Huffpost - leak on School Guidance

[PatriciaHolm]

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/school-reopening-whole-year-bubbles-full-guidance-covid_uk_5ef9dd4ac5b6ca97091288e4?oo9&guccounter=1

Full document due this week, but some "highlights"...(I use the word advisedly)

• secondary bubbles of up to 240 children (essentially a year group) -No in-class social distancing requirement for primary pupils, with secondary pupils advised to stay 1m apart but not at all times -Teachers advised to keep 2m away from pupils, at the front of the class, and away from colleagues as much as possible as if in a supermarket

• Compulsory engagement with the NHS Test and Trace system, with whole classes or year groups liable to be sent home if a pupil tests positive, but whole school closure not seen as generally necessary

-No face coverings for pupils or teachers, on Public Health England advice, as they “interfere” with teaching and learning -Children seated facing forwards in same direction and not at circular tables, with pupils wearing normal uniform and washing hands throughout the day -Teachers advised to spend no more than 15 minutes at any one time closer than 1m to anyone - Fines of up to £120 for parents whose children fail to attend school. In contrast with the “softly softly” approach taken during full lockdown the message will be “education is not optional”

• Heads told not to put in any staff rota or physical distancing that would require extra space or make it impossible for all pupils to return full-time.

- Contingency plans for some or all of the school being put in local lockdown and any temporary return to “remote” teaching needing to be of a high quality -Some subjects for some or all pupils may have to be suspended for two terms to allow catch-up on core subjects such as English and maths, with a full spread of subjects returning in the summer term of of 2021 -Some pupils may have to drop some GSCEs altogether in Year 11 to allow them to catch up and achieve better grades in English and maths. GCSEs and A-levels to take place as planned next summer but with some “adaptations” - First year pupils at secondary school may have to be re-taught English and maths from their final year syllabus at primary level

ps Sticking the teacher on an umpiring / lifeguard chair would be a way of adding extra distance between teacher and pupils.

Or stilts?

increase teaching in core areas

Let’s be clear, it won’t be increased specialist teaching in core areas. So ditching specialist tuition in options subjects for cover-supervisor lessons in core.

I don’t like the fines part. No one should be fined at a time like this. If you want to keep your kid off then that should be allowed during these times. People had no choice but to keep their kids off and rightly so but forcing people to put their kids at risk is shocking and I don’t think it should be allowed.

@Grasspigeons

i feel very sorry for the children who only cope with school due to the subjects like drama or art

Agree with this.

@BatSegundo

My family is shielding. There is very little here that will prevent the virus spreading rapidly in a school. My eldest starts year 7 in September.
Feel a bit sick reading this.

Shielding ends in August. Hopefully for the very vulnerable there might be homeschooling of some sort? Are there many children that are 'very vulnerable'. Currently the whole household doesn't have to shield if only one person is very vulnerable but precautions taken to keep the shielded person safe.

Surely our SLT can interpret the guidance to suit. Only the 'you must' bits will be compulsory. Students can't all being doing maths & English all the time, every day! Maybe they will have intervention groups for some students. Students that have to engaged at all with remote learning.

There is also a section on discipline and behaviour as the govt recognise this will have slipped for many. Non stop core subjects will not help. Kids need their creative, practical and sport alongside the core!
I'm hoping I can trust our normally fair SLT to make judgements here and 🤞

"- Compulsory engagement with the NHS Test and Trace system, with whole classes or year groups liable to be sent home if a pupil tests positive, but whole school closure not seen as generally necessary

• Fines of up to £120 for parents whose children fail to attend school. In contrast with the “softly softly” approach taken during full lockdown the message will be “education is not optional”

So children are expected to be followed by the state, and if their parents are not OK with this, they will be fined? Well I support a huge increase in home education, but it shouldn't be for negative reasons like this.

If parents can keep kids off without being fined, then that would essentially be them saying it's not a safe environment. If they say that, then anxious teachers should be able to stay home too. And no one would like that, would they.

At our school they plan to keep form groups in the same classroom for the subjects they teach in form groups, so the teachers will move from room to room rather than the pupils.

For example, if they have registration then RE then History, the teachers will come to them to try and minimise the amount of movement around school.

Obviously it won't work with streamed subjects or things like art/food tech, but anything that reduces over 1000 kids walking the same corridors at the same time has to be a good thing.

I'm not sure how staggering start and finish times will work with the school bus? Ours has already suggested that if social distancing remains the price could increase to £14 a day! Not sure how much they will charge us if they have to run 4 or 5 buses from each village because everyone is starting and finishing at a different time. Of course it could only be 10 minutes and they would all travel on the same bus but that kind of defeats the object.

If children are kept off and fined it becomes a bigger decision - to deregister and home school. Would make it easier to know who’s in or out.

Dropping subjects at GCSE may not be such a big deal, depending on how many GCSEs the school offers already.

DS state comprehensive offered 8 or 9 depending on whether they were doing triple science. This left only room for 3 options and the timetable was massively orientated towards Maths, English and science to get good grades in those subjects.

From what I gather, most secondaries offer 9 or 10 GCSEs so they could probably drop to 8 without too much damage, but making it easier to catch up. I don't think the kids need to drop to Eng/maths/science - they've missed one term, they don't need to drop to five GCSEs only. But dropping a subject or two might ease the pressure a lot.

Sixth forms would have to be more flexible, and there are a lot of A levels you can do without having done the GCSE. For example, history or politics or geography. Triple science does not have to be a requirement for A level sciences and sixth forms have to give ground on entry requirements, in my view. They could even offer ab inito language A levels (though that's a lot of work).

Which is why finished31 it should be a choice, obviously not a great choice for you but at least you can weigh up the options. Otherwise I imagine that many children will be deregistered and in six months want a place again which will be more disruptive for everyone.

Glad the bubbles and small classes is not in that. Pointless since the students all come out and congregate anyway.

This seems to me an argument for MORE caution in school, not less.

Will the GCSEs be dropped or children can have the option to take them?

Who will be teaching the extra lessons for Maths and English to help children catch up, not much point having the PE teacher teaching English (if they have spare time as PE GCSE dropped)

Shielding children could be disregarded for progress8 assessments if in GCSE year or if returning just before SATs.

[quote Whysomanyexcuses]@BatSegundo

My family is shielding. There is very little here that will prevent the virus spreading rapidly in a school. My eldest starts year 7 in September.
Feel a bit sick reading this.

Shielding ends in August. Hopefully for the very vulnerable there might be homeschooling of some sort? Are there many children that are 'very vulnerable'. Currently the whole household doesn't have to shield if only one person is very vulnerable but precautions taken to keep the shielded person safe.[/quote]
That would mean children being unable to go near their parent - possibly for months. This is unsustainable and cruel.

Sounds excellent to me. All sensible and not ott.
So so pleased to see this. Actually feel like cheering

I would really welcome the option to drop GCSEs. My non-academic DD is expected to do 10 and I think it's ridiculous. I asked her school in the autumn if she could drop a couple of subjects to concentrate on trying to get passes in the core subjects and they refused. I'm now hopeful this might happen.

I think the expectation that all students should be capable of 9/10/11 GCSEs is nuts.

The secondary year group bubble thing is absolutely pointless isn't it? They'll be mixing with siblings and possibly other relatives at home, seeing their friends outside of school (many not SD if the kids round here are anything to go by) going in shops, on buses etc.

I'm interested to see what the guidelines will be for teaching practical subjects.

DS goes to a very small secondary school, probably have 240 in the whole school, will they have year bubbles or will the whole school have to isolate!

Considering I cannot fit a 2m gap at the top of my class, and all kids mix on a bus and at lunch times, and they are crammed into corridors, that 'guidance' is basically a waste of time. It equates to 'back to normal but we would rather you fail to implement the guidance than say that'.

Well I guess I am taking maternity leave early. Good luck hiring teachers to teach all that extra english and maths too. We struggled to hire people in march, let alone with 6 weeks notice. Parents ok with unqualified and inexperienced teachers teaching GCSE english ye? Grand so.

Who is going to police the wearing of masks on the school buses?

Me too Sasha

As long as triple Science is kept I’m really pleased to read it.

Is there anyone saying this sounds sensible who actually works in a secondary school?