Education press conference today (Thursday)

[Redolent]

Goody, it’s Gavin Williamson again.

mobile.twitter.com/10downingstreet/status/1278395670618136576?s=21

Given the information from the leak is more detailed than Gavin's ever previously provided there wont be anything new today.

If he gets the chance he'll try to make the leak information more complicated and confusing than it already is.

Wouldn't want to make things too clear for schools and parents. That would involve him and the government actually doing some proper planning...

Thank you op

Will be interested in what he has to say. The BBC are quoting secondary bubbles of up to 200.Many year groups are larger than this. No mixing between “bubbles” as already leaked does raise questions regarding lunches and school transport. My D.C. attends a semi rural secondary school where the majority are bused in, in buses that are full and don’t even guarantee a seat. Still think a 2 week timetable of one week in school, one week working at home is a better approach. This will not be the case and come September social distancing will become non-existent just in time for the autumn/winter. A very short sighted approach by a populist government.

I agree it has already been leaked and so not much point in the announcement as the leak will have more info in it than Gavin will give!
My main concerns are around not using public transport and staggered start and finish times. I have 3 dc in years 7, 9 and 11 (will be 8,10 and 12) They normally travel to and form school by bus. I could potentially drop them off at school before work (if start time is the same) but cant drop them all at different times, and I cant collect them so they will have to get the bus and they normally travel together as the youngest one had only jst started travelling to and form school himself, so again would be difficult if they all finished at different times.
I am so stressed about the whole thing tbh and if things are still this complicated in Sept I will actually have to go off work sick as the stress is making me unwell.

What time is it at today?

Oh. They’re not televised any more are they? So we’re waiting for the guidance documents? Tbh, I’d prefer that as the press conference never said the same as the guidance any way...

Also talking about staggering the school day- which certainly won't work at DS's secondary where the majority of pupils are absolutely reliant on school buses. Can't seem them running staggered school buses morning and afternoon.

I'm still struggling to see how the guidance would work in FE colleges with such a huge range of courses.

If my 17 yr old DS had opted to do an apprenticeship it is more than likely he would be following Covid safe' guidelines at work but as he has decided to go to college he doesn't need to bother with SD etc.

He will need to get 2 buses to his college which are usually rammed and I don't drive so has no option but to get the buses in September

Surely once your bubble reaches 200 it becomes completely ineffective?

I'm really curious how they think this will work with transport and childcare. Our childminders have to collect from an infant's and junior school, normally they have simple staggered times between the two schools but if they start staggering class times this will be impossible. Now we're in the fortunate position that I'll just keep working from home and I can help out if needed but few parents will be able to manage this. I can't even begin to imagine how it would work for secondaries with bus and train transport.

Really struggling to see how this will work in secondaries

Yes. I’m particularly interested in staffing in secondaries. Will staff be allocated a year group to stick with?

I think once again this will be filled with problems when it comes to imlementing it, because once again it seems as if Gavin Williamson and the department of education have absolutely no idea how the majority of schools work in the real world, especially secondary schools, or how the majority of families work where both parents (or single parents) have to actually work for a living.
Staggered lunch times for instance - my kids school has a half hour lunch break for the whole school. The whole timtable is built around this. How can they stagger this across thousands of children and still keep the timetable running ? And the whole staggered starting and finishing times as I said above will be a ottal nightmare for most parents, alongiside the facct the majority of children at my kids school travel by bus with no alternative.
I suppose good old Gav expects we will all be able to get our Nannies to drive the little darlings to and rom school at whatever times they see fit, whilst we are off getting our hair done.

Thank you op.

Anyone know what time? I'm assuming it will be on BBC News at the very least?

yes, the whole year group thing in secondaries makes absolutely no sense. The children dont normally interect with the whole year group anyway. In my kids school the year is split into two halves initially. Then older years have specific subject lessons within much smaller groups etc...
And the teachers will of course absolutely have to teach a wide renage of years/groups so will be mixing anyway surely? Unless they plan on having one teacher - would love to see how a maths teacher will get on teaching A level art for example!

It basically is going to mean a bubble of "your entire school of 1/2/4000" people because there is no way separate buses or trains per year group can be arranged to get them there.

Yes. I’m particularly interested in staffing in secondaries. Will staff be allocated a year group to stick with?

They can’t be - there aren’t enough teachers of each subject.

So this makes the staggered start/finish/break times interesting. Year 10 are ready for their next lessons but their teachers are still teaching Year 9.

I think they totally under estimate the logistics required to create these bubbles in secondary schools. Things like staggered lunch times even, our secondary school eat lunch in the atrium which is essentially the middle of the school. If this were in use pretty much all afternoon with different bubbles using it at different times, how would the rest of the bubbles move between classrooms without crossing this area.
School buses, how will they work with staggered start and finish times.
How will specialist teachers stay within bubbles, for example PE teachers, schools don’t have enough teachers in each subject to provide one for each bubble.

I genuinely think they are forgetting/ignoring the fact that secondary schools are run in a completely different way to primary!

I just feel for all those 'timetablers' out there in secondary school trying to work out how to keep the year groups apart, how to sort out who teaches them and how to sort out where they will be taught. Our secondary is massive with about 300 students in a year group. Quite a logistical nightmare!

He’s also talking in Parliament this morning. As his answer has normally been ‘we have a plan’ it will be interesting to see if he can actually describe the plan this time!

"Will staff be allocated a year group to stick with?"

so you'd have at least one teacher per subject for every year group?

Where are the extra teachers going to come from? How will that be afforded?

To be clear, I know that schools don’t have the right number of specialists for each year group. I fear that we will be expected to be teachers rather than specialists

It’s not what I want to happen; it’s what I’m most intrigued to read about in the guidance.

Oh I see MsJaneAusten. I hadn’t thought of that!

I've got my timetable for next year and I'm teaching every year group!

Do they realise how complicated timetabling is?