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'm in Wales and we seem to have gone the other extreme. Some councils are being extremely strict.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55544545

It must be stricter, both parents are KW. 75% in school is too close to it being fully open at a time when we need as many at home.

Our school is 48% full after the additional guidance we have families with one keyworker and one SAHP still sending their kids in. The KW is wfh.

@ShouldIgonow that's terrible. What selfish arseholes those parents are.

Ours has 30% and loads of people who could suffer the inconvenience of kids at home. But they won't. I'd seriously rather stay at home and not risk getting COVID but my job won't allow it. Nor will my partners now. We have double KW places. There are a small number seriously taking the Pxss at our school and loads more than could really keep them at home with them

Yes very selfish - is quite sad.

I am classed as a key worker, last time my work allowed all to WFH so I didn’t ask for a KW place (single parent here also).
However, this time my work are absolutely refusing to allow us to WFH & said I’d have to take up a KW Place.
I’m not happy about it it, I think it should go to those who physically cannot actually wfh rather than employers changing their minds. School are not happy about it, but they seem to understand my predicament and I’m sure I’m not the only one in this situation. Please don’t assume this is all selfish parents, I’ve tried my upmost best to discuss this with work but to them it’s simple - we are key workers so you want to get paid, come in and work. You don’t, take unpaid leave, so I don’t really have a choice. They are apparently well within their rights to do this, even though WFH last time was a success.

@Raedd1234 sorry I really didn't mean parents like you, and I know a lot of the demand on KW places this time is down to employers. This harder to solve. However I also know parents who are wfh but put kids in school because it's easier, parents who also have their partner at home as well to help and in some cases one parent does not work!!! They have no damn excuse for their behaviour. I sent some info on this issue (couple of guardian articles and a link to a twitter thread of info gathered via Lewis goodhall from newsnight) to a friend who is one of these parents this weekend. I was a bit pathetic and sent the links with no comment. Have not got a reply, and I expect her kids will be in school this morning. Meanwhile another friend who is a nurse (as is her DH) is thinking of taking her kids to their grandfathers in Scotland just so she can ensure she takes no time off if the key worker bubble bursts, which is much more likely now with the numbers of kids in school more than 3x March and the new variant being more catching/affecting kids more.

I think this is the biggest problem - not parents who are taking the piss, but employers who, despite their staff being able to work at home, don't allow it.

Yes, there may be a small hit to productivity, but unless this is substantial enough to mean that company going out of business, they should take that hit.

The onus should be on the employer to argue why they cannot permit homeworking.

Yes, there may be a small hit to productivity, but unless this is substantial enough to mean that company going out of business, they should take that hit.

What if it means they have to make 2% of the workforce redundant? 5%?

Should they take it then?

Because that’s what ‘a small hit to productivity’ is likely to mean.

@TheKeatingFive so profits and jobs matter more than keeping people alive?

so profits and jobs matter more than keeping people alive?

Jobs matter, yes. What would you do without your income?

There’s also tax revenue being generated by private business for public services. Who’s volunteering to take the hit of lost revenue?

NHS? Schools? Social care? Police?

Oh, I thought KW roles were critical to infrastructure? Not about profit.

That is why people are taking the piss, they aren’t actually ‘key’ at all. It’s all about profit and fuck everyone else and fuck the health service.

Oh, I thought KW roles were critical to infrastructure? Not about profit.

Plenty on that list are profit making. Do you think everyone who supplies the NHS are a charity or something?

And most of the roles in eg NHS supply could be done wfh with young children around.

Actual deliveries obviously not, but all the backroom stuff.

@Itisasecret

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.

That’s down to how the Headteacher prioritises their budget, the head at schools who don’t have many support staff have stitched themselves up here! Luckily both schools I’ve worked in value support staff highly and it reflects in the nurturing environment the children get and the schools’ achievements.

At our school we are lucky in that each class has a TA, most are part-time. In the mornings the class teacher has a Zoom meeting for all the class. The KW children are in the classroom taking part in the zoom call.
The teacher looks at some to the work that has been sent in and explains the work for the day. He then checks Google classroom for any parents questions. He does this in-between teaching the children that are in school. At about 11.20 am, he has another Zoom call with them all, to go through some of the work set and to tell them any difficulties we had in class with the work. It seems to be working very well.