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?

Somebody asked this:

Why can't all teachers wear full PPE - mask, visor, apron etc like hospital staff and work? Nurses and doctors are working all day around infected people, they have to make it work. Where there's a will there's a way.

I was explaining why we can't wear PPE.

FWIW most hospital staff never wear that amount of ppe.
I’ve never seen a visit or a given and have been working FT all the way through the outbreak with covid pos patients. With a surgical mask and a plastic pinny for known/swan proven positives only and nothing at all for everyone else.

Impressed that anyone is managing to get hold of visits etc.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras

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.

It certainly is a mess. I worry desperately for all the pupils at the minute! But whilst social distancing is still in place, teaching as usual at full capacity is impossible for the vast majority of schools. Whatever is decided, until we are back full time, something is going to suffer!

Av0cetSi3sta
Why on earth do you need PPE?

We are all in in primary schools without it.

For their own mental health.
To protect the children and their families.
In the belief that it protects their own families.

Just three quick ones for you.

Without doubt, the government are at fault here. They didn’t listen to the experts who actually know how schools work when they made their start on this plan of theirs. It was clear to anyone who works in a school and plenty of people who don’t that halving class sizes would require double the number of rooms and staff- it doesn’t take a genius to work out that was going to be impossible. They should have allowed rota (week on/week off) or part time (2 days a week each group) because then at least all children would have some access to education

All ridiculous Fripp and children need to be educated why. A classroom half socially distantly filled with the smallest risk demographic do not need PPE. Nurses working with high numbers of very infectious patients do.

@twinnywinny14 yes. They need to go up to Nicola and ask if they can please copy her work!!!

@brakethree all the PPE in the world won’t make more classrooms and more staff will it?
@SausageCrush lots of schools are not social distancing between pupils in each group but they can only have 15 in a room that normally holds 30, so even with 0m between them it still doesn’t work does it?

Children that would find non PPE dressed staff scary shouldn't be in school at the moment. Non of our children fall into that category.

@twinnywinny14

Without doubt, the government are at fault here. They didn’t listen to the experts who actually know how schools work when they made their start on this plan of theirs. It was clear to anyone who works in a school and plenty of people who don’t that halving class sizes would require double the number of rooms and staff- it doesn’t take a genius to work out that was going to be impossible. They should have allowed rota (week on/week off) or part time (2 days a week each group) because then at least all children would have some access to education

It was only guidance that children should be in full time; guidance that our head, along with many others decided was unworkable, so our children are in part time - 2 days a week. Of course this was when we thought we would be expected to have other year groups in at a later date; she did not want to start the children full time and then have to change to part time.

@ArtiefufkinPolymerRecords of course some schools did the same as yours, but my point was that it wasn’t government policy and in fact they discouraged it as it doesn’t massively allow parents to work. So schools cannot be blamed for following government advice. The government know this was an error but will not go back on its own advice and ask schools to do he very thing they asked them not to previously (esp when it was obvious this would not work)

@ArtiefufkinPolymerRecords will your school take back additional pupils in other years groups now then, seeing as they must have the physical space to do so?

I am angry because what exactly will be different in September? Or in September 2021? Either we work out how to manage the risks to an acceptable level - which we can do now with cooperation from everyone (15 kids in a class = every one in every other week at a very basic level), or everyone bickers (government, scientists, unions etc) and the kids lose out. If you can’t be sure you will deliver something, don’t even mention it as a possibility - that’s fucking parenting 101 and I feel everyone in authority had failed on that.

Parents are 50 % refusing to send their kids back, we have been teaching and working the whole time , never stopped working... I have physically been in school many days union supports any who can't/won't

If parents are 50% refusing to send them in why aren’t all schools open to all. They only want 50% of classes in.

Surely if everyone is wearing PPE then the 2m rule is reduced or removed? It's being questionned anyway.

So if it was accepted as a way forward and staff were provided with PPE would schools be more confident for all children to go back?

Decades of under investment and low taxes is what's stopping us from going back to school

If you don't want children to be in tight Victorian corridors and 32 to a room that you can fit in 8 during coronavirus then we need to pay for it

Squashed in everywhere with basically dreadful toilets and a cleaner than cleans at the end of the day

Tiny canteen, outside space sold off decades ago

WE NEED TO INCREASE TAXATION FOR SCHOOLS

The rich or half rich just pay to send their kids independent 🤷‍♀️

If parents are 50% refusing to send them in why aren’t all schools open to all. They only want 50% of classes in

Because we can’t plan long term on that basis. We’ve had to make a plan for a certain number of students and tell parents they can’t change their mind until X date. If too many do, we’ll have to make an entirely different plan for which children can come in when 🤷🏻‍♀️

The shocker is I bet that no government planning has been done for September. A lot of y3/4/5/6 classes are 30+ kids.
Say you run a junior school with 32 in y3/4/5/6 and expect everyone back. The minimum number of bubbles you need are 9 and you're going to have to have some mixed year bubbles as 15 is considered the maximum.
As it's the summer term outdoor learning can happen but the English summer can be temperamental and English children don't have the thermal gear that Scandinavian children do so can't be out for long days in the winter.
My kids are in secondary and would wear masks if it meant that they could go in

Av0cetSi3sta
All ridiculous Fripp and children need to be educated why.

People want children back in schools but don't want PPE
People want to wear PPE and want to feel safe.

There is a compromise to be had.

Can you see it?

Av0cetSi3sta
If parents are 50% refusing to send them in why aren’t all schools open to all. They only want 50% of classes in.

If you work in a school you will see why that wouldn't work.

@Av0cetSi3sta
Let's take your idea. Currently 50% of the chosen year groups say they don't wish to send their children back at the moment. So, do we say to t parents in R Y1 and Y6, OK then you forfeit your right to education then and we will ask say year 2 parents. Then we say to Y2 parents, right you've had your chance, let's pick year 3!

Or let's try the part time route. Do we turn round to parents in Yr, Y1 and Y6 and say not enough of you have taken up the places so your kids can now only come in on Tuesdays and we are going to give the other year groups a part time place? Oh hold on you have children in Y3 and Y6, oh no they can't come in on the same days etc etc. It is in not simple at all.

A classroom half socially distantly filled with the smallest risk demographic do not need PPE. Nurses working with high numbers of very infectious patients do.

I spent two or 3 minutes with my doctor, she was in scrubs, mask, visor, and gloves. I was closely questioned first to make sure I had no Covid symptoms, I had to wear a mask and use sanitiser before I went in her room. Why did the doctor need the PPE? Why did the receptionist who saw me for about 10 seconds need a mask and gloves?

Picked up prescribed med and in the pharmacy they will only allow one customer in at a time, there is a line you have to stand behind to keep you away from the counter, there is a big perspex screen on the counter.

But yes it is fine to be in a room with 15 other people for several hours a day.

This fantasy that all NHS staff are working with Covid patients is ridiculous.

I took my pet to the vet. I had to stay in my car whilst the vet took my pet in. She was wearing a mask and gloves.