even if that 'side' wins and achieves a staggered start for schools?
I'm struggling to see much benefit. Let's say secondary schools let the odd numbered year groups back and kept the even numbers at home till Easter. It's not going to reduce the numbers in a classroom, is it? There will be still be 30 in a class because, if they used the empty rooms to spread them out and made classes of 15 like in the summer, who will teach the year groups at home who need remote learning? It would be the ideal job for the shielding teachers but a) secondary schools have subject specific teaching and b) there would be still be half full classrooms of unsupervised children in school.
I teach Years 3-8. If I am told tomorrow that Years 7 and 8 will stay online while the rest goes back to normal then my timetable will become a hybrid. On a Tuesday for example, I might teach Year 4b physically, Year 6a physically, Year 8a online, Year 5b physically and Year 7b online (not a real timetable or class names). I wouldn't be free in the 3rd and 5th periods to cover half of Year 3b and half of Year 6b who have spread out for infection control.
So it just seems to me that we'll still be back to packed classrooms but that not all children will get the benefit of returning to school.
I can totally see why, with the current trend of falling infections, rising vaccines and promising vaccine data, that the decision is currently that all children should return to school on 8th March. I want that and am not afraid of it but I work in a smallish, safeish school and am healthyish and youngish. I fully appreciate that others are not so fortunate and that something needs to be done. I just don't think a phased return is the answer.
Rotas make much more sense if we need to limit the numbers in a classroom (and I can fully believe that we do, in secondary schools in particular). Would all year groups in 1 week in, 1 week off (or 2 days each with a cleaning day on Wednesday) and static online work on the other days not work better for secondary?
Primary is harder, certainly. I think some could achieve a rota. Those that couldn't are maybe the smaller ones who would manage better being fully back.
My school couldn't do rotas because the parents wouldn't accept non live teaching and wouldn't pay the fees. We could possibly zoom half the class into the classroom. But I think we could easily all go back because our class sizes are smaller. But then there's the inequality issue if some schools do that and others have rotas.
Aargh, no easy answers. Sorry, late night, pointless rambling because I can't sleep with anticipation over 'the announcement' (which will probably be a pre leaked damp squib that will be sat on, retracted and reformed 50 times before the 8th anyway!)