School Staff Shortage

[needabreak5]

So there will inevitably school staff shortages in the coming weeks due to isolations. How do you think schools will plan/manage this? Will they take some kids and not others? Close the classes of those whose teachers are affected? I'm just wondering if there are plans in place that anyone knows of?

Each school will handle it differently, depending on how many and which staff are off, also how many children have covid and whether it's classified as an outbreak.

Unless you think the DfE have a plan and the answer is No....

Just to say, I don't work in education but both work full time in 'key/critical roles' and have 2 young primary DC. We've all had covid this past week while on holiday so hoping to get back to work next week!

@JanglyBeads

Each school will handle it differently, depending on how many and which staff are off, also how many children have covid and whether it's classified as an outbreak.

Unless you think the DfE have a plan and the answer is No....

The DfE plan will doubtless arrive just in time to undermine whatever plan each school leader has spent their Christmas trying to put in place.

I suppose we'll just need to see how it pans out! Its seems that a high proportion of the population have already caught it but not sure how true that is!

Our school has an emergency management plan and has had it for a very long time. It's been updated to reflect covid.

The first steps are simple like closing classes with outbreaks, running PT schooling for all pupils right up to needing to shut the school.

We've only ever got as far as closing 1 class for a week and having 4 classes do a 4 day week on rota.

No one wants this and we were all broken by December.

In ROI they've released final year student teachers from any exams/coursework/class commitments to leave them free to sub. Seems like a sensible move.

That won't work for students on a PGCE, which is the most popular training route in England.

Luckily the DfE have begged retired teachers to sign up with supply agencies to prop up schools. They don't know how many have actually signed up as a result, but I'm sure that it will solve the problem, even if schools can't afford supply teachers.

The DfE plan will doubtless arrive just in time to undermine whatever plan each school leader has spent their Christmas trying to put in place.
Never a truer word was spoken

We’ve been told that the children will go in on a rota if there’s staff shortages, SEN school so it’s looking likely.

It will be exactly the same as before xmas. School staff stretched to the absolute limit until they can’t keep going any longer. Then individual classes / year groups will close. And round and round we will go.

My school have a variety of plans. There are 0 supply staff. I mean who would return back in the current climate unless you absolutely had to and most on supply don't absolutely have to. And those that do are already snapped up on long term contracts covering the supply drama already happening.

Firstly We will move to a hybrid model once crisis point is reached. Rota those in and out throughout the weeks. If out it will be online live lessons. When out the most vulnerable
And key workers will also be in. It's shit and no one wants to do it.

We prepared and updated all of our remote learning resources before the holiday. That way students at home isolating can stay on top of things if they are well enough. If we have to reduce classes years 7, 11 and 10 will be prioritised with in school learning with the other years given live remote lessons but I don't think that will happen, we just about managed before Christmas and we had 10-15 staff off some days so hopefully we've seen the worst. Although we are on the coast without any major transport routes and have been a few weeks behind London throughout the whole pandemic and haven't really been hit by omicron so it might get worse yet.

Well, I know that to be completely untrue in my area @Whatelsecouldibecalled - our schools has had countless supply staff in over the Autumn term! We had a huge outbreak in October and had about 20 different supply teachers in & out over the course of 3 weeks 🤷🏼‍♀️

One of those was an ex teacher at the school. She quit in 2020 due to stress & had been a childminder for a while .. but have been back supply teaching this school year. She says it’s the best of all worlds. She’s young & deffo not remotely worried about covid, she’s got one hell of a social life post teaching 😂

*this is primary admittedly.

I really don't think many retired teachers could keep up with teaching now. It's tech heavy and so much has changed (in primary anyway) even in the last 10 years. That is, if they even want to volunteer. DBS checks?!

In my school we had 23 staff and 100 children positive with covid at our worst point last term. It was highly stressful. Governors volunteered to come in and work in the office as all our admin staff, head and deputy were off. 2 governors then caught covid. TAs were teaching classes of 30 on their own. Not even their usual classes and moved around daily. Children who are entitled to 1:1 support didn't have it. Teachers cleaned toilets, dished up school dinners and set up resourcing for 3 classes as well as their own. Hone learning had to be set and marked. Behaviour was very challenging as children had no continuity of staffing. All teaching staff covered duties every day with no time to eat. It was extremely stressful and unsafe frankly to be open so I hope the parents appreciate how hard everyone worked. The quality of education and care we could provide wasn't up to the normal standard either despite huge efforts from all of us. It was just firefighting.

My nieces school have sent an email to all parents asking them to arrange alternative childcare as it is likely they will have to close some of the classes in the New Year.

Our school have a covid plan that’s been in place since September. There are various thresholds for measures being introduced, including temporary closures of classes where necessary until the teacher can return & staff ratios return to a safe level.

Quite a bit of it was invoked during the outbreak in October & worked reasonably well..

Who knows ?? In my area there were no supply staff in December- I source the supply and work with 3 agencies. Usually I get CV's sent and take my pick. Just no one at all available... recruitment telling me that people just don't want to work in schools

@Bobholll that's great you've managed to get supply. We haven't or have really really struggled. In secondary northern big comp.

I am an HCP and we are all absolutely burnt out with annual leave cancelled and pressure to work extra shifts. I expect school staff will be the same, stretched even thinner than ever until breaking point - leading to longer absences when staff are completely destroyed!

I am sure there will be regular class closures due to no staff too. Will be a complete nightmare for everyone, including parents who need to go to work. Sorry for the doom and gloom post, but we have to be realistic!

Well, I already know we need 6 supply staff on Tuesday and Wednesday at least, probably rest of the week. Also waiting for 5 staff PCRs and know of multiple waiting doe their own kids.

Last term we needed a similar number of supply and got absolutely nothing all week, so had groups in the hall watching movies, sent 6th form home in small groups etc for 'independent study'.

I am not rested at all from last term and am already trying to source staff for next week to prevent utter chaos.

I’m dreading Tuesday. I’m SLT and one of my responsibilities is making sure every class has a teacher in front of them. I have no idea how many staff we’ll be down but am trying to work out a plan. I wish Tuesday was an INSET day so I had an idea of what I was working with. Instead I’ll have about 10 minutes to sort it all before the students arrive.

We only have 3 teachers and 2 TAs at our school.
If 2 of the 3 teachers are off then the school will have to close, because of safeguarding.
One of those TAs is a 1:1 and would be very uncomfortable with being in charge of a class. Frankly, for what she gets paid why should she have to do something she is not just uncomfortable with but unqualified for.
In this situation there will be no keyworker provision either. In our case we had 11 children in key worker spaces last time.
Something planned (from dfe) might just make the difference. Otherwise if this is reproduced across the country there will be not only the problem of people off with Covid, but people unable to work because of their children.
I am dreading the thought of all the in/ out in school and home learning extra work and disruption.
I haven't had Covid yet (God knows how!) My goodwill has run out. If I get Covid, which will probably be due to no mitigations or some selfish arse sending in a sick child, even if I'm not very sick, I will not be working if I am at all unwell.
My daughter's teacher was making home learning videos when clearly unwell, it's appalling!
Things could be so much better with some proper forethought and consideration. It's been 2 years (almost ) fgs!

We can combine some classes, do extra teaching and duties, send home Year 7-9, then do a rota.

The first two have already happened, which led to me (a secondary trained teacher who had only just started at a prep school) being asked to teach phonics to Year R for a week as that was what lined up with my timetable. It did not go well because although I’m good at my job, I have never been taught to teach children that little, or how to teach phonics. I learnt to read by whole word recognition.

Emergency/contingency plans in place supported by risk assessments. These follow DfE and PH guidance.

They plan for every eventuality with 'full closure' as a last resort.
However, no staff, especially those responsible legally for safeguarding, means no school.

There are very few supply teachers/headteachers around and those that were have taken long term contracts where long COVID has meant a teacher can't return.
IME, schools were 'open' but unable to provide a quality education in December due to severe staff shortages.
My LA for warned that we are 7 days behind London as far as COVID numbers go so the difficulty with a huge rise in cases will be seen in January.