What are your predictions for this school year?

[Sheepsheepmoresheep]

Be interesting to look back. I didn’t think they’d close the schools again this time last year, but I was wrong!

I don’t think they’ll close the schools again … but we’ll see!

Thought we had just been getting on with it. How horrible we all are asking for a few of the measures most other jobs have had for months. Terrible people teachers, wanting to protect students and their families. Can't understand why people send their children to be in our care all day as we are so lazy and useless.

I don’t think anyone is saying things will be fine this year,, @mumsneedwine, we can’t know which is why I started the thread, it’ll be interesting to look back on, but we all talk about our own experiences.

If you work in a school where half the staff have declared it to be too risky and have walked away from teaching, then your perception is going to be that that is happening on a nationwide level. I don’t think it is. I don’t have any official stats - I’m not a mathematician! - but i couldn’t believe the number of applications for teaching posts in our school this year. That is not typical in the slightest. I remember recruiting for a teacher back in 2017 and we had the grand total of five applications, and one of those was unqualified to teach 11-18.

It’s easy to forget that the repercussions of covid aren’t just covid, and some of the implications for travel and the like are yet to be felt.

I don’t think your claims that masses of teacher shortages will be crippling the country are quite right, the opposite seems to be true from what I’ve seen. There will always be subject shortages and regional shortages, it’s the nature of the beast.

I think sadly @BustopherPonsonbyJones that isnt true. I think a lot of places were having measures or working from home but the 19th July restrictions has meant that a lot of places are going back to as normal as possible.

We are all going back in (admittedly less days) but to less desks so although less people it is still crowded. Lifts are crowded and masks are optional.

And this is a pertinent point because the effect of spreading in schools and offices is now going to potentially merge like it hasnt before. Lot more people on public transport (again masks are recommended on the train into London) etc

@mumsneedwine

Thought we had just been getting on with it. How horrible we all are asking for a few of the measures most other jobs have had for months. Terrible people teachers, wanting to protect students and their families. Can't understand why people send their children to be in our care all day as we are so lazy and useless.

Ffs. Check out food factories, abbatoirs, the office I work in, so so many other places. Teachers are not special.

On the school vacancies - I don’t think that the job advertisements tell the full story. My school has lost 7 classroom staff this year. It has recruited 1. Because of the financial situation in schools, the staff leaving have been covered by spreading existing staff, usually at a lower level, a little thinner. PPA and NQT time covered by TAs, not by a teacher (so a class can be taught by a TA for a full day each week) meaning that the teacher can be released as part of a patched-together jobshare to cover a class. 1:1 TAs covered by lunchtime staff staying on for the afternoon. Class TAs, where they exist, being shared part time across multiple classes, and only then if they aren’t being used instead of supply etc etc.

Don’t believe that no advertised vacancies = no departures. And this extremely stretched new staffing means that we are more than ever vulnerable to class closure if several staff get Covid, are waiting for PCRs or have to look after young children with Covid.

70 applicants for one teaching job in secondary!! 😮 I’d love to know what your school’s secret is. We’re an outstanding rated secondary school with a good reputation for being a nice place to work in a well-connected part of outer London. We still really struggle to fill jobs.

We often have to re-advertise roles or use agency to tide us over when we can’t recruit. In some cases we’ve been totally unable to secure specialists and have just had to use anyone from other departments with slightly light timetables to cover a timetable that we can’t get anyone for. We’ve also been lucky to recruit some really excellent staff in the last year and a half, including some cracking NQTs, but they were not selected from a crowded field. We were just fortunate that among 2 or three applicants there was someone really brilliant.

You only need to isolate while waiting for a PCR if you have symptoms, Cant. If you're merely a close contact you can crack on.

What hadn't occurred to me until I saw it on twitter was that I knew parents would be unhappy at their child sitting next to a kid whose household had covid and not being told....it's entirely possible that they would have been sat next to a child who went on to test positive for covid and not be told.

Close contacts would be advised to take a PCR, but close contact no longer includes school contact so there'd be no sign the child was off with covid, not even an X on the register anymore.

It’s a shame the thread has turned into a teachers vs the world argument.

I think the problem is that when ‘mitigation to prevent closure’ is asked for its really easy to assume that firstly these mitigations are benign and secondly to assume all teachers want them. Neither are true, in my experience.

Face masks are very difficult to teach in and imagine difficult to learn in, too. Likewise opening windows, not too bad in September / October but when it is properly cold it is uncomfortable for everybody.

But in RL, all the teachers I know are desperate for normality, for own classrooms, for no face masks, to have things as they were in 2018/19. Which seems a horribly long time ago

@Reachersloveinterest where did I say they were special ? Please read CAREFULLY as I have said many times that other industries have been treated just as badly. It's not a race to the bottom - I have a very big case of deja vu from last August with these conversations. And look how well that worked out.

Anyhow, most of this lot will be in classrooms next week. (2019 photo but it's Stormzy on main stage tonight so will be full). Mostly not fully vaccinated. Good luck everyone

@Sheepsheepmoresheep I don't know any teacher who doesn't want things back to normal. My school will be from Friday. I'd love it if it stays that way all year, I don't want

Whoops. I don't want to go back on line. Unfortunately Covid doesn't care and is still there. So why not at least try to prevent the spread. I don't get it. No mitigating help at all and we will be back to last year. I want to stay open, I want to be back to normal and stay there.

I think it will be ok. I think most people will just get on with it now.

@mumsneedwine do you not think you are being just a tiny bit hypocritical?

I don’t begrudge any of the people there a bloody good time but then I’m not the one complaining that they’ll be back in schools next week.

I’ve just been trying to find stats about teacher recruitment for this year - lots about teachers planning to leave but I don’t have any actual figures, which is really what we need. Otherwise it’s just all ‘well in MY school …’

@Sheepsheepmoresheep

I’ve reduced my classroom teaching to 1 day a week and from this term (on less money) going to do 1-1’intervention work in my school. From
Dec knocking off that 1 day a week teaching and picking up another day intervention work.

Less money but in my eyes less risky and also I was getting so fed up of the daily shit of teaching

You only need to isolate while waiting for a PCR if you have symptoms, Cant. If you're merely a close contact you can crack on.

I know. But when DD had Covid in the middle of the high peak in July, it took 5 days to get a PCR and its result for someone symptomatic. I think cases will easily get as high again, and despite increasing reluctance to test in the community, I think waiting times will go up a lot and this will impact on absence for those with symptoms which could be a cold, Covid, flu, RSV etc etc .

Certainly I won’t be battling into work with ‘possible’ symptoms. I will be at home for as long as it takes to get a PCR and its results,

@User5827372728, not a year goes by where many teachers don’t decide to leave, retire early, be SAHPs.

What I’m looking for is actual stats about how many teachers have left this year, if that differs notably to ‘normal’ years. It will be interesting.

@Sheepsheepmoresheep ???? My DD is in that crowd. And is there again this weekend. Don't begrudge them having a fantastic time as they've had a shit 18 months.
But to have them all back into my non ventilated, rather small classroom on Friday with no masks seems a bit nuts.
Boardmasters went sooooo well.

I must say, my experience isn’t that people who are leaving teaching are doing so because of Covid risk though. In my school the vast majority of staff were actually in favour of us loosening restrictions and would have preferred fewer covid measures in place. The average classroom teacher is young and not vulnerable in my school. The problem is that those who are worried about their safety or that of their families, whilst being a relatively small minority, have the right to feel safe coming to school. We had more than the minimum measures in place for most of the pandemic. Far more people grumbled about them being too strict than those who were worried about them being not safe enough. Ultimately lots of people feeling irritated by there being fewer seats in the staff room or having to have a window open in the classroom and the door propped open was a price we paid for other, more vulnerable colleagues feeling safer at work.

The impact of covid on workload has been a much bigger factor in burning staff out. The provision of remote learning, the way in which students have come to expect much more online engagement from staff, the extra workload of re-planning lessons and schemes to work around covid restrictions when certain activities weren’t possible and the GCSE and A Level grading for the last two years have all been a big factor in driving staff out of the profession or requesting to step down from TLR and other more senior posts.

@MadameMinimes our 43 year old colleague died of COVID. So we may not have had the same experiences.

I think that’s a really interesting post, @MadameMinimes, and there’s a lot of truth in it.

I did find traipsing around the school pretty exhausting. I’m really looking forward to having my classroom ‘back.’

I think in the first lockdown not as much was expected from staff (I know this won’t hold true of every school) but the January-March one was awful.

I don’t begrudge any of the people there a bloody good time but then I’m not the one complaining that they’ll be back in schools next week.

She’s not complaining, just stating a fact.

That is just it. School staff are describing what the school environment is going to be like and predicting what realistically is about to happen. They are not demanding anything but it seems some people would rather not hear the reality as it's not positive enough.

It looked to me like ‘they are all going to Reading, so they should wear masks in my classroom’ (a rather brief summary!) but apologies if I misread.

@borntobequiet 🤪😂. My own DD will be in the mosh pit tonight I'm v sure. Having a fantastic time. She has antibodies and 2 vaccines and deserves some fun.
I know my students will want to protect me and will v probably wear masks next week without me even asking. Because they understand how COVID spreads.
Half one of my year 13 classes went to Boardmasters and 7 came home positive. Many work at Reading so will be there now. Bet it's amazing. But as with Boardmasters I'm v sure it will be a super spreading event unfortunately. Difference this time is that the kids will be back in school within 10 days. On buses with all year groups as no bubbles. In lunch q with all year groups. In corridors and squashed on stairs.
Seems nuts to me but not my kids so I'll just stay in my classroom and avoid crowded spaces. And keep fingers crossed as this seems to be the protection of choice these days.

@Sheepsheepmoresheep

It’s a shame the thread has turned into a teachers vs the world argument.

I think the problem is that when ‘mitigation to prevent closure’ is asked for its really easy to assume that firstly these mitigations are benign and secondly to assume all teachers want them. Neither are true, in my experience.

Face masks are very difficult to teach in and imagine difficult to learn in, too. Likewise opening windows, not too bad in September / October but when it is properly cold it is uncomfortable for everybody.

But in RL, all the teachers I know are desperate for normality, for own classrooms, for no face masks, to have things as they were in 2018/19. Which seems a horribly long time ago

Leave it to the individual teachers to decide what happens in their classroom then. I’m a big fan of autonomy. I’m quite happy for teenagers to go go the festivals and clubbing. I would request they wore a mask in my classroom so my risk is reduced when they return to school. Fair’s fair.

I’m delighted if everyone really is getting back to normal (although it’s not what I saw) because the shit will hit the fan for the important people and that’s when things are done. If they are all sitting at home, they pretend everything is fine.