Teachers what ideas do you have for getting dc back to school

[whenthejoyreturns]

Some dc are engaging with home learning including mine. They’re secondary school age so by no means difficult to have at home so don’t accuse me of trying to palm them off because I can’t cope with my own dc.
They’re desperate to get back into school though, and I think it’s incredibly important for their continued development that they can, even though I appreciate they are more fortunate than many.
My very good friend is at the end of her tether. One Very bright secondary dc who’s not engaging in home learning, she can’t sleep with worrying.
My dds 13 year old friend has just been prescribed anxiety medication. I’m positive this would not have happened if she’d been at school with friends. I fear this is going to be the start of many dc going down this route. It all started off as a novelty for them, now the isolation from peers is becoming their normal.
I’m clearly clueless about schools so what do you think we should do?

@enlightenedowl are you serious? Like people can magically choose to have a potentially life-limiting or impairing condition to get out of work for a few weeks? FFS.

Go be a teacher for five minutes.

Goady thread

Its disgusting that teachers refuse to teach

You really should stop getting your bigoted, ignorant ideas from the Daily Mail. Where is your "actual" evidence that teachers are refusing to teach?
If schools have opened more widely, then staff are in (as in mine - all of us) unless they have been given a shielding letter from their doctor (not easy to come by, either).
It is not up to "teachers" as to whether their own school opens, but people way higher up than them in the food chain.
So please take your goady shit elsewhere, until you've actually educated yourself with a few facts.

It’s not a goady thread. I’ve made loads of suggestions on MN and told I know nothing, so what do teachers who know the score suggest?

The evidence is on here. Really shocked actually

whenthejoyreturns I was talking to enlightenedowl, who needs to verify her accusation with names and quoted posts of people on here who have said they are "refusing" to teach. There may be those who are reluctant because they feel it's not yet been proven safe or sensible, (and that would include me, although I am back in school this week teaching as directed), but that's a different thing from actually refusing.

@CallmeAngelina

whenthejoyreturns I was talking to enlightenedowl, who needs to verify her accusation with names and quoted posts of people on here who have said they are "refusing" to teach. There may be those who are reluctant because they feel it's not yet been proven safe or sensible, (and that would include me, although I am back in school this week teaching as directed), but that's a different thing from actually refusing.

Need to quit the hysteria

You could contact your children’s school. They should be able to offer more personal and professional advice as opposed to asking “mumsnetters” who may or may not be teachers.

I think a good start has been made.

I think secondary schools could have done the same with Y10 as we have with N, R, 1 and 6. I know bubbles don't work well because of subject specific teaching but I work in a school where we teach secondary style from Year 4 (in some subjects from Reception) so our Y6 are doing the online learning on their own devices sitting in a classroom with a couple of teachers and TAs to help them. A LONG way from ideal (it sucks - 4 of my class were stuck yesterday. They were approximately 10 metres away from me in the next building and I couldn't go and help them. It was really hard). But it's better than nothing because the children are happier and with their friends. Their education isn't any better, admittedly. But they're also giving their parents a break!

IF bubbles work, I think we could/should do it for all year groups and just have a few weeks of class based, catch up socialisation/relaxed teaching without worrying about the subject based stuff. Children in KS2 and 3 could social distance inside and all key stages could relax outside. Vulnerable teachers could teach the children who stay at home and teachers could wear masks and stay behind plastic screens if they wanted to (I wouldn't bother personally).

But we have small class sizes already, a lot of our parents don't want to send their children back and we have huge school grounds to use (providing the nice weather comes back). Not all schools could manage to do the above at all safely.

I’m clearly clueless about schools so what do you think we should do?^

Lobby the Department of Education and your MP because ultimately teachers are having fuck all say in whats going on policy wise and have been given very little support/ advice/ guidance about home learning. You also have to remember that no matter how much they DO manage to do, if kids don't have access to the internet (during the daytime and on more than a parent's phone) they are screwed anyway.

Why is it always put on teachers to take responsibility for this and not the decision makers and those who decide the fucking curriculum.

I am sick of teachers being the punching bag for parents because they are the ones they have contact with rather than realising teachers have been stuffed and let down by the government just closing the school without developing a comprehensive home learning programme and structure for teachers to work from.

No idea. The gov will decide.

This question is better directed to the government. They decide this is isolation from the profession.

The short and the long of it is that it's not down to individual teachers to take action to get back into school.
That's what the leadership team is for.
Remember also that there are teachers who need to shield for their own individual reasons, so it may not be possible for any particular school to open to students due to staffing issues.
As has been said many times before on here, you need to ask your child's school.

What on earth makes you think that teachers' ideas would ever be listened to or taken into account?
We've stated our views, and been roundly ignored, insulted or vilified.
So no, I'm not going to bite on this thread.

Arrrggggggghhhhhhhh.

These threads are driving me mad now.

All the secondary teachers I know are desperate to get back to school. We actually quite like teenagers, you know? We choose to work with them. We care about their mental health and their academic success.

We can’t do what primary schools are doing because the government won’t let us. My school has a strong plan for going back, based on the initial guidance. It has now needed to be completely rewritten in line with the guidance that was released on a bank holiday when all of us lazy teachers weren’t at work.

School leaders are not allowed to reopen secondary schools until the 15th June at the earliest and teachers have no more say in the plans than you do.

Both from another thread:

1 - I'm a school governor and what our head has had to wrestle with are:

Staff refusing to send their kids to school as key workers, therefore refusing to come to work. They still expect to be paid.

Staff refusing to return their own children to school so state they can only work x hours which they dictate. This is despite their role being required full time and they expect to continue to be paid full time.

Staff stating they are in the vulnerable category although haven't been defined as such and refusing to come to work but expecting to be paid full salary. They haven't submitted a sick note.

2 - We have all of this in our school as well.

JaneAusten I think the OP knows what the current rules are. She's asking what we think the rules should be.

I think it's insane that the government can dictate which years come in. By all means set a limit on the number of year groups but to have mandatory rulings on which ones is really annoying for those of us in schools that are in the minority. We are desperate to bring Year 8 back for some transition and leavers' 'fun' (as much fun as is possible right now) but instead we're stuck with Year 6 who are not our leavers but just a random middle school year group, most of whose parents have chosen to keep them at home. The Year 8 parents are practically battering our gates down but we can't get any insurance to cover having them in unless the government give discretion. Which they haven't.

Surely it's up to you, the Governing Body, and the HT to do something about it then?
If there's no sick/fit note forthcoming, then they're not eligible for pay, surely? They can "expect" all they like.
If, however, they are "entitled" (a word I detest) to be paid in line with the guidelines then, annoying as it must be, there's not much you can do.

Apologies for not being clear, my quote above was from a post on another thread by another poster. Two separate schools where teachers are clearly refusing to work.

I know of a teacher at my son’s school who isn’t sending her son to childcare but cannot do much work because she is looking after him. I know this because she told me when I bumped into her on a walk

Is her year group back at school?

I teach year 3 and 4, I've not been given a bubble, and I've specifically been asked not to go to school next week when we extend opening. My child has gone to school.

@AllTheUserNamesAreTaken

Apologies for not being clear, my quote above was from a post on another thread by another poster. Two separate schools where teachers are clearly refusing to work.

I know of a teacher at my son’s school who isn’t sending her son to childcare but cannot do much work because she is looking after him. I know this because she told me when I bumped into her on a walk

Gossip. Teachers aren't clearly refusing to work. People who post bollocks like this aren't actually school governors you realise? Teachers drag themselves into work when they are ill because the sickness and absence policies for teachers are fucking awful.

And so anyone who genuinely works in or with a school knows this. You do understand that not all posters are who they say they are and blindly believing stuff that is posted doesn't make it fact?

It's like the arseholes claiming lots of teachers are shielding when they are perfectly healthy. You can't refuse to go to work if you are told to as a teacher and still get paid. Fuck knows what alternative reality with teachers as all powerful beings who control everything some idiots live in.