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Chaotic school closures and keyworker provision (couldn’t decide what a keyworker was until the very last minute)
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Forgot that kids on free school meals would go hungry so heads had to go round delivering sandwiches while the DfE put together an utterly shambolic voucher system that crashed and was pretty unusable.
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Issued no guidelines for minimum education requirements during lockdown leading to vastly different provision between schools. Even Ofsted said they couldn’t judge schools on lockdown provision as there were no standards to judge them against.
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Claimed responsibility for setting up an online school that had actually been set-up by teachers, merely because they chucked some money their way. Forgot to tell schools about the online school so many had no idea that it existed. Forgot to advertise it to parents even though it was exactly the sort of thing many parents were asking for.
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Had to be shamed into u-turning on their insistence that free school meal children should go hungry during the holidays by a celebrity footballer (well done Marcus Rashford you absolute star)
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Said that they would provide free laptops to disadvantaged kids so that they could access schoolwork, then only provided a tiny proportion of the laptops required because they incorrectly assumed that each school already had 280(!) laptops of their own. The woefully inadequate amount of laptops provided didn’t arrive until the end of the summer term rendering them pointless.
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Fed stories to friendly newspapers about schools re-opening in May to judge public reaction, leading to anxiety and uncertainty among parents and school staff
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Announced that primaries would reopen to 3 year groups only, as getting parents of those year groups back to work was more important than the education, mental health and wellbeing of the other 4 year groups. Announced that Y10 and 12 would have ‘some face to face support’ without clarifying what that meant
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Took ages to release the guidance for reopening pushing back Y10 and Y12 opening.
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Released guidance at the last minute meant that carefully laid plans by schools had to be scrapped and restarted. Guidance was repeatedly updated but with full versions released each time and no tracking of changes so time was wasted trying to find out what was new.
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Announced that primary schools would open to all pupils before the summer holidays, an announcement that had surely not been run past anyone who worked in schools given that under the government’s own guidelines for schools for bubbles of 15 and no rotas, this would require double the classrooms and double the teachers available. Then backtracked on this a few weeks later (getting the friendly press to blame the unions) again creating uncertainty, anxiety and disappointment for parents and pupils.
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Neglected responsibility towards children with SEN and disabilities, EHCPs weren’t to be followed, update/transition meetings were cancelled and parents were left without respite.
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Issued guidance for childcare settings very late and only for some types of provider
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As lockdown eased, completely forgot about re-opening baby groups for new mothers so guidance wasn’t issued and they had to stay closed
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Promised massive funding for a GREAT SUMMER CATCH-UP which hasn’t happened. Now pencilled in for November, but they don’t appear to be organising it.
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Promised an army of retired teachers to tutor kids as part of the GREAT SUMMER CATCH-UP now downgraded to recent graduates hired through govt approved agencies, with schools having to pay 25% of the costs.
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Ignored education select committee questions about Ofqual’s algorithm when they raised issues in July
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Lied and said they didn’t have early access to the data from Ofqual’s algorithm
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When Scotland u-turned on their use of an algorithm, instead of making a considered response, came out with the bizarre notion that kids could use their mock grades - a suggestion that had obviously never been put past anyone who worked in schools. Again.
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Took 5 days to realise that their mock suggestion created more problems than it solved, then u-turned on awarding CAGs creating problems for Y12 next year. Many students who now qualified for their university places had lost them due to the delay
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Delayed Level 2 BTEC results the day before they were due to be released
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Fed stories to the friendly press that the unions are blocking the re-opening of schools in September so if it goes tits-up, they can blame them again (unions are asking for a ‘plan B’ in the case of local lockdowns, and for working conditions comparable to those of all other workers, no strike action has been proposed or balloted for so they couldn’t block re-opening even if they wanted to)
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Blamed Ofqual for the algorithm they were told to create (prioritising statistics over teacher assessment)
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Branded a teacher payrise that was agreed back in January a ‘reward for work during lockdown’, knowing this was incorrect, and deliberately fuelling outrage that they themselves had caused by having no minimum requirements for education in lockdown leading to vastly different provision.
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Not funding this payrise so teachers probably won’t get it as otherwise it will lead to redundancies for other staff members due to having to fund it from already dire staffing budgets.
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Issued guidelines that said that schools should reopen with increased cleaning schedules, increased handwashing, hand sanitising but providing no extra funding for this.
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Instructed heads not to take any measures that would improve safety but would require more space (e.g. use of village halls) or not have pupils in full time (rotas, staggered timetables).
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Didn’t realise that kids wouldn’t be able to get to school on public transport under current social distancing requirements as there aren’t enough buses until three weeks before schools reopened, and decided to throw £40 million to LAs to sort this (what? buy more buses?) so that they could blame the LAs when it inevitably goes wrong and kids can’t get to school. Withdrew free bus travel for kids in London.
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Reintroduced fines for not sending your kids to school, even if your kid is clinically vulnerable and knowing that schools aren’t Covid-secure.
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releasing important information about schools and education in an ad-hoc way via comments dropped into speeches (leaving everyone waiting for the detail), press releases in the middle of the night, and worst, and most damaging of all to public confidence - via leaks to the press (including, memorably, one about schools reopening guidance to the Huffington Post ) leading to endless speculation about whether this leak is a correct policy or merely a flag-flying exercise.
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rejected an offer of free help from the Royal Statistical Society with composing the ultimately doomed algorithm by insisting on a 5 year non-disclosure agreement that goes against the principles of the RSS. Given that the technical details of the algorithm have been released in excruciating detail, one wonders what exactly the government needed to be sure wouldn’t reach public ears before the next election.
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Gavin Williamson’s priority, after u-turning on A-levels and GCSEs, was not to hand in his resignation, as would previously have been expected when being responsible for such chaos, it was to organise a photo shoot.
Posing with a whip, he not only didn’t resign, but he implied a threat to Boris Johnson if Johnson tried to sack him: I used to be Chief Whip, I know your secrets.
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are pre-blaming teachers for any outbreaks in schools by saying that teachers need to be extra vigilant with safety outside of school (what does that even mean? No illegal raves, or no trips to Asda?).
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Releasing the Plan B for schools in the event of local lockdowns that had been asked for by headteachers and the unions for months (see point 22)), late on the Friday evening with no working days to implement them before schools go back (for most schools) and after schools have gone back in Leicestershire. The Plan B will require massive amounts of work to organise.
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Updating the schools re-opening guidance merely hours after it was published on the Friday evening before schools went back, removing a paragraph about bubbles being sent home in the event of a positive test. This crucial paragraph had already caused massive discussion and stress for teachers and parents in the hours it was up.