Is a change beginning to happen regarding schools?

[Covidfears]

I’ve been noticing more articles lately in the mainstream press about the difficulties in schools (which will come as no surprise to most people). There’s also been some research which has basically confirmed that schools are driving infections. So, along with it looking like this lockdown has been a waste of time (due to schools being kept open to continue the spread) and people in power calling for Hull schools to be closed do we think that schools will be closing early for Christmas?

Is there any chance that blended learning or rotas will be coming in after the Christmas holidays?

We are a vulnerable family with children in primary school and the risk that sending them every day with no safety measures poses to our family is causing me huge amounts of stress.

@InTheMiddle23

It would also benefit hospitality and tourism greatly to have holidays more evenly spread with, say, different counties/regions taking holidays at different times.

It would not benefit the tourism industry remotely to have schools shut for four weeks this Christmas when people can’t travel/visit attractions and spend money. Many tourist attractions are seasonal so would lose out considerably by two weeks holiday being moved from summer to December

I wonder if there would be any scope for longer days in schools if there were a 'summer catch up'. Lots of countries have longer holidays and longer school days as standard.

Teachers would need to be compensated for this of course, it would require extra money. Since never ever giving an extra penny to schools seems to be the hill this government wants to die on (along with not funding food for kids forced into poverty by their policies) it seems unlikely.

It would be of benefit in terms of childcare - less need for wraparound care - and would mean the amount of weeks needed to catch up shorter so would mean less holiday missed (good for holiday sector and people who want a holiday).

If we were really being radical we could recruit more support staff to support teachers as well as give them a pay rise for the extra work. Maybe reduce administrative burdens on them for a bit too?

Wasn't there something released yesterday that put the order as
1 - supermarkets
2 - secondary schools
3 - primary schools

This is simply where people who tested positive had visited in the two days prior to their positive test. It provides no evidence about where they picked up the virus.

Oh I agree it won't this Christmas. We need December to happen. I'm all for going about our lives as normal, but if my children aren't in school now, they need to make up for that time. It's an opportunity to look at the school year as a whole. A better spread of holidays would long term benefit the industry.

@IloveJKRowling - the idea of longer days to catch up is genius - maybe in the summer term when days are longer. Of course it may not suit some teachers with pre school age DCs or caring commitments, but it's definitely an idea with legs.

If the extra hours were to replace school closures in Winter, I don't know why extra funding would be required? Isn't it a case of changing working hours rather than increasing them ?

Our primary is running longer days from Oct half term til Easter...

Been a bit controversial as its extra English and Maths. Some kids dont need it, but its been incorporated into the day so all kids take part.

Love the idea of longer days. It's another great idea.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, longer days would be of no benefit at all for KS1 children in particular.

Little ones are exhausted by the end of the current school day. I do not believe that increasing the length of time they are in school on one day would increase the amount of learning that the majority of them do in that day in any significant way.

And I say that as both a teacher and a mother.

“Wasn't there something released yesterday that put the order as
1 - supermarkets
2 - secondary schools
3 - primary schools”

Which is incredibly misleading. The data was that the most common place people who tested positive had been to in the last week was a supermarket, not that they caught it at a supermarket.

It’s more nonsense. What proportion of the adult population has been to the supermarket, and were those testing positive disproportionately?

@InTheMiddle23

Love the idea of longer days. It's another great idea.

Who for?

Not sure our 4 and 5 years old would fancy longer days.

Are the teaching staff being made more for doing longer hours?

@InTheMiddle23

Love the idea of longer days. It's another great idea.

Where is the funding coming from? It can’t be the catch up tutor fund because that is restricted to small groups.

I wasn't convinced - and had said I'd pull my child out at normal time if she didn't enjoy it. But she's loved it. They get juice and a biscuit mid afternoon to keep them going.

I kind of would have prefered more physical activity - but for many children they needed the catch up and it seems to be going well.

I believe they had used govt funding to pay the teachers - but don't know? Theyre the only school in the area doing it.

Longer school days and shorter holidays in the summer do nothing to advantage the year groups most immediately affected by disruption, which is the exam years.

My poor DH (teacher straddling 50) nearly had a breakdown trying to do this today for the first time. He hates technology it's not in his skill set

I'm surprised it's acceptable to be a teacher without technology in your skill set in this day and age. Haven't his school provided any training to get his skills up to date?

It isn't just the technology though - its a completely different of teaching.

If the extra hours were to replace school closures in Winter, I don't know why extra funding would be required? Isn't it a case of changing working hours rather than increasing them ?

What? So you want teachers to accept their time off will be completely at the mercy of school closures? And that schools would provide no remote learning during any closures?

@SmileEachDay not for unplanned closures, no of course not. But for this one year only it would seem sensible to increase length of Christmas and half term breaks to reduce infection rates. I guess it's a decision for government or schools if that was the option to have online learning during that period, or get the school hours in somewhere else.

I agree it's not ideal for teachers, but they wouldn't be working over their contracted hours, just a different pattern.

Also most professions are struggling- although granted we don't have to be in front of pupils every day - my workload has doubled over the past couple of months ( financial sector so no one gives a hoot as I wfh) and it looks likely that I will be working over most of the Christmas break which I have allocated annual leave to and which I am not allowed to carry forward. This is technically my non NWD before anyone asks.

@noblegiraffe @Covidfears @IloveJKRowling et al
I think when we mean close schools we all are thinking switch to remote learning, right? At least I am.

@sophandbridge
It's a different way of teaching. UK teaching is focused around discussion and exploration. Countries with more lecture + single work type of setup are adapting easier to online learning and there basic understanding of technology as a delivery method is fine.
Our type of teaching methodology -generalizing obviously- is more comparable to workshops. And even seasoned professionals have had to transform irl workshops to online and it took time. We (me and my team of 2) spent about a week creating/redoing all our artifacts to fit online and another 1 week to test out the process of how we deliver it to participants, what works, what don't. There are very different pitfalls than in irl teaching/workshops. And we are in this profession. Teachers were/are expected to do this without any experience and with kids. And without extra time. I do feel it's quite unfair on older teachers. My son's german teacher is 70+. He is a great teacher, but doesn't have a clue about technology so we have to have private lessons. But I don't blame him the least bit. For 50 years he had pupils sitting in front of him, why would we expect him to know how to use any technology?

@sophandbridge he can teach his lessons live in the classroom with the technology he is used to (subject specific technology) with no problems and has repeatedly been outstanding in Ofsted and in school PM, teaching in a hybrid manner is TOTALLY new. During lockdown he taught live lessons but didn't have to teach half class in and half class out at that time.

@TheSunIsStillShining

No - that is not what you and others have been saying/implying!
@IloveJKRowling was suggesting having a longer school holiday at Christmas and cutting the next summer holiday short.
I disagreed with that suggestion and then you disagreed with me.
That implied that you wanted school shut for four weeks at Christmas and a shorter summer holiday next year. You said having fun didn't matter.
If you are now saying that you would like a couple of weeks of remote learning around the Christmas holidays that is different and something I have agreed with on this thread.

To be honest, if we provide remote learning in the final week ( or two?) before Christmas, many students will resent it. Ironically, they might end up doing more than normal! That week is often videos, word searches, concerts, charity stuff. A lovely, if manic , wind down.

I'd rather give em all a week off : but I can see that people don't appreciate perhaps that teachers (and pupils!) work the longest hours in Europe and could feel like we need to work out hours back...

Again , I am ignoring childcare issues there because I feel like it I teach ages 14+

I got absolutely rounded on on another thread for saying my DH can't use technology. It isn't in teachers' standards afaik. And someone who is an IT whizzkid (often leaves the profession to make a fortune out of EdTech or gets promoted to SLT) is not always the best classroom teacher.

@Piggywaspushed I thought the remote learning suggestion was for the week before and the week after the Christmas holidays but may be wrong.

[quote grenadines]@TheSunIsStillShining

No - that is not what you and others have been saying/implying!
@IloveJKRowling was suggesting having a longer school holiday at Christmas and cutting the next summer holiday short.
I disagreed with that suggestion and then you disagreed with me.
That implied that you wanted school shut for four weeks at Christmas and a shorter summer holiday next year. You said having fun didn't matter.
If you are now saying that you would like a couple of weeks of remote learning around the Christmas holidays that is different and something I have agreed with on this thread.[/quote]
Just speaking for myself. This is just simple misunderstanding.

1. I want schools to be safer and in the current climate I think that would be best achieved if they closed their physical sites, and switch to full online learning. But as a min measure masks, max 15 in class, proper SD, ventilation
2. xmas one week - from the above it comes that yes, I personally think that kids shouldn't be in school as per now. And if means and added 1 week in the summer, be it. Either online of fully closed, the point would be to break the transmission cycles.
3. It's hard to simply say fun doesn't matter, although I agree that how I wrote it - it comes through as that.

I think it's really important for both kids/teachers to recharge. BUT if education is at the forefront and above everything I do believe that a reasonable compromise should be on the table. Having

Yes, that was what I was saying grenadines. Giving remote learning in the week before the Christmas holiday seems a real chore to me, for all concerned. it should be a joyous time, not one with yet more work to do. It's a kind of busy work. I don't think it will happen, anyway. Government's current position is school at all costs.