'Unsustainable, overwhelming' Covid burden on schools

[LastGoldenDaysOfSummer]

Ofsted finds school staff 'exhausted' from ‘firefighting’ amid Covid crisis – and that 'last-minute' DfE decisions aren't helping

www.tes.com/news/unsustainable-overwhelming-covid-burden-schools?fbclid=IwAR0hhEWbw0JML_n__3WxhgzxkTNjQs6Pnc_0GEC1rVf5Y5ddWvT-5d1sR-c

Yes, another schools one. But evidence of what teachers are going through in the face of a total lack of support from some parents, the LEAs and the government.

Compared to whom? What about everyone else working through Covid?

@gottakeeponmovin

Compared to whom? What about everyone else working through Covid?

Whataboutery at its finest.

@gottakeeponmovin

Compared to whom? What about everyone else working through Covid?

I'm a teacher... Yeah I mean I wouldn't say it's just me having a hard time? I would say most people are no? Ridiculous

Our local school has 10 members of staff off, all supply has been banned so we have some teachers with 60 children and no support staff. It's stressful for staff, but more importantly it just isn't possible to give children the level of support and help to learn that they need. I think everyone is just doing the best they can at the moment.

Op is merely stating a report which indicates real issues within the education sector.
I don't believe they intend to downgrade struggles in other sectors.
Is it not possible to discuss their real concerns without shutting down the conversation?

Have we not discussed this before?

gottakeeponmovin "Compared to whom? What about everyone else working through Covid?"

What a ridiculous response. If the poster has no interest in the article then don't read or post on this thread.

If you are a parent it is a worry that children aren't receiving the best education at the moment due to schools not functioning well.

Hyperbolistic "Have we not discussed this before?"

I've not seen this article before or discussed it. Maybe you have. Who is "we"?

@Hyperbolistic

Have we not discussed this before?

It was only published this morning. I'm not a time traveller.

Agree with this article. Posted this earlier in another thread. Yesterday I read that schools who are closing regularly are ‘lazy’. My colleagues and I are not lazy, in face we have never worked harder. It is soul destroying when we learn of yet another positive, it’s heart breaking sending the letters home saying we can not open to a year group due to staff absences.

I started a thread linked to a news article in my area where the director of PHE said being out was ‘hazardous’. The article was dismissed as click bait and scaremongering, yet I am actually seeing the evidence in my school.

I wish there hadn’t been a blanket approach to ‘get all in’. Schools were told in Sept we would move to a tier system according to restriction measures - this has never been mentioned again and my school is having to take action ourselves to move to a rota purely because we don’t have enough teachers to teach.

Today 20 members of staff are out. We are surviving. To the outside world though we are coping fine. I had parents evening Tuesday and had my ‘teacher face on’ - enthusiastic, lively, optimistic. Parents don’t see me crying at the end of each day.

My school wellbeing survey has revealed this morning that 29% of staff feel they can work safely outside of lesson time and 75% are experiencing high levels of stress and anxiety.

Yeah it’s sooo easy and we’re all as one lazy as sin.

DH has just been signed off with acute stress (teacher).
I was signed off for a week last term. Still very, very anxious.
Our deputy head had half a term off with depression caused by the stress of setting up a complete remote learning platform with constantly changing goalposts and parental pressure.
The Head of Science has just been signed off with stress after collapsing at work.
I can think of several other colleagues who seem to be on the brink.

We're all experienced, committed, hardworking people. DH and I have never had any mental health issues before now.

I would say Ofsted’s findings here are a fair representation of what school is like at the moment.

More importantly, having gathered this information, what will the result of it be? Presumably, it will be used to inform future planning in schools. What will change to decrease this stress?

Will the DfE stop issuing school guidance at 11.30pm on the night before it has to be in place? Or on a Bank Holiday Monday?

Will the government allocate more money for cleaning so that school staff are not spending every break and their lunch time doing cleaning duties?

I am sure the point of such inspecting bodies is to discover the ‘truth’ and to use that information to improve any problems, yes?

@lonelyplanet they are receiving a better education now that they were during the first lockdown when all the teachers in my kids schools went awol - set about an hours work a day and didn't Mark anything

gottakeeponmovin interesting choice of word there. Awol. Hmmmmmm.

Anyway. OP I feel so sorry for all teachers and teaching professional.

That's too bad. The situation sucks.
DfE guidance keeps changing because we are still learning what to do for best. We could freeze guidance and run increased risk of not doing best things. This is an option.

Situation also sucked when my children had no education progress for months.
What a shame we live in a time when every decision is a bad one.

I have children in three educational settings...preschool, year 4 and year 7. Without exception the schools are doing a marvellous job and making a difference to the lives and prospects of my children every single day. Is it the same as before? No, not exactly. But the adaptability of both kids and teachers has been incredible.
I know from my friends who are teachers and TAs how trying it is. And I've already had my eldest sent home for two weeks at the start of term because of an outbreak so it's not perfect.
But I am so grateful they are being educated because when this is eventually all over their education, mental health and resilience will be what determines the future of our country.
And another six months/a year lost while we wait in hope for the old normal to return will, in my opinion, jeopardise the future of many children.
I'm so grateful to the amazing teachers who are putting the young people in their care first. I'll certainly never forget it.

@gottakeeponmovin "they are receiving a better education now that they were during the first lockdown when all the teachers in my kids schools went awol - set about an hours work a day and didn't Mark anything"

It is great that you are happy with the education your school are providing currently in very difficult conditions.

I'm also grateful to dd's teachers for all that they're doing to support the kids in very difficult circumstances.

For anyone who does appreciate what teachers and schools are doing at the moment, I would really encourage you to take 5 minutes to write and tell them so. I did this recently, and got a lovely response back from the head, who seemed to be really glad to have all the hard work of the staff acknowledged. As parents, we can't take away all the stress, but we can at least show our support.

DfE guidance keeps changing because we are still learning what to do for best

This is just not true. There’s loads of evidence from other countries where things are working better than here but the DfE are actively ignoring it for presumably political reasons.

Any updates are reactionary when it becomes increasingly obvious that what we are doing is failing badly.

Some of the changes are actually making schools less safe. Lots of children were sent home to isolate so instead of making schools safer, they just stopped sending bubbles home. Too many kids were getting tests so they just told parents to stop getting them tested unless displaying adult, not child symptoms and now even more cases are being missed. Too many staff were being told to isolate by the app so they are now told to switch it off in school.

And the data is being suppressed, fudged, lied about or just plain ignored.

Compared to whom? What about everyone else working through Covid?

Yeah, it's shit for everyone. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try and make it better and support people where we can

@AlexaShutUp I agree! It’s in all our interests to support schools - we could be a little kinder and more understanding about it. The pressure must be phenomenal.

And actually it isn’t equally shit for everyone. My dp became suddenly and newly disabled in February and we lost his income and I’ve had terrible problems with dc involving the police and social workers. I still can’t sleep with it all. My source of connection and hobbies have stopped entirely and dp’s brain damage means I don’t have the company at home I once did.

But in terms of Covid I worry about my folks and db being lonely- me? I’m ok - I have a job and have wfh for years. I drive and can get out a bit. The impact of Covid on me so far is pretty minimal. The other stuff in my life well...

StillDumDeDumming, that all sounds really hard. Hope you are ok.