What would you actually like the government to do on schools.

[StatisticalSense]

The demands on this site with regards to schooling are simply incompatible. Schools physically do not have the room or staff to reopen to their normal numbers of pupils with any form of social distancing in place, so it clearly isn't possible to get all kids back to school full time with social distancing in place.
What exactly would you like the government to be doing on schools that is actually feasible?

Who at the moment, is just sitting round not working at all, who wants a temporary short notice contact to work as a teacher on minimum wage?

I'd venture to say millions?

Whether they are suitable or not is another thing, but the redundancy notices are going to gather pace over the next few weeks sadly.

TAs don't earn minimum wage. The salary is poor but that's because it's a PT job for only 80% of the year, which suits a lot of people. We always get loads of applicants, not always suitable or experienced but loads of peole want to work the hours for the money.

They wouldn't be working as a teacher, they'd be supporting teachers. E.g. you could have one teacher delivering to 3 classrooms or locations, with a TA supporting/supervising in the room.

TAs support children not teachers

we do have some great ideas on this forum don't we! but I just want leadership and clarity from the top is that too much to ask? it's becoming a country of 2 halves when they evidently couldn't care less about deprived kids being chucked on the scrapheap, so long as they can keep themselves and their voters separate from those at the bottom of the pile theyre fine with it

Social distancing should go.

I mean, if you can queue in a theme park, visit a zoo and do all manner of things under the new restrictions over the school holidays then really, why not just go to school.

I am happy to work from home indefinitely - no 30 minute exposure to at least 20 strangers at close distance in a crowded train each way, then exposure to a different set the next day, no exposure to potentially hundreds of colleagues, but I really want my daughter to be able to go to school. I will (hopefully) be pregnant in September and I will still send her - she will benefit and I am young and fit and very unlikely to be ill.

Much of the evidence shows children are very weak transmitters and are very unlikely to suffer from it - Kawasaki complications are so rare. It is possible to get complications from chicken pox, kids die from sepsis related complications from perfectly commonplace illnesses and activities and we don't prevent them from going to school for this. The french Chris Witty said this the other day. I am hoping that France send their kids back to full school - with masks if necessary - very soon. Then we have two months to make lots of masks if we need them, which is so much easier than the coordination required to provide for social distancing.

@Appuskidu

The folk who have lost their jobs due to the corona virus! I’m not saying the solution is perfect. The government should be throwing money at schools for extra recruitment, like they did with the nightingales.

I’m well aware what I’ve just proposed is possibly ludicrous, just trying to think of practical solutions. All the TAs I know take classes. One TA who I know literally HAS her own class. Personally I think that is wrong on so many levels but I’m trying to think of a solution that could work for a term or two.

And I can imagine the complaints on here....'my child isn't getting equal access to a qualified teacher... he is being taught by a TA who has never worked in a school before, who lets the children wander out, who doesn't follow the behaviour policy and is unable to teach my child phonics correctly'.

Stop messing about with SD and bubbles. Go back to normal. Allow people the option of staying home for a term if they can home school.
That would reduce numbers.
Lockdown has ended outside of schools in effect

Oh and also in Belgium all under 12s are back at school with no social distancing. They were badly hit per capita, so will be very helpful to watch them to see whether there is any bad impact.

But lockdown money was thrown at the Nightingale hospital venture because people were DYING - not because they'd missed a few weeks at school.

one of three options IMO.

1. abandon social distancing and go back to normal
2. use community halls/possibly prefab new buildings as extra classrooms and recruit extra TAs
3. Split classes into am/pm or one week on/one week off.

Admittedly much easier in primary schools than secondary where classes mix all the time. The government spent millions on building nightingale hospitals which were never used. Why should our kids education fall to the wayside.

@PleasancePark

Please stop with the capitals.
I am well aware people were dying my mother and sisters are all nurses.

I was proposing a short term measure whereby schools were given extra funding to recruit more support staff, to enable the school to have extra bubbles. Dick head parents will moan at teachers for every opportunity but there will be plenty of grateful parents too. It’s not just a few weeks either by the way.....

PleasancePark, that sums up everything that's wrong with the Education establishment in UK, before and after Covid. Everyone knows what won't work, even in a dire situation where things can hardly get worse there's no will to try a different way.

I agree with others. Bubbles of 30. Give schools extra cash to employ extra cleaning staff. It's a total mess at the mo

David Blunkett has said today what many of us are thinking, thank goodness.

If they won't scrap distancing then;

Portacabins, screens, lessons streamed in and learning supported by TA's.

DBS checks don't take 3 months in practice, mine has never taken more than a few weeks.

If it is all so ludicrous (and it probably is)

I see no other option than to just open the schools and to hell with it!!!! If the government are not going to put in unprecedented measures it just needs to be business as usual.

This whole thing is an absolute fiasco for children.

How will a bubble of 30 help secondary education ??

@goldpendant

Perhaps my ideas aren’t so ludicrous then.

hadenough
what percentage ot prjmary age kids travel to school by bus?

I was using that more of an analogy of the difficulties that are having to be overcome. We are working to try. Good ideas are great, we all have them, but there is a naivety by parents that it is so easy to click our fingers and make it all happen.

As an aside, in my LA a large proportion of children travel by bus for long distances, an even higher proportion of SEN children do. Are we saying that the offer to children should be governed by where they live and their SEN needs?

SD has to be dropped including for transport if schools are to return to normal. Without the science saying it is safe, children and staff can't be put at risk. With the confines of SD schools do not have the capacity to make a full safe return possible.

PPE for staff where appropriate and necessary. Otherwise back to normal. It's got to happen sometime and in September we'll probably be on the cusp of another winter related wave of COVID. It's not going to magically disappear.

But lockdown money was thrown at the Nightingale hospital venture because people were DYING - not because they'd missed a few weeks at school.

People are DYING all the time of other things besides Covid. People die of poverty and bad education and low expectations. The people who DIE of these things are generally a lot younger than the people who DIE of Covid (median age of DEATH is 82 I think).

We need to reasses.

And before I am accused of it, no I don't think that old people's lives are unimportant.

@LockdownLou I'm with you! Short term emergency funding is needed to get schools running at capacity if they won't scrap social distance plans.

Even if the provision sat somewhere between an education and childcare it would allow kids to socialise and allow parents to work.

WowLucky

I'm surprised you work in teaching when you seem to have a very low opinion of the education system, schools and all teachers except some imaginative bright young things. You must be such a supportive colleague.

Why is knowing/accepting that change is needed unsupportive? Even teaching unions tell us repeatedly that there's a lot wrong with the system.