School return will fail

[covidteacherscotland]

Okay so we have been back to school for a week! Great? No. Definitely not. Some thoughts on why this will be a disaster:

16 and 17 year olds are not children.

Social distancing is impossible. Genuinely impossible. Children will not or cannot stay out your space.

There is no PPE in school at all and staff are not protected in any way.

Children don't give a shit about washing their hands.

We've been doing double periods instead of single to minimise movement. This means that we are stuck in a room with 30 17 year olds with few or no windows as the respiratory droplets add up.

Educating your child is impossible if you can't go near them.

Our time management and pupil progress relies on us being able to give feedback to children formatively as we teach. To mark jotters as we go. We can't do this now.

I think that because infection is so low we'll be okay for a while - a few weeks - then the shit will hit the fan.

I am sure there are plenty willing to teach who can step into the breach

Words fail.....

I am sure there are plenty willing to teach who can step into the breach.

This MAY be the case in Scotland, where the retention of teachers is not quite as dire as in England. It is DEFINITELY not the case in England - for some shortage subjects there weren't enough teachers to go round in February, let alone now.

So speak to your head about PPE. Schools in scotland are using face coverings.

@covidteacherscotland

There is no drinking water available. You can bring your own but you can't refill at water stations. There is none to buy at this point (I think that will change) Do you understand what available means? Not all pupils can afford to buy water at Tesco and bring it. It should be freely available.

Dear me op you buy a reusable water and fill it up from the tap. Hardly expensive

@Nicknacky

Police Officer. SD is definitely not one of the things my customers do well.

Just as a question - I appreciate that as a police officer you may well spend some periods of time at close quarters with some individuals. Do you routinely spend an hour at time with 30 in a closed room, no social distancing, for 5 hours a day?

It is the length of time in contact with such large groups, inside in shared air and without SD, that is the issue with teaching. I appreciate that many other jobs come into brief contact with many, or prolonged contact with a few, people without SD but it is the length of time in an enclosed small space that seems to be the risk factor.

I am a big supporter of the NHS, but you know what, if you go to work in a hospital, you are kind of signing up to the fact that you may well come into contact with sick people carrying diseases. It feels a little like, if teachers were being shot at, people saying "Well soldiers get shot at all the time, and they still go to work." It's a different job, people sign up to different risks.

Pupils don't need to be swigging water all the time.

They can fetch from a tap during break, and it needs to be available at lunchtime. But that's all. No-one is going to dehydrate on the few hours between each of those points.

You can even fold paper towels to make a rough and ready cup (what we all used to do!)

Staff at my DCs high schools wearing masks and have marked classrooms with tape apparently so they have pupil free zones.

Pupils take a wipe a wipe down their desks before and after each lesson. No musical instruments, PE lessons, practical science lessons.

Apparently pupils not social distancing from each other at all.

Primary school teachers not masks.

cantkeepawayforever There is no answer we can give you though. You either need to get on with it or not go back to your school. That’s the reality of your situation.

So speak to your head about PPE. Schools in scotland are using face coverings.

I'm allowed to wear a face covering. The big standard ones that we can buy require EVERYONE to wear them for them to be effective. It's unfair to ask children to wear a mask for 6-7 hours a day. Parents wouldn't stand for it.

I'm not even sure that completely protective masks exist b it if they do we certainly don't have access to them.

Op has a point. Not sure why every is having a go at her. She has to sit in a sealed room with 30 bodies and a high risk of aerosol transmission. Indoor spaces like this are like Petri dishes. It sounds hard OP.

So what do you want to happen?

You sound too scary. What's wrong with bringing water from home? They don't need to buy bottled water from Tesco. Well maybe they need to buy extra water bottles, but you can buy cheep ones, or recycle plastic bottles. Cross contamination is way worse than carrying extra water from home.

Staff and pupils in Scotland are allowed to use face coverings, yes. PPE is only supplied for dealing with bodily fluid type things I believe. I have seen one pupil and about four staff members (I was one) wearing a face mask.
Windows should be open in every room. If your room has no windows they need a plan for that - if it's not reasonably safe, you shouldn't be in it.
I'm not sure how many schools have had all pupils back in yet, I think that will be when the cracks in our plans show. Very glad it's the weekend now.

People working in itu didn’t drink for their entire shift as there wasn’t enough ppe to change if they needed the bathroom.

@Nicknacky I'm not looking for an answer. I'm telling people who may or may not be interested what's going on.

It's not quite as simple to say that we need to get on with it. Having seen what I've seen this week older and vulnerable teachers are understandably antsy. The unions will be involved soon enough and then it becomes everyone's problem again.

It's a simple fact that according to absolutely everything we have hitherto been told it's just not safe.

30 adults sitting in a room together with one window is pure madness!

I know schools in the US where custodial staff have become ill, at least one death, from trying to put the school back into proper condition after the water systems weren't maintained during their closure.

It's so infuriating and heartbreaking. Private businesses had staff doing this so they could be ready to open (some did this better than others), it horrible that schools are so cut to the bone that this has become such an issue.

And I am from the country that all the children wears mask at school. It's not unfair, a lot of the countries are actually doing it.

covidteacherscotland But you aren’t telling us what’s going on. You are complaining about no water and PPE which is not the case across the board and is only adding to the hype that I only find on mumsnet.

@Mistressiggi several of our classrooms don't have windows. It's the design of the building. If we don't use them the school doesn't operate. We are at capacity.

Some have one or two windows. Again the ventilation is very poor.

Smaller class sizes (pupils are closer together than they normally are even to allow staff to stay apart from them, which we are instructed to do), face coverings for all staff and secondary pupils who are able to wear them, same for last year of primary. Much more cleaning. There's a lot we could do between what's planned and resigning.

@Nellodee no, people in the nhs train to work in a specialty. Pretty sure the cardiac team didn’t have expect or want be in itu but they stepped up.

My DCs teachers are wearing PPE and they have access to water. All windows are open also. By the sounds of it it's more an issue with your school than all Scottish schools in general