Why can’t schools...?

[Howsaboutwejust]

Why can’t Primary schools just take 30 per bubble? They could eat packed lunches in classrooms and not mix with other bubbles. Where toilets are an issue one year group use the boys and one year group the girls (this would work in my school because two classes share one set of toilets). If they need more toilets then surely some kind of portaloo wouldn’t be too hard to organise?
And why can’t secondary schools (for years 7 & 8 at least) teach children in their register groups. Work as in year 6 where one teacher teaches the whole curriculum. I realise that would take some planning and reading up on different subjects, but surely at the level of year 7 & 8 it would be do-able?
If only Boris would say full classes can be together then all this would be fixed. I know that it would mean mixing more households but with siblings in different bubbles as it is now lots more than 15 households are mixing.

[Frlrlrubert]

You keep saying science as part of the core OP, but in our SOW almost every single KS3 lesson has a practical or a demo. If you haven't done it before you need to practice first, learn the risks and safety precautions. Or are non-specialists just going to do content and show videos, which is what the home learning is at the moment?

I'd have a go at teaching them everything, but I don't think it would be any better than them learning it at home with lessons set by a specialist. It would be imo inferior to lessons set by a specialist with some sort of live-ish support from that specialist (email, chat sessions, etc). Even better some actual classroom time with a specialist.

I think kids moving rooms as bubbles is much much better, the equipment is there, you could have some sort of 1 way system in most schools. Next best option teachers move, but tricky for science, DT, anything with resources, issues with logging in and out of computers, etc.

I think the government needs to give clear guidance about what is likely, because at the moment we have no idea what the rules will be by September, and I think there are a few options that would possibly work given proper planning:

1. if we still need to social distance then half classes one week on one week off, with remote learning set for the one week off (this will obviously be an increase in workload, and we should start planning now). KS4 tricky depending on options, half of my science class won't be half of a geography class.
   
   
2. if we still need bubbles we're going to have to stream KS3 into 'common sets' or use form groups, so they can move as a group. KS4 is trickier, and may need to be grouped by options, this is going to be a logistical nightmare. (again, we could do with planning for this now)
   
   
3. Both of the above, with schools working out which bubbles are in when depending on timetabling and options.
   
   You also need to think about what happens if someone tests positive and loads of people have to self isolate.
   
   It might be that if we still need 1 they do slightly less than half time to allow some wiggle room.
   
   Or we could just throw caution to the wind and go back as normal and hope it doesn't cause a winter peak.

[MonaLisaDoesntSmile]

@Howsaboutwejust I was just trying to illustrate the stupidity of your point, just like you simplify teaching at secondary level, I did for primary, not pleasant, right, when people underestimate your hard work... People seem to think that teaching let's say RE is just about "reading up a bit about a religion" to quote you, and that you're good to go. Incredibly insulting to teachers of the subject. At secondary level it requires not only summarising the life of Jesus or whatever, but teaching particular skills and applying certain knowledge you know need to be delivered if you are familiar with the curriculum. Otherwise it's like blind leading the blind and teachers supervising rather than teaching. If I were to teach Geography, yeah, I can read up about volcanos, but I could probably not assess in the correct way, answer complex questions of a g&t kid, revisit knowledge the child would have learned in the previous year as I'd have to read about that too or known that there is a link to something to begin with. Yeah, it's physically possible for me as a specialist in my subject to stand in a class and do what would be cover lessons in other subjects, but it would not be teaching.

[Kokeshi123]

Well, having teachers teach their non-specialist subjects doesn't sound fantastic, but as long as they were delivering curriculum that was set and delivered by experts (centralized curriculum?) it might be just about doable and the kids would learn more than they are at the moment.

The thing is, parents and students are mostly not experts in any school subjects, yet we currently have a sitaution where parents with no teaching qualifications whatsoever are trying to teach 11-14yos all these subjects, and the kids themselves are sitting there trying to teach themselves. Wouldn't even imperfect teaching by teachers who are not specialists in each subject be preferable to this?

[PerspicaciaTick]

I'm bemused that so many people to think that my DS should give up a full y7 timetable with specialist teachers preparing lessons for home study and replace it with a cutdown curriculum being taught by random teachers who may or may not know the subject. Plus added exposure to Çovid19. It is really hard to see the upside.

[chocolateequinox]

What happens to the music teacher milicent?

They go and teach maths of course, it's said that music and maths are skills that go hand in hand after all though basing your pedagogy on malory towers isn't recommended

[SarahMused]

chocolateequinox that’s not as daft as people think. I’m a music teacher with A level maths at grade A and maths for physicists as my uni subsidiary subject. I also didd humanities as a second subject for my PGCE and have taught English, drama and RE as well as music. We are not totally one trick ponies.
I would also recommend schools to use Oak Academy Online lessons. They are taught by subject specialists so the teacher or parent basically supervises the learning. There is no planning needed and it covers reception up to year 10. Free to use as well. Classes could stay in a classroom with a teacher who would cover the subjects they specialised in, use Oak Academy for the others, get exercise, socialise within their class size bubble. Surely with some portaloos and hand washing stations we could then get children back and stop the immense harm this is doing. Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary solutions and I think this one is possible given the low prevalence of the virus in the community and the tiny risk to children.

[hepburnmed]

Agree with SarahMused.

I wonder what issues people will come up with.

[MarieG10]

The government is letting the health and safety lot run wild YET again. This virus isn't going away so given that kids are safest they shouldn't be getting part time schooling until god knows when

Macron ordered all French kids back to school. No namby pandering to scared mums who won't let their little darlings near any risk

[CuckooCuckooClock]

That’s nonsense Marie loads of schools in France are still closed and loads of kids haven’t returned to school.

[Howaboutanewname]

Tiptoe
When was the last time you had to work out a timetable for over 1000 kids and 60 or more staff? And make sure they all have a room to be in?

When was the last time, as say a biologist, you taught A Level French? Or a Historian taught GCSE physics? Can you not see the fact that schools need some order and

Sure, most of us could have a good crack at one or more subjects than our usual one, but it is nothing more than a temporary, short term solution. And please tell me how two teachers sharing a subject solves the issue? The suggestion is one teacher per bubble, not multiple teachers visit bubble.

As for So if someone suggests one teacher covering all subjects, please don’t scoff when maybe they’ve come up with more ideas than you have. You clearly think very little of teachers who, collectively, have been reorganising whole campus sites to put one way systems in place and find safe ways in and out of buildings and tucked away rooms for weeks, if not months now. We can come up with plenty of solutions but without cash and more people, very little can work.

[MsAwesomeDragon]

Surely with some portaloos and hand washing stations
This is my biggest issue with that plan. There are other issues, but I'm going to focus on this one. In my school we have approx 100 classrooms, so approx 100 bubbles under that plan. Each bubble needs access to their own toilet (or they aren't a bubble, obviously). We currently have 3 sets of girls toilets, 3 sets of boys toilets and 2 unisex, accessible toilets. Go on, add in the staff toilets as well. That's 10 sets of toilets, for 100 bubbles. So we need 90 portaloos. A) are there 90 portaloos for every secondary school in the area (there are 5 more secondary schools within a half hour drive from my school)? B) where the hell do we put 90 portaloos (they'd have to be relatively close to the classrooms and someone would have to ensure kids used the right ones and that they're clean)? It's logistics, rather than not wanting to do it, there just isn't a way of making the toilet and hand washing logistically practical with bubbles in a secondary school.

Currently, even with less than a quarter of one year group in school our bubbles burst every time someone goes to the toilet, because we don't have enough for each bubble to have their own set of toilets.

[Danglingmod]

Oak Academy is rubbish for English ks3. I believe it's quite good for other subjects.

[SarahMused]

You don’t need exclusive use of their own toilets for each bubble, just scheduled toilet breaks and hand washing. The chances of catching anything from sitting on the toilet seat is so minimal as to be zero unless you lick the seat after someone infected used it. More frequent cleaning would also put minds at rest.

[MsAwesomeDragon]

It's not brilliant for maths at KS3 or ks4 dangling. I mean, it's not terrible, but it's not brilliant, and it's aimed at middle ability kids so way too hard for some, but way too easy for others.

[SarahMused]

Those of you that advocate part time or no time in school for most pupils, how long do you envisage this going on given that covid will most likely still be around in September onwards? Also, why has no one ever asked for schools to be closed during the flu season? More children die of flu every year than covid and they are certainly super spreaders in a way that they aren’t with covid. We could teach through the summer and close schools for six weeks over Christmas. You could save thousands of lives every year.

[SarahMused]

It is better than being isolated at home while your parents are trying to hold down full time jobs. The default in this country is that we have schools that are open. Children have a right to education enshrined in law and it now appears that the closure of schools wasn’t backed by law, only guidance - see @simondolan on twitter. It is up to those keeping them closed to prove that it is proportionate to the risk to children not the other way round.

[MsAwesomeDragon]

We don't close schools for flu season because there's a vaccine for the mostly likely flu strain each year. So staff and pupils who are most at risk from flu generally have a vaccine, I know I do!! And we also vaccinate all of the younger children who are likely to spread it to their vulnerable family members. So if there was a vaccine available for covid we'd be doing that, but there isn't, so protecting vulnerable staff, pupils and family members needs a different strategy.

[MsAwesomeDragon]

@SarahMused why proportionate to the risk to children only? Do staff not deserve some consideration? There are plenty of staff at risk of serious illness even if they aren't likely to die.

[ohthegoats]

More frequent cleaning would also put minds at rest.

Who is doing that? Who is paying for the person doing that?

[EducatingArti]

I still think the best solution if physical distancing still required, is for half groups and part-time in school and part-time remote learning with separate child care centres for working parents that need it.
That way the additional room doesn't need to be on the same site as the school and extra teachers are not needed. It would need lots of extra training for new child carers and extra money for the childcare sites but would be the best in a difficult situation if the government would put £££ into it!

[SarahMused]

MsAwesomeDragon because that is what the UN declaration on the rights of children says. The flu vaccine is only successful some years and many thousands die in a bad year. ONS has the statistics if you want to look it up. People shielding obviously need to be kept protecting but this is not an argument for keeping millions of children out of their physical school for months. We can’t guarantee total safety, but we can’t guarantee that children won’t catch other illnesses, get run over or anything else. We minimise risk where we can while still living our lives.

[greathat]

I'll just read a bit of Shakespeare then I'll know how to teach English. Not studied it for over 25 years but I'm sure it will coming rushing back. Wait what's an essay?

[greathat]

Oh and Spanish. Si is yes isn't it? And erm Macarena?

[Flinstones]

I honestly can't believe the views from SOME teachers on here! None of us want things to change & we all want to go back to normal BUT we can't at the moment & we are all doing things above & beyond what we normally would do it's hard for EVERYONE! I can't believe the negativity from some teachers it just dosnt feel any situation would suit you at all. My eldest is 19 & along the years I've met a lot of different teachers & I do wonder why some are teachers as they really don't seem to like children or teaching at all. I assume it's these teachers that are being so negative.
I just want to say that I have also met a lot of FANTASTIC teachers who my children have been so lucky to have I suspect there the ones doing all they can & thinking of ideas to get our children back into school.
I want to also reiterate I blame the government for this but these negative teachers probably fuelling there unions are NOT helping.

[FrippEnos]

Flinstones

Coming up with stupid ideas and then whinging that any opposing view is negative is stupid.

Ignoring the fact that the ideas won't work and claiming people have a negative attitude is stupid.

Writing a rant about teachers and then stating that you blame the government is bullshit.