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 reckon attendance at my school has been better this week than last!

We never let Y11 out for anything, really surprised that other schools do.

Pleased to hear that parents asking for work are being ignored. If I’m in school I’ll teach. If I’m at home I’ll set work. I’m not teaching and setting work!

They aren't : we have all just been commanded to set work.

Our school allows no trips (any year group) after Easter, so they all rush out in Feb and March.

How do you know who to set work for?

Secondary here - encouraging hand washing for staff and students, but just had email banning hand shaking and to ask if anyone with underlying health conditions to talk to business manager if they want to...no known cases in the community

How are your kids getting back from Italy, piggy? Just heard all flights are cancelled!

My yr 9 DD school was closed all last week due to a positive result - she went back yesterday following the school being deep cleaned. She was set plenty of work to do last week via google classroom. Yr 7 DS school held the school production 4 nights last week - audience of 1200 in total. Both schools encouraging handwashing, tissue use and hand sanitizer is available. My work have confirmed they will pay me if I have to take time off to look after the children if their school closes (or they are ill with the virus) but I covered last week with grandparents/husband.

Just seen on twitter other teachers commenting that attendance is up at their schools too - like to 98%. Apparently all the attendance drives in the world can’t beat the power of getting kids to wash their hands.

They came back yesterday noble, thank goodness.

I work in a special school. Our cleaning and hygiene is already high, we haven't changed anything. I saw a child do a massive snotty sneeze onto a door release button yesterday though which has made me wash my poor dry hands even more than usual.

This was on the 'worried 19' thread and just posting here as I'm finding it helpful to think about planning wise. I have a few key things coming up. Obviously if this follows suit it will impact exams, possibly staff sickness wise tbh, though I'm starting to wonder if they might close a week either side of the Easter hols if they are going to.

(Two posters, left the quote as it is)

*Am I right in thinking this-
Peak expected to start in two weeks. Peak will last around 9 weeks (95%of cases) and super peak the middle 3 weeks of those 9 weeks (50%of all cases)
So we’re looking at the peak of this possibly in 2-11 weeks and 50%of all cases coming around 5 weeks away until 8 weeks away???

thats what our understanding was, although think peak might be at 11 weeks from now - I think last week they said the peak would be 12 weeks away, 9 weeks with 95%, 3 weeks in middle with 50%. So I would think we would start seeing numbers pick up dramatically over the next two weeks.*

I need a visual to understand that!

Craig, Sen teacher here too, I completely understand. We also have challenging behaviour to manage and often that can be unsettled by other staff members taking a class as pupils often develop close working relationships with their class teams.

Secondary teacher here. My school has just had 40+ pupils and staff back today from Rome. They will be self isolating for 2 weeks. My school just repeatedly says they are following government advice. It looks cases seem to be upping quite slowly compared to that of Italy.

Here’s a good graph. We’re not following Italy, and we don’t even look as bad as France or Germany if you add today’s 373. But we should expect an uptick in cases soon.

Asked DD and DS if they have gel at school, no but they sometimes put soap in the toilets. DS replied no gel and he avoids school toilets.

School replied to say Italy school trip is going ahead following government advice though said they may review just before departure. DD said a child at school flew back from holiday last night and loads of planes arriving in from Italy with no checks on the people at all, just a message saying if you have a fever wash your hands.

DS's school has some boarders, although majority are day pupils like DS. Most of the boarders are from China or Hong Kong, they are asking day pupil parents if they can have these boarders over the Easter holidays as they can't go home, so it looks as if we may have a guest over the holidays. Not sure what happens if we go into long term lock down.

Interesting article if we do get to closure.

I can't see it working in our setting though.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-5-lessons-school-lockdown

Who would get to use the computer at home? The teacher doing lessons- or the teacher's own.kids who are in primary school?

Posters up around school. Half the kids frequently applying sanitiser, the other half coughing and sneezing everywhere.

Still seeing staff shaking hands with parents and visitors. All meetings, assemblies, trips etc on as normal.

Little talk of the way forward, despite the fact that practical GCSEs are being examined in the next few weeks. Mumblings that we may need to start thinking about remote learning/teaching but no practical advice or support. Like many have said staff laptops went out with the ark, so not sure what the expectation would be.

Like others have said attendance seems to be up.

We're checking email addresses with a view to emailing work home but that won't work for everyone.

Kahoot are offering free premium access to any schools closed due to coronavirus kahoot.com/blog/2020/02/27/kahoot-free-access-schools-higher-education-coronavirus/

As are Mangahigh (maths) www.mangahigh.com/en-gb/blog/2020-03-06-free-access-schools-online-maths-coronavirus

My sons primary have swapped their regular soap to an anti-bac one which loads of the kids with sensitive skin are reacting to. Increasing hand-washing. Apparently kids cant take in their own hand cream or anti bac or anything because of health and safety regulations?

My secondary say they are increasing cleaning, but my block is filthy and I'm sure some surfaces haven't been cleaned for years. My personal rigorous hand washing routine has served me well and been in place since long before clovid-19. Thankfully no one is questioning us bringing in nice soap and hand cream.

They've put up a wonky sign in the loos telling us to hand wash, its stuck at about 30° off straight and makes my teeth itch every time I see it.

We're prepping revision materials for year 11 incase of closure.

gels put up and no students aware because they blend into the walls, and unprepossessing posters with very tiny print, no journo headlines to grab attention at all.

so zero basically.

May have been mentioned here but twinkl have offered free membership for staff and parents of schools that have to close.