Angry teachers why aren't your leadership team doing more?

[Blanketyblankblankety]

If there's 2-3 teachers catching Corona daily in one school (15 a week) as stated on another thread why on earth has your leadership team not shut the school? Another school with 66 cases in pupils in one week, why is the school still open?
Before you say the government won't support it, that's rubbish. My DCs school has recently shut for 2 weeks at least to all but year 11 and 13. And they had much fewer cases than above and none in staff.
You should be lobbying your leadership team as they sound useless.

Have you not seen the threads on this!?
Google noblegiraffe for her wisdom.

No not read anything about how head teachers are taking matters into their own hands, just seems like most are waiting to be told what to do.

The DfE have explicitly told schools they aren’t allowed to take matters into their own hands. They don’t decide who is sent home when there are cases (that’s the DfE helpline intent on sending home as few kids as possible) and they don’t get to switch to rotas to cope with staff absence or increase safety measures. The DfE have seized control of all of this, and the DfE would rather your kid went to a school that was riddled with covid to be supervised by any warm body than head teachers take local decisions.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-covid-revealed-new-covid-contingency-plans-schools

Head teachers are reliant - on their local public health telling them what to do, in terms of isolations and closures.

This is completely logical, because heads are not public health experts, and you do not want the risk aversion or otherwise of a specific head to be the driving factor in their Covid response.

On the other hand, the lines of command and quality of advice within the tangle that is PHE, DfE and local public health authorities means that advice given to these heads can be inconsistent and illogical - especially since there is a political and PR motivation behind some of it ('schools are safe / there is space for teachers to be 2m away at all times / schools which send few pupils home are 'better / doing well').

So while it is right that head teachers, unqualified in public health, are required to rely on the experts for advice, it is not right that the so-called 'experts' are not giving - in some cases - consistent / correct / decent information.

My school is shut, but that’s only because there aren’t enough well teachers to staff it.

As @noblegiraffe has posted, school leadership teams have no power to close schools or move to a rota because ‘schools are safe’.

IRL I learn of a new positive case each day - everyone I know who has Covid is a teacher or a pupil.

@Blanketyblankblankety Headteachers have to follow the advice of the local authority and Public Health.

Oh and I’m not ‘angry’. Just sad and very scared.

Unfortunately my pupils are not getting the best version of me.

Schools report to the DfE who liaise with PHE and then advise the school on what action to take. It seems that 'single' cases are not considered as outbreaks and only close contacts sent home. My Son's school had 4 apparently single cases last week and no whole class or year groups were sent home. Headteachers can close the school if there are unsafe numbers of staff.

Our school has one class still left in. All others at home. PHE still deem it unnecessary to close the school to all.

Headteachers can close the school if there are unsafe numbers of staff.

It’s not their decision any more. See my TES link above - a recent change.

“Schools have been told that they must not implement any of the restrictive measures without "explicit agreement" with the DfE.

The department has stressed that the framework is designed "as a means of reducing transmission within settings and the wider community".

This means it "should not be used to address operational challenges, including staff shortages", the guidance states.

In the event that schools encounter capacity problems, the DfE said they can consider options including:

Using staff, such as trainees, more flexibly.
Using supply staff.
Recruiting both permanent and short-term staff via the Teaching Vacancies Service.”

Interested in what makes you think leadership teams are rubbish... it is an impossible job and every school employee I know is doing their very best. We have to turn to the experts on public health for advice, everyone has different opinions about what should be done so decision making needs to be expert informed and advised.
How about asking your leadership team if they are ok? That might be kind

@Blanketyblankblankety

No not read anything about how head teachers are taking matters into their own hands, just seems like most are waiting to be told what to do.

Yes, they have to be told what to do by PHE.

That’s how it works; did you not know this?

Love to know how schools are meant to pay for these supply teachers. Already blown our supply budget

There’s a new fund to pay for warm bodies if the school is down to its last bean and will have to close otherwise, ineed

schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-pledges-staff-absence-funding-to-keep-schools-open-but-only-after-reserves-are-raided/

Thank you @noblegiraffe I missed that update. I don't want to think where they are going to find these emergency staff from.

@mrshoho

Thank you *@noblegiraffe* I missed that update. I don't want to think where they are going to find these emergency staff from.

Exactly. My school has been shutting 2 days a week as in certain days we haven’t enough staff to open it - and that’s with our 4 full time cover supervisors. There isn’t even supply either.

There's also the (additional) public health risk:

a) Very few supply teachers are likely to respond 'Oh yes, I'd love to come in' when invited into a school so riddled with Covid that the school has run out of members of teaching staff and

b) Supply staff, by definition, move between settings. Unless absolutely necessary (urgent SEN or social services reasons, IME) schools are not allowing anyone 'new' into the school, especially if they have also been in other settings. Allowing a supply teacher to teach 'as Covid normal' - ie no masks in classrooms, ventilation only if possible, no SD within the room - is an obvious risk.....

@Butterflystar76 I have no issues at all with the leadership team at my DCs school. They're doing an amazing job and I have emailed them to thank them. They made sure school was set up for brilliant home learning in case of self isolating or school closures such as currently, they do send home teachers who have come within 2 m of confirmed cases (I have a friend who teaches at the school) I cannot fault them. If a school is having 15 teachers a week or 66 pupils a week testing positive for Corona (as stated on other threads), the leadership team should not be sitting back accepting that's ok from the phe and I believe they could do more. How did they manage to mainly close my DCs school which has nowhere near as many cases?

Do you really think schools leadership teams are just ignoring what’s going on around them. They are as desperate as anyone else seeing their colleagues going down with this virus.
Sadly they have no power to do anything about it. The decisions come from the dfe who are completely aware of the dire situations in schools and choosing to pretend it isn’t happening covering it up in anyway possible.

I've seen that funding @noblegiraffe. Problem is that will mean zero extra funds for anything the school was planning for next year as will have no surplus reserves. Education is going to be paying for this fiasco for years in many ways.

that will mean zero extra funds for anything the school was planning for next year

I know. Headteachers are having to rob Peter to pay Paul. Schools were already on their knees and now they’re having to fund covid stuff what wasn’t ever planned for. Next year is going to be a disaster.

I am definitely not calling leadership teams 'rubbish' in fact I am disgusted that Scottish heads are going to be on call on Christmas Day for contact tracing because their Government are insisting schools open until the 23rd, this is a disgrace!

Anyway, it does surprise me how little autonomy schools seem to have. I don't believe this can be the case where I live in the UK, because schools here do close with wayyyy less cases. I am not aware of any schools here having 2/3 new staff cases a day etc but do close with far less. Whole bubbles here close rather than just sending home close contacts. Teachers isolate too.

I have experience of 3 different schools, a primary, a secondary and a grammar. All are doing different things in terms of day to day stuff so clearly have some autonomy. So clearly the leadership are working hard to do what is right for that particular school. There is still direction from the devolved gov, eg face coverings are mandatory in communal areas.

I don't understand how the school with 66 cases or 2/3 new teacher cases a day are physically able to staff the school to be honest. Cumulatively, by the end of the week, how are there any staff left?

We have had class closures recently due to being unable to staff them, obviously supply is difficult at this point due to the demand. We had 6 teachers off isolating due to exposure to a teacher who developed symptoms on the first day back from half term, another teacher caught it from them and the rest thankfully didn't but they couldn't get enough supply to replace all the isolating teachers.

I am sure they will be looking at avoiding exposure between staff in the future but obviously it is difficult, with only one staff room.

Anyway, I understand your point op because it is confusing seeing posts where sometimes whole bubbles go home and other times it is just close contacts etc, but I guess it is partly to do with Mumsnet being quite England-centric when actually the devolved nations are doing things differently.

@cantkeepawayforever

There's also the (additional) public health risk:

a) Very few supply teachers are likely to respond 'Oh yes, I'd love to come in' when invited into a school so riddled with Covid that the school has run out of members of teaching staff and

b) Supply staff, by definition, move between settings. Unless absolutely necessary (urgent SEN or social services reasons, IME) schools are not allowing anyone 'new' into the school, especially if they have also been in other settings. Allowing a supply teacher to teach 'as Covid normal' - ie no masks in classrooms, ventilation only if possible, no SD within the room - is an obvious risk.....

Yes, great point! No money would be enough to convince you into the school with 66 cases surely Especially when you are maybe going to a school later in the week that you know have no cases, you aren't going to want to potentially bring it to the other school.

[quote noblegiraffe]The DfE have explicitly told schools they aren’t allowed to take matters into their own hands. They don’t decide who is sent home when there are cases (that’s the DfE helpline intent on sending home as few kids as possible) and they don’t get to switch to rotas to cope with staff absence or increase safety measures. The DfE have seized control of all of this, and the DfE would rather your kid went to a school that was riddled with covid to be supervised by any warm body than head teachers take local decisions.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-covid-revealed-new-covid-contingency-plans-schools[/quote]
This.

School leaders can't take things into their own hands.

We have more cases currently than I could count and for every single one of them out SLT have been on the phone all day every day to PHE for advice about every case , every child, every staff member, to be told what actions to take.

They can't just shut a school unless told.

Ok, and as you were... Let the teacher bashing continue

I can’t imagine any schools that are riddled with covid will get supply teachers in the week before Christmas either. What an offer?!

Come and be in a place where there have been lots of known positive cases, no social distancing possible between kids in small stuffy classrooms the week before Christmas. Plus, if we get any more cases, you’ll get a phone call and will have to spend the whole of Christmas isolating!