The school/college doesn’t seem to be following its own risk assessments. My daughter is following a practical, vocational course and was pleased to return to a full timetable but she does not feel safe.
She has read all the guidance and risk assessments concerned with her subject. I know some schools & colleges are not doing practical yet and she’s glad Hers is but the risk assessment often isn’t followed. For example in dance warm ups corner excercises mean the students line up and travel across the room from one corner to another in pairs. The risk assessment states that alternate corners should be used and students work with the same person each time. This isn’t happening. There is no social distancing at all. The students are supposed to be in bubbles but the bubbles collide eg classes happen with students from more than one bubble.
Corridors are crowded, there is no one way system. Each bubble is supposed to have a home studio but at break and lunch times her studio usually isn’t available because another class in in there so the students congregate in the corridors instead which are sometimes partially blocked with equipment. Lunchtimes and breaks have been made longer to allow for cleaning so it’s a longer period of time with nowhere to go. In the past they would spend most of break times getting changed in the changing rooms but no one is allowed in the changing rooms. That’s fair enough and I know common in most schools but there is no other space to go during this time. Masks are not being worn in corridors.
We were led to believe that each bubble would have most of their classes in the same studio but my daughter has classes all over the place. Last week she was timetabled for a 1:1 singing lesson. The 1:1 music lessons have been made shorter to allow for cleaning and ventilation between each student (Perspex screens have been installed in the practice rooms) but when she arrived There were 3 younger GCSE students in there playing the piano( which then had to be wiped down) & singing). So the lesson was even shorter and she had to go into a very small space with 3 kids who she’s not supposed to be in contact with to ask them to leave. The teacher wasn’t happy when he arrived as he’s only supposed to be in contact with post 16 students as well.
My daughter is 18 so decided to implement the complaints procedure herself. She went to the Head of Pastoral for post 16 and voiced her concerns. A week later she actually walked out of a practical class with around 20 students from more than one bubble packed into an unventilated dance studio. She went straight to the head of pastoral again.
She then sent a long Complaint email to both the head of her course who is a vice principal and to the principal copying in head of pastoral. This was 8 days ago and she has not yet received a reply or even had anyone ask to speak to her. The complaints policy says they have 14 days but in the meantime my daughter is having to put herself into an unsafe situation.
My son is also studying a practical course at a large FE college. The provisions there are great. He is in a larger bubble with all the Btec performing arts courses but all classroom/computer work they are 2m apart and closer work (performing in small ensembles in practice rooms) He’s 1m apart but works in the same group of 4 every time. They have a designated social space, he’s not allowed into the rest of the college. His friend who is doing maths resit has to do it by zoom in his designated area.
So I’m wondering what my next step is. She’s in her final year of a 3 year course. Apart from temperature checks on arrival and no use of the changing rooms it’s like Covid never happened. There doesn’t seem to be any extra cleaning taking place in between classes, just hand sanitiser.