The logistical issue with closing primary schools...

[Jourdain11]

Just want to say at the start that, in saying this, I do not in any way mean to undermine teachers' and school staffs' right to work in a safe environment. But there is a big logistical issue with the closure of primary schools, assuming that childcare arrangements would also be knocked out.

In the spring, a huge number of people were either wfh or furloughed. That is no longer the case to the same extent. Since the rules/guidance now is to "work from home unless you cannot do your job at home", there are many, many more people who are expected to go into work, at least on a part-time schedule.

Which creates a huge issue in terms of primary-aged children doing remote learning from home. Either you end up with a pretty large number of "key worker" or "unable to learn from home" children going into school (which creates issues for staff in terms of providing in-school staffing and online provision simultaneously, and also slightly defeats the point of the entire exercise); or you have thousands of parents having to resign their jobs, take unpaid leave, beg for time off or whatever (which is clearly very far from ideal). Or you end up with parents simply saying, "I pay taxes for my children to be educated in school and it is their right to receive this education" and sending them in anyway.

Seems the only way around this would be either to have a "short, sharp" shutdown with a (for example) 2-week timelimit, which might be more manageable for both parents and school staff. Or to stay open and increase hygiene measures in PSs, or at least strive to make them equal across all schools.

Thoughts?

[quote squiddybear]@GrumblyMumblyisnotJumbly why can’t primaries stay open and temporarily have half the class in AM / half PM to ensure continuity in core teaching while social distancing can actually be achieved.

^ unless teachers fully cleaned down between am and pm this is useless. Furthermore teachers would then still be teaching two separate bubbles....[/quote]
@squiddybear but teachers and pupils risk of contracting Covid would be reduced if they were in smaller groups and more spread out as the greatest risk is from close contact.
www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html
They would be teaching their usual class just in 2 smaller groups which would allow for social distancing.

Are you a teacher? What would you prefer to happen with all schools from January?

@Agoodbriskwalk. My son's nursery school is as safe as it can possibly be. They've essentially moved all their activities outside and spend all day in the open air, even when it's raining. The staff are vigilant as regards hygiene and keeping the three bubbles separated. Only one bubble has had to shut once since September (staff member tested positive). I realise it's not as easy for a lot of schools, especially at secondary level, so there may be a case for individual schools closing if they can't provide a safe environment.

I agree with you that it may be impossible to prevent schools closing and clearly it is even more vital with this new strain that teachers are not forced to work in unsafe conditions. I certainly don't expect my son's teachers to.

But it is wholly unreasonable to expect parents (including teachers who are parents) to work a double or triple shift doing paid work/childcare/home education simultaneously. That's why I won't be doing it - I'd just end up doing a shit job at everything, annoying my employer and colleagues and neglecting my child. We can take the financial hit but support needs to be provided for families where this will be the proverbial final straw. And less women working will mean less tax being paid/a higher benefits bill, so bad for society in general.

@StatisticalSense Regardless of whether live online teaching is the way forward or not (it’s not, but the government believe it is and have sold that line very effectively to middle class parents), the fact remains that I am required to be immediately available to support parents and children during the hours in which I ordinarily would be, e.g. 7.30-5.30. Work also needed promptly feeding back on and returning to children. Pre recording videos takes about an hour per short clip, then uploads take 45 minutes to then platform.

I’d love to say that teachers can also work flexibly, but we just can’t. During a recent two week isolation I had two parents complain that they could hear my toddler in the background of a Zoom session (not a taught lesson, a morning catch up) and several irate messages that I hadn’t replied quickly enough to previous messages about technical issues. I was changing a nappy at the time.

Believe me, I want to keep everyone safe. My ILs are in their 70s and thus vulnerable. My sister has severe asthma and is pregnant. Hell, I’m pregnant. But you can’t just say that a blanket closure of schools won’t cause a whole host of further problems, because not everyone can ‘be flexible’ and still keep a roof over their heads.

Again, we need FUNDING to keep schools clean, to cover staff so they can properly isolate and to adapt the environment to support safety measures.

@GrumblyMumblyisnotJumbly you still have one person who is mixing bubbles!!!

I work in an education environment but I'm not a teacher. In my opinion I would like schools to remain closed to all apart from SEN/SN pupils, key workers and those who are perceived vulnerable e.g no access to the internet or potential domestic issues. The rest should go into a mixture of online lessons both synchronised and asynchronous in order to give working parents more flexibility with helping etc

I teach in a nursery and I am feeling panicky about going back after the holidays. There is no way to socially distance yourself from a 3 or 4 year old and we are not allowed to wear masks. I know people in many other jobs have to just carry on too, but most workers are at least able to wear masks and they don't have super spreaders coming up to cuddle them or falling over and needing a hug! I'm terrified because the new variants are more easily spread and I cannot see how I am not going to catch it. I'm taking vitamin d and of course I will wash my hands all day long but I really wish I didn't have to go back until things have settled down a bit or I have had a vaccination. Unfortunately I'm a long way down the list for one of those. Sorry if I sound selfish, I understand people's worries about school closures, but I'm so worried I can't sleep at night.

The reality of home schooling between March and July was that my children got max 10-15 minutes of help a day from DH or myself inbetween our actual work and spent an awful lot of time playing on screens. We cannot shift our working hours. We cannot be furloughed. We need to work to pay the mortgage. Many other parents were in the same position.

If you were to remove the ‘I need to work factor’ - a major part of this discussion but let’s pretend if schools closed the government signed blank cheques to cover parents’ wages - does anyone actually WANT to send their children into schools knowing that the lack of social distancing in schools is what is currently fuelling the outbreak?

The education children are currently getting is patchy. Teachers are off, kids self isolating, supply cover giving lessons. It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before. Yes, I suppose they get to spend time with their peers.

We know schools are responsible for the rise of Covid in December yet, so many are willing to turn a blind eye because of personal reasons.

If schools don’t close for a few extra weeks after Christmas break, I can see us here, at the same point, months from now. China is back to normal. Australia, New Zealand, etc... I wish we had a government that took control instead of this never ending shit.

Neither I not my husband can be furloughed. We work in niche jobs with statutory deadlines that no one else has the skills to meet. It’s either do the work or resign. And the work needs done - more of it due to the pandemic.

All I ask is the education department of the council and the teaching unions get on board with face to face lessons online. If we even had 30 mins a day when the kids weren’t needing attention it would help, but no, there are no online lessons as the union and council say that ‘that is not the teachers job’. Just a few worksheets sent our direction via teams is not really teaching is it? So we have to split the day into one of us working 6-2, and the other 2-10 so we can teach our kids, and buy extra resources online so we have content to teach them. It’s not sustainable

And yes I want to send my kids into school even if I didn’t have to work. The peer interaction is absolutely everything.

But it is wholly unreasonable to expect parents (including teachers who are parents) to work a double or triple shift doing paid work/childcare/home education simultaneously. That's why I won't be doing it - I'd just end up doing a shit job at everything, annoying my employer and colleagues and neglecting my child.

@MessAllOver I don't think anyone needs to be 'home educating' a child who is in nursery school. That's just silly. I get that it's hard to juggle childcare and work though.

@Agoodbriskwalk. I don't, thank goodness, but a lot of people have more than one child at home. So they're trying to work, but also home educate and supervise a little one. Absolutely ludicrous!

If you were to remove the ‘I need to work factor’ - a major part of this discussion but let’s pretend if schools closed the government signed blank cheques to cover parents’ wages - does anyone actually WANT to send their children into schools knowing that the lack of social distancing in schools is what is currently fuelling the outbreak?

Yes. School is so much more than just learning to read, write and to do basic maths.
But nobody seems to be interested in the social and physiological aspect of school.
I was on furlough while schools where closed. I could provide 75% of the education. The 25% that I could not provide where being with other children, learning through play / group work, having discussion amongst peers on a subject, ...
These 25% are important for children's development and sadly is very difficult (In some cases impossible) to catch up on. We should avoid closing schools for prolonged periods of time.

"clearly it is even more vital with this new strain that teachers are not forced to work in unsafe conditions"

Yes, I agree with that. It's also clear that it's impossible to work properly and supervise/home school young children at the same time.

So how do we balance these things - ensuring that teachers and other school staff have at least the basic mitigation measures that other workers have, yet also acknowledging that it's nigh on impossible to both work and supervise/home school young children?

[quote squiddybear]@GrumblyMumblyisnotJumbly you still have one person who is mixing bubbles!!!

I work in an education environment but I'm not a teacher. In my opinion I would like schools to remain closed to all apart from SEN/SN pupils, key workers and those who are perceived vulnerable e.g no access to the internet or potential domestic issues. The rest should go into a mixture of online lessons both synchronised and asynchronous in order to give working parents more flexibility with helping etc [/quote]
Or take away the language of 'bubbles' and there is one person continuing to teach their class but in a safer environment.

How long would you like schools to remain closed for? Does it have to go from schools fully open to schools fully closed (other than to categories above)?
Isn't there room for more discussion of what @Timeturnerplease (a primary school teacher suggests would help:
Again, we need FUNDING to keep schools clean, to cover staff so they can properly isolate and to adapt the environment to support safety measures.

I fully support schools being made safer and being closed as a last resort (as in March when we knew very little of Covid) but 9 months later it would be good to explore intermediary measures (if only the DfE would!)

Are you a primary school parent too? Would you need to work and home school too if schools close again?

@StatisticalSense

Honestly now that all parents are entitled to a childcare bubble and many are additionally entitled to a support bubble there should be very few who cannot (rather than don't want to) access sufficient childcare to enable them to work, and for this reason if schools were to close this should include key workers to allow teachers to focus on alternative provision. Large employers that operate on a variety of shift patterns (such as the NHS) should be encouraged to have a system in place where employees on opposite shifts are encouraged to form a childcare bubble with each other to ensure nobody is without childcare.

Oh yes, just let a colleague look after your kids, possibly overnight for NHS workers. Nothing terrible could possibly happen leaving your children with relative strangers.

"We should avoid closing schools for prolonged periods of time."

Nobody wants to do that.

The point is that a short, sharp closure might be enough to make a significant difference to transmission levels thus enable schools to stay open longer in the medium-term.

At the moment, given the data and stats coming out, opening schools in the same way that they were during the autumn term is more likely to lead to schools having to close one by one as too many staff are unwell or SI, children being sent home for multiple periods of SI and rates of community transmission continuing to grow.

I have children who are doing exams this year and they are desperate for clarity on what's going on.

This government always announces education related stuff at the last minute and if prior attitudes are considered then whatever is announced now will change dozens of times until a day or two before term starts. After all they were ready to take Greenwich council to court one week then announcing testing in secondaries the next.

Yrs 11 and 13 desperately need a clear decision that doesn't get u-turned in the 11th hour.

Of course the problem now is that if it was decided to prolong the return to school there is no school time left to sort it all out. If it had been decided before schools broke up then preparations could be put in place. Resources brought home to allow teachers to make video/teach online. Equipment could be lend to children.
As it is even if they decide now there is very little prep time as everyone has been working towards coming back to school as normal in jan.

Why do we need a 2 week circuit break.. the kids are having two week off school as we speak?!

For me with a child in reception and a one year old, I cannot be the teacher. Learning through play doesn't happen with a one year old helping and walking off with everything or screaming if you do things out of reach. And for anyone for more than one child or working from home or both it's a balance of neglect. It's not good for anyone and I say that as someone who loves teaching my child things and playing with them, it's the fitting in everything when I have to, it's too hard. We did homeschooling for a week this term when DS was unwell and it was so much pressure, I was shocked by the amount and breath of subjects. DS' teacher said it was a lot lighter than what they'd do in class.

We already have staggered starts and collections, 10
Minute collection windows and small bubbles.

Even if equipment was lent to children then lots of them don’t have WiFi at home. This is one of the issues that isn’t really understood on mumsnet. Not everyone has technology and not everyone has internet access.

We also have the issue that we can’t all be online at the same time. If DH is on a Teams call we all have to get offline to help speed it up. When people are all in the meeting from different countries it’s impossible to rearrange.

There’s no good answer but I think the ‘online learning’ for secondary students isn’t as simple as it seems.

No, it's not simple but it could be doable esp if people let go of this idea that a day of 'live lessons' is the silver bullet.

If LAs had some autonomy, they could have done audits of how many keyworker/ SEN/looked after/vulnerable children there were in each secondary, and how many with no tech/broadband at home and worked out how they could facilitate these children on site. Certainly in my London borough, there would be some secondaries with practically no children without tech/broadband and some with many more children without these things. There may have needed to be 'hubs' as we had in the spring.

Unfortunately, LAs (or MATs) don't have this autonomy and have to wait to see on the telly what the govt's plans are.

whatisthepoint because many schools had lots of bubbles bursting towards the end of last term with children and staff sent home to SI, and lots of schools were closed (despite strong resistance from PHE) due to staff-shortages.

The new variant of covid which spreads particularly amongst primary school aged children is currently ferocious in the SE of England. The events of this year tell us that it is only a matter of time until it runs similarly riot in other parts of the country.

Home-schooling or supervising young children at home is a nightmare, even more so if you are trying to work at the same time.

But whether there is a formal closing of schools for a period of time or whether we just wait until covid decimates staff and pupil attendance, there will be a major impact on school provision over the next few months.

The question is how we reduce the negative effects of this impact, and make it as less damaging as possible for the shortest period of time as possible, and even then it will be guesswork because we're still very unclear exactly how this virus behaves.

Cases have risen dramatically.If secondary schools are closed and cases continue to rise, they will close the primary schools.

The government do not care about a) teachers’ safety b) parental wellbeing and c) whether your child gets the chance to socialise. Up to this point, parental and government wishes have aligned and schools have stayed open (with little regard paid to safety). The situation is changing due to the mutated strain. It isn’t nice when your fortunes are affected by other people’s whims but that is what has happened to school staff all last term. From our experience, I would say find ways to deal with the inevitable rather than repeating the same battle cry.

We are in a pandemic. We can moan all we like and we all have "poor me" stories. Everyone is affected by Covid, be it illness, loss, childcare problems, money worries, isolation and loneliness. But we have to come together as a society and do what is needed to lower the numbers of this horrible virus. A bit of of humanity wouldn't be go amiss on mn at the moment regarding these school threads. We are all mums. If the numbers show schools need to close then so be it. Let's just do it!!

@Elvesaremagic
I like your calm and logical reasoning. And that you actually offer an alternative - a potential solution :) We need parents to want to work together with schools/teachers to make it work.

To everyone who says peer interaction is so needed: you do know that we are in the midst of a pandemic? Your kid's "socialization" needs do not trump other's health/well being. And especially small kids are way more resilient than given credit for. A kid in GCSE/A-levle year has a lot more to lose than a 6 year old by not seeing his/her friends for a few months.

Wish people could put it in perspective.