Schools opening in the summer holidays!

[Biscuit0110]

GAVIN WILLIAMSON confirmed the Department of Education is looking into the possibility of propping up summer schools to help pupils catch up with their work after the pandemic.

It seems that after ruling out using the summer holidays to allow the children to catch up, it is now firmly back on the table!

What a positive development - will you send your child to school over the summer?

I thought they were going to be volunteers so not paid. Where would the gov get £130 per member of staff for every properly socially distanced school. Classes would need to be split in half or 3 ways so double or 3x the amount of staff at £130 per member of staff each day. Our school staff body in our average sized school is big(can’t fit into our staff room at the best of times), the numbers of ££££ to do that nationwide for a lower quality education experience would be huge. Sounds nuts.

And is that £130 received by the staff member (which would therefore cost the school more in "on-costs") or is that what the school actually pays out, which won't mean that much to the "volunteer."

Even if this happens there is no way it will be for all students. The focus will be for pupil premium children to avoid widening the gap further. I’m a teacher and would be happy to go in to help these children.

What Rosie said.

But several PP have been taught by teachers throughout lockdown, they will need a break. Those PP kids not in school were offered places.Why will they willingly trot into school during the hottest months of the year when everything starts to reopen and others are enjoying a break away from homeschooling?

Well they won’t- but the govt will be able to say they offered and schools failed to deliver.

I truly, truly hope that our generation and our children’s generation never have to live through a war. Hearing the moaning and whining on here, despite these times of need, seems to bode badly for pluck, courtesy, resilience, generosity with your skills, without expecting in return, beyond protecting no.1 and dc.

@F1ftyCents I am assuming the £130 is coming out of the school budget rather than extra funding from the Government.

I think teenage DC need some time getting up to mischief before focusing back on studies. I wouldn't send in for the full 6 weeks. Mine are doing okay, working quite hard most days, focusing on core subjects enjoying a slightly alternative curriculum based around the skills of each other with coding and music.

Bubbling just under the surface is a lot of emotion and fear. They don't have the life skills to manage what's going on, neither do I for that matter so we plough on. DS2 (14) is almost refusing to leave the house. He won't take the dog out round the park on his own. It's not a beligerant teenage refusal, it's a fear of going out. He needs to find his own feet again, let off a little teenage steam, go and buy too many sweets and sugary drinks at the shop then have belly ache, hang out with friends just being children. All those things that teens do that will re-introduce some normality.

Getting vulnerable children back into a school room, initially, will be more pastoral support than knowledge based education. That cant be done by volunteers. Some children will have been very isolated without access to tech, living off food parcels, poor parent/ carer ability to support, possible abuse scenarios where the situation has heightened the abuse. Educationally there will be a gap between those who've engaged and those who haven't. Set based education will have to be adjusted. For a child who hasn't engaged to just be shoved back in a group of those who have being taught at a level to challenging for them will just disengage them further.

I'd rather that the when back at school in September (I hope) that children make use of pre and post school open study sessions. Most secondarys seam to offer them, particularly for exam years. So children do their lessons and then anything they find tricky or if they want to do homework at school they can go to the relevant subject study group and get support.

From September if we aren't back in school, I'd like to see DC having access to online open study sessions by subject. Not set based, virtual drop in sessions by subject that can back up the video tutorials and worksheets/ online lessons they've done to help support they've got good grounding on the work they've done.

I'd volunteer for this, provided that it wasn't compulsory for students and proper social distancing measures could be maintained. I'm a former HLTA with a Masters degree in education. It's been a few years since I was in the classroom but it wouldn't take me long to review updates to the curriculum.

However, if they wany volunteers they'll have to start recruiting pretty soon to get all the DBS checks done before the start of the summer. Expecting existing school staff to work over the summer isn't a solution.

You have a point but...he's too frightened to take the dog out but he would be happy to go to the shop and drink and eat things he buys there without washing his hands first?

Teenage logic!!

@Biscuit0110 do you work for the Tories?

Cotswoldapple

Well, we are not in a war in the traditional sense and even if we were, summer school would be the least of our worries.

Would you expect your hairdresser to cut your hair for free once things get rolling again? Would you expect your nails done at no expense? What about cleaners? Should they come around and do your home for nothing in return? Generosity with skills and all that.

If the government said they’d like everyone in the country to work 6 weeks for free over the summer to help pay back the billions we’re borrowing, then I’ll comply.

But no, I won’t ‘volunteer’ as part of the only profession in the UK who is continually asked to work extra time, extra days for no additional pay.

I do like the idea of OFSTED staff being redeployed to teach.
They know exactly what needs to be done to provide outstanding education, have up to the minute knowledge of subjects and strategies and could be individually responsible for a team of retired/new graduates/ volunteers to ensure consistency.
Add to that the vast number of women considering teaching who could get experience and things are looking up.

@heffalumps

It might be worth going in after all, just to see that!!

Last time my year 10s had a supply she had to get SLT to get them to stop singing bohemian rhapsody.

Id pay good money to see Ofsted teach them

Do you think the OFSTED Inspectors would grade themselves, or maybe you could turn the tables and have the teachers grade them

Not sure: who’s going to staff them? Many teachers have been working throughout.

Having read a bit more, not sure how I feel about graduates and volunteers teaching A level courses.
Some specialist subjects need real expertise and experience.
Happy to consider it though, depending how it pans out.

They are looking for volunteers including retired teachers and new graduates.

Would be a baptism of fire for a new graduate trying to get a group of disaffected Y10s who haven’t engaged with school for 4 months and who definitely don’t want to be in summer school, up to speed.

Approx 5-6 members of staff in a day depending on subject. Yes £130 paid to each staff member.
The money is coming out of the school budget.

@FrippEnos *Don't be so negative.

Where is that "can do" attitude that has been spouted by so many on various school threads.*

I don't see how ensuring my DS, if he is required to go into a summer school, is actually being taught by someone who is qualified, is a negative attitude.

What I went on to say was I don't want him taught by a 'Dad's Army' of parent volunteers who aren't qualified to teach. I used to be a parent reader. I had no training - just had the kids read to me. I supported the teaching of phonics to my own DS but trying to get another child to get to grips with it when they were reading? My head was spinning with one young boy. He couldn't get to grips and I couldn't help him much as I had never learned the subject.

I don't want some well meaning person who works in a shop, or is a doctor or runs a garden centre, confusing my DS by trying to teach him a maths curriculum. A qualified teacher or TA - yes. An unqualified helpful parent? No. I'm an unqualified helpful parent so I'll do the work at home, in the garden, in his own time.

There's a place for summer schooling for children who need it but it needs proper teachers - not an army of parents. Otherwise it's child care and I don't need that. That's not negative, that's honesty.

No, just no - my DD is in year 10 and is working her socks off. Absolutely no way I'm gping to deprive her of a much needed break from schooling and the worry of it all.

They need to adjust the goal posts of the Gcses is what they need to do, to account for the potential gaps in knowledge.

I don't see how ensuring my DS, if he is required to go into a summer school, is actually being taught by someone who is qualified, is a negative attitude

I think FrippEnos was employing irony here.