Government backs down on primary school opening 1 June

[peridito]

Just heard headline on Radio 4 .

Daily Mail seem to be only News agency reporting .

No problem tilder-happy to help. I agree that the current situation is horrendous. It is why I have been doing a little reading and finding talking to fellow teachers on here useful.

This is from the Public Health in New Zealand that I have bookmarked. I’m find some of the Hurricane Katrina ones. Give me a minute.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1753-6405.12625

@ChloeDecker thank you.

Some more

apnews.com/fc4481ae524540e2a25609951fc491a4

www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-17/will-missing-school-due-to-covid-19-matter-for-school-students/12154266

And this one covers other disasters such as the Boxing Day Tsunami.

www.researchgate.net/publication/317032529_The_impact_of_the_Canterbury_earthquakes_on_schools_and_school_leaders_Educational_leaders_become_crisis_managers

Ok, I have had a very quick read. Thank you for the link. The earthquake disruption was for a couple of years, but they weren't out of school at all. Affected schools basically moved in with unaffected schools for about 3 months.

Which was presumably a bit of a squash. Lots of logistics there.

Lots of mental health concerns.

Application of 'earthquake impaired derived grades' for those affected. Basically a grade adjustment applied but no record of who had this. Which means the grades for that year are not necessarily comparable to other years, but lack of records means you can't be sure.

So really reassuring to see how resilient kids can be. But not a direct comparison to us. They were not out of formal education at all. Their timeframe was a lot less than we are looking at.

There was also no difference in uptake to uni which they were very concerned about and the disadvantage gap, against all predictions closed. I think it is a story of resilience.

Don't forget the trauma, too.

The thing is though, callmeangela

The teachers DO opine on, and enforce the ‘time off in term time’ thing. It’s not just a government line.

Mine have never had time off during term time. However, when DD1 started in reception, she was mid way through a course of swimming lessons. The previous year she had almost drowned, so she had a lot of issues around water, issues that we were managing to overcome.

The lesson was at 3.30 ( only time available). I asked permission for her to leave school at 2.55pm for three weeks in order to finish the lessons - that’s 20 minutes early. YR teacher refused and gave me a dressing down about the consequences of children missing education.

The fact that she was only just turned four and not legally obliged to attend had passed her by, as had the fact that she could already read well, and the fact that I worked in developmental paediatrics.

That same teacher is now urging parents to keep their children home for six months because she thinks there will be no longer term detrimental effects.

So which is it? I might ask her.

@ChloeDecker i find it really useful too. Covid is very isolating. I'm not the most tactful of people either, not useful for social media

I'm not a teacher but really helps to have a teachers perspective on all of this. Makes me stop and think.

@LilyMarshall Totally agree with your points about care homes.

Clap for key workers one minute

Blame them the next.

After all this is over staffing will be a huge problem because i think those key workers will be leaving the NHS and care homes in their droves.

There will be consequences.

So they have changed it to what they should have said in the first place that schools should start to think about opening from the 1st June and allowed flexibility

He did say exactly that but people clearly weren't paying attention and were preferring to take their info from whatever was spun by the media (and the Unions couldn't get their oar in quick enough either).

In step two – at the earliest by June 1 – after half term – we believe we may be in a position to begin the phased reopening of shops and to get primary pupils back into schools, in stages, beginning with reception, year 1 and year 6. Our ambition is that secondary pupils facing exams next year will get at least some time with their teachers before the holidays.

Schools harp on about attendance because the government judge them so harshly for having poor attendance.

Well, I have absolutely nothing to do with absence in my class. The office and Head Teacher deal with all that. If they turn up, I teach them. If they don't, the office investigates why not.

But before you go steaming in to school to pin your child's teacher down on something she may (stupidly, in my opinion) have said ages ago, you might want to consider that there is a difference between one child being absent when the rest of the class are forging on ahead with their learning, and the entire class missing their learning so everyone is in the same boat.

Received an email from my sons school today. They have risk assessed and put gov guidelines in place, classrooms and corridors cleared, detailed what will be required from the children and parents (only send in essentials, one person in toilet at a time, bubbles etc) and stated they will be taking n, r, y1 and y6 on 1st June. Children will attend Mon, Tues, Thurs and fri. Weds will be closed for a deep clean.

They’re not in the same boat though, isn’t that kind of the point? Some children are being home schooled as their parents’ situation allows. Some are doing nothing. Some are receiving materials and support from schools and some aren’t. Some children have access to tech to profess, some don’t. Etc etc. This pandemic is not a leveller as the other disasters referred to were. How ‘behind’ each child is, is dependent on a multitude of factors.

@Mary1935

Have you been following around your sons teacher? Do you know for certain that she’s only been in that much?

Your message is absolutely ridiculous.

There’s a rota for a reason. There’s probably only a handful of children at school and there would be absolutely no reason for a full staff to be in.

And how do you know she hasn’t been doing any work at home?

Has your son been sent home absolutely nothing since we locked down?

You sound like the kind of person that would complain if she DID ring home.

These last few months I have planned and taught a full days worth of lessons, every day that we should have been at school. I have kept up to date with the children, spoken to their nervous parents, marked every single piece of work that came back to me via the online learning tool. I have worried for my class as to how they are doing and coping.

I have worried even more about how I will keep them safe in the classroom when we go back. Yes, as a grown up you know that you need to distance and stay away from people. But as a child who is excited to see their friends and play with things in the classroom? Not so easy to remember to stop.

I haven’t stopped working since lockdown started, I worked through easter break and I will work through May half term to get things ready for when we go back. I’ll probably also work through summer holidays getting stuff ready for my class (same as every year!)

But feel free to go try a career change. I’m sure it will be so much simpler for you

Just because you’re not happy with the way things are going, doesn’t mean it’s the fault of the teacher

I don’t think I’ll go ‘steaming in to ask her’ callmeangela.

I’m not sure that my post gave the impression that I would.

Really Daffodil101? Your recent thread creates a very different impression of your likely conduct, as well as your underlying agenda

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/a3913459-If-you-think-the-world-has-gone-bonkers-how-will-this-period-be-judged?msgid=96655409

What likely conduct is that?!

To be fair , what Boris didn't at in that announcement which caused the unions to steam in was that the 'phased return' in stages, staggered blah blah meant no rotas, full time, and all the children.

Actually, 1st June makes little difference to that bit : yous till can't magically produce more rooms, and more teachers. Again conveniently ignoring m the gov, the fact that most Danish schools are all through schools so there is space.

@shellysheridan teachers are right to talk about attendance. Its very clearly linked to attainment and an indicator for staying in education. Which is why the NZ study above is helpful, in terms of numbers progressing to university. Attainment levels were less clear.

I won't get a chance to look at the rest of the links until tonight. Have a good day all.

As a school we have been dealing with Dv. Homeless families. Lack of help from services who should help. Dealing with housing, language difficulties and rise and reoccurence of safeguarding issues, issues with children from other schools that have not been dealt with. Death and illness of family members, death and illness of parents and their family members, contact with children, Providing and delivering food for families in need and our neighbours. Calls in the night for help. Online meetings, interviews, recording lessons and reviewing work sent in. Voluntarily working through the holidays. Still providing data for Governors, adding new policies, researching sites and planning lessons and sharing with colleagues. Visiting children whose families refuse to engage and th children are at risk. Still training to attend. Sometimes going to other schools to work. That is before we look at returning.

Daily Mail isn’t a News Agency It’s a complete rag

I agree NotAnotherUserNumber
If this is true ..: it was conditional anyway .. Boris said this at the beginning

Whoops just answered yesterday thread 🙄

Haven't seen that anywhere. Our school have already sent out what bubbles the children will be put into and their start and finish times. Hope it's not all been a waste of time for the teachers who have been planning so hard

Cambridge will not be back in person for a year? I just wish this nonsense would stop. Cambridge, Manchester & Nottingham Uni’s have said large lectures will be online BUT smaller tutorials & seminars will be face to face.