I don't understand why blended learning/part time schooling would work

[Whatchasayin]

I thought the argument for not returning to school before the summer was that even with half the class in it was still impossible to social distance the DC and teachers. Our primary only managed 8 DC in a classroom in June. My DCs school has smaller rooms than that so could presumably fit less in. When my year 10 went in for a few days there were 6 in his group to ensure no close contact and they all had to sit on their own table in the hall at lunch. How do you envisage part time schooling being possible at all?

[quote Whatchasayin]@Sockwomble
Fewer children in a classroom would increase social distancing even if it is not optimum but this has to be balanced against the negative impact of part time attendance
But they'd already be part time and then still probably have to self isolate on top of that unless there's only 6 in a classroom which isn't practical. It would potentially be much worse than the current situation.[/quote]
I thought this too. Part time plus still having to isolate us not a great situation. You Couldn't physically keep children 2m apart all day, especially primary, to avoid track and trace. Unless we are going back to those awful scenes of kids in hoops not allowed to play together at playtime.

@Remmy123 - In “real life” I don’t know anyone who is up for the effects of a worldwide pandemic. Doesn’t mean we can pretend there isn’t one. If you really think anyone wants anything other than for the pandemic to fuck the fuck off so that we can go back to schools and hospitals and businesses and social and family lives working in the way we are used to (or, preferably, working better), you’re a sandwich short of a picnic.

Right at the start when schools closed, we were told we can’t do anything that would actively disadvantage some children who don’t have resources at home, why has that changed? Is it suddenly ok to disadvantage those children who don’t have parental support or technology or space at home?

Is it right that those children (who will be a majority) who do have parental support, technology and space at home, don’t receive what could be a full year’s education using a blended learning model rather than patchy, in-out curriculum that is happening now? Are we holding back a majority for the sake of a minority and what will be the impact of that on us as a whole country going forwards?

Could it not be the case that schools are able to identify individual students who need the extra support because of home lives and have them in school full time? Can it not be made law that if your school says you need to be in, regardless of what other students may be doing, you have to be in? In other words, can we trust the teaching profession to know who needs to be in school and who will thrive out of school and who will manage either way and develop a learning programme around that? I mean, we could have worked that out in the summer....and thrown the money required to make it work at it so schools have webcams and good internet connections and laptops for staff and students who need them, perhaps?

The virus is not a problem for the vast majority of children, teens and teachers

It is inevitable that some school staff will contract the virus in work and die as a result. We shouldn’t be comfortable with that. Those staff are parents, children, siblings, friends, colleagues....Nor should we be comfortable with the fact that along the way, we may lose some children or teens, particularly when we are not giving parents the choice to remove their children from school temporarily.

At present there is no need to do this in 'all' areas .... many many schools still operating without any cases at all.

It will be the very very last resort and by then let's hope those key workers an vulnerable have the vaccine.

@Walkaround I'd rather my kids have isolation periods, which now are to be reduced, then be out of school doing home education or only in a few days a week. No good fir their mental health and learning!

No one wants it to happen. But there is no choice, really. It will have to happen to keep staff and children as safe as possible.

I do think it's inevitable at all.

many many schools still operating without any cases at all.

Data?

Nearly half of schools had a case affecting pupils on 15th October. How many had cases in previous weeks?

That should be nearly half of secondary schools.

Is it right that those children (who will be a majority) who do have parental support, technology and space at home, don’t receive what could be a full year’s education using a blended learning model rather than patchy, in-out curriculum that is happening now?

But a majority of children just don’t have a parent available to sit with them and work through ‘home learning packs’, which is what we were going to get under the blended learning proposals our schools devised.

Maybe this could work for some secondary years, with sufficient money and resources thrown at it (which absolutely should happen anyway). It will still be shit for a lot of children and a big problem for exam years but they could at least maybe get some learning out of it. For younger children though, 3 days a month in school and some learning packs to work through the rest of the time is going to result in very little learning, laptops or no laptops.

If you don’t want blended learning, what is your alternative proposal to keep schools open full time as current measures aren’t working?

My school has had 30 something positive cases. I don't even know any more. At various points every student has been off isolating at least once. We had to send the whole of year 11 home before half term.
We had 53% of all students off at one time and 25 teachers were isolating.

We are particularly badly hit, I recognise, but it's completely chaotic. I've not had a single lesson with my whole year 12 or year 13 class in person this term.

Blended learning in this instance would allow us to plan properly and provide some structure to the chaos.

But it needs to be done on a case by case basis. Other schools who have had the cases we've had, would not need such an extreme solution.

Who have NOT* had the cases we've had.

@Lavendersy

No one wants it to happen. But there is no choice, really. It will have to happen to keep staff and children as safe as possible.

I do think it's inevitable at all.

Then what is the alternative? The current system is unsafe.

@GoldenOmber. My suggestions were secondary only. I haven’t a clue what can be done for primary given that parents need to be able to work and can’t leave their children at home.

And no, a majority don’t have parents who can sit with them whilst they get work done, I understand that. But lessons can be delivered live and parents have a responsibility to put in place appropriate rewards and sanctions to ensure work is complete. You cannot expect the school to sort everything.

@noblegiraffe

If you don’t want blended learning, what is your alternative proposal to keep schools open full time as current measures aren’t working?

They’re working fine in many schools. It is going to be quite difficult to convince parents of children at those schools that going back to home learning across the board is the way to go.

I would suggest:
A) first of all, the government needs to be absolutely throwing money and resources at this, because the damage caused by closing schools again is not something that can be fixed anywhere near as easily after the fact;
B) close everything else before closing schools again, even partially;
C) if partial closing is the only remaining way to go, it should be targeted at local areas and schools where it can be, so we can also target any resources needed to make it work better at those schools;
D) not trying to present what is a really, really shit scenario with a rosy term like ‘blended learning’ as if everyone’s still going to be merrily learning away just the same; government needs to be acknowledging the real impacts of what this will mean and putting plans in place to mitigate what they can.
E) as for what randoms on Mumsnet can do - probably not much, but not claiming that everyone bar a few disadvantaged kids would be totally fine with ‘blended learning’ will be a start.

@noblegiraffe what do you suggest for blended learning? Is it DC in 3 days a month, or half a week?

But lessons can be delivered live and parents have a responsibility to put in place appropriate rewards and sanctions to ensure work is complete. You cannot expect the school to sort everything.

It would be difficult for teachers
to deliver remote classes at the same time as in-person classes, though? Not to mention the challenges of children being able to access live teaching. I know some private schools have been able to crack this though.

Yes, parents should be able to chase etc etc but if they don’t or can’t or it can’t work because eg kids need more support to understand the material, it is children that will lose out. We shouldn’t see education as a service provided to parents rather than children.

What about attempting to make schools safer by increasing mitigation measures, Golden?

Improved ventilation (like Germany is throwing money at), masks in classrooms (like most of the rest of the world), a functioning test and trace system (like we were told was essential for the safe re-opening of schools), using the list of symptoms children get as a trigger for tests in children instead of the adult symptoms they don’t get, recognition at asymptomatic cases are a thing and therefore test all close contacts when there is a positive case to flush them out.

As a starter?

[quote Whatchasayin]@noblegiraffe what do you suggest for blended learning? Is it DC in 3 days a month, or half a week?[/quote]
I don’t suggest blended learning.

My daughter's secondary school in Brussels will move to distance learning this week, ahead of next weeks half term, which was extended by 3 days already. Teachers were not given much notice. Whether they will go back to normal afterwards remains to be seen.

What about attempting to make schools safer by increasing mitigation measures, Golden?

Yes! Although which specific mitigation measures might have the best impact is I suspect not something everyone’s going to agree on.

Speaking as a teacher at a private school that has cracked this, I know it is possible to deliver both online and in-person at the same time. It can be clunky and isn’t perfect, but if it means education continues and fewer people get sick and even less people die, I can’t see it is anything other than win-win.

The support to access material is during the school day and lesson time when your teacher is teaching. Teachers can let you know if work isn’t even attempted - you can sanction as a parent.

Enoughnowstop how does it work - does it mean children at home with laptops watching/participating in live classes? I’ve done work meetings that way and it is indeed very clunky, but has been manageable.

Of course there's problems with blended learning

Some kids have had 4 weeks off this half term while other kids have had 0 weeks off yet both are expected to sit exams next summer. Keeping things as they are is disadvantaging some kids educationally.

Half of the people in school at one time means less spreading of the virus. Less spread is good for the kids and the adults who could cause the bubble to burst anyway. Our school shut before Boris' announcement because it ran out of staff.

If there was part-time learning and proper speedy testing then the kids who have had 2 weeks in might have had 3 weeks instead. The government hasn't even created a list of symptoms for kids which we now know is different to adults. This is from the CDC Website

"The most common symptoms of COVID-19 in children are fever and cough, but children may have any of these signs or symptoms of COVID-19:
• Fever or chills
• Cough
• Nasal congestion or runny nose
• New loss of taste or smell
• Sore throat
• Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing
• Diarrhea
• Nausea or vomiting
• Stomachache
• Tiredness
• Headache
• Muscle or body aches
• Poor appetite or poor feeding, especially in babies under 1 year old

I know that there's a test processing shortage in the UK and that we've been encouraged to blame people whose kids "only have a cold" but I suspect we are missing a lot of cases by only having fever, new cough, loss of smell and taste (plus Covid rash?) as the only symptoms

I don't think all children have access to laptops or computers. What about them?