The exit plan and schools.

[NeverGuessWho]

I know this whole thread will be hearsay, but I’m just interested in hearing people’s opinions of where schools are likely to fit in to the exit plan?

A friend thinks they will be opened early on, as this will free up more people to work, and hence enable furloughed workers to return to work. This will crucially save money.

IMHO, schools will be one of the last restrictions to be lifted. Once schools are opened, there will effectively be multiple mass gatherings in every town and city, all at the same time. Surely this will result in a surge of cases of the virus.

Unless of course, they pursue the antibodies/certified passport route?

What do people think?

EYP - as state primary school teacher, we are providing 'school at home' for our pupils during term time, and have done so from the day the schools close.

However, it isn't live lessons, and it doesn't involve children sitting in front of a computer from 9-3.15 every day. We have shared - as I think many schools have - a learning at home timetable which provides for chunks of 'focused learning activities' and chunks of other activities, flexible enough to accommodate e.g. a family of 3 children with only 1 device.

We are providing learning materials sufficient for 1 English and 1 Maths lesson every day, and a range of other lessons in line with what we would normally be teaching. Work is set and marked via a very basic commercial e-learning platform, but one that does allow us to upload e.g.Powerpoints and does allow us to give feedback on submitted work. There is a mix of 'online' and 'offline' response activities, to minimise the time that an individual child has to be on the computer. Maths from the start of next term will use a commercial Maths platform, which we already subscribed to for homework but also has teaching materials. Similarly we use and monitor responses to an existing online resource for reading comprehension.We are making use of, and referring children and parents to, many of the recently created content channels for certain lessons - e.g. PE with Joe Wicks or Dance with Oti Mabusi, and also collating lists of useful websites should parents be looking for further ideas for art, crafts, science experiments, maths problem solving etc.

I am available within reasonable working hours (usually around 8.30 - 5.30) and respond by marking, written feedback, comments on photos of work, e-mails to parents etc etc to everything that the children are doing. I monitor and chase up any children who do not complete work, and keep a particularly lose eye on vulnerable children and those whose family members are ill. I plan and resource for both the following day and the longer term.

This is online schooling. However, I have not videoed myself. I have done no live streamed lessons. Almost every child has completed, and had feedback on, academic work daily since schools closed, and those who have not are contacted.

I can see that as per usual teachers are simultaneously the solution to all societies problems and the cause.

The resources available to private schools and the average family accessing them are a world away from the state sector. Its just beyond comparison. But sure just carry on convincing yourself we're workshy militants rather than massively overworked and underfunded.
I find it mind blowing that theres a recruitment and retention problem in school when it's such a cushy job.

I would love for us to be able to move on to an effective online platform, but in my own home there are two laptops between two adults wfh and two school children. Or superfast broadband is frequently dropping out here. I've got kids on roll who live in caravan parks with no broadband, only mobile phone network. I've got kids with complex sen who need an additional adult to support them if not a completely different curriculum. I've got children who have to do homework at school because they've nowhere quiet at home and/or no adult at home able to help them. But I'm sure my negative can't do attitude is what's preventing me from sorting out effective online teaching.

I suppose what I am saying is that there is an entirely adequate (though far less good than true in-school teaching) form of 'remote learning' that does not require teachers to deliver live online lessons throughout the school day, nor children to have continual access to devices.

However, what it DOES require is some effort from parents, especially for the primary age group. I am lucky, because we have relatively few completely disengaged families. This is not the case for colleagues in others schools.

See, this is what I mean. There’s never any solution with public sector workers, is there?

Who made the rules about who can have a key worker place?

I suspect that EYP would not recognise what I do as 'online teaching' because I'm not visible, and therefore not obviously 'working'....

Another thread ending in teacher bashing.

Standard.

@cantkeepawayforever - The easiest solution would surely be for lessons to be live streamed from schools, and for the kids who don’t have computers to be provided with them.

@Appuskidu - What you are saying isn’t true. That restriction was lifted by the government one day after the rules on eligibility for keyworker places were lifted. I own a nursery and we are still open for keyworker children, so I know this is correct.

@cantkeepawayforever - Don’t turn yourself into a victim here. I am trying to point out a solution not getting at you.

@wonderstuff - Those kids would be classed as vulnerable and eligible for school places.

I agree that it is easy for me to say that we should stay in lockdown. I work in the public sector so my salary continues to be paid. I’m in a hobby club. Out of 8 of us (all women), 3 have been furloughed for 3 mths and possibility of no jobs at the end, 2 are running businesses so no safety net there, 1 is self employed so again no work. That leaves two of us, one whose H is a banker and me in the public sector. This lockdown cannot continue whilst so many are at risk of losing everything.

EYP, honestly, no, that isn't the easiest.

Do you genuinely think a primary school lesson involves teacher 'lecturing'? It really doesn't - short input, maybe, with lots of interaction from and with children.

So by 'live steraming', I presume you mean full interactivity with 32 children + 2 staff (me + TA working with SEN child) all online and interacting at once? With paired and group work?

How is all the resulting work sent to me for marking / feedback / replanning?

@cantkeepawayforever - Yet the private sector is managing to do just this with primary age children. So there is a solution, it’s just that the public sector can’t adapt quickly enough to use it.

@cantkeepawayforever - They send the work by email, obviously.

@ey

Not all schools are working consistently with regards to keyworker's children. Parents have been strongly encouraged to keep their kids off if they can work from home but some schools are more flexible than others. Some are refusing (so I've heard on here) and some are more open it just depends on the circumstances of the school. We originally had 60 children on our list but that quickly diminished. It really isn't as simple as every keyworker has the ability to send their child to school cos it simply isn't happening.

EYP - what is the class size in the private sector?

What may work with 10-15 well behaved, well-housed children with supportive parents, suitable equipment such as paper, a printer etc and virtually without SEN may well not work for classes of 32, 28% SEN (national average), with the normal level of behavioural difficulty and some vulnerably housed and without parental support.

No way can schools open before September. Classrooms are overcrowded as it is. I genuinely have two kids propped up in the corner of mine without a desk. ! We cannot protect them or the staff teaching them in these crowded. Conditions.

Quote-Yet the private sector is managing to do just this with primary age children. So there is a solution, it’s just that the public sector can’t adapt quickly enough to use it.

You do realise the private sector has fewer pupils per class. I have 34 in three of mine.

Have you watched that parody video it would be exactly like that.

@cantkeepawayforever that sounds fantastic but what happens to key workers kids? I’ve got to go into work every day and the school only provide childcare not teaching as this wouldn’t be fair on the majority. So mine isnt going to get any of there lessons and I just can’t fit them in when I get home. I guess I would be one of the “disengaged” ones.

Just before Easter My daughters teacher contacted me to ask where her work was- she’s been in every day to school and me to work in the nhs (DH also works nhs) and the. have to teach dd when We get home, crammed in before her bedtime when we’re all tired. Seriously thinking of giving up work so my kid actually gets an education. It seems so unfair.

@eyprovider Schools don't have hundreds of laptops lying around to dish out to pupils.
Potentially a school in a socially deprived area might need 400+ laptops. The logistics are not feasible
Also private schools have far smaller class sizes often only 10-15 pupils in a class.

Yet the private sector is managing to do just this with primary age children. So there is a solution, it’s just that the public sector can’t adapt quickly enough to use it.

I expect it’s more to do with private schools having better technology, decent WiFi, smaller class sizes and pupils with access to home computers.

Can't believe people are trying to compare 'the private sector' of schools with the public.

You don't know what you are talking about.

@Really12345

All the children who are in school for childcare follow pretty much exactly the same timetable, using the same resources, as we have set up for children at home.

So they start the day with Joe Wicks, do their focused learning on the school computers and interact with their own class teachers exactly as their peers at home do. The staff in school act 'as parents' - facilitating but not teaching the home learning materials. The rest of the day is filled with craft, outside games, the optional parts of the curriculum we are putting online etc.