Todays u-turn from DfE, key workers working from home should NOT send kids to school

[Esmerelda01]

In case you've not seen.

Could cause a lot of people issues on Monday

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/09/school-guidance-for-children-of-key-workers-changes-again?CMP=twt_a-education_b-gdnedu

Its irrelevant what the guidance says anyway as each school makes their own rules.

Not u-turns, simply rolling with the curve balls that this virus throws at us all

Grow up

"Let's hope there's no one coordinating the vaccine response or doing similar crucial work in this position"

I must admit, if this were me (keyworker now allowed childcare), with all this pressure on, I'd say F*k it and give up. Resign or take leave and someone else could do the overwork or the work could go undone.

*not allowed....

Me and DP are both in HE so classed as critical workers (but not key workers, my work doesn't effect the teaching). Kids have been in school this week. We will now have to home school 3 young children and do our jobs. Should we keep them in school or at home?

@wonderup

NotSoHappyNewTier

Nothing has changed, Unions and the Guardian are still peddling propaganda to further their own agendas.

The Guardian used to be excellent, what happened?

fuck knows! and they are now apparently trying to charge us for this frankly piss poor so called “journalism” to add insult to injury

@BlackeyedSusan

the requirement should be say, 8-10 hours maths and english minimum (in total) for primary ks2 spread over the week so , maybe an hour a day after work, plus a couple of hours a day at the weekend. kids keep up, but it is flexible so parents can fit it in around their work. optional tasks, perhaps more work on your own tasks for year 5 and 6. Educational tv. The expectation that kids are doing fixed hours of homeschooling does not work around peoples fixed hours of work.

employers should also be required to be flexible if work can be done out of hours.

prioritising ks 1/sen ks2 in school as they need more input and supervision at the best of times.

The problem is that parents are in different situations. Having a reasonable amount of work each day is enormously helpful for me as it keeps child busy whilst I work.

@Lightsontbut

WFH does not mean you are not working in a key and essential role. When my kids were 8 and under there was no chance of working whilst looking after them. I think we perhaps need to give some parents with younger children permission to just not give any significant ed at all as that seems to be confusing the picture. Do you want people to educated the kids or do you want them to work? For some people doing 9 hour days 'at' work in public sector roles there is not really enough time around that to do anything with the kids. So this pushes people to send kids in as they realistically can't do both.

Why should the children miss out?

Keyworker children need an education too!

@BlackeyedSusan I completely agree with the flexible approach and what you suggested is really close to what my school is doing.

We aren’t doing live lessons (primary) apart from a twice weekly “ class meeting “ which is basically a general chat and so the children can see each other. All lessons have a prerecorded video along with a lesson plan of tasks (all explained and demonstrated in the video) The videos remain on the online platform and can be watched when it is convenient for the child and their family. No one therefore has to miss anything. Maths and literacy are daily lessons and generally last an hour for KS2, less for the younger ones. The other subjects are certainly in the plan as well but many are coordinated together and projects, offering a variety of methods to present, are set. There’s a minimum of four video lessons on each day, and so far many parents are definitely pulling out the maths and literacy and leaving the rest, which is fine, we don’t know the situation. We’ve been told not to push because people are on their own timetables.

What we do have live however is the teacher online. There’s different time slots throughout the day where the teacher is on a live Meeting that children and parents can join if / as they wish to discuss / get help with the work set and that’s timetabled (so between 9 and 10 the topic is maths, 10 - 11 the teachers there to talk about literacy etc.)

I think some parents who are sending in unnecessarily aren’t realising that the learning at school in most cases is identical to what children at home are receiving. My TA is in (and I’ll be in next week because we are already loosing staff) showing my class (reception) the videos of me, then they do the work and then they play. They’re not getting anything else - no extensions, no PE, no clubs, just the lesson on the video.

Our senior management have made it clear that, if these children were at home like their peers, they wouldn’t be working all day most likely. All children are having an extra play and all playtimes are much longer. The SLT have said the staff can definitely give them free time on iPads / computers to play games, TAs have been told to break the days up with walks round the field and that they can put a film on in the afternoon as most children are managing to complete their work by around 2 / half past. Tbh it makes sense when there’s less children and you remove assembled, the general school life of lining up perfectly and the hustle and bustle, nothing takes as long.

The article being questioned on this thread isn’t saying anything helpful about change - the changes they’ve made will do nothing. It could be a warning sign that the government will have to clamp further though. I don’t know

@NotSoHappyNewTier

You're right but I think if we want to give all kids an education right now we can't significantly reduce the numbers at school. There do seem to be expectations of more actual home schooling now rather than a just keep them safe and calm message which is confusing the picture for parents who genuinely cant do both. And there are lots of such parenta

@BungleandGeorge then yours could do the extra stuff if you need it. do the maths and english first say and then add in a choice from what else is on offer. (geography or history say) more flexibility is needed.

@Bananabuddy3 that sounds great.

@dumbledory

And yet, Early Years education is still expected to open to all children without any mitigating measures or PPE in place. Makes perfect sense...

I'm glad for school staff, but am genuinely confused why Early Years are expected to continue as though we have a magical protection schools do not.

Absolutely this. The virus doesn’t say ‘ohh hang on we’re about to transfer to a 3 year old, let’s not, let’s look for a 6 year old’....

I will just add (because clearly we are all wide awake) that I really feel for you all. I have my fair share of crap to deal with in this whole mess but I’m not having to juggle children with it and even if your role isn’t deemed “critical” - it’s still critical for your family to keep mouths fed and the roof over your head. I hope everyone on here can work through this (in every sense of the work) and I’m sending all of you a nice big glass of wine or a cup of tea if you prefer

[quote BlackeyedSusan]@BungleandGeorge then yours could do the extra stuff if you need it. do the maths and english first say and then add in a choice from what else is on offer. (geography or history say) more flexibility is needed.

@Bananabuddy3 that sounds great.[/quote]
If something is optional they tend to watch telly or do something else instead! If there’s no expectation from the teacher that it will be done, no teaching and no feedback it’s not getting done. Live lessons are good because the child has to be there at a certain time and not just put it off and it’s managed by the teacher and not the parent. 8 hours seems like very little for year 5/6, less than 2 hours a day. I’m not complaining, certainly not to school they’re doing their best to please everyone.

Me and DH are both key workers so could technically send DS to school, but we are both working from home and able to keep hIm at home so that's what we're doing.
It's a hell of a juggle but it's doable for us so we shouldn't increase the numbers in school unnecessarily.

We are in the same position, what I would appreciate though is the removal of the expectations that children with two key workers can also home educate, at least at primary level and at least following the timetable and work laid down by the school. I am just about to start working now to catch up on work I usually achieve during school hours. He can occupy himself or sit in with siblings but he won't do school work without a mighty battle which we just don't have in us at the moment. He has been excused from English and Maths but has to do some of the other subjects 'because they don't have evidence that he has completed the curriculum'. We are in the middle of a pandemic, we are keeping our children at home to reduce the spread, right now I am not too bothered if he can't explain what Epiphany is (beyond what we as a family do) but can discuss predator life cycles from watching a documentary while I teach and dh tells someone steps to take to remove objects which a teen might use to kill themselves. If there was less pressure on key workers to also follow the school's plan that would help. It should absolutely be offered but not pushed.

Its only guidance, not law though? So those who are clearly exploiting the system to send their children in will carry on.

This needs to be made much stricter and not left to head teachers - as @messywessy says some are pressured to give out places - a strict legal backing would make it easier for them to decline.

Our school has already asked that only those with two key worker parents, neither of whom are at home, come to school. My work has told me I'm a key worker, apparently all civil servants are which is hundreds of thousands of people, but between my husband and myself we can manage home schooling. Neither of us are doing our jobs to the best of our ability and our children aren't getting the attention they would if we weren't working, but we're coping. I think they are trying to narrow the criteria to those who really need it, not those who can manage as well as private sector workers. It is not easy for anyone.

I agree it would help parents working from home if primary schools provided a more flexible approach. Having to log in at set times for live lessons is really difficult when you're working. That said the live lessons being delivered are brilliant.

@MintyMabel

No doubt some idiot MP will suggest giving children free headphones if their parents WFH! Or, as pretty much every person on every call I’m on does, the person working can wear a headset. It works better to avoid feedback too. It irritates me when people don’t wear them.

How does that prevent children from hearing what you're saying?? (It doesn't).

Nothing of value to add, just a moan, but the world and his wife have their children at our school under the key worker guise. One is a part time admin key worker who does 2 days a week, her kids are in 5 days while her DH is off working as a non essential builder. It is ridiculous and not in the spirit at all. We on the other are not using the provision (even though we could as I am non clinical NHS), juggling between us and DH is losing money taking days off as self employed. We have had Covid so not particularly scared of it but want to do our bit to just try to get out of this shit show. Feel frustrated and sad for our kids that we seem to be in the minority, stuck at home while everyone else sees friends at school.

Well that was a clever move in a pandemic when a lot of NHS critical workers do their jobs from home (dealing with confidential information and constant calls/meetings about and from patients that are unsuitable and illegal for kids to hear!) Fine if you’ve got teens who work in their rooms, impossible with young kids who need to be in the same room.

We’re going to end up with more staff leaving the NHS or taking unpaid leave, great for the pandemic!

@Pastanred

this has always been guidance our school begged key workers to keep kids at home back in march

Numbers generally were not high when kids attended the hubs. Plus the details form was from GORSE and you had to book the days you needed each week unlike now.

People were scared in March and listened more. Parents are now worn out trying to juggle everything I don’t know how the school will enforce this.

All schools are different in their approach and how they interpret gov guidance. We’ve got a lot of vulnerable children in as the SLT have phoned and persuaded many families to send the child in. Other schools have high numbers of KW children as they’re near teaching hospitals.

In my school all staff must be in every day to work their normal hours even if they’re not doing face to face teaching that day. Other schools have teachers teaching live from home and TAs supervising in school or allow a mixture of school and home working.

In some schools which are still piling unnecessary pressure on staff e.g. through excessive meetings and monitoring, they might have people looking to work elsewhere. I’ve heard about a secondary school where SLT drop into the teacher’s live lesson and formally observe it! Likewise parents might move children to another school when a space is available. I just wish people would be more tolerant of the pressures that we all face at the moment - parents, school staff and pupils. I don’t know anyone who has it easy at the moment.

The actual truth:

dfemedia.blog.gov.uk/2021/01/08/am-i-a-critical-worker-or-are-they-vulnerable-or-without-internet-access-or-broadband/

Take note of these sentences:

If a child has a parent who is a critical worker, it is for the parent to decide whether they are able to keep the child at home. We encourage parents to consider the spirit of the lockdown when making their decision. Only one parent needs to be a critical worker, and they may be working from home and still require their child to attend school.

Schools should continue to encourage vulnerable children to attend, and make provision where critical workers identify a need for their child to attend.
Schools are free to clarify a parent’s critical worker status, but should not seek to discourage critical workers from sending their child to school for any other reason.

So all those parents struggling to WFH with children pleasant without neglect then ignore this thread, it's shock bollocks

I suggest you actually read the guidelines not social media/the guardian before declaring a u-turn.

If your a teacher using these sources as a basis for making decisions, just don't.