What's the plan b for schools?

[headshoulderskneestoes]

Is there one?

I know plan A is full opening in September with various rules that aren't very easy to implement or are a bit of a nonsense. But if the numbers continue to go up or things go wrong quickly, what then?

It's my understanding that the national curriculum was suspended at Easter? Is it back in place now? What will stop us going back to 'here have a worksheet' as there's no other really option?

My son is going into year 5, so 5 years of schooling and has already missed half of that (2.5yrs!) due to SEN, illegal exclusions, no school place for him and now covid. I'm desperate that he doesn't miss any more. He's at a autism school now and isn't able to work at home. Wish it was clear what the plan b might be!

@bigTillyMint

OP, as your DS is at an ASD school, I am surprised if they weren’t already open from the start of lockdown as he would qualify as vulnerable with an ECHP.

My friend is SLT in an ASD school and they have been fully open throughout. I work in another specialist provision and we have been open throughout for the most vulnerable children.

No children or staff at either provision got ill with Covid - phew!

It is much easier to follow safety guidelines with small groups which would be the case in your DSs school. Plus it seems that young children are much lower risk of carrying/getting it.

I personally think we need to reopen for all children. What kind of life/education is it for them if not? Unless of course you are happy to HE and able to do it well.

Our school closed same as others bar keyworker children. They said all children had EHCPs and couldn't accommodate everyone safely. I guess if further closures happen, they might stay open this time because they are vulnerable? I hope so anyway. Yes, there's only 8 to a class so 🤞🤞 transmission is lower.

There isn’t one, they must go back or I think there is a risk of anarchy

@wagtailred

Well plan B is the school is closed by central or local government and they revert to online learning. However this time the government is expecting immediatley available, quality online provision that allows progress. Which will be inaccessible for mmant children You have my sympathy though my son also attends a special school which closed. Apparently inly 20% of children with ehcps were in school nationally. Some of that will be parental choice. Some will be risk assessments.

Oh yes - I forgot about the 'risk assessments' bit - there was quite a lot of that in our school when it reopened to basically say that the child can't be trusted to follow guidelines so had to stay at home. I guess it's true to an extent but I'm not sure where that leaves them long term.

There is so far no national plan B- but further guidance is being released to schools on 11th August. I'm not too sure what Heads are anticipating being in that guidance- but I am wondering if perhaps there will be more on masks for secondary schools potentially, in light of recent developments.
My school is a state academy, 1400 students or thereabouts. We have a rough plan B which I do think will work well for those students who have use of a laptop and internet. Remember though that many, many students don't have use of a laptop and lots only have partial use (multiple children in home or parents WFH) which can also make 'live teaching' timetables very inaccessible to them. FSM/PP students were eligible for laptops under the government scheme. The scheme was shambolic- our priority, most vulnerable students didn't get laptops until start of July (2 school weeks to go) and the laptops they received weren't fit for purpose apparently, so our school had to fork out and buy them anyway. I assume we will claim that money back from government because otherwise who in hell knows where that money is coming from. This is the reason why so many schools are in 6 figure or even 7 figure budget deficits.
As a teacher I am just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best come September, but realistically I think we will be seeing schools and bubbles opening and closing from week 4 of term (perhaps even sooner). If that does happen it will be a nightmare for all involved, not least working parents.

My DH's school have invested in webcam tech with the aim of recording/broadcasting lessons, so that children can access them while isolating when symptoms appear (as, let's be honest, this is going to happen a lot with colds and other viruses through winter).
The hope is also that if there are further lockdowns, the teachers may be able to still come into school and facilitate more effective distance learning from there.

I've sorted my own plan B. Tutors lined up for all the children and online school for the two whose schools were hopeless this term. If everything goes back to normal the tutors will be a nice top up and if things descend into chaos we can increase their hours. DH and I can work from home but we both have very intense full time jobs so we needed to have a back up plan as I don't trust the schools /govts to prioritise education any more

What do you think schools are prioritising, if not education, Twerk?

Our school's working hard on an educational plan B, basically a whole day of lessons will be delivered via TEAMS. Technology is being lent to those who don't have it and we're working with pupils and families to help them to be able to access Teams which is a very slow process.

All this doesn't solve childcare issues of course and relies heavily on parental supervision.

The best I could suggest is that children who are not in school are put in small clusters of 3 or 4 children. And parents take it in turn to supervise all the children for the day. This is very far from ideal though and wouldn't work in our school where many of our families are extremely vulnerable.

It would work in ds' nice C of E school though.

My DD's state primary school provide chromebooks to children who don't have suitable equipment at home and were very organised from March, so I have every confidence they will be looking to build on their (already very good) online provision. The main worry I have on the education side of things is a lack of differentiation, but I'm lucky that I currently have the time to help with that and DS is only 2 years older, so I know what he was doing and when.

ChristmasinJune The problem with the shared childcare is that if the schools are closed, it probably means that there are positive cases. The children who are sent home are sent home to self-isolate, not to mix with each other. If they were closed due to some more general local lockdown, that might work though.

People in the US (where school opening depends on the area but looks VERY dicey for September in most places) are starting to form "pandemic pods" where parents take turns supervising all the kids together. I suspect that this will happen increasingly if schools do not open in September.

@Kokeshi123

People in the US (where school opening depends on the area but looks VERY dicey for September in most places) are starting to form "pandemic pods" where parents take turns supervising all the kids together. I suspect that this will happen increasingly if schools do not open in September.

That is interesting-is this to take place in their houses?

@Pixxie7

There isn’t one, they must go back or I think there is a risk of anarchy

I doubt that.

@nellodee

ChristmasinJune The problem with the shared childcare is that if the schools are closed, it probably means that there are positive cases. The children who are sent home are sent home to self-isolate, not to mix with each other. If they were closed due to some more general local lockdown, that might work though.

Yes it's far from a perfect solution, I readily admit that. It wouldn't work if households/children were isolating but then the only solution to that is one parent staying off work.... which will cause major problems.

It couldwork if all schools in a local area were closed or if schools decided to go with part time schooling after all.

I also wonder if current regulations around childminding could be somehow fast tracked or made easier so that a group of parents could club together a pay one parent to homeschool a handful of children or in an ideal world the govt would pay of course when they weren't in school.

The teaching side of things is reasonably easy to tackle actually if we can sort the technology, but the desperate need for childcare is much more of an issue.

I don’t think there is one.

Anyone can see the plan A of all back in full time won’t work and isn’t safe for either children, staff or families. Lots don’t seem to care though as long as they have childcare or dont to have to do any school work themselves.

It doesn’t matter how many times they use the word bubble, it doesn’t make the virus stay away or protect anybody.

If it takes two positive tests to burst a bubble (and many simply won’t abide by test requests) then parents won’t know anything about cases until the bubble pops. Even then other bubbles may be at risk as the staff member has been in and out of various bubbles and will they get sent home or left in school?

Add in all the families ignoring guidance, those who send them in knowingly ill etc and Plan A will cause a huge spike of cases and all those who were shielding and vulnerable will have been in the environment unless they were willing to take the fines.

Plan A should never have been all back, it should have been remote learning with truly essential KW children in where both parents are KWs.

Plan B? Plan A is still being tweaked about with and we have more guidelines coming out.

At my school we have been told to prep for all in, blending learning and all out. Everything on Microsoft Teams. I am at an independent secondary which participated in an arms race against other local indies to deliver a full on-line timetable including extra curricular clubs - it was exhausting.

Plan B is make it up as they go along and expect schools to figure it out with zero notice.

My school has a sort of plan B in place with regards to online lessons. We have trying to plan as much as possible and have it ready to go if the school is told to do a partial or full lockdown. But there is absolutely no plan b guidance from govenrment. We will just have to make it work ourselves with no help, the same as the first lockdown.

We can’t easily make a Plan B without knowing what might change. Schools completely closed? Certain year groups open but in smaller bubbles? Which year groups? What sized bubbles? Whatever happens I’m fairly confident we’ll sort it, very pleased with how quickly we adapted to changes across summer term.

No plan B

The pointless timetable, staffing and zone changes that have had to be implemented for September‘s grand opening will take schools all summer to implement-there is no time for schools to properly Plan B, even if they could.

A plan B would need government to accept Plan A wasn’t working and to give guidance (and funding) about what was allowed.

This is plan B

Plan A was the army of volunteers and none existent tutors.

Plan C is to blame to schools for when it all goes wrong.

www.washingtonpost.com/education/fall-remote-private-teacher-pods/2020/07/17/9956ff28-c77f-11ea-8ffe-372be8d82298_story.html

Pandemic pods.

I think some are hiring private tutors, others may just be a parent taking turns to supervise kids doing an online program. Some in people's homes, some in rented spaces.

I don't blame people, to be honest. No, it's not zero contact between households, but there is far less room for spread compared to schools being open, and some sort of solution has to be found----parents have to go back to work and kids have to be learning something.

Our Secondary has a plan B set up - more of the same (which worked well- online not live though) for those who can’t be in school.

Our primary gave home learners nothing last term and have nothing in place for further lockdowns either. They blame this on teachers not having laptops.

Sounds like many schools plan B is being pinned on Teams teaching? Are most of these schools secondary's? I'm wondering if primaries are thinking the same?

My son is in an primary autism Sen school and online isn't something the class can engage in (they tried, it was a disaster every time it was tried). He's 9 and extremely high functioning and bright so does a lot of learning when physically at school....he just hasn't had the chance to be there much since he was of school age!

Plan B here is live lessons via Teams. School has provided lots of info for the in school COVID plan AND a timetable for live lessons in the event of closure... that said with a 11 form year group (330 kids) I think they are being realistic and expecting further closures.