlikely to be able to set much homework.

I think they'll rely on schools closing as the need to rather than a blanket ban at the moment.

Looking at how German data is following a similar pattern to Italian, if our outbreak is similar, in 3-4 days we will be at around 800 cases. It was roughly 6000 a week later in Italy. But perhaps the measures we are all taking will impact? Who knows.

I reckon they'll consider closing schools here a week before Easter hols, potentially a week after too.

Extending class sizes would be challenging for us.

I also wonder if supply teachers might begin to dry up?

noblegiraffe about 60 cases & 1 death. Officially. Sinister rumours of government being in denial.

Someone on another thread found a document that basically said the usual 'it's up to headteachers and the governors' guff. Typical of our country's style of government and decision making really! The government has medical officers and advisers but - oh no- schools must make decisions of this scale themselves!

We had parents evening last night and posters were placed up banning the shaking of hands. Not sure how that helps when we’re so squashed into a school hall we are sitting nose to nose with parents!

Well now I've woken up aching all over and sore throat. Ordinarily I'd take some ibuprofen and get on. I'll have to do that as I've not been in contact with anyone I know who has it, but who knows?

My issue is that in many sen schools we are very physically close to the children, and they can't tell us how they feel. We had a poorly child recently who we only knew was ill from observing behaviour.

Primary.

Extra hand washing and assemblies on hand washing / hygiene.

Cleaners always clean to a very high standard anyway and desks are cleaner every day.

We're East Sussex though, and there have been no confirmed cases outside Brighton and Hove.

I teach in a deprived area - I hope we don't have to close - the best place for the children in my school is at school, not at home

Secondary -

-Real push on handwashing and hygiene eg catch it kill it bin it. Hand sanitizer available too.

-Contingency plan for if the school does shut, we will set work via show my homework. We have resources available that students can access from home. This hasn't been discussed in detail, though.

-Teachers to inform the school of Easter travel plans.

However alongside this, heads of year are still pushing attendance. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the awareness of the Coronavirus and trying to improve attendance. There are some persistent non attenders who obviously need to be dealt with, but equally kids who are staying home with genuine illness are being called up and encouraged to come in, which doesn't seem the thing to do right now!

Oh we have also stopped handshakes, but I agree I'm not sure it helps given how close students sit and how close we get to students.

FCO advice changed overnight and now our students returning from southern Italy (and the staff) have to stay away for two weeks. Most of them are year 11....

Who let Y11 out on a trip?

Our year 11s are always on effing trips. One of the grills who has to self isolate was on her third trip since half term...

She was delayed on return from Tenerife, too!

Ah well, it's all educational.

I'd welcome union advice on work setting must say!!

girls, obviously!!

I’m getting really fed up now with our school. There are no cases in our county or neighbouring ones, but there are some only an hour away and any students could be travelling there for sports, weekends etc. There is still no mention of it at all. Still just posters up about hand washing. No extra cleaning. No tissues or extra hand sanitiser etc. But the main thing is that we haven’t even told anything still about why we do work wise for students or if we need to close, or stay off for our own children etc. It’s like it isn’t happening! Still!

We have a huge amount of staff absences suddenly this week.