No longer a national priority to keep schools open

[noelgiraffe]

The government has surreptitiously dropped its priority to keep schools open.

It has replaced it with a priority to “keep education open”.

Remote learning is now a viable alternative to keeping schools open (as opposed to last Monday when it was a matter for the high court).

In the DfE media blog, tweeted earlier today regarding the delayed start to term in January they say:

“ Is this an extension of the Christmas holiday?

No, this isn’t an extension of the holiday and we haven’t asked that the start of term is delayed.

All students will return to education from the first day of term. Secondary school and college students should learn remotely for one week except those in exam years, vulnerable young people and the children of critical workers. It remains our national priority to keep education open and we are not closing education for any period other than during the set holiday periods.”

Interesting development.

Schools are not obliged to provide live online teaching

They are legally obliged to provide remote education which may or may not include live lessons.

I found this thread from Katharine Birbalsingh about zoom lessons really interesting. twitter.com/miss_snuffy/status/1340255850187862021?s=21 - if she says that zoom lessons don't work well for learning, even with her really strict school and fantastic results, then the rest of us should be even more cynical.

"Why does government love Zoom lessons?

1. They aren’t teachers.
2. They want to feel they have done something.
3. Andrew Adonis campaigned for Zoom lessons
4. They don’t have the experience of using zoom and then when you see the kids next, realise they have learned little

What should we do?

1. Set work on Google classroom
2. Hold kids to account by having teachers ring home at least once a week
3. Only do Zoom for Sixth Form, possibly year 11, depending on intake
4. If selective intake, parental support, then can zoom with all.
5. Be honest"

(Note she is talking about secondary only).

Katharine Birbalsingh has also finally flipped out about the current administration and said they are useless.

If they've lost her support, they've really fucked up.

I posted that yesterday on another thread. Astonishing!

We used Google meet and it worked really well.

It's amazing that we have this fabulous technology to help us keep dc learning but safely.

One local school said it worked so well because of a lack of behaviour problems in class, that they were getting ahead of the curriculum.

It's there, most dc have a smart phone, more do than not to at least follow lessons.

Surely they can abandon or reduce the holidays over the summer, Easter and May half term included? No child will miss any education if it's just pushed back, make the winter the longer break for now? It's not ideal but I don't see how it's fair to kids whose online provision will be crap. Kids absolutely thrive in school and maybe the primaries might be able to go back sooner but for this winter, kids in school over the summer instead.

At secondary bungle guidelines now stipulate 4 hours for pupils (which is crucifying for classroom teachers must say and probably very bad for the students' eyes and backs if they are all live). Despite what they say , though, the DfE is still very unclear what they mean by this, probably because they know there is a whole range of equipment and facilities and effective (and not so effective) provision. We also cannot expect every subject to 'look' the same .

@onedayinthefuture teachers are not paid in the holidays. Weird I know. If they gave us notice now I'd be happy to shift my working year. But not if I'm expected to teach on line and in person this term. It's exhausting.
Be nice if teachers could get the vaccine asap so we can keep going. Most schools that shut did so because of lack of staff. We want to be in. We want to teach. So keep us safe.

I have taught on and have been taught by teams and I think although there are limitations and problems it can be used quite effectively. I think it is near impossible to have a discussion of something you don’t understand via email, it needs an actual explanation. There were a lot of misunderstandings which became embedded last time. Looks like I’ll be googling gcse maths again! We didn’t get any of the things she says are ‘should dos’ either. Our school aren’t keen on going remote as they know they do t have the infrastructure (which is down to underfunding and not the teachers). I guess that’s why there’s no prescriptive minimum standards- they’d have to actually help schools achieve them and provide laptops etc for teachers and students. Let’s hope this mutation can be squashed quickly for everyone’s sake.

[quote mumsneedwine]@onedayinthefuture teachers are not paid in the holidays. Weird I know. If they gave us notice now I'd be happy to shift my working year. But not if I'm expected to teach on line and in person this term. It's exhausting.
Be nice if teachers could get the vaccine asap so we can keep going. Most schools that shut did so because of lack of staff. We want to be in. We want to teach. So keep us safe.[/quote]

But I'm not expecting any teacher to work in the winter. I don't think it's fair to teachers and kids. Education will pick up and be entirely made up during the spring and summer.

New guidance on clinically extremely vulnerable and tier 4.
CEV people should work from home.
CEV children in tier 4 should not go to school.
However, children who live with someone who is CEV should still attend school. In tier 4.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19

@onedayinthefuture then they need to tell us this now. I've spent last few days planning remote lessons for first week back. As well as lessons for normal teaching for 11 & 13. No clue what to do for following week as no guidance yet. It's like government think lessons just appear.
Exams are still going ahead in June so we can't just stop teaching.

And clinically vulnerable (who were actually protected in first wave) should just crack on...

But I'm not expecting any teacher to work in the winter

But if you want them to abandon their may half term/summer holidays, I think that might finish a few off.

@Achristmaspudsskidu

But I'm not expecting any teacher to work in the winter

But if you want them to abandon their may half term/summer holidays, I think that might finish a few off.

Well not many jobs get a May half term and summer holiday. Stop teaching now. Pick up again once it will no doubt be safer in the warmer months. Push everything back, exams included. I work in a school. I don't want to lose my summer. I have a young child in school too. He's thriving being back. BUT if it's that unsafe right now, let's get more people vaccinated and numbers down and start back when it's safer.

I've said this in apr/may and it still is true:
there is a very distinct difference between full online or blended learning and "switching to it in the meantime".
Both have their unique challenges and set of tools.
11 months down the line and we are still in the mode of "emergency switch to whatever remote" form. Which is infuriating. The Dfe has a lot of ppl working for them They should have set up a think tank like department to work out a framework which allows for standardized quality learning delivery. I do not believe that they could not have found 5-10 people who have MEd or similar to come up with this.
HTs and teachers are not equipped to do this. It is a very different mindset and pedagogy.
It is unreasonable to want people who have been trained and done "normal" pedagogy to switch all of a sudden.

The real issue is that people (gov; HTs, boards, parents...) still see this as something that will be over in 3 months.
There needs to be a paradigm change if we want to really help our kids. This flailing between bad and even worse is not helping.

I respect all teachers/heads/etc but they are not following the best course of action. Not because they are stupid or unwilling, but because they can't. I really don't know how they put up with this level of frustration to be honest.

We struggled to get specialist supply teachers last term. Looks like The spring term is going to be a repeat.

One of the main things I've learned in life is to work smarter, not harder. Extending school as it is over x more weeks is counter productive. IT gives the warm, fuzzy feeling of having done something, but in reality it's a waste of energy.

@TheSunIsStillShining

I've said this in apr/may and it still is true: there is a very distinct difference between full online or blended learning and "switching to it in the meantime". Both have their unique challenges and set of tools. 11 months down the line and we are still in the mode of "emergency switch to whatever remote" form. Which is infuriating. The Dfe has a lot of ppl working for them They should have set up a think tank like department to work out a framework which allows for standardized quality learning delivery. I do not believe that they could not have found 5-10 people who have MEd or similar to come up with this. HTs and teachers are not equipped to do this. It is a very different mindset and pedagogy. It is unreasonable to want people who have been trained and done "normal" pedagogy to switch all of a sudden.

The real issue is that people (gov; HTs, boards, parents...) still see this as something that will be over in 3 months.
There needs to be a paradigm change if we want to really help our kids. This flailing between bad and even worse is not helping.

I respect all teachers/heads/etc but they are not following the best course of action. Not because they are stupid or unwilling, but because they can't. I really don't know how they put up with this level of frustration to be honest.

The DfE is so very remote from schools. I believe that all DfE employees should spend regular time working (secondment) in schools just to get an understanding of day to day operations on the ground.

I am not expecting them to teach but to fulfil admin roles.

I really don't know how they put up with this level of frustration to be honest.

The relationship between the DfE and headteachers has totally broken down. I don't know how they're ever going to fix it, tbh. But they have used all their last chances and there is no goodwill left.

I thought it was bad with Gove, but this is much worse.

Sam Strickland and Vic Goddard too, once beloved of DfE.

Re-arranging the summer holidays to give a shorter break may be worth looking at and just abandon the last minute remote learning. They all slip back over the long break so that alone would be a good reason to re-organise. It’s not ideal but might be a sensible option. Keep the shorter breaks as they are as people will need a break.

The DfE is so very remote from schools. I believe that all DfE employees should spend regular time working (secondment) in schools just to get an understanding of day to day operations on the ground.
I don't know why but we used to have an annual visit from a member of the DfE "delivery unit" who would be "embedded" with us for a week.
Not one of them had ever been a teacher, or wanted to be a teacher. They had a lot of meetings with senior people and there was always one with me in relation to trainees and NQTs. Every year they would ask the same questions and get the same answers and then dutifully trot off back to London, to be replaced by the next shiny civil servant the next year.
I used to take them to observe trainees with me as well as have them observe me, and always got a variant of "I don't know how you do it"
Absolute waste of everyone's time.

The problem is, and always has been, universities and admission.

They need to give the vaccine ourside priority group 1, likely to have more in next 2 weeks, it’s ridiculous we’ve thousands of doses in storage (with some already wasted).