75% of my school are in

[ReginaPhalangee]

That's it in a nutshell. Three quarters of my school are classed as keyworker or vulnerable. Might as well chuck the other 50 in and be done with it.

Lockdown 1... 12 children.

No PPE and we've got to double our workload for the ones needing remote learning whilst we are teaching our classes. And then making phone calls to check on them.

It's the same for every school in my area.

I work in a private school
I'm heading Year 4&5 bubble we have 20-25 in each day ( about 45 %)
Last time I had 8 children max
Only TAs with the bubbles in school .
It's hard work and a long full on day
Teachers are teaching live lessons remotely - the children at school are doing same lessons as those at home .

It’s guidance, heads can and will say no. Partly because of safety, a full school isn’t safe. Secondly it is now law they deliver xyz on online content. It can’t be done when teaching a full timetable in person, a full online provision isn’t possible. It isn’t even a case of teachers just delivering lessons and support staff supporting KW children. As I’ve seen suggested. Schools (primary especially) have very few support staff, even rarer to get full time ones. There isn’t the budget to hire them either and to be honest I doubt support staff would want to put up with all that shift for minimal pay.

@hallamoo

The new DfE guidance, released at 3pm today 'helpfully' says that schools should not put a limit on the number of critical worker and vulnerable children in schools!

Floodgates anyone?

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/950510/Schoollnationalrestrictionssguidance.pdf

Ironically it's title is 'Restricting
attendance during
the national
lockdown'

Good, I hope this contributes to at least primaries opening to all children again before Easter.

It will delay them as community transmission will be too high. Such a shame. I hope they put everyone on a rota if it continues to be high transmission, so at least everyone gets F2F in a safer environment.

I'm in secondary and all teachers are in at least 3 days per week and wfh the other two. We have a total of teachers and cover supervisors (me and my team) taking groups of kids who are in with TAs assisting...all as usual

I teach in secondary school and I have primary aged kids. In lockdown one I could work from home just about, though hard as OH is care home manager and out. This time I’m in school as it’s such a different situation with numbers, so therefore my own kids have to be in.

I understand it to an extent. On that mad Tuesday this week we were live teaching some kids in front of, who’d been told no questions would be asked because of the quiet place / technology criteria this time, and the rest online. We had no idea how many would show up so it was done as normal timetable. I could see year 7 parents in the background on the zoom screen, while I had 5 kids in front of me in the room, weighing up for themselves why on Earth they were doing this, and their child getting ten minutes with me, when 5 other children were then getting a nice small class with a specialist. The next day it changed and all key worker kids were sat in a computer room being babysat, but the damage had been done and numbers were up massively.

"
It’d be hard to know so many of your friends get to be together this term"

It is tough. DS2 was the only one out of his group of friends who didn't have a key worker place last summer. He felt excluded and it didn't help that his friends then did things like made plans to go out on bikes etc (when 6 were allowed) and forgot to ask him. Horrible situation. He's got the same again now, except obviously they can't meet up outside of school currently. He's still having to hear how much fun they're having at school though, whilst he's stuck with just my company! 🤦🏼‍♀️

@Justcallmecaptainobvious

Neither the unions nor the government thought this through.

My child is preschool age. I took him out the week before lockdown, worked through with him, almost had a breakdown. We are both critical workers (I was working from home) and were offered a place but we felt we shouldn’t take it. This time round I’m on maternity leave, but if I wasn’t then I would be sending him in. It would be that or quit my job or go off sick with stress. I suspect I’m not alone in that.

The unions seem to be in an opaque bubble, only talking to themselves, and they didn’t consider that we are in a different situation to March, people cannot put themselves through the same situation again.

Don’t heads have discretion to set the number of places and criteria? There was plenty of fuss in the spring about whether both parents needed to be critical workers.

What about non key workers who have no choice but to work full time and home school? I wonder how many of them will be having break downs this time around.

It's really not that hard to work out is it, less businesses are closed or furloughing workers ergo, more critical workers are working outside of the home and so more kids in school.

Lets also try to remember even critical workers who wfh cannot do that with kids about. My job gets extra busy during lockdowns as I deal with child safeguarding and domestic abuse. Last time I managed from March until june before I put my kids into their rightful KW place. I did this when my 7 year old daughter asked me what rape and sodomy meant, she has overheard one of the dozens of phone calls I make each day.

I'm a secondary teacher and have been told by my own school that they expect us to take up our KW space for our own children so that we can meet our directed time hours fully. All my lessons should have some live element and I need to be instantly available to my own students all lesson, every lesson, which wouldn't work while supervising 2 lots of live lessons from my own childrens' school. I have reluctantly taken up our place

Several schools in the area where I live,are prioritising which children can come in, as too many children's parents were applying for a place for them.

@ElizabethG81

It's a sign of how ineffective remote learning was last time and how much working parents struggled. I'm a key worker and a single parent and tried to do everything for the first few months last time. Can't do it again, can't neglect my children again.

Also, parents now know how hard it is for the schools to get going again after a lockdown, and aren't prepared to put up with that.

Lucky old key workers getting to choose!

The rules at my daughters school or ridiculous, we are both keyworkers (NHS and teacher) in the first lockdown my husband only had to go into school one day each fortnight and make phone calls to pupils from home so we could work around my shifts and didnt need the keyworker school place. This time he has to go in everyday. The way my shifts work we should only need to use the school place 2 or 3 days a week but the school have said we can only have the place if we use it everyday. They have also phoned people who said they are keyworkers to ask them to send the children in.

@fallingrain - yes your correct. You shouldn't have any symptoms to have this test done. It takes 15 mins including the queue wait and you have the results within an hour.

My DD is a reception class teacher, the head has said reception is early years she has to be in school, with no TA support, she has 15 of her class of 20 in. She has said why don’t the other 5 just come in rather than having to support them with home schooling as well.

@Feministicon

Are you primary? I work in secondary and no teachers have to come in, it’s the support staff who have to sit and watch the students on their laptops..

What?! That’s unbelievable!!

A friend of mine is a cleaner for a local hospital and didn't meet keyworker status which I think is strange. She's a single parent and means she can't go to work. She's not too worried and won't effect her income much as they putting her on furlough but I am wondering how a cleaner for a hospital is not a key worker especially at times like these when cleaning, especially in a hospital is very important.

@ShouldIStaySelfIsolated

I'm a secondary teacher and have been told by my own school that they expect us to take up our KW space for our own children so that we can meet our directed time hours fully. All my lessons should have some live element and I need to be instantly available to my own students all lesson, every lesson, which wouldn't work while supervising 2 lots of live lessons from my own childrens' school. I have reluctantly taken up our place

University staff have also been told by their employer that they're 'critical workers' so should access key worker places for their children.

It's so frustrating. State education has been at crisis point in the UK for years. Now we have a NHS crisis caused by poor governmental management of the virus, and people are acting as though the main crisis is the demands of employers and children not being in school.

GOV.UK Childcare and Education has published all the requirements for children who can attend school and every school has received it .You may be surprised

@Abelard40 that is precisely where I think a lot of the problem is lying! Parents at home are worried that the children at school are getting a lovely small class and lots of 1:1 and obviously the help is then there. I think that’s one key reason why the uptake is higher.

I’m in private primary - the teachers are working from home doing the online learning, TAs are in. So I’m at home. My amazing TA is in with our year group, thankfully only 7 of them. She’s using her common sense, a couple of these children are lower ability so she’s doing a bit of extra reading each day and going through sounds / tricky words with them daily, but ultimately she’s doing the lessons I set and then they’re having free play, art, free time on the tablets, extra outside time (going on a stick collecting trip for no reason other than a nice walk etc).

It’s been made very clear by our management that the children in school cannot be offered any more than the children at home. They do the same lessons. Reception and KS1 are not doing their lessons at the their own computer, rather they are watching the video lesson from the teacher together (all our lessons are being pre recorded) and then the TA is helping them access the plan and complete the task and supporting them, and once it’s done it’s done. A child initiated extension is fine, but the simple instruction for support staff is just to complete the given task.

Our Head has had to be harsh when policing KW children attendance because sadly yes some parents have pushed their luck (sorry SAHP but we had several who wanted spaces and they have been refused) and the numbers were too high. It also became very apparent last lockdown that teachers can’t produce quality online learning whilst also offering crowd control and support at school, even if on a rota. They need to be teaching and be on hand to answer parents queries. That’s why the support staff are supporting the attending children, not teachers.

Except of course until numbers drop. Two staff have tested positive in my school this week already, so one bubble has blown today (3days in!) and already some teachers are having to be called in to cover days - I’m just waiting for my turn and trying to get as far ahead as possible.

Maybe all those parents who send their children into school should be asking are the school ensuring their teachers /TAs/ lunch and kitchen staff are being tested every 3 days (as recommended for secondary staff) to ensure YOUR children are safe?

could the difference in numbers of children in school now vs Match/April be down to the changes in the furlough schemes and that more industries are deemed essential so there are fewer parents at home anyway?

We should vaccinate the teachers and then the schools should just go back.

Ours are super low numbers this week, 8 children total each day lot of a possible 280. It will go up next week but by how high I don't know.

Interestingly the guidance just published states that "children of critical workers should be kept at home if possible"