Honestly who’s responsible for stopping the plan for dc back to school

[sunshineanddaffodils]

Is it government, head teachers or unions?
I know its’s been blamed at lot on government guidelines but it seems different head teachers are able to interpret them completely differently - some allowing bubbles of 15 but some only focusing on social distancing even though this isn’t a requirement.
So are government being held to ransom by unions or not?

@PineappleUpsideDownCake I couldn't agree more.

Those venting their anger in the wrong direction really need to remember what we are still dealing with.
Schools have a massive responsibility, I think largely have responded brilliantly with zero notice and given minimal credit. And yet the bashing continues its insane

Letter to Gavin Williamson, local MP, children's commissioner - please amend for your circumstances and send! This is not teacher bashing - schools are merely working to guidelines set - the lobbying needs to come from the top.

9 June 2020

Dear Mr Williamson,

In these challenging times I feel I need to contact you, in your capacity as Secretary of State for Education to request your help to address a matter of urgency. I would like to know what the Government is planning to do regarding the current breach of Protocol 1, Article 2 of the Human Rights Act which states that, “No person shall be denied the right to an education.”
As an example, I have a 7 old child who is in Year 2 at a local State primary. He has not received an education since March 17th of this year. The school have provided some work online to download and complete at home but I can assure you this does not in any way constitute an education. Schools are extremely inconsistent in their approach to home schooling with some offering live lessons via Zoom or Google classroom but many more offering a handful of printed worksheets with no feedback loop to teachers. During June, many Primary schools are not even able to bring back the full complement of year groups suggested by Government, let alone any children in Years 2 to 5. There are simply not the number of teachers or the space required for social distancing.
Whilst I fully understand the many implications of this unprecedented pandemic and I also appreciate the need for school closures to relieve initial pressure on the NHS, this situation is now becoming untenable and unsustainable. I am concerned that there seems to be no clear plan in place for a return to education for September 2020. Part time learning mixed with home schooling is being suggested as a solution for many schools. By September most workplaces will be looking for employees to return to their usual job roles and hours, it is simply not possible to home school (especially for those with two or more children) or for parents to manage part time hours at school.
Children across the country are suffering massively. The many vulnerable children and those living in poverty are being placed at risk of permanent harm. The impacts of this on young people’s mental health will be felt for many years to come. There is a growing feeling from parents that children and young people have been ‘thrown under the bus’ in this situation, especially considering that they are at the very lowest risk from Covid-19 of all the groups in society.
A child’s right to an education is a basic human right. I understand why this has been temporarily suspended in these circumstances however the return of this right should be of utmost priority, second only to the health service. I would remind you of the concept of Proportionality which applies when a basic convention is interfered with. This states that, “Interference with a Convention Right must not be excessive, arbitrary or unfair, or to have too severe an impact on a particular group or individual.” I would argue that interference with this human right is having a severe impact on the nation’s children. I would also suggest that currently the interference seems to be both unfair and arbitrary. How is it fair that some children are receiving the opportunity of going to school due to their date of birth or their parent’s jobs whilst other remain at home with little support from schools?
I am not unaware of the many challenges involved in bringing children to school safely in September but the apparent lack of planning and problem solving that seems to be happening in the Government is shocking. Creative strategies have been quickly applied within the NHS (for example Nightingale Hospitals) and businesses have been expected to quickly pivot to survive, however no such creative problem-solving strategies are being employed to secure our children’s futures. It would certainly seem that the nation’s children and young people are a very low priority for the Government, certainly coming behind strategies to safely open flat pack furniture stores and beer gardens.
So please can you urgently raise with your colleagues how this Government plans to respond to this ongoing breach of a child’s basic right to an education.

Yours Sincerely

@BlusteryLake

Definitely government. All this money suddenly made available for the furlough scheme yet not a penny on education. I could not be more impressed with our schools and teachers in my area - they are doing their very best with zero support and investment from the government.

This this this. The only thing I've ever seen the government mention in helping schools is the laptop provision, and this has been widely disputed as having actually happened. It's absolutely mind-blowing the complete and utter lack of financial support that's been made for schools.

@SausageCrush

Surely all this would be solved if they just reduced the 2 metre rule?

And why on earth should teachers double the risk?

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/01/risk-of-infection-could-double-if-2-metre-rule-reduced-study-finds

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

Quite and coupled with the automatic QTS awarded to PGCE students as their training ended in March it's going to be hard going next year isn't it?

You'll have year 11 and 13 going back into exam years having missed two terms of learning coupled with NQTs who basically had half a year of training and a staff of teachers desperately trying not catch students up with no time to give NQTs the support they will need.

It's an absolute mess lacking leadership from the department of education

Not to mention all of the additional work teachers will be putting in on socialisation, peer relationships, mental health, laying boundaries, PSHE...as pupils return, which can be tricky subjects to get children to engage with anyway, let alone for all the NQTs and RQTs who've spent very little time in the classroom than they would have normally by this point and probably have had very little training in delivering this kind of lesson.

Honestly who’s responsible for stopping the plan for dc back to school

The guidelines prevent teacher and schools from being able to have all the kids back. The guidelines were written by the government.

Somebody somewhere failed the basic maths of halve the class sizes, double the rooms needed.

You can't teach kids if you haven't got the state sanctioned miniumum number of teachers for the number of children in your school.

And you can't teach kids if you physically can not fit them in the school.

All the stuff about the unions, is largely hot air tbh. There are a few things that HAVE really bothered me about them (My council pulled the return of schools on Monday at 3.30pm on Sunday following the unions having a last minute hissy fit and being unable to understand the data available due to political pointscoring - with a total lack of thought to how this would affect the mental health of the reception kids at DS's school). But ultimately, even if the unions had been fully on board, there aren't enough teachers and classrooms.

No matter how you try and frame it, there are not enough teachers and classrooms. Some schools had more keyworker children than others so were unable to provide additional spaces to those in reception, yr1 and yr6 because they were already doing what the government had told them to do and who to prioritise.

A friend works at a school where there had been 60 key worker kids, but this was expanded to 200 this week after the definition was changed. This meant that there was no space for the other year groups.

Anyone who fails to understand this basic maths problem that schools have been facing really needs to go back to school themselves and stop listening to political bullshit from the government trying to shift blame.

Anyone who is STILL asking this question really needs to look above and THINK too.

The government should have started discussing this with the unions in March. It is shocking that schools found out the plan for going back when the general public did - even more shocking how many times they changed the guidance so schools couldn't plan.

I've not heard of schools which had not provided keyworker care so I don't think it's a case of schools and teachers not wanting the kids back.

A major problem is obviously the government not giving the schools money to double/triple(?) their cleaning and provide safety markings around the school like in corridors...

The lack of planning for secondary schools is even more shocking. I honestly thought that y10/12 would be the first back.

6.9% of eligible children have gone back to school.
Not even 7%.
That's why.

The lack of guidance for secondaries is a national scandal.

So if classes are meant to be 15 maximum where do they get the extra classrooms and teachers from? It is like they never did the basic arithmetic.

Because Dom the risk is already tiny with children. I work in a school and would happily reduce the distance, often have to anyway. Aside from that there is so much disinfectant flying around schools must be some of the cleanest places to be.

I think that the way that BJ announced the reopening of schools was to deflect anger from the government. Unlike Sturgeon he's never used words like part-time or blended learning and as a parent of a y12 I'm still curious what he meant by "face to face meeting with teachers"

School buildings and keyworker take up is extremely different up and down the country so there really couldn't be a national one size fits all approach. My kids are old enough that I remember the good old days when head teachers opinions were respected more and they could judge whether a term-time absence was appropriate rather than the current one size fits all solution which means that a child with regular hospital appointments is penalised. BJ really should have said that head teachers know how to reopen best and suggested a percentage of children who should be invited back (say 25%) Pretty shocking that he's not even mentioned that September is unlikely to be full-time on day one of term too.

I hope that unlike the PPE scandal, the government has been taking to our EU counterparts about their experience in reopening of schools.

I find the lack of announcements about holiday care strange too. As long as the same children attend for the whole week and the adult to child ration is halved like schools, I don't see why they can't reopen in the school holidays?

@flamingochill, who is going to pay the teachers overtime if they open in the holidays? Teachers don’t get paid to work in the holidays.

I meant the private providers of holiday clubs where kids do sports etc all day

@phlebasconsidered

For the nth time - primary schools, in the main, are SMALL. For example, my local school is 1 form entry. We have 7 classrooms, 7 teachers, and 6 TA. Each bubble requires 2 adults and 1 classroom. We have only just got enough staff to open 7 bubbles IF the deputy has one. And if no one is ill. We are at capacity already with only keyworker and year 1/R children. There is no room

Please, for the love of God, just do the basic maths. We can't just magic up new classrooms and halls, or loos.

Absolutely.

But, you know, it must be the teachers fault.

Or their Unions.

Not because of any factual reasons.

@flamingochill trouble is, a lot of holiday provision is run by private companies for profit. Once you have to cut numbers and increase staff, it's not necessarily worth it. Especially given running the clubs would require investment now in terms of equipment etc. and given lack of guidance it's a brave company that commits at this point.

That makes sense but summer holiday clubs can often be outdoors and there's a lot of bored y11 and y13 kids who would probably jump at the chance at earning some money and work experience. I suppose prices could rise to cover the lower adult to child ratio but no idea what sort of margins clubs run to?

Alternative spaces needs to be found for schools to use so that they can open for all children. This is a disgrace. The excel centre was changed into a hospital, why can village halls and churches and sports halls (all of which are currently closed and empty) not be used for schools?

The set up should be paid for by government (they have spent so much furloughing people they may as well carry on spending at this stage) and spaces redesigned to suit the children and ALL children should be back to school ASAP.

It is absolutely definitely the fault of individual teachers. Probably the one who lives nextdoor to your SIL who is in the garden every day so definitely doesn't do any work and is definitely having a lovely holiday and certainly refusing to do any teaching because they can't be bothered.

Because individual teachers have always had that level of power and it is completely logical and sensible to blame all members of the profession. Also unions because they only exist to cause trouble and ensure as few children are taught as humanly possible.

Or it could be, I don't know, because of the global pandemic.

In my opinion (I’m a secondary teacher) it’s a matter of circumstances that would have happened anyway, but have been exacerbated by continual underfunding in schools.
All of my classes at KS3 have at least 34 pupils and most have 36. So for my one class, even 2 rooms is not enough. Multiply that by the 50 or so lessons happening simultaneously and you soon see the problem. I think at any one time our school as 6-8 unused classrooms, sometimes less. Whilst social distancing remains the government policy there is no chance that schools like mine (the vast majority) would be able to run at full capacity. The government have saying schools will be able to open but with no plan on how to overcome these barriers. For secondary schools it’s not a matter of a few rooms, and I have been wondering how it’s going to work if social distancing remains the policy.

@Alittleodd

It is absolutely definitely the fault of individual teachers. Probably the one who lives nextdoor to your SIL who is in the garden every day so definitely doesn't do any work and is definitely having a lovely holiday and certainly refusing to do any teaching because they can't be bothered.

Because individual teachers have always had that level of power and it is completely logical and sensible to blame all members of the profession. Also unions because they only exist to cause trouble and ensure as few children are taught as humanly possible.

Or it could be, I don't know, because of the global pandemic.

SHhhh!

Don't ruin it for them. They are enjoying themselves

We can't wear PPE because we've been given two sets for our whole school, and we certainly can't buy any.

The guidance for secondary schools says no more than 25% of years 10 and 12 in at a time, and it does recommend 2m distancing. So that is what we are doing.

MrsR87

My son is a secondary school teacher.

Some of his classes this year are so large he doesn't have enough chairs in the room and they have to try and get some from other rooms, so that's problem one.

The next problem with secondary is the variety of lessons - do you keep them in one room with the same teacher who effectively babysits and teaches what they are able, do you suspend the curriculum and just teach core subjects, what about option subjects - are they just forgotten about?

No matter what they decide to do it's just a stop gap isn't it? It's not like they are back at school learning as they should be.

It's an absolute mess.

Why on earth do you need PPE?

We are all in in primary schools without it.