Schools fubared till November?

[Clemmieandareallybigbunfight]

Disruption to schools could continue to November, MPs told www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52895640

Is this a dystopian joke?

Are we actually trying to fuck up our kids?

Schools need to be instructed to open fully five days a week with enhanced on day cleaning, increased buses to allow distancing, staggered start and finish, covered but open refuge areas allowing distancing whilst outside in all weathers for breaks and no assemblies. Relatively low investment needed, huge gain economically but more importantly for our kids education and mental health. Some of these kids will never get back to school if they are out for so long. Some will fail to achieve their potential. And all for an illness with a tiny mortality rate overall?

Governments make decisions that impact schools, setting standards that can or cannot be achieved.

Schools will be fine to reopen fully, as normal, when hospitals, shops etc dobthe same, until then there either needs to be restricted bubbles or social distancing.

No matter how much people say that teachers are lazy and workshy it doesn't make it fact, infact reports state teaching staff do the most unpaid overtime out of large groups of professionals.

www.fenews.co.uk/press-releases/26391-neu-comment-teachers-top-league-table-for-unpaid-overtime

School budgets are broken, there isn't enough money, no magic money tree to pay for supply, lots of older, experienced teachers let go to make way for cheaer newly qualified one.

Unions represent their workers, not the woder public, teaching unions however do also do a lot of work to ensure that our children are kept safe and have a reasonable eduction even when councils and governments want to make esucation suffer.

Most of us want back to work, to normal life. Lots of teachers are working full time, in and out of hubs and online learning with their own children to support as well, we know what our kids want and we need a clear path forward to achieving that, tovget there adults need to, at least the majority need to follow the guidelines.

There are some people whobtruly believe that they have the hardest professions and are somehow perfect employees. However the disregard shown to others, especially when over and over again they have shown their outspilling to be based on personal opinions and feelings, leads me to believe I would rather not have to interact with them in real life in their workplaces. Although I am aware the way we are percieved online is often not the face we show to the public.

I agree all schools should be providing quality work for all pupils, differentiated as needed, certainly in primary and this need to be raised for furture closures or snow days.

Caution ...This post may cause offence!!
I am afraid My patience for schools is starting to wear thin. Our teachers are in one day a fortnight the rest of the time they are posting on Instagram of the stuff they are doing to keep them ‘occupied’!! And a ‘friend’ who is a school teacher is claiming she can’t go in due to childcare issues as her elderly parents look after her child - her husband is furlough at home but she hasn’t mentioned that as they didn’t ask! She posts lovely pictures of her , husband and baby having fun in the garden etc whilst I am trying to work and educate at the same time. Who’s at fault? the teachers or the government for not getting a grip?
I have to go back into work soon and i can’t bloody wait.

@MrPickles I’m an nhs key wither. Perhaps you haven’t seen my earlier post. I really don’t need a lecture thanks.

MrPickles73

So two teachers and its coloured your view of an entire profession.

It is a shame that your opinions are so easy made.

@MrPickles73 cross post - sorry for being indignant!

I hope they get back before November. My son is 13 and an only child. He normally hates school. But when asked by our neighbour. Socail distanced, he said he was missing school. I think it's because he is missing his friends. I have seen quite a few kids hanging around together. So they could be spreading the virus anyway. If he doesn't go back in September, I will struggle with my work. Which is due to reopen in July.

FrippEnos I know more than 2 teachers - I'm just giving examples thanks ;-). I'm not suggesting all teachers are workshy but I think the teachers unions have a lot to answer for and what's going on now is damaging children's futures.
Only half of the children invited to attend school have turned up so I dont see there is a big capacity issue. Our school only has 65 children of these about half has been invited to attend and of those 12 have attended so in fact the whole school could be vinted and there would be space for them all. The HT is pro children going back but she's being held back by the teaching unions and the MAT.
I just think the teachung unions aren't going to win any prizes after this..

Damned if they do and damned if they don't. There's a large proportion willing September to come on and refusing point-blank to send their children in until then. Then there are others complaining they aren't doing enough to get them in now. The reality is there is not enough room in schools to maintain distance. Hospitals have reduced their traffic by refusing most visitors and large quantities of people are avoiding it too...meaning that you have no idea how they would function with the regular numbers. Pretty much everywhere is reducing how many people are allowed in buildings and schools are no different.

When the virus hit and schools were closed there was no guidance as to how or if learning was to continue at home. Which is why the curriculum was suspended. It’s not fair or justified to blame teachers for this. Schools are hanging on by a thread with limited budgets, creaky IT systems and largely surviving through staff going above and beyond every single day. Now we know the utter contempt in which we’re held (certainly here on mn) this may change. There is no precedent for closing schools, government advice has been poor, schools aren’t set up for online learning and certainly at many schools teachers are told not to try and set new learning because children can’t access it. What would you have us do? I said to my head yesterday that part of me thinks we should just get them all back but we can’t.

Tiny mortality rate!! Are you serious? It’s 40,000 in UK alone.😳

Well that's my children fucked then. I'm having a baby in July there's no way I can keep home schooling for that long. They've already lost motivation. My eldest is supposed to be starting Y10 in September, what am I supposed to say to her. Never mind that your future is screwed?
Schools need to go back, surely if staff are shielding they can still lesson plan and get supply staff in. It's not acceptable to just keep letting our children down.

November is being generous tbh

100% agree OP.

The HT is pro children going back but she is being held back by the MAT and the unions
Again, bollocks.
She’s being held back by the government.

It is a small mortality rate, against the size of the population. And I don’t think worth mucking up the education and mental health of a generation of children, or the economy of our country for years.

her future is screwed
Jesus hysterical much? Why would you even think this? Exams will be adjusted, children will go back to some form of normality.

@Libbee49

Presume you did maths in school. It IS a tiny mortality rate. Get real!

MrPickles73

But in the end the unions have had little say of what has happened in schools.

The government closed the schools to all but KW children.
The government fucked up the KW lists.
The government shutdown the curriculum.
The government stopped the exams.
The government decided the years that would go back.
The government decided the dates to go back.
The government fucked up the guidance over 50 times.
The government by all accounts hasn't listened to the unions.

Yet its the unions and (by some posters accounts) the teachers fault.

There is a major fault in some people's thought processes.

@MrPickles73

I agree with Mepop and the responsbility for this lies with the unions. Some of the unions have been telling their members not to mark work.. my son's teacher said she felt that was her job thank goodness. Why would teachers not be able to mark work? how is a child motivated without feedback? how do they do lesson planning without seeing what the kids have done?

My union is one of the big two (NASUWT) and has NOT said no marking. It said:

teachers must not be required to attempt to reproduce in written form the verbal feedback that pupils would be given during typical classroom teaching.

So, we are marking work that we would normally mark, but not anything that we would normally just comment on verbally in class. In my case that's an exam question every two weeks, because that's what we normally do.

How is this unreasonable?

Bet a few of you are wishing you hadn't voted your beloved "Boris" in now aren't you.

He's called "Johnson" by the way

It’s not the end of the world if the kids don’t go back full time until then- they will cope and yes still learn. I think it’s more about adults wanting their kids in school so they don’t have to home school which has been stressful at best or non existent at worse
Majority of schools are working remotely and working really well
The kids will be ok

Libbee49 I agree 40,000 people is not insignificant though it is only 0.067% of the population. The main thing is its focussed in the over 70s. The numbers dying under 70 is very low (not zero but very low) so your chances of dying if you are under 70 is very low. The point is we should be shielding the vulnerable and elderly.

My 15 year year old has fallen apart with this. State school are doing the best they can but without schoolroom classes, he’s refusing to work, has sunk into depression and is suffering from anxiety. A bright kid, predicted to get As with no previous bad behaviour or mh issues. He will have missed a third of his school year and will probably be way behind most of his peers when he gets back. He is definitely not alone in this and it’s not just the kids who are recognised as vulnerable who are struggling with this. I’m a teacher, working from home, desperately trying to hold on to disaffected students faced with all sorts of new issues triggered by the lockdown. I cannot wait to get back into the classroom. It’s a question of proportion.

Yorkshiretolondon I think you are over optimistic.

Because Jimmy she's doing GCSEs without the support of teachers. I'm not a teacher I can't teach Y10 material. It's not fair on the children at all.
Regardless of if you think it's hysterical these children are the future and if schools won't open to support them then yes they will be screwed.