Schools to remain closed until October half term?

[stopcollaborateandlisten]

Lots and lots coming out in the news how schools will finally be re-opening - anyone else think it might get pushed back at the last minute to after the October half term?

Bowerbird did you have to give notice?

@SantaClaritaDiet

Why denying FACTS?

The government closed the schools - but provision for childcare for key workers were made

The government reopened the schools for R, Y1 and Y6

THEN the government let it to the discretion of the schools to reopen to ALL year groups!
Some schools stepped up, as best as they could. Other schools refuse to bother and chose to discriminate and exclude some children.

SOME schools ONLY reopened part-time to the 3 year groups to start with anyway... It's not being grumpy to state FACTS and not put the blame on the government when it was purely the discretion of the schools.

Now some people will struggle to justify their decision to exclude and discriminate, but it's on them I am afraid. The fact that some schools and academies managed to try to be as inclusive as they could proves it was possible.

No you are spouting bollocks.

Some schools stepped up, as best as they could. Other schools refuse to bother and chose to discriminate and exclude some children.

All schools were required to do some level of covid secure environment. There were guidelines as the government set and guidelines as local authorities set (which did differ slightly between area).

If a head teacher went against these guidelines and there was an outbreak they would be liable and would have to explain why they hadn't followed the guidance.

As it was DS's school had a higher than average number of key worker children, which complicated the issue. You had teachers who had to cover multiple year groups who were in school as well as providing home learning for their regular pupils as well as having to do cleaning within the school. You then had teachers who were teaching reception, yr1 and yr6 to comply with bubble rules as well as teaching their own year group remoting. All whilst covering for staff who were shielding.

The idea that they somehow 'didn't step up' when they all worked through their holidays and during lockdown - providing cover in school for key worker children AND their own classes is laughable.

A rota would only have made what was a stressful time and nearly pushed the head over the edge (as well as several over teachers at other schools that I know of) past breaking point.

Other schools locally didn't have the classrooms and teachers to be able to cover key worker children in daily as required AND do a rota system too, whilst doing bubbles.

The difference between an opinion and a fact is the amount of information and evidence you have. If you want to assert this as fact, please provide evidence that my son's school were not 'stepping up' and could have gone against the guidance issued by the local authority and central government to keep covid secure.

The bubble system was inforce until the last week in July. DS's school was only for key worker children that week because the teachers and support staff had worked so many hours over they are contracted for and there wasn't enough in the budget to pay overtime. Given that they had already given good will to work through their holidays and were on their knees, the head wasn't in a position to try to persuade them to do more.

Honestly the crap some people come out with, does baffle me sometimes.

@Chocolateoo

It's also important teachers don't treat kids like a manky risk. it could also be traumatising for reception aged kids just starting if the teacher can't be warm and reassuring. I think for the rest of this year Boris should have encouraged outdoor activities and encouraged parents to keep kids outside. If they were just going to school and nowhere else the risk will be massively lowered. But now they are at zoos, parks, shopping centers and on holidays it's higher risk. I understand teachers being scared. They are human and for the last few months we've been told to avoid eachother. When we go back in september it will be worse than when we all went home on that Friday in march. The government have done everything in the wrong order. Whilst I appreciate pub owners etc need their business to survive,how did alcohol become more important than education?

I'm sorry but I will try and false smile my way through the risks...

@SantaClaritaDiet

Out state school was so full of supposed key worker’s children (including many who had SAHMs, and many who totally exaggerated their jobs ie accountants who are apparently part of “financial services“)

A key worker can be married to a SAH parent or a shop keeper, they were still entitled to a space - one parent was enough to qualify.
It's not exaggerating to state that your job qualifies when it does! The list of "key workers" is clear, why wouldn't parent follow the guidelines when they are allowed to?

Yes technically they were allowed a place. I think it's quite fair for many of us who were WORKING from home and attempting to homeschool to be pissed off when a furloughed workers or SAHP had their children back in school in the keyworker hub while they had nothing to do all day!

I'm thinking ofqual not made any annoucement on next year GCSE yet as suspect it move yto o teacher grading again

Apologies @Chocolateoo I only skimmed your post. Yes I agree with everything else you said but I cannot help being scared of the kids due to their unlimited contacts over the Summer etc

@monkeytennis97
I respect how you feel. But I wouldn't want a teacher being hostile and not wanting to go near my 5 year old. They are in your care so therefore I expect age appropriate care for her. I have just said I feel for teachers .... But that doesn't mean the kids deserve to be made to feel the teachers are not as kind now.

Monkeytennis

I agree. It is very worrying. You don’t know whether families are keeping to the rules or not. I know some of ours weren’t even during lockdown as a colleague lives in the same area and said you wouldn’t think anything was going on.

The rules have changed and after being told to shield (asthma and immune system erratic) I was told I could go back. The little ones don’t understand and forget so are a risk. At least two of our staff has had it. I am older but my family worry about me. I feel I can’t risk it. I was lucky to survive once before I can’t take the risk this time.

Marsha Yes.

[quote Chocolateoo]@monkeytennis97
I respect how you feel. But I wouldn't want a teacher being hostile and not wanting to go near my 5 year old. They are in your care so therefore I expect age appropriate care for her. I have just said I feel for teachers .... But that doesn't mean the kids deserve to be made to feel the teachers are not as kind now.[/quote]
It's nothing to do with being kind. Anyway I teach secondary and a class of 5 year olds would send me running to the hills in normal times! The teachers at your DCs school will be scared, they will want distance particularly if they are vulnerable or older than the shiny young nqts. However as teachers we are great actors and so will act the part as we do everyday.

OP. Stop scaremongering

Schools will open as planned. And then probably close within 8 weeks

The older kids are the less help and warmth they need. But it is about reassuring the kids too. It could put a child off school for a long time if they start aged 4 and the teachers are masked up and can't hold their hands or hug them when they fall over. But I definitely understand the worry you are feeling. Hopefully they are not all terrified.

My sil had it last week and her daughter and husband didn't. It's a strange virus! She looked after her daughter throughout too.

THEN the government let it to the discretion of the schools to reopen to ALL year groups! Some schools stepped up, as best as they could. Other schools refuse to bother and chose to discriminate and exclude some children.

The primary school I work in had nearly 50% of children classified as keyworker children.

With under 50% capacity being the maximum we could possibly run at (if you cut class sizes to 15, then you need 2 rooms for a class of 30 ... and ours are all over 30) then bringing back anyone else was always going to be a challenge.

In the end, we managed to bring back the priority year groups (in groups of 15, 4 days a week) and accommodate keyworker and vulnerable children who elected to come in (in groups of 15, 5 days a week, though not everyone came in every day.

This occupied every single classroom to the maximum allowed - 15 - and used every member of staff who wasn't shielding (medically vulnerable staff below the shielding level all came in to work). We could only do the priority year groups 4 days a week because teachers needed PPA time to set and mark work for, and be in contact with via Zoom, their own year groups, who weren't necessarily in school, and the usual PPA staff could not circulate round the groups.

We would have loved to accommodate other year groups, at least part time, but as it was we were really balancing the keyworker groups in terms of size and constantly teetering on the brink of having to close for priority year groups in order to accommodate keyworker children.

As a school, we were not responsible for the government guidance - that keyworkers took priority; that only 15 children were allowed in a group. Nor was the physical capacity of the school, nor the number of staff, something we could change...

@LesLavandes

OP. Stop scaremongering

I don't know how you take my post as scaremongering...?? It was a discussion based on nothing more than idle wondering of government u-turns. Not unreasonable given the past few months.

I agree with the PPs who think we'll be open in September but, potentially, closed or half closed by half term.

Our new year 7s will be in a bubble the same size as our two local primary schools combined...400 children. Covid may not impact the children health wise but if even a fraction of those 400 become asymptomatic it'll spread to teachers, support staff and families of both the kids and the staff. Add the 350 year 8 bubble, the 360 year 9 bubble etc all being taught by the same teachers, pretty much, and it doesn't take a genius to see the problems mounting up.

All these kids will be in separate year buildings to be taught in within their year bubble. They can mix in their bubbles but not with each other, at allocated break and lunch times in separate allocated playground areas. But you'll still have teachers etc stepping in to break up fights - no time to PPE up when child x has child y pinned to a wall and the kids won't be masked. You'll still have kids deciding they've had enough and starting to head home - the teacher or support staff person won't have time to PPE up then either if they're to get to the child and get them back into class. That's when the spread will start. You can mitigate for the well behaved, sensible kids who do as they are told. But even my 13 year old, who is pretty mature, does daft things and there are plenty in schools who don't obey rules, don't do common sense or can't because of SEN/other issues.

Schools will open as planned. And then probably close within 8 weeks

Exactly. The Government knows this is not safe, and is choosing to ignore it, because it wants to be seen to 'fulfil its promise' and then blame the resurgence of the virus as a result on someone else [probably schools].

KW did take up a lot of capacity, at our school too. This was essentially childcare not education so it wasn’t really great for them either.

The question of need is what I’d look at. If some children need extra support to access education, the number who need in class time to access education maybe be greater.

No I don’t believe that to be the case

I think they’ve done all they can on a national level. I don’t believe there will be another national one- although local ones I do think will happen.

It can’t be justified that leisure activity establishments etc are open and schools aren’t.

Schools should be the priority over and above everything. The longer the kids are out of school the bigger the impact will be on their lives.

It then goes back to the basic- why should one set of lives be ruined over and above the next group.

I still can’t understand why it’s not the norm that the vulnerable groups stay inside and keep safe and the rest of the population crack on, keep the country running etc...

I also think the do whatever you want change was mostly to keep private sector in business.

Must state schools were at capacity.

We wait to see what happens. Whatever does, there is going to be a lot of complaining, perhaps even civil unrest if a fine balance isn’t struck. I agree schools are more important than all the activities open. It was a complete farce to announce schools could open once they’d broken up. Shutting pubs is now going to be rather problematic.

The government has made so many u turns it’s crashed into itself numerous times. I would not be at all surprised if promises are not kept. The promised summer schools never materialised for starters.

@LesLavandes

OP. Stop scaremongering

And you stop denying probabilities.

Of course accountants qualify: as staff needed for essential financial services provision that covers it.

They really don’t. Accountancy is not financial services. Not unless they work for a company who is providing an essential financial service eg a bank. My DH works for a big 4 accountancy firm and they were told by their employer that they are not key workers and should not be applying for places.
Anyway slightly off topic (unless we get into this situation again in autumn in which case it becomes relevant again)

I still can’t understand why it’s not the norm that the vulnerable groups stay inside and keep safe

II am vulnerable - now, do you want me to keep safe, or to teach 30+ children in school? Because I can do one, or the other, but not both, and if you are saying I should stay at home, then you are saying that those 30+ children shouldn't have a teacher...

Honestly, the 'vulnerable' are not a lot of frail little elderly ladies who are economically inactive, who can safely be pushed out of society without any impact on 'normal people'. We're in amongst you - as teachers, doctors, nurses, supermarket workers, delivery drivers, pharmacists, bankers, factory workers etc etc etc

The children need to go back to school. Coronavirus isn't the only thing that decimates society. It won't be 100% safe. It's never going to be without mass vaccination. It's going to be a case of balancing one risk against another.

It's getting frustrating that people can't see this or even accept that there is no 100% safe option.