Schools reopening 2

[oldbagface]

Old thread

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3971862-Schools-Reopening?pg=1

[quote Pomegranatepompom]@noblegiraffe I really don’t think I’m kicking off.
I do feel the lack of provision is now apparent, I had no concerns previously with my own DC. I don’t know how you could expect me to know the school was struggling if it was?[/quote]
But teaching staff and unions have been highlighting the issues surrounding the inadequacies in state education for years, and have even resorted to striking at times to draw attention to the issues with the aim of triggering change. How can anyone not be aware of the issues within state education?

If people had paid attention to the issues years ago, and been outraged at every poor educational decision that was made by each successive government, and then did what they could to drive improvements in state education in the UK, schools would have been better prepared to deal with remote learning. The only reason people care now is because it inconveniences them...but once schools are open fully again in September then the issues in schools will be happily forgotten all over again.

@labyrinthloafer

For a long time I have felt that parents and teachers need to form a stronger alliance and stand up to a lot of the government nonsense. In particular - many of the things parents complain about stem directly from systemic underfunding. Parents rightly demand resolution to their own problems, but we need more consistent pressure to be exerted to improve things for us all.

I see little conflict between what the staff will want - a safe working environment and ability to teach - and want I want for my child.

I felt the wide range of responses from schools was not ideal, but there was no guidance and schools were not all equally affected by staff issues such as shielding and childcare problems. At our primary for example, the staff are fairly young - so quite a few didn't have children, so were not simultaneously teaching plus homeschooling. That was just circumstance.

I suspect the government is happy enough for us to blame schools, as it lets them off the hook.

I absolutely agree with you regarding parents and teachers fighting the same corner. That is why when teachers strike the media start reporting about lazy, greedy teachers wanting pay rises and secure pensions rather than presenting the more pressing issues of things such as chronic underfunding. The government want the public to be critical of teachers, nurses and other public sector workers because it enables them to maintain the status quo. It's depressing and frustrating, and even more so when you read posts on here where it's quite clear that this tactic is working and people are happy to go along with the lazy teacher rhetoric rather than look further into the issues.

One thing I think is unions don't reach out to parents enough (can they?) and more widely there's no encouragement of parents groups or involvement beyond fundraising and baking bloody cakes.

We're too detached from the politics of what's affecting (and damaging) our lives, I think.

@VanillaFrais

I absolutely agree with you.

On infrastructure, my cousin's child is in a two intake year group, each of 40. 40!!! My cousin went to the same school 30 years ago - classrooms of 25 kids. They couldn't get the kids back into school save for reception and year six (no year one) and are struggling to give parents an idea of their September plans. Not their fault.

This is in an area of the south east that has had basically unrestricted building of houses to satisfy local demand but with no real provision for corresponding infrastructure. In part, this has come from immigration into this area, both from overseas and from other areas of the country - there are a lot of factories and businesses (eg growing in greenhouses) in the local area that recruit exclusively from particular EU nationalities, advertising overseas as soon as possible, year round. I AM NOT anti-immigration - i don't blame people for going to where jobs are, good for them. I blame successive governments for having simply decided to stretch resources further, causing fear and resentment in some areas, rather than investing properly as other countries have done.

The state of education funding IS shocking.

Has anyone even publicly embarrassed Gav for only getting the y10 laptops delivered now? (4 months late) He had the cheek to brag about the scheme at the daily conference but unfortunately nobody could ask him why he was bragging about something that hadn't been delivered. It's not like the loo roll shortage in March - it might have taken time but I bet private companies like the manufacturers and Amazon could have delivered months ago.

@Piggywaspushed At the beginning before school closed, a teacher we know caught it. She was living with her elderly parents and was being very careful. They had shopping delivered anyway and she just went to work and home again. She went nowhere else.

Obviously she could've caught it from an asymptomatic teacher or other staff bit more likely a child.

She was staying away from her parents in the house and they didn't catch it thankfully.

Sadly, she died of it. She was mid 40's.

Couldn’t agree more about parents and teachers actually having shared interests hence very deliberate decisive tactics to prevent them working together to lobby the real power (and purse) holders.

It’s why I get very frustrated with the odd poster whose whole agenda is clearly to propagate that division and impede any real communication and building of bridges between parents and teachers.

Most teachers on here are actually parents as well so definitely understand the frustration with poor education investment and the lowering of standards that comes with a massive shortage of quality, experienced teachers.

I’ve said elsewhere that my son hasn’t had a maths teacher who spoke English to a truly competent level for 2 years and even his English teacher had English as a second language this year and seems to have trained somewhere with very a different approach to engagement and classroom management. I could cry at how shit his ks3 provision has been and the damage that has caused. In ks4 hopefully it will be better because the school like many has had to prioritise ks4 to get proper specialist qualified teachers and sacrifice ks3 to non specialists, people qualified in countries with a very different standard of teacher training, a lot of patches of supply as those teachers fail to cope and resign or go off sick etc.

As a parent and a teacher and someone who started out as an anthropologist I have a pretty broad view of the situation, it’s causes, the way people are manipulated against one another, the way schools are set in competition against each other to try and get a decent cohort and therefore are incentivised to cover up the problems and present a good face, how the media is employed to misdirect and confuse etc.

Education needs massive change and investment that our governments have not wanted to undertake and have preferred instead to manipulate and lie and blame etc.

There is a report in The Times today that says there isn't a single documented case of a child (aged up to 15) passing the virus to a teacher (I think this is worldwide).Frankly, I think this is statistical bollocks but it came from a government scientific adviser so I expect it will be included as 'evidence' at some point.

I think this probably equates to Trump's idea that if you don't test you don't find cases - which is true of course. If you don't bother trying to find out if teachers caught it from their pupils, then there will be no evidence that this has happened.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-revealed-least-26-teachers-have-died-covid-19

It's highly unlikely that these teachers all caught it somewhere other than from their pupils. And this is just deaths, not cases.

Yes to all that.

And, anyway, why do all these reassuring stats finish at 15!? Not much succour to those of us who work in sixth form settings or upper schools!

I find it very strange reading people saying they’re deregistering their children and won’t be sending them in. I’m sat in my classroom right now laminating my resources for September and I just feel as though maybe I’m stupid for feeling like it’ll probably be ok. Not that I have any choice - I have to go in whether I like it or not.
It just seems odd preparing for something that people are calling incredibly dangerous.

I have been pushing closer contact with parents with my union for quite a while. Teachers are human beings and part of families and communities. I would say that many people respect individual teachers when they know their priority is the education of the next generation. I am not going to big myself up but the last time I went on strike I had a parent tell me that they knew the strike must be important or I wouldn't be doing it. I took that for the compliment it was and really appreciated it.

I do all I can for the children I teach and did that during lockdown. What our school decided to do I did and tried to establish as much face to face contact with the children as possible. I have bought a ton of hand sanitiser gel, liquid soap, paper towels and individual teaching resources like 100 squares and whiteboards so each child has their own resources. Again I am not bragging I am sharing my truth which I honestly feel needs to be done. I am not saying my job is the hardest in the world, I know it is not. I just think if more teachers were open and honest about their reality maybe the relationship with parents would be improved. By that I do not mean just 'whinging' but also the positives like how the children just make you smile and make the job worth while!

I do think teaching is one of the hardest most demanding and skilful jobs .

I think if that was actually said more often we would be held in higher esteem.

One if the reasons it is demeaned in our culture is the fact that it has a predominantly female workforce. File also under nursing.

I have bought a ton of hand sanitiser gel, liquid soap, paper towels and individual teaching resources like 100 squares and whiteboards so each child has their own resources.

Is this out of your own pocket?

@labyrinthloafer

For a long time I have felt that parents and teachers need to form a stronger alliance and stand up to a lot of the government nonsense. In particular - many of the things parents complain about stem directly from systemic underfunding. Parents rightly demand resolution to their own problems, but we need more consistent pressure to be exerted to improve things for us all.

I see little conflict between what the staff will want - a safe working environment and ability to teach - and want I want for my child.

I felt the wide range of responses from schools was not ideal, but there was no guidance and schools were not all equally affected by staff issues such as shielding and childcare problems. At our primary for example, the staff are fairly young - so quite a few didn't have children, so were not simultaneously teaching plus homeschooling. That was just circumstance.

I suspect the government is happy enough for us to blame schools, as it lets them off the hook.

Why were teachers simultaneously teaching and homeschooling? Teachers are key workers.

I do find it an odd argument that because there was no guidance from DfE some schools were therefore paralysed into doing virtually nothing.

All parents want more funding in schools. Plus for social workers, better paid carers etc etc. However as a country we simply don't vote to raise taxes. So what's the answer?

I haven’t read subsequent posts (decided to cut MN time..) but I’d like to wish you all well for September, hoping very much for the best scenario.

@openplankitchen I couldn’t access a keyworker place for my children as I was teaching live to timetable via Teams meetings. My children’s school offered places but not wraparound. I start teaching the same time I needed to drop them off and they finish their school day after mine ends so I couldn’t physically take or collect them.

Other colleagues were told by their children’s school that both parents needed to be key workers so they couldn’t access places.

Why were teachers simultaneously teaching and homeschooling? Teachers are key workers.

Were all nurseries open? I thought they weren't. Plus presumably some teachers have children who were shielding, or were shielding themselves.

I dont really know, I just know it was a hectic time, almost everyone was doing their best, and I don't like people having an ungrounded bash at 'teachers'.

Rest assured, I am first to get my green pen out if I am unhappy with a specific teacher.

@openplankitchen Many teachers kept their children at home, as the government said keep your children at home if you could. A lot of key workers didn't send their children in, to minimize the risk of covid spreading, so teachers did the same.

Yes it is out of my money. Our school budget is so restricted and we have no extra money for cleaning in September.

Many are probably doing the same. Unfortunately the days when we had enough money for all we need have long gone.

When some of the children came back many of us were teaching a bubble that was not our class Mon to Thursday then on Friday Zooming, doing videos and making sure the next weeks home learning was ready for our class. Also answering emails and giving feedback during the week. My favourites were early morning emails!

Have to be honest we all looked askance at the Asst head form our school who sent all three of his children to school an nursery all the way through so that he could sit peacefully at home thinking up lots of time consuming techno initiatives for us to enact.

if we were working from home,we were meant to keep our kids at home : it was the one fairly clear government message.

In my kids school both parents had to be keyworkers working out of the home.
Teachers could work from home on the days there were not on rota to provide keyworker childcare, and therefore not eligible even if both parents were keyworkers.

Deary me, teachers' union scoring a big own goal calling the 3.1% payrise "a kick in the teeth" www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/07/21/teachers-pay-increase-kick-teethfor-senior-staff-union-tells/.

About time sensible teachers disassociated themselves from these ridiculous statements.

At a time when many people are really worried for their future and simply keeping their livelihoods, you have this protection racket talking complete bollox

My son is 13 so even on days when I was in school physically this term he could take care of himself.

Seems like most people wanted to keep their children as safe as possible therefore keeping them home if they possibly could. We had far more ‘vulnerable’ kids in school than keyworkers despite having lots of kw parents. Those are the kids who tend to always have 100% attendance because either they can’t be coped with at home, aren’t wanted at home or aren’t safe at home and are cared for children or under ss.

They’ve been taken good care of and in our schools case they’ve been doing all of the distance learning with support from staff where needed, plus enrichment and sports/exercise.

Protection racket

Don’t feed those who are just here to stir up animosity.