SCHOOLS: How could we do it better??

[SnowGnome]

The debate on schools reopening is getting pretty heated, we know two clear and opposing considerations.

1. School is the best place for children to be

2. Not closing schools will accelerate spread, putting families and staff at risk of short term illness, long term illness and death. It also means that tens of thousands will see bubbles closing with cases in Tier 4 areas anyway, removing all provision for key-worker and vulnerable children.

Neither of these considerations is really up for debate, they’re both obvious. The fury seems to be over whether one is more important than the other. But surely that’s the wrong question to be asking and both points matter.

The problem is that the solutions proposed are equally divided: close schools or don’t close them

There have to be better solutions, so what are your ideas, and how would other people’s suggestions affect you? We all really seem to want the same thing here which is as much time in school as possible, but without risking spread. I’ll put a couple of suggestions in next post.

If you’ve come on here to say “it doesn’t spread in schools, children don’t get ill from it, we never had any in our bubble last term blah blah” this isn’t the thread for you. Find somewhere else. This thread is about trying to find a better way through, not being dogmatically tied to one of two completely incompatible points of view.

I work in a school. I'm not against shortening holidays (staff with holidays booked before date of decision get them honoured with evidence).

But switching working through from may half term until October is too much for pupils.

They need decent breaks every 7 weeks.

I think off January with online learning (with those in who need to be).

Shorten Easter break to a week but with it going over the BH so one week is 4 days and shorten summer break by a week or 2.

So children don't lose learning but gain extra face to face to consolidate what was done over remote learning.

In cases of places like sen schools that will remain open fully then they keep their original holiday plans.

I think it’s all about correct messaging. No one I know seems to understand the testing rules. Sending kids to school whilst awaiting tests etc

@IHateThesePosts

I sympathise with your relative. I also have relatives in frontline, hospital nhs roles. They’ve also had annual leave cancelled etc. However they still have their annual leave entitlement to take at another time of their choosing. Teachers have completely had some of theirs taken away in the first lockdown. I don’t mind moving the terms and holidays at all but I want a cast iron guarantee that I’ll be treated like other employees and given it back at another time. Only fair.

@itsgettingweird yes I would also like this to happen. I think it’s one of the least worst options.

In relation to primary schools, a lot of people are talking about rotas as being the solution, presumably kids in for half the time to enable more social distancing and smaller bubbles. Aside from the issue that this only partially solves the problem for working parents, there is another big problem with this as was seen when schools went partially back in June. What is done about the key worker bubbles who need to be in full time and take up classroom space and teacher resource? My son was in Reception when some years went back in June. He went back 2 days a week, deep clean on a Wednesday and the other half of the class in the second half of the week. Year 1 did the same and Year 2 didn’t go back (infant school). It is a 3 form entry school and all 3 of the Year 2 classrooms were used up by key worker children who needed to be in every day. You can see that if we wanted all years back in part time there is instantly an issue with where to put the key worker children, unless you have a school with loads of spare classrooms and spare teachers. I was wondering if other infant schools managed to deal with this and get reception and year 1 back in full time and if so how? If all primaries were told to have all years back in half time then I would imagine they all would have this problem?

Hang on weird , haven't you just removed about 3 - 4 weeks of holiday form teachers there??

OP are you a tecaher?

teacher, excuse me.

I would never suggest missing a half term completely. A week at Easter sounds good, maybe three weeks at summer. That’s a month of displaced teaching time right there.
As for holidays being refunded, I’d imagine the government would push that responsibility onto the holiday companies, a bit like it did when people had booked earlier in the year and then found themselves in the wrong tier.

noelle , weird suggested online teaching in Jan as well, though... and setting up mass testing sites requires people at work..

If we have online teaching, that’s full time education, as far as I’m concerned, since I’ll be working full time to deliver it.

Quite. A number of MNers (and politicians) think online teaching (or any WFH for that matter)isn't really work.

@IHateThesePosts, I couldn't give a shiny shit what you think of my refusal to work in summer. I'm not doing it. It's THE ONLY PERK of the job.

Oh, and are you proposing to fine parents who want to take their DCs on a summer holiday? Because if we're providing education through July and August there have to be bums on seats; otherwise we become a kids' club.

Yes, I’d propose fines during the summer. The whole point is that education is highest priority. If teachers give up their summer, parents should be expected to do the same.

I'm not giving up our already booked summer holiday to attend school in August. Sept-dec is a brutally long term. The kids need at least August off as a break

I’ve seen some ridiculous things but the idea that teachers can’t possibly compromise on their holiday dates in a pandemic is the most ridiculous.

I already have done. I gave up one week of my Easter holidays to be in school for the keyworker children and the May Half TermWeek (unpair) too and will never get back as owed to me.
I also lost my August holiday abroad as it was too risky to potentially miss the start of the September term quarantining but I didn’t get a refund from the holiday company and hotel because they didn’t have to cancel (£2.8k lost)

It’s amazing how quick any good will is lost when there is zero acknowledgement from the public about what extra, many teachers have done during this pandemic.

I’d propose having the last two weeks of August off.

OP are you a tecaher?

I used to be a teacher, not sure why it’s relevant as I think we all want the same thing which is why I started the thread - Kids back in school in a safe and well-organised way.

They need more than 2 weeks off in August. The kids in DDs school were absolutely on their knees by the time we broke up for Christmas. Its too long a term and 2 weeks off isn't a substantial enough break.

@ChloeDecker I definitely agree these contributions need to be better recognised, but also teachers are by no means exceptional in having to be flexible with demands on time and responsibilities.

Don’t forget millions of working parents had to use all their leave to home school their kids or cover for closures of childcare.

It’s interesting that no one has mentioned last summer’s promised ‘school catch up’ initiative that the government repeatedly announced and talked about, yet never happened.
Again, amazing how many people forget in a short space of time and how it becomes teachers’ sole responsibility to sort out this mess.

also teachers are by no means exceptional in having to be flexible with demands on time and responsibilities.
No one has said teachers are exceptional in this situation.

Don’t forget millions of working parents had to use all their leave to home school their kids or cover for closures of childcare.

I haven’t forgotten...

@ChloeDecker again true but not limited to teachers. If you take Covid and Brexit together, there’s barely a single industry left in the country that hasn't had to sort its mess out by itself.

Perhaps one of the reasons there’s so much division in every sector now is the total lack of leadership, everyone has had to take matters into their own hands and that inherently pits diverse opinions against each other (hence the close schools v open schools debate)

3 weeks here and there will not make up for the impact of the lost learning/other social and learning impacts of the lockdown. It's tinkering about when something a lot more fundamental needs to happen. And it would cost a lot of money because you can't just change people's working terms and conditions without compensating them anyway.

The problem is that most of the things that could possibly be done to make schools safer cost money and are difficult to privatise and generate profit from. This so baked into the current brand of conservatism that it just becomes something they "can't " do. This is why the remote and online learning has been so patchy and inconsistent (and inaccessible to those without tech/bandwidth), why different spaces haven't been commandeered and new teachers and support staff recruited to make split sites possible. And why the whole education sector was underfunded in the first place.