School secretary saying school might reopen on Monday

[SistemaAddict]

I received an email on Friday with the weekly news from school. The secretary writes a brief email and then attaches the news from the HT. She has said school might be open on Monday depending on what Boris says. Considering this was published the day before it seems premature to say the least:

A DfE spokesperson said:
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has not set a date for schools reopening.
Schools will remain closed, except for children of critical workers and vulnerable children, until the scientific advice indicates it is the right time to re-open and the five tests set out by Government to beat this virus have been met.
We are also working closely with the sector as we consider how to reopen schools, nurseries and colleges and will ensure everyone has sufficient notice to plan and prepare."

dfemedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/05/07/school-reopening-covid19/

The media is bad enough and now the secretary is getting hopes or fears up (depending on your stance) and adding to the confusion. Does anyone really think that boris will say tomorrow that schools will be back the next day?? If schools are back then workplaces are going to want their staff back which will create a nightmare for childcare that will need to be sorted. People need some kind of notice, not just 12 hours ffs.

Unless and until she has received a formal letter from the DfE confirming that schools will be open for more than key worker childcare from 1st June, she is unfortunately just guessing, as is everyone else.

I agree that until a few days ago the 'best guess' was 1st June, but with new moves from the TUC / every single union representing school staff yesterday, and also from Scotland / Wales, this is no longer the 'best guess'.

Got to love school secretaries like this. We had one a few years ago that would take it upon herself to speak to parents about absence, lateness, uniform, parking, anything to exercise a bit of power. And would then make helpful suggestions.

September at the latest I reckon and even then it will be part time/staggered etc with possible future lockdowns after that...

But school as we knew it “before” will not be school going forward - social distancing will have to at least be attempted so they will have to work out some way of doing that. That and them reconfiguring the physical layout will take a while.

Send her a copy of the statement above, and tell her to get her facts right.

earliest not latest

Her opinion is no more relevant than mine on this subject - silly thing for her to do.

www.tuc.org.uk/news/unions-set-out-needs-safe-reopening-schools-letter-education-secretary

TUC statement, backed by an unusually united front from the unions representing different groups of school staff.

I think it is most likely that, like Ireland, we will have 5 or so stages, and schools will be the last.

Dh works in education for a local authority. Funding for pupils with SEN. They have heard nothing about schools opening. They are planning the funding around Sept at the earliest at the moment.

(Actually, no, one before the last - large indoor entertainment venues will be the final step)

@OneandTwenty

What are you talking about?

She is bonkers

Don't blame her - she has been told what to say.

Blame the Head if anybody.

My friend is a head (private), they are preparing to reopen on 1st June - unlike state schools they won't have to follow the same pattern but cannot reopen until the blanket stay at home finishes.

She’s going to feel quite foolish about her email tomorrow evening then isn’t she. Can you imagine if he did announce schools opening 12 hours after his speech, cue parents all over the country frantically bathing their children and dragging uniforms out of the wardrobe 😂

That is quite clearly bollocks op. Worryingly people will probably believe that the HT has some kind of special insight 🤦🏻‍♀️

My friend is a head (private), they are preparing to reopen on 1st June - unlike state schools they won't have to follow the same pattern but cannot reopen until the blanket stay at home finishes.

No, private schools are preparing in case they open. And there is no ‘blanket stay at home’. There are rules about what you can go out for. One of them is not school. Until it is, private schools won’t open.

Just think it through.
Johnson says on Sunday evening that schools are going to open Monday.
So that means the busses will have to be running again.
Full teaching staff in school, to teach what? It’s not just made up as you go along.
What about the dinners? There won’t be the food in for a school full of children.
Opening in school up is not like Waterstones opening again. You can just open the doors and let people in.
There are whole infrastructures to be thought about.

^^ Yup they are going to need a lot longer than a bank holiday weekend as notice.

If he says it on Sunday night it’s wouldn’t even be much more than 12 hours.

@OneandTwenty, no schools have received any information. If your school has said 1st June they are speculating wildly and irresponsibly. They have not received a letter because no letter exists. Schools, and Heads, don't know any more than the general public - that is a promise.

oh, ok, so not all schools have received the same information, weird. Don't blame me!

Schools have had no information whatsoever, so please stop hinting. We didn't even find out we were closing to most children until the rest of the nation.

I feel sorry for this particular Secretary - why is this kind of communication left to her? Smacks of a lazy head to me.

Was this a poor attempt at being funny by the school?

I stand to be corrected but let's just say Boris does say schools can open in his Sunday night briefing, arts a Bit of an ask to get the schools open by 9am the next day.

Picture our green and pleasant land tomorrow after Boris finishes his announcement about going back tomorrow.

"Shit, where's his uniform?" "Hell, we've got to drive him in, better stop drinking now." "Is there any bread left for her packed lunch?" "Where's the bloody book bag?" "Get him off Fortnite now and in the bloody bath." "Are you going to tell her, or am I?" "You know that home learning you should have done, you need to get it finished now, then go to bed early...because I say so, that's why."

Our head sent us a letter last week that basically said they knew only as much as what had been reported (as in Williamsons statement) and that local heads had been invited to discuss potential options that have also been floated such as particular year groups only, part time timetables, etc but that there was no indication of what direction was being taken. She did say that she and other heads raised the problem of social distancing not so much with the children in school but at pick ups and drop offs with the amount of adults around, which pleased me because that's something I worry about personally knowing the infrastructure of my DCs school and others round this way.