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.

Secondary: Shit hit the fan today, full prep for shut down in 1 to 2 weeks with 24 hours notice. Staff all have internet access so preparing to work from home & posting on SMH, expected to be available during the day to provide feedback, mark work etc

Priority on Y11 & 13, identifying at risk kids etc. Packs being created for pupils with no internet access. Very worried about those on FSM and how they will get food.

School is unable to get any more hand sanitiser, its all sold out. We are doing everything possible and just waiting on the axe to fall, its happening. Very worried about GCSEs and A-Levels.

Secondary: Shit hit the fan today, full prep for shut down in 1 to 2 weeks with 24 hours notice.

Meanwhile at my school. Other than more hand washing, it's business as usual.

Shown google classroom at our school yesterday but the head said eh doesn't believe schools will close/ intimated it might to certain year groups.

Meanwhile , no one has discussed the fact that teachers who fall ill may be too ill to set work form home. Google classroom will fight off any virus!

I think the self isolating message has been misconstrued/ muddled : I think many people believe that is how long you might be off work form if you actually have Coronavirus. I believe patient 1 in Italy has only juts left hospital after a month??

We got a lecture not to mention it to kids and to close down any conversations we overhear.

The problem is, no school wants to be the one to raise their head above the parapet. I think once some start to close more will follow.

An all through indie school. Parents have had an email saying we are carrying on as normal but if we should shut there are various measures we will take to ensure pupils’ education continues.

In fact, staff put their suggestions to management for this and they’ve been taken on board fully.

In school we’ve had loads more hand sanitizer stations set up and there is always soap in the toilets.

Agreed. And we have also been told not to 'whip up concern (or at least it is a tacit message)'. Lots of jokiness about it really

One of ours is sending all the international boarders home starting from this week . They're due back at the beginning of next term. They're all trained and set up for online working. Not sure what's going to happen to the day pupils yet. I don't think anyone knows what's happening - even Boris?
In contrast Ds school - also with boarders, has said nothing yet.
I have two doing GCSE's this year and maintaining focus is going/ proving to be very difficult.

@ZombieFan my daughter was told the same yesterday by her form tutor who also told them she wasn’t supposed to tell them.. (secondary)

Lots of teachers on here, though : it's nonsense.

Anyone who says that ahs just read the same ST article we all read!

Reading the way that people on here treat any old crap gossip from teachers as gospel, and comparing what they've "heard" to what the actual situation on the ground is, has made me extremely sceptical of anyone who says things like "well my sister is a nurse and they've been told..."

It doesn't matter what your child's teacher told them, what the school have said might happen, it's at this point as much of a guess from them as it would be from the lady standing next to you at the bus stop.

My daughters school has just sent an email out saying unless the Government tell them otherwise they’ll stay open, I’m guessing some parents might have phoned re the news my daughters form teacher announced yesterday.

It’s interesting. I’ve heard of a couple of schools putting provisional plans in place as there is an expectation that we might be in a similar place to Italy just before Easter. The SLT in my school are doing nothing tho, under the guise of ‘we’ve been told we won’t need to shut’ 🙄😡

noone in the country knows what is going to happen or what decisions will be made including those making them.

For all this talk of kids working at home and remote teaching, the kids are all convinced that if the schools are shut it’s basically a really long holiday.

I’m not sure even with the equipment at home they’re going to be sitting down and logging on to some carefully planned work. And what sanctions would there be?

My DD said if school closes for 2 months "I'll be arsing around for 2 months but that's fine because all kids are planning on arsing around for 2 months and results are adjusted to a curve so if we all arse around it will have no impact"

He's right that they're adjusted to a curve but not everyone will arse around, some will have tutoring (via video link I'd guess) and with lots of free time to study and access to the internet I'd think the very top of the cohort are still likely to do very well! The brightest/most motivated students are always the ones least affected by missing school. The less motivated ones will be hit doubly - by missing lessons and missing the impetus to keep revising.

Now it's true this will be the same situation for everyone, but by doing no work at all and getting a lower mark than he would have done even taking into account no school the gap between his marks and the top ones will be higher and he'll get a lower grade even when it's adjusted...

Not much more teachers and schools can do except provide work to do at home. If the pupils dont do it .... you can take a horse to water. It is very very exceptional circumstances.

Best the teachers focus on the 2 exam years.

We are an independent, noble, & there's carefully no talk of student sanctions.

Basically, we'll be setting work & uploading material, & then responding to it in order to fulfil our obligations to our students. We will be delivering high quality material & giving exhaustive feedback, much of it 'live' during timetabled lessons but also outside of this.

If some students choose not to engage...well, their guns are spiked when their parents start objecting to ongoing fees or blaming us for poor results.

Which is a polite way of saying that we are covering our arses. However, to be fair, my colleagues & I have put a LOT of work into how we will deliver this.

I've got 3dc of my own at the school & am very happy that we are doing all we can.

Well, my school are attempting to get hand washing going but we are SEN. Not great at the best if times tbh.

We mused as we watched a child tasting the poster paint today about how well measures are going. There's an outbreak of tonsillitis and norovirus going round...

Keeping distances doesn't count in our school. I feel like we are a sitting duck. Plus we have some children with quite significant underlying conditions.

much of it 'live' during timetabled lessons

How, purple?

(Any suggestions gratefully received on www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_staffroom/3845498-Remote-teaching-resources )

Well - it only works with nice tiny private school classes, to be fair, but basically:

I post stuff ( videos, PowerPoints, whatever) & then a task on Google classroom.

Kids all get to post comments to which I respond eg if they aren't sure what to do.

Say it's a worksheet, I create individual copies for each student. Or if it's an open ended task they each have a google doc.

Then I flit between them with typed comments as they work (& add a final target for homework at end of lesson).

In an ideal world I'd have a numbered marking key set up...

Basically, give me a class of a size where I could feed back individually throughout the lesson & I can do it as effectively via google classroom. Probably better in fact - I'm not arguing about chewing gum/toilet breaks/miss, Sam took my pen in Biology. Also, rather than my feedback disappearing into the ether because no bugger is listening, it's there to refer back to.

We are absolutely talking private school bubble here, though. Max 20 in a class.

And the other thing which Google Classroom allows is collaboration- pupils can share a document or comment on each other's work which helps learning and teachers to cope.

Is anyone else’s school not just BAU, but also actively continuing to plan additional Year 11 days in school on Saturdays and over Easter?

Just saw this twitter poll that suggests schools are not quite ready yet.

We have sent an email saying BAU but pupils have also been told on the QT to quell fears or panic that if exams are cancelled they will get their predicted grades.