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?

If the schools shut down for 12months, then teachers will will be working to educate their children. Why would we sack them.

I suspect Xenia has a blindspot to teachers!

Prof Neil Ferguson, from Imperial College London, worked on the scientific modelling that the current government advice is based on. He says the Lancet research fails to take into account the impact that school closure can have alongside other lockdown measures.
"When combined with intense social distancing it plays an important role in severing remaining contacts between households and thus ensuring transmission declines," he said.

The difficulty is that schools cannot be opened AND social distancing be maintained. Children who can go to school will not then remain 2 m from others on the way to school, nor go out only for a single walk for exercise each day.

Parents who drive or walk their children to school will not then return to socially-distanced households, and only walk their dog from the door.

Teenagers who travel to school on the school bus, and mingle in school all day, will not maintain social distance in the parks and on the beach and round town.

So opening the 'school' tap is fairly 'all or nothing' - once open, many other measures become impossible to maintain.

@Xenia
🤣🤣🤣 🍩

*I had 5 and adore babies but only for an hour or two a day so we both always worked full time and I took 2 weeks off to have them in.

Your mistake is spending so much time at it. They do much better if you work and earn more money and then adore the times you spend with them.

There's a reason childcare and house work is low paid and lowly regarded because it's dull and awful and no one with any sort of a brain tolerates it for long periods now nor in history. Even the Romans used slaves to help.*

@Xenia
A quick search reveals why you hate teachers right now and want them back at work ASAP regardless of whether it’s safe or not for staff and pupils.

If you’re hoping the Xenia threat of not being paid will scare them all back into the building, you’re in for a disappointment.

It wasn’t teachers who downed tools one day and said ‘hey y’all, let’s go home now, this covid thing isn’t looking too good! Hey why don’t we stay off until September!’

Teachers were told to leave the building, so your vitriol is both unnecessary and misdirected.

If we made all teachers redundant now, we'd have to pay them until the end of term anyway, under redundancy pay rules?

There would be a lot more noise from parents if children had nothing to do!

There was an interesting article this morning about how school closures don't impact the spread much "but schools would have to maintain 2m social distancing between all pupils at all times."

I'd not even be able to have a third of my class in. How would that help anyone?

It's just another idea that's only half thought through?

@xenia, I agree about the childcare and housework and sense you are having a bad time. I'd much rather be working too.

Oh and I’d happily take a 20% pay cut for a couple of months and do nothing work related. No setting tasks; no filming and uploading oneself trying to explain tasks; no emails; no online meetings; no marking; no phoning 30 students every Monday; no going in to look after key workers children; no planning adjusted SOW for Sept to make up for lost time; no reports!!; no data collections; no hunting down appropriate YouTube videos and resources; no making draw string bags to donate to NHS (what our schools been asked to do); no stress of people calling to have us made redundant because we have the gall to be doing exactly what the government has asked us to do.

Actually DBML that does sound appealing.

We have done most of the year anyway so it probably wouldn't even be 20 percent.

I don't think schools will reopen until September - not fully.

I think they will continue to provide a service for "key worker" children and gradually re-open in September. Perhaps first for key year groups and then the rest over a few weeks.

The virus isn't just going to go away because we have all stayed in doors for a few weeks - in my opinion we can't just undo all of the hard work by re-opening everything on mass.

As far as I am aware teachers can not be furloughed or support staff at the present time, the government have stated that publicly funded bodies are not expected to use the furlough scheme as long as they are still being funded by public money.

DBML

I think I agree with that too.

The worry is that many teachers will be expected to work for a pay cut - like everyone else! This is a mess for all of us.

@Newgirls

Who’s being asked to ‘work’ for a pay cut?

Furloughed people are not working for 80% of their pay.

NHS staff and key workers are quite rightly being paid for their overtime and in some cases extra (again quite rightly).

Any cancelled leave has been promised back within the next two years.

The people who have suffered the most are the self employed, who in many cases are not able to work and therefore unable to earn...

But who is taking a ‘pay cut’?

The worry is that many teachers will be expected to work for a pay cut - like everyone else! This is a mess for all of us.

Can you explain this?

I'm sure pay cuts will happen in the private school sector. Maybe pay freezes in the state schools depending on budgets for next year?

It’s usually a pay freeze every year

But who is taking a ‘pay cut’?

Dh and the rest of his colleagues for a start. They haven’t been furloughed and are still working but have had to agree to 20% pay cuts. The company won’t survive been furloughed, clients would get advice from elsewhere so they need to stay open (sorting problems out remotely).

But no big jobs coming in so barely any money coming in, hence the pay cuts.

Furlough is up to 25k so any school staff or subject teachers put on furlough it needing to self isolate long term might be subject to that. Money is going to run out!

In every business I know - law, publishing, banking, hotels etc senior staff have agreed to 4 day week and 80% salary. In some they have agreed to 50% cut for the foreseeable.

Without tax income the gov cannot pay for our education system as it is. It will have to be a reduced system of some kind with perhaps focus on certain years (9,10,12?) and reduced time table/subjects. Maths teachers etc will continue to be full time, food tech furloughed for example.

@Newgirls

So schools will reopen for some children and only some staff? The rest will continue to be paid by the government (80%) and be expected to do nothing.

Gosh, some mumsnet users like to complicate matters.

How about, state schools will open as soon as it’s safe to do so. Until then, teachers pay (like it or not) is as normal, because teachers are still being expected to work.

DB yes of course! But that idea is based on the money not running out and it already is. So schools need to open before we know if it’s safe.

If schools don't go back until October as many are suggesting the Year 10 will not have enoughbtine to cover specification for GCSE or Year 12 A Level specs. I would not be suprised if all pupils ended up repeating the year as will have missed so much. Not surecwhat would happen to incoming Reception Year though if current obe did not go up. Maybe an additional year at nursery.

80% up to 25k.

@Newgirls

Personally, I would like to be back around half term. I hope by then we will have peaked and cases of the virus would be coming down. At this point I would love to think that whilst the most vulnerable could continue to self isolate, the rest of us could return to a bit of normality. The most important thing being the hospitals not being over capacity.
It would be a seven week half term and whilst we possibly would see another peak in cases, but could shut down again then for the summer as normal.

This is of course just my ‘hope’ and the reality is that I have absolutely no idea. Not one teacher I know doesn’t want to go back to school ASAP.

As soon as we go back to school, social distancing ends, so the country has to be ready for that. In the meantime remote teaching is the best we can do and we’re doing it.

Personally, I would like to be back around half term.

That would be great, if it’s safe. Our school can only be safely staffed before that 12 weeks is up if those vulnerable/pregnant/living with shielded members of staff are told they are safe to return to school. If they are still off-we do not have enough members of staff-as was demonstrated by what happened during those 4 days between that vulnerable workers announcement and schools being closed.