Every child in every year group will return to school in September, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has said.

[itswhereitsat]

I didn't catch the briefing but read the above comment in the news. The big question is, did he say whether children returning would be part-time or full time? Or did he just gloss over that bit?

[quote Uhoh2020]@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat yes hes in y8. At the moment they have the same sets for each subjects[/quote]
Ok but surely you know that doesn’t carry on?

Even my year 5 (middle school) would move around the school and mix for streamed subjects.

Is it inappropriate in such a serious situation to say I feel really sorry for my school's timetabling team? Poor buggers won't have a clue what to do!

(ulterior motive on my part - I'm 4 days a week, and haven't found out which day will be my day off because nobody knows what to timetable. Need to know for planning childcare)

Another plan that hasn’t been thought through.

Who’d have thunked it?!

Secondary can’t be in bubbles of thirty! They all go off doing different subjects!

Slightly worried that they’ll drop anything outside of the compulsive curriculum (Maths, English, Science, IT) in order to make this work 😬

@starrynight19

This would mean no phonics in my primary school as all ks1 move around for that. We also move to different classes for numeracy and literacy so that wouldn’t be able to happen either. Then no intervention groups / booster groups for ks2 who come from different classes also. This will have a big knock on effect for primary schools also.

Of course phonics would still be taught. The bubble rule is not stopping phonics, maths or literacy from being taught. Your school just won't be able to teach in the way they normally would.

I reckon the secondary plan will be the same as at start of March so just 'wash your hands'. Will be an interesting experiment...

No mention of wraparound either. I'm assuming with bubbles it wouldn't work. DH and I are both teachers so rely on wraparound clubs as we can't exactly leave our classes unattended to go and pick our own kids up. Looks like I'll have to trawl my village for a local person willing to drop off and pick up my DC.

Full time, said there is a plan but won't share it for 2 weeks.

Translated as "we haven't got a clue how this will work, but this gives us two weeks to try and fudge a plan then claim we never actually said it as you think we did."

There is no plan and it's just something he's said to shut everybody up.

@DuDuDuLangaLangaBingBong I really doubt that. Would mean mass redundancies, and they wouldn't have enough staff for these subjects.

I suspect there will be some level of remote teaching going on within school still - otherwise timetabling of options e.g. languages won't work. So it wouldn't surprise me if we end up with some face to face lessons and some remote lessons where pupils access the lesson for their subject.

I thought it was one of the worst daily briefings yet. I find him strangely endearing as a human, but for the love of god find another phrase than ‘incredibly important ‘. It was pure puff and spin. His department needs to have a proper funded set of plans in place for a range of scenarios.

The real hit the fan moment is a way down the line when not enough teachers have been trained, and those who have trained this year and next have been barely trained.... and then we get a bulge of early exits because of this fiasco and the ridiculous demands placed on schools to cure all ills.

@Flagsfiend

I reckon the secondary plan will be the same as at start of March so just 'wash your hands'. Will be an interesting experiment...

Yep. And will no doubt somehow be spun as a success of the "follow the science and don't rush into things" strategy.....!!!

@MagisCapulus maybe not for the older ones but certainly yr7/8 could have some subjects in the same rooms so they aren't going around the school as much

Why aren’t the journalists asking questions about schools? Why aren’t they pressing the government about how things will work in secondary schools particularly? He didn’t commit to anything just said that’s what they hope. I feel sorry for the school leaders who will have to implement a plan and then probably change it again days before school closes for summer. This government have no idea (I’m not saying any other party would be any better) and I can’t stand Gavin Williamson either. This is his department what has he been doing for the last12/13 weeks?? One of our local secondary schools is now inviting years 7 8 and 9 back. I didn’t even know this was part of the current plan. I’m sure it won’t be teaching as we know it but even so.

Delaying until they see the impact of yR, y1 and y6 back. If no uptick in infections, it will be back to normal in September.

I don't think anyone should be holding their breath.

Won't happen.

Unless they're back full time, every day, with wraparound in place too, it's not going to help me, or I can imagine millions of other families to get back to work....

We need the guidance now! I know things could change but it is going to take our poor SLT a long time to plan what this would look like. Not to mention that it'll probably change 41 times in a week. [sceptical]
Gav just bluffed his way through that briefing, it's not good enough. Children, parents and school staff deserve better.

Primary were all supposed to be back this week remember. My kids don't get to go at all because we're not 'key workers' under what appears to be a very stretched definition around here....

really doubt that. Would mean mass redundancies, and they wouldn't have enough staff for these subjects.

No, it would mean redeploying staff that have teaching qualifications for other subjects to the core ones, same as we have witnessed in the NHS.

No space for rotas for other kids at our school because full with key workers. That have mostly recently appeared.....

If a school leadership team behaved the way the DFE has done, we would be inadequate by Ofsted standards and be placed under HMI. I'm surprised they can get away with this.

Muffey well yes but we have roughly ten phonics groups so with two staff having to deliver each session of an hour to each different ability group in their class it would probably take up all of the day. So would that be good use of time.
Looks like it just won’t be able to be differentiated and kids will just have to keep up with what the majority of the class can do.

What about our class with 31 in key stage 1?
And I know lots of primaries have ks2 classes of over 30.

And how will it would for years 10 and 11 doing option?

Some clever language used by Gavin there!! He's left himself plenty of wiggle room...and it's not like the government aren't against making a direct u-turn to absolute statements...
My worry is the amount of secondary schools looking to collapse their curriculum to make this possible. They're already not going to be judged on next years results either.