If workplaces are planning on a 25% absence rate then how on earth are we all expecting schools to carry on as normal ?

[Timetobuckup]

I have just been reading in the BBC website that the gov are telling businesses to plan for a quarter of their workforce to be absent .
There is no way schools / colleges will manage with that amount of staff out.

I work in a secondary school and had a pcr this morning , my teen ds is positive and I am keeping fingers and toes crossed I am negative but not holding out much hope.
We are doing mass testing on Tues and I am really interested to see how many have to go home.

Children as vulnerable as described would be given places even in event of school closure.

The world is odd for weeks now we have posters saying schools must not clise my child needs an education by a qualified teacher, last time they fell behind at home etc etc
Alongside some posters who openly state they wont test their child and send them to school regardless because they have misses enough education etc.

Now it is pretty much known that in school doesnt mean educated it will likely mean sat in a room with an unskilled adult given worksheets or colouring. Now we get schools just need to get on with it

It is pretty clear that people only want childcare and are quite happy for education to slide.

Although going on about school being inportant for vunerable at risk children also seem to not understand that caotic situation where unknown adults are with a group means that at risk children situations wont be recognised.
Not to metion all the children who cant cope with change, all the children who need specialist support that wont gwy it and all the children who are medically vunerable or have a CEV parent at home.

@Isolated101

Equally if a child is assigned a 1-1 TA and that child us off, what happens to their TA?

Ours are only paid if the child is in - so child absent, TA absent. They could be asked to work, but the funding attached to the absent child wouldn't pay the TA to work with other children. The school would have to stand this cost from already tight/deficit budgets.

I’m just struggling to understand why every other sector is supposed to just carry on, in not ideal situations,

Since the first lockdown my husband has spent a max of 2 days per week in the office (currently wfh every day).
My DS, who has a long standing medical condition, has just had yet another consultant appointment cancelled.
My local pub has been open intermittently over the last 2 weeks due to staffing.
We had theatre tickets booked for last week, show was shut down due to Covid.
Schools are carrying on, just like other sectors, and just like other sectors they may be faced with being unable to operate a normal timetable.

@Icantremembermyusername

Supply agencies will be begging retired staff to cover! I'm sorted as covering a long term non-covid absence, but I know my agency is looking for more!

And retired staff will be loudly saying “no way”.

I’m just struggling to understand why every other sector is supposed to just carry on, in not ideal situations, other staff in other sectors are expected to work longer hours, cover different roles, do what they can to get through, but when it comes to schools any suggestion that’s less than perfect is seen as impossible?

I’m struggling to see where these longer hours are meant to come from.

At the moment most people I know are in school from the moment it opens to the moment it closes. Then doing more at home.

It’s not just a case of running it for longer you have to have a certain number of adults to a certain number of children. It’s as simple as that.

And skilled adults to boot. Not random adults in the building.

I don’t know what the answer is, I don’t know that there is one, but I do think that we need some understanding in what it takes to run a school in the government.

It is pretty clear that people only want childcare and are quite happy for education to slide.

No it isn’t. Who has said that?

Most people would much prefer children to get a proper education. But if that can’t realistically be achieved with high staff absence rates, and probably it can’t, then a lot of parents would take childcare without education over neither.

It seems a bit uncharitable to say on the one hand that people refuse to accept schools can’t operate normally with high staff absence rates, and then on the other to be annoyed when people do accept schools can’t operate normally. What’s the third option here? Make teachers work when ill? Magic ‘off’ button for Covid?

@toomuchlaundry as in my original post, I’d suggest temporarily closing a year group and moving learning online for a week or so, depending on where the staff shortages were and how many pupils were present in each year group. I think partial closures as and when needed seemed to work better last term than any of the other options available.

@AshLane that’s awful! Schools still get funding from LEA if a child is sick! We don’t have anyone assigned to a particular child, children with 1:1 work with a number of different people, if a child is sick the staff are sent to alternative lessons, it’s a rare day when we don’t have any changes to our TA timetable, there are children who could do with support but don’t have a plan that we cover when we can and there are often exams and assessments that require TA support and TA sickness is pretty common too as most are parents of young children.

The basis of the problem appears to be (again) last minute info from the government that makes them look like they’re doing something when in actual fact they aren’t. This scenario should not have been a surprise after the two years we’ve been through and yet here we are 🙄 Still no real detail from exam boards about this year’s adaptations - why we have to wait from last summer to Feb to find out baffles me ….. unless they were waiting to see how much of a shit show this panned out to be!

There is no magic fix but the reactionary behaviour from government is infuriating, And to those saying stop the negativity from teachers, it is because yet again this is happening with no clear leadership and direction from the government. No one can predict who will be off ill at what time and for how long. There needs to be a serious look at the curriculum moving forward and what can be omitted, picked up later etc as these children are facing years of ongoing disruption across all stages.

And yes many other sectors face issues - but this thread is about schools…

But other sectors aren't able to carry on either. Trains, hospitals are already flagging up emergency incidents caused by staff illness. Services are folding.

There is also priority.
Public sector staff will be redeployed to support the most vulnerable. We are so short (Brexit, vaccination,) of social care staff (1100 vacancies in my LA), looking after people who really can't manage very much for themselves - that education becomes less of a priority unfortunately.
My LA had emergency planning in place at the end of term, my role wouldn't necessarily be a redeployment to schools, but to social care where the emergency is much greater.

the reactionary behaviour from government is infuriating, And to those saying stop the negativity from teachers, it is because yet again this is happening with no clear leadership and direction from the government.*

I couldn't agree more.
Remember, it was only a year ago that some boroughs were being threatened with legal action for saying the needed to close, only a few days later schools were closed throughout the country.
We were told exams would happen, right up until they said they wouldn't happen.
And now we are back in the same situation.
Let's not forget that schools were struggling before Omicron, and yet again the government are panicking just before schools go back. It is a shocking lack of leadership, how many more times will they stick there head in the sand and hope it will all go away.

It is getting to the point that @AshLane is making - there are other priorities.
Two things about this situation really concern me- first the idea that schools are just the best place for all children and the risk of them being at home is terrible. For most children that is simply untrue- why on earth do we let children have school holidays at all if being with their families is so risky?
Secondly- the idea that this kind of cobbled together unplanned chaos is actually any kind of an education. We may need to go back to home learning for secondary age children who don't require supervision, furlough for childcare purposes and key worker childcare for a month or so to keep society ticking over.
Colouring a bunch of Twinkl worksheets in the hall is not a better experience than being at home for most children.

Agreed.
We have decided our children wont be going back at this point in time. We are lucky this is an option for us. But it looks like its going ti be chaotic at best through january

furlough for childcare purposes and key worker childcare for a month or so to keep society ticking over.

What kept society ticking over last time were massive numbers of workers continuing to WFH without furlough or key worker childcare. It was never the case that working parents primary-age kids were either keyworkers or furloughed.

I know @GoldenOmber - but that's not ideal either. Great if you can combine WFH with some kind of supervision for your children as the complete online learning tasks. If you need to provide childcare for your own children, you will need to reduce or compact hours in some way.

@visitingagain

It is getting to the point that *@AshLane* is making - there are other priorities. Two things about this situation really concern me- first the idea that schools are just the best place for all children and the risk of them being at home is terrible. For most children that is simply untrue- why on earth do we let children have school holidays at all if being with their families is so risky? Secondly- the idea that this kind of cobbled together unplanned chaos is actually any kind of an education. We may need to go back to home learning for secondary age children who don't require supervision, furlough for childcare purposes and key worker childcare for a month or so to keep society ticking over. Colouring a bunch of Twinkl worksheets in the hall is not a better experience than being at home for most children.

I agree I feel the posts on threads such as this using and exploiting "vulnerable " children is tired and worn out at this point. The memories if children are safer abd better served at home - even if those who were happy to do this were permitted it would have a positive impact in the bigger picture of things.

I suppose we could go back to the sort of ‘key worker children only’ that England had in the last winter lockdown? Would end up with an awful lot of kids still in schools, though (and an awful lot of grumbling about how those lazy mean parents just can’t be arsed etc etc etc).

why on earth do we let children have school holidays at all if being with their families is so risky?

I think that argument is somewhat illogical.

Being at home all the time instead of at school is risky - in terms of mental health, lack of social interactions, lack of access to computers, parents' inability to work etc.

That doesn't mean it's risky to have an occasional break from school and be at home?

@GoldenOmber

I suppose we could go back to the sort of ‘key worker children only’ that England had in the last winter lockdown? Would end up with an awful lot of kids still in schools, though (and an awful lot of grumbling about how those lazy mean parents just can’t be arsed etc etc etc).

Last lockdown we had 50% in. I expect it would be more this time.

The *majority of children"

If you need to provide childcare for your own children, you will need to reduce or compact hours in some way

Hahaha no, that’s not how it works. Jobs need doing, people have contracts, employers feel that chucking a few ‘wellbeing webinars’ at us will sort it, people work themselves into sobbing exhaustion. My employers were flexible for about two weeks at the start of the first lockdown and then, sorry everyone, work needed doing.

What I suspect would happen is that a lot more unfurloughable workers (like all of us on the public sector for a start) people would go off sick with stress, or would take unpaid leave and run up debt, or would quit. Not really compatible with society ticking over on large scale.

@Blubells do you think there is intrinsic harm for most children in being at home though? That seems to be the argument and when it boils down to it it's just about childcare, not education at all.
In my experience the children and families who were the most vulnerable were the ones who got the most support from schools throughout the first lockdown, daily phone calls, food deliveries, hub childcare, priority for laptops and free 4g dongles.
If we are genuinely getting to the stage where we are just cobbling it all together on a shoestring, we need to ask some serious questions about what is education/ schooling and whether babysitting is more important than a well planned curriculum followed at home.
For older secondary pupils there really is no excuse for them to be in.

For older secondary pupils there really is no excuse for them to be in.

I think there are lots of 'excuses' for teenagers to be in school instead of alone at home.

Ignoring the direct impact on schools for a moment, asking businesses to "prepare for 25% absense" and expecting services to carry on as normal, almost insinuates that most work places have a large % of workers that are somehow surplus to requirements!

Even if the government are stupid or naive enough to think the private sector has loads of workers essentially just "making up numbers" they must have figures for all the cuts they've made to the public sector?? (Police, health, education etc)

In one way I felt relieved (although it's meant really shitty holidays following mocks) that DD has had covid over the holidays but I'm sure the next month is going to be pretty disrupted regardless with teacher and pupil absences.
And who said most secondary kids will be double jabbed??
My 2 had their first vaccination in school in early October (fairly soon after the start of vaccinating 12-15 year olds) 12 weeks has literally just passed. DD got her 2nd jab in the holidays, the day before she got covid, DS couldn't have it because he had covid in November. but barely any of the walk in or bookable appointments are available for that age group. As well as the fact most of year 7 won't be 12, and many kids will have had covid in the autumn term (but not necessarily Omicron) so will have to wait longer for their 2nd one.