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!

Counting staff I think they have approx 2000 people in school every day

Oh come on everyone. Haven't you gathered that if a plan B or C is required then notice that plan A won't be going ahead will not be given until 10pm the day before schools open?

Our secondary will struggle to implement anything other than a reopening as it never got its act together wrt online learning. No live lessons, and quality of work was entirely dependent on individual teachers e.g one Y8 science class had regular work set, links to online videos, marking and communication from teacher , another Y8 class received very little work, nothing visual, no feedback and no marking....

IMO the government should have acknowledged months ago that a full return may not be feasible, and put plans in place to support schools in providing decent home learning.

@headshoulderskneestoes

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!

Primary SEND here, we've done some TEAMS lessons but not very successfully I must admit.

School is the best place for my kids, but if for whatever reason we can't achieve that then we'll keep trying with TEAMS. It surely has to be better than another term of setting work and expecting parents to go through everything.

I just hope that if it comes to it then we'll learn, improve and get more effective as we go along..... far from ideal though.

I've already posted this before but the massive advantage of online learning is economies of scale - there is no point having many schools arranging variable quality learning resources when there are experts who can provide learning nationwide for less cost and higher quality.

So for me if schools have to shut their funding should be diverted to home learning, with the savings passed on to technology and tutorial grants for parents, where teachers could compete with each other to provide that tuition

@nellodee This is why I hate blind optimism - it ends up with you in crappy place, reacting in a panic to things that were predicted months ago.

Really agree with this. In RL I am the most annoyingly optimistic person but I don't think it suits us well in a crisis of this scale. It just smacks of complacency and carelessness with what should have been so precious - western socities have never had such unprecedented levels of public health and longevity, affluence, education.
We should have been better prepared to protect it, and should be busy learning from mistakes earlier this year to be ready for whatever's coming next. Hope for the best and plan for the worst. Not a bullish bullshit "everything will be back to normal by Christmas"

Sorry bit of an off topic rant..

Plan B is live lessons at my school too. As part of my job I lead EYFS and KS1 and just can’t see how it will work for this age group. For the children in Nursery in particular.

It will also be very demanding on parents, especially if they are trying to work from home / have a meeting but their five year old has a live lesson they can not access by themselves. I would rather go with packs of resources (including pre recorded video clips) plus online check ins with the child and parent for the youngest children.

I think live lessons are probably the best option for older primary and secondary children though.

Get real commentatorz, there are a large number of people that do not engage in their children's education in any way whatsoever. Some do not even apply for places for their children, and then are amazed when their child doesn't have a school place. If parents are expected to organise provision themselves, it just won't happen.
If schools close because their funding is withdrawn then there will be no safeguarding of those children, or indeed any others, because the cuts to SS mean that the only people who have sight of children are schools, and GPs/A&E when things go wrong.
Do we really want a society where children are failed in that way?

W00t We get several non appliers in our school nursery every year. We remind all of the nursery parents multiple times that they still need to apply for a reception place, we chase individual parents who haven’t, we contact the LA admissions team, we phone parents, grab them after school etc. Still some don’t apply and are shocked in September to realise that they do not have a place and now we are full.

@commentatorz I think you're absolutely right. There is most definitely something to be said for pooling of resources. It was frustrating that in my son's school some y8 teachers were supplying excellent resources, and other almost none for the same elements of the curriculum....

Chaotic45

This is a major issue within some schools.

But it is the clique thing that is prevalent within some job areas.

Agree with @Useruseruserusee that live lessons only work if the child can do it independently, and the household has sufficient equipment and space for this to happen. We have some families with many children cramped into a tiny space with internet access only available via a parent’s phone. Unless learning is flexible it won’t happen (and for EYFS and KS1 it still might not happen if parents work FT).

I'm definitely not equipped for online lessons/learning. I have 4 children (3 secondary age) and we have one laptop.

During lockdown you secondary didn't actually do any inline lessons all work was just on show my homework and had to be emailed to teacher but this still meant my children were having to take turns on the computer and that one or the other wasn't doing there homework until teatime/evening

Apparently from September any lockdown will result in school running online live lessons during school hours, so I have no way of making sure 3 children all can log in to there separate lessons not to mention how my primary child will get a look in to complete theirs

Guess I will just have to pick my favourite child and make sure they get the education and did the rest 🤷‍♀️

Buying more computers is not a option I just couldn't afford to

We’ve only just managed to scrape Plan A together, what with no funding or extra support for the additional demands being placed on us.

Our head managed to secure funding from the DFE for IT bods to come in and update all our (personal) laptops ready for more video based home learning. Most of our parents voted against live lessons due to work commitments etc (primary age) but would like videos with shared screens to model examples etc.

If we don’t go ahead with opening in September it’s going to be very tricky to get all that up and running on time. Teachers aren’t routinely provided with laptops for home, so the suitability of what we all have at home varies considerably (not to mention the bloody rubbish rural WiFi!).

Our State primary will be back to online lessons if it all goes tits up. They implemented live lessons for KS2 and prerecorded videos for KS1 straight after Easter. I would expect other schools to have this in place, it will have been 6m by that point.

As a parent, I am preparing by making sure we have the IT to support this if needed again eg bought iPad as birthday present for DS. Recognise we are fortunate to be able to do this.

I am expecting we will be back to online for at least one of the kids for a few weeks At some point.

IMO the government should have acknowledged months ago that a full return may not be feasible

The government are hell bent on fully opening schools at all cost because they are more concerned about the economy than the health and wellbeing of school staff. If there's a sudden leap in cases amongst school age kids we might be looking at a different scenario but otherwise it will be business as usual and to help with the consequences.

So for me if schools have to shut their funding should be diverted to home learning,

Is this funding that pays for the teachers to put the lessons together and teach them, the support staff supporting them and keeping safeguarding and admin up and running or the funding that pays for the technology for the kids that don't have it already?

My primary has a plan b involving online learning but also a plan b relating to bubbles of 15, alternative sites and I assume part/time schooling.

The government do not have a plan B. To be honest, I think parents should be considering their own plan Bs given the previous government performance so far.

Plan b is to go back to online learning. My school has put on training on how to do this properly so it will be more organised than last time. They’ve not said anything about laptops or anything for each pupil so i don’t know how effective it will be. I also don’t know what will happen with working parents if they can have time off in the event of a lockdown.

My school is not preparing for IF there is a lockdown but rather WHEN there is a second lockdown.

I have been approached for online tutoring - god knows how they got my number. Some parents are already lining up their own Plan B

Our plan B is the same it's always been way before covid - my partner gave up working 3 years ago when ds was illegally excluded and ignored by the LEA for 2 years. Ds was at home then and we muddled through. No education or anything but safe and happy enough in his own isolated world. We don't need school for childcare or anything it's education and social communication therapy - none of which can be replicated in the home. Poor kid, finally gets a school that works and it shuts down.

OP one good thing is that your son will now be in a similar situation to his classmates so he may feel less left out as now if it goes into lockdown again for a couple of weeks they will all leave and return at the same time. And there will be new rules etc so hopefully your son will adapt better and make new friends from different seating plans etc.

Our school have said plan b is the same as before since this was no online learning just tasks put on the website like “wrote a poem” with no handing in or feedback

So plan b is no education provision at all and yes I have also started using a tutor which is our own personal plan b..given schools like ours seem to be pretty common from threads on here I would guess that will be quite a few parents plan b if they can afford it if they cannot I guess it’s just a case of not bothering and hoping one day they get back to school!

@StaffAssociationRepresentative I am definitely lining up my own plan b. Why shouldn't I? My job and DH job are high pressure at the best of times and I had hit burnout by may half term trying to be everything. Online school and tutors made for a far better second half of the summer and the children got so much out of their virtual lessons.

Our primary school's provision was rubbish. Nothing until summer term when after parent complaints we received some generic weekly activities by year group across the trust with no differentiation, feedback or marking. My DC has an EHCP and the much vaunted school place offer was at a hub school miles away with no guarantee of familiar staff or children. Completely useless for a child with ASD. The trust leadership have been patting themselves on the back for their hard work so I don't hold out any hope of them delivering any education unless kids are physically in school.

Unless the government sets clear standards for remote learning, schools like mine will do the bare minimum so we've taken plan B into our own hands. We're continuing homeschool over the summer and have been stocking up on more resources for next term.

@headshoulderskneestoes it sounds like I may teach at your school! SEN school stayed open for key worker and vulnerable but as everyone has EHCP'S closed to all others until a few were given an option of a day or 2 at end of term.

Pushing ahead for reopening in September for all. But quietly have been asked if our plans which we submitted last week can be adapted for home work. We sent big packages with resources home, online teaching each week, and available for online help and meetings 2 days a week and in school other 3 days. I'm expecting similar by October.