All this "Tiny crammed school room" stuff

[palacegirl77]

Just wondering why we havent had the teachers unions on this in a big scale before. On nearly every thread I see on here we hear about teachers being in "Tiny, crammed rooms" no windows - sometimes no daylight - so many kids they cant walk without knocking into each other. Not enough cleaners, it not being sanitary, germs spreading like wildfire (wasnt this an issue before covid with other illnesses such as norovirus etc?) Why are so many teachers happy to work in such horrible conditions? Why arent parents told about how awful it is and why arent we all signing petitions and asking for schools to be rebuilt? Did it take this pandemic to wake us all up? Is it really that bad?

What choice do we have?

Unions have been banging on about school overcrowding/underfunding for years

Yes. Always has been. Too small, made for less students and limited ventilation. We have mentioned it. What would you like teachers to do ? Most are a bit busy today dealing with their A level students.

Have you not seen the huge campaigns about school funding over the last few years?

Yes. In some buildings in some schools it's really that bad.
But there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to make rooms bigger or build more of them, and we need full year groups so we can afford good staff.
Noro spreads like wildfire. Am I happy that one day last year I had to stand at one end of a corridor splattered with body fluids to stop students coming down it whilst the site team dealt with it? No. But that's the reality of many schools - not enough teaching spaces or toilets for the people who need them.

@mumsneedwine

Yes. Always has been. Too small, made for less students and limited ventilation. We have mentioned it. What would you like teachers to do ? Most are a bit busy today dealing with their A level students.

"We have mentioned it" - well not to me as a parent? I want to help teachers, I want to do anything I can to make schools better - but why arent they shouting from the rooftops about it if its really not safe for children? Why arent we badgering the Gov on it? Why arent schools getting us to sign petitions etc? I appreciate teachers will be helping Alevel students today. What a mess that whole situation is too.

It's normally just uncomfortable rather than risky so not worth complaining about. I'm also assuming it's cheaper and easier to get existing schools to take more pupils than it is to build an additional school so it's happened gradually.

We've got bigger things to worry about, like the complete and utter inadequacy of education funding, lack of support for kids with SEN and the insane workload. And you may have noticed no one loves to bash teachers more than the government and Mumsnetters. It would only be a matter of time before the tabloids would be ranting about "teachers wanting high end offices" and "state of the art classrooms going unused". Seriously, in my first classroom, the rain would come in through the windows and the ceiling leaked. There is also a culture in a lot of schools of encouraging both staff and pupils to come in unless they're at death's door. I did feel quite smug when our head had to tell us all to stay away with sniffles, less than a month after mocking staff for calling in sick and self-diagnosing.

Yep. And lack of ventilation is mentioned every summer as some classrooms are truly boiling.

This isnt news. It just is compounded by a virus which every other place of work says to avoid cramped conditions, distance etc.

Nobody cares. The Tories barely mentioned schools in the last election manifesto.

@Proudpeacock

Have you not seen the huge campaigns about school funding over the last few years?

Genuinely no I havent. Obviously as a Labour supporter I am aware of the Unions and that schools are underfunded but nothing that would worry me about sending my child to school etc. Why isnt there more pressure on the Gov?

You've been on mumsnet before right?
Maybe its just taken a pandemic to "see". Unfortunately most of the country still delights in teacher bashing.

We spend too many hours in governors’ meetings talking about premises and funding instead of teaching and learning. It is very depressing.

My friend (teacher) got pleurisy a couple of years ago working in school. In the autumn term just gone we had up to 50% absence in some classes due to bugs spreading

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/holystone-primary-school-sickness-vaccine-17287847

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/north-east-schools-close-virus-17292201

NOT my school but similar examples, there were lots more in the area and around the county.

Bugs spreading in schools has always been a thing.

Parents are incredibly busy and quite hard to get engaged in politics as a result.

Also they almost never see inside school during normal activities.

I have, however, never understood why unions don't engage parents more on issues that affect teachers and pupils alike.

It's the boiling frog. In my first year in my current classroom, I had perhaps 26 students max in a group. This year, my max group is 34. We're crammed in together in a room where the windows only open far enough that they can't climb out. It's always too hot.
As a senior member of staff, I used to have an office. It was big enough for me + a few others round a table for meetings to be comfortable. Now that office is a classroom for up to ten students, and I share another office with someone else. It happens slowly enough that people grumble about it but it becomes a bigger issue year on year.

None of this is news.

This is what teachers talk about every year.
Then there's all the Mumsnet threads from parents about classrooms being too hot in the summer.
Schools have been underfunded for years. Building refurbishments have been slowed or scrapped. Schools are often running above capacity (and look at all the appeal threads to see parents arguing it doesn't make a difference to add half a dozen students to a year every year as long as their child gets in).

Then there's the government spin about pay rises that are the same as announced pre Covid and actually have to come out of school budgets.

Then there's been a successful campaign by the press to attack teachers and unions as being some awful enemy who want to ruin children's futures.

Whatever teachers say there's the press, government (and mumsnetters) who are ready with the lazy teacher claims.

My classroom is cramped for 30 9-10yos plus me and sometimes my TA. It’s manageable though. In the summer, it gets unbearably hot. At other times of year, it’s just stifling.

My first classroom as an NQT was tiny and a real squeeze. The windows also only opened a tiny amount and I was upstairs so it was boiling all year.

What would have been the point in complaining? There was no money available to knock down and rebuild the classrooms.

We cant moan to parents, becwus parents take their children out of our school and move them to a school they consider better. Then we lose funding, and the issue get worse.

This coming term, none of us are going to be telling parents about unsafe conditions or behaviour.

@ohthegoats

We cant moan to parents, becwus parents take their children out of our school and move them to a school they consider better. Then we lose funding, and the issue get worse.

This coming term, none of us are going to be telling parents about unsafe conditions or behaviour.

I didn't mean individual teachers or schools, I meant unions across the board.

There is little political activity on schools and widespread lack of knowledge amongst parents imo.

@latticechaos

Parents are incredibly busy and quite hard to get engaged in politics as a result.

Also they almost never see inside school during normal activities.

I have, however, never understood why unions don't engage parents more on issues that affect teachers and pupils alike.

This is what I was getting at I guess. Im sorry if I seem ignorant to it - I dont use MN that often (have used it a lot more since lockdown but only the covid topic really) I will try and have a look at the school stuff. I guess from a parents point of view (my eldest just finished primary and youngest in y2) all I see of school is that the teachers seem happy and have never flagged anything up about size or conditions but I guess they wouldnt with parents. Its worrying.

I used to be a parent volunteer at DS’s Primary School, I had to sit on the floor by the pupil I was helping as there wasn’t space for me to sit anywhere else.

The funding recently announced by the Government for school buildings could just be used by the MAT I deal with, and that wouldn’t be to build all brand new buildings it would simply be to make all buildings fit for purpose.

There is little political activity on schools and widespread lack of knowledge amongst parents imo.

No one cares enough. Big % of voting population not a stakeholder in education directly. Media is right wing and doesn't like us.

How wouldn't anyone know? Even my friends who don't work with children or have children of their own could tell you it is cramped. I don't see how a parent can't know to be honest. Have you never been inside your child's classroom? With 30 odd pupils to a class it is quite easy to see it would be cramped.

I personally hate that teachers don't level with me. I sometimes talk about these type of issues and some give me the corporate line, but luckily the SLT no longer do, they are more honest.