Who qualified for school last time?

[Wednesdayafternoon]

This is a completely hypothetical/information only query. Not scare mongering before I get accused!

My son wasn't in school in the last lockdown so it never applied to me so I don't know what the rules were.
My exH works in a children's home and I work in a call Center in the finance/insurance sector. My colleagues told me that last time they were provided with a letter to give to school to secure a place for them to go. Although we can wfh, there's no possible way we could watch children as we take incoming calls all day. I'm currently working in the office as I am having technical issues with my equipment.
I am living with my parents but my mum watched my 1 year old. She's late 60s, she wouldn't be able to do the home schooling etc.
Ds1 behaviour can be difficult and I'm very concerned what lack of school would impact on him.
How likely would all of the above secure him his school spot in schools did close from your own experience?/what do I need to do to ensure he goes?

Like I said, no scare mongering just after experience

@Cuck00soup

Totally agree you can't blame parents for the situation. Or schools.

Yeah, our school were completely shit last time but they were set up to fail. Can't educate one lot of infant school kids in school and another lot online simultaneously, without extra resources. The fault is with the government that implemented this system.

Can't educate one lot of infant school kids in school and another lot online simultaneously, without extra resources. The fault is with the government that implemented this system.

Ours had teachers in on a rota. The hub was staffed by one teacher per age group and the rest TA's then the teachers at home worked collaboratively to deliver the online learning for the rest. Can't really blame the government if your school did not manage to implement something similar

My kid had 24 of her 32 person class in as key workers last time. It was a joke. My DD cried every single day seeing all her friends in the classroom on zoom. It really knocked her, she couldn’t understand it at all (she’s 5). I could be classed as a key worker even though I don’t really need to go into the office. I will be 100% getting a key worker letter if it comes to this in January. I’m not putting her through all that again 😒

@liveforsummer

Can't educate one lot of infant school kids in school and another lot online simultaneously, without extra resources. The fault is with the government that implemented this system.

Ours had teachers in on a rota. The hub was staffed by one teacher per age group and the rest TA's then the teachers at home worked collaboratively to deliver the online learning for the rest. Can't really blame the government if your school did not manage to implement something similar

Well for a start, it's the government and only the government who were to blame for creating a system where some children were considered worthy of school and some not.

For the rest though, I'm interested to hear more about how it worked. When you say hub, was that mixed year group? If so how was one teacher able to manage the education part to them? Our school is quite small so I don't know if that made a difference. There would've been too many infants in for one teacher though. Average was about 14 in each class of 30. My child with SEN wasn't allowed in but some were.

I've already had this conversation with the school head in preparation (I cope better if I know I have ducks arranged in a row). We both fall under key worker categories - but it's pushing it a bit for DH and I fall under it as a healthcare student needing to attend placements. However DD1 is now awaiting CAHMS therapy and expressing some very very dark thoughts for a 9 year old, and DD2 was so badly affected by the first lockdown that I asked the Head (it's a new school to us) to put us on the families that will really not cope list and if he needed to do so to justify it, refer us to social services (there are a few Heads unscrupulous enough to be doing this to "weed" out families who really aren't "serious" enough). He's said that yep, we're on the radar and don't worry if schools closed as they'll have a place.

@VikingOnTheFridge the dc in class were doing the work set for those at home rather than the other way around if that makes sense. So mostly TA's over seeing it was fine. Teachers were at home setting the work online with one in for each stage depending on numbers.

[quote liveforsummer]@VikingOnTheFridge the dc in class were doing the work set for those at home rather than the other way around if that makes sense. So mostly TA's over seeing it was fine. Teachers were at home setting the work online with one in for each stage depending on numbers. [/quote]
Sorry still a bit confused. When you say hub was there a hub for each class/year bubble? What happened with the SEN kids needing more support?

It is clear that schools with large numbers of children in as key worker children could not staff online school properly. If you have the same number of groups of 20 odd children then they need a teacher. Where are the additional teachers going to come from to offer a good online service. Where I work there were very small numbers of key worker and vulnerable students in so the online provision was really good as we had the staff to provide this.

Ultimately the kids should and I think will be in school for the majority of the time. I think there will be closures on a local level and there might be rotas at times of real difficulty. However, the online provision will not be as before as schools will not be able to staff this. It would however be better for kids to get as much face to face normal teaching as possible even if they don't get online provision on days when their year group or class is not in school. I would like to see the govment getting Ofsted inspectors into schools to boost the workforce over the next few months. These people are ideally placed to provide good quality lessons when staff are off sick.

Apologies if I'm missing something really obvious

Sorry still a bit confused. When you say hub was there a hub for each class/year bubble? What happened with the SEN kids needing more support?

It depended on numbers. For example p1 own bubble. 3 at home one in school. 3 TA's
(3 classes normally)
P2 and 3 together one bubble. One teacher and 3 TA's. 3 teachers at home although 2 different year groups work to produce

Dc who normally had 1:1support still had their 1:1.

At work we ended up having a separate key worker bubble which was all year groups in together as most of our dc fell under the vulnerable or asn category and it worked better that way. DC's school is a very different demographic and didn't do that so a bit of school discretion. Not all dc attended every day

@Bobholll

My kid had 24 of her 32 person class in as key workers last time. It was a joke. My DD cried every single day seeing all her friends in the classroom on zoom. It really knocked her, she couldn’t understand it at all (she’s 5). I could be classed as a key worker even though I don’t really need to go into the office. I will be 100% getting a key worker letter if it comes to this in January. I’m not putting her through all that again 😒

Should be like parties, invite more than half the class- invite the whole class.

I teach primary and I was in on a rolling 3/4 day week and teaching at home the other days. My bubble was 25 kids. My own secondary kids were not offered places or laptops and did bugger all as my laptop was either at work being used for teaching. I did end up paying for another which they had to share. Eventually they were offered places two days per week but as the school bus service wasn't running they couldn't get there anyway and I was already in school.