‘School will have to look different from now on’....

[Starrynightsabove]

‘With a mix of home schooling and in-school learning’

So said Nicola Sturgeon.

So how does this work for a single parent trying to work full time from home with a full on job who needs to pay the mortgage. Literally how does this work?

I don't know. I could have cried today when I heard she said that. I was starting to feel every so slightly optimistic too. How are we expected to work if children aren't in school?

French schools are opening up again and asking for numbers of who wants to send children back. So far it looks like less than half so that could solve the problem initially. If some parents can manage to keep children at home, maybe other parents who need the spaces more can have full time spaces? The teachers would still need to provide online learning for the children at home though, don’t know if that would work? I would happily keep mine at home as husband and I can work different times so one of us is around for the kids, not 100% easy as we are both still working but it’s manageable so I don’t mind continuing

No way should teachers be having to educate both the children at school AND the children at home. Ridiculous.

School hours haven't worked for years. They need to look at new ways of teaching. For example. Longer day but less days.
The 9 am to 3pm model just doesn't work in these times. And ultimately I chose to have the children so I will have to look after them if there is no school. With working from home. It's all doable. We just need time to figure it out.

@Raver84 but not everyone can work from home?

And another thing perhaps it's just my school but all this having to provide home learning as well as teaching in my case is rubbish. I get sent out a list of links for me to look up and print out on a Friday for the following weeks learning. It taks what 10 minutes to direct me to BBC bitesize and twinkle. They aren't marking any of it.

School hours haven't worked for years. They need to look at new ways of teaching. For example. Longer day but less days.
The 9 am to 3pm model just doesn't work in these times.

It does for the kids as any period 5 teacher will tell you. They have a concentration limit.

@Raver84

What a ludicrous thing to say! How's about the people that physically CANT work from home??!

Also some people chose to have children fully expecting to be able to afford to work part-time/around school....then circumstances change! Unfortunately lots of companies aren’t supportive in any way when it comes to personal lives.

I wouldn't think school hours were set up to suit parents working hours were they? Maybe I'm wrong.

No we can't all work from home. I do realise that. The short school day doesn't work in my children primary years there is 90 per year. If they did longer days they could have less people all in at once. I don't know, I just feel most businesses have had to come up with new ways of working but schools still want to stick to the same hours and it doesn't work. Another thought I had was we have unused council offices, churches also shut, village halls etc. Could we not use these as temp places to teach, with a larger space we can keep kids apart. I know know only a handful of people that work school hours.

My children's education would suffer massively if I had to keep providing it. I suck at that.

I’m sure things will be quite different for a while but not forever. I am viewing everything that is said about “phase 2” as very much temporary.

We’ve had epidemics and pandemics before and things did eventually return to normal. I really can’t see why this one will be any different. Just might take a bit longer to get there than we might have ideally liked!

School is primarily there to educate children. Society has changed over the years eg both parents work,more single parents etc and turned it into childcare. Time for society to do a bit of back pedalling.

I think we’ll be in a world where unemployment and only one parent working is about to be supported for a while. And then will we want to return to 2 knackered adults to pay bills ?

From now on??

What does that mean. Not permenantly surely

If we open schools in village hall etc who will teach them. National shortage of teachers is real. We already don’t have enough.

Teaching a full day is exhausting. No way teachers can do more. Teaching is like performance, not like an office job.

Longer teaching days 😂 lol!!!

I’m lucky if my students are still concentrating by lunch time. Last lesson is a struggle and kids are more than ready to go home.

Do people actually forget that we are talking about children?

As a parent, I wouldn’t want my child in all those hours either. I like family time in the evening and the opportunity to well, just see my kid.

If they did longer days they could have less people all in at once

Even longer days? I’m sure that would have an interesting impact on the current recruitment and retention crisis within teaching.

I wasn't suggesting opening new school with new teachers in spaces other than schools. I was suggesting moving some classes with their current teacher into other usused spaces to help with keeping numbers down in school.

We all have to think of new ways of working. So if a longer school days is so laughable, what everyone else ideas. Go back to cramped classrooms full of kids. Doesn't sound great to me.

@CKBJ and @Raver84

What a judgemental, unsympathetic, selfish prism to look at this through.

Not everyone can WFH, and even those that can often find it difficult with children to care for.

Single parents / both parents at work have not resulted in school being viewed as childcare, it's not a chicken and egg story, it runs far deeper than 'a bit of back-peddling'.

I’m happy for the days to be shorter not longer! Teach the core subjects and I’ll do the global learning stuff at home.

Raver84
I can assure you that I mark every piece of with that is submitted to me. Fair enough that's not an awful lot (engagement just under 50%) but we set work for pupils to do, we are available for questions on these tasks and we're marking work.

Sounds like the death knell for women in the workplace. Given that the economy is not going to be supporting full employment for a long time to come, anyway, it seems it’s back to the 1950s for women.

I work in a stressful, long hours, NHS job with 2 primary school age kids. My husband runs his own take away business and is desperate to get back to work.

I don't know how the economy can ever recover with so many of the workforce at home.