Long story short
First case May 10.
By May 17 th, half of all year groups at home. Many staff sick. Some departments have no staff at all. Some students sent home for lack of staff, rather than quarantine.
20th May. School closed. Half term brought forward one week
31 May. Reopen.
1 June several more cases identified
3rd June. All lower school sent home. Year 10 and 12 kept in only. Masks, which had been optional, are now made compulsory again. Too late
7th June. School closed again. I am now teaching online
So in the last few weeks, I have spent 3x longer on COVID related activities than on teaching. Including trying to get students home when classes close, and they can’t use public transport. Teaching doubled up classes, 30 online, and 30 in front of me, because there are hardly any staff in. Administering tests. Taking students to and from the testing site. Recording results. Cramming information in subjects I know nothing about, but have been told I am about to teach. Much of the time students have just been told to read in silence, while we get on with our main business, as a covid testing site.
So please put masks on your children. There is no reason for a secondary aged child not to have a mask on their face, and a spare in their bag, and a spare spare.
And please support what’s schools are trying to do to enforce masks.
I see so many posts of mothers up in arms about masks. We are desperately fighting to keep education going, and we need your support
I belong to a MAT composed of 3 large secondary schools. Within our 3 schools we have:
A 15 year old boy who developed type 1 diabetes when he caught Covid
An 18 year old girl who lost most of her hearing through covid
A 14 year old boy whose heart has been left so damaged by covid he might need a transplant.
It’s heartbreaking.