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.

@greenteafiend what you suggest is already happening in schools. When we returned last year I was still shielding for a while. I wasn't ill just not allowed in. I taught remotely with a cover supervisor in the room. This is, unsurprisingly, quite expensive. But it was also variable. With our permanent cover supervisors (we had two at the time) it was a dream and we could even do live discussions. However, sometimes others were absent as well and with agency cover it just wasn't as good.

@greenteafiend

If you don't want TAs teaching classes, rruth, you need to explain exactly what you want to happen instead.

And "ventilation and masks!! because these are magic and will make omicron disappear" is not an answer.

I am pro ventilation and don't mind masks (kids in my country wear them anyway), but they are not going to do much more than "take the edge off" the spread of omicron. Omicron appears to be almost as infectious as measles.

What precisely can I do about the fact the government has ignored schools for a decade anyway and specifically during the pandemic has ignored all the implications of covid being airborne?

Personally speaking I do not consider a TA to be a suitable alternative. I'm not saying it won't happen, but the government have fucked up again and education is going to be affected.

My DH works in a private school which completely closed last Christmas for a week because is a huge rise in staff and pupil cases. Private school staff aren't immune. What many private schools have is smaller class sizes and staff with more frees. Otherwise, private school staff face similar pressures to state school staff. It isn't a separate world. The same DfE guidelines are broadly followed but what private schools can more easily do is add mitigations on top.

On page 1 someone said if 25% of staff were off, 25% of children might also be , so 'fewer to cater for'. I am not sure if that was literal as catering staff don't have crystal balls. Am assuming not though and feel then need to latterly point out that those absent children still need work setting, and checking and need catching up when they return. They don't just disappear!

Setting work remotely if absent is a moot point anyway. There still needs to be an adult in the room, so no staff saving there. In fact, the suggestion seems to be redploying staff form somewhere else, so something else isn't being done.

We had 25 staff off in November. It was just manageable but it was pretty awful and some kids were having 5 cover lessons per day for almost a week. 25% of our staff would be about 50. That is not education.

Omicron appears to be almost as infectious as measles.

The measles we vaccinate all children against? There's a plan...

DS is at a private school. He had 2 weeks of remote provision last term, due to number of COVID cases. A number of other year groups also did at other points in the term. Private schools are not immune. He is sixth form. One of his subject teachers was quite poorly with COVID, so for a few of those lessons he was asked to go through the topic himself. Then had a catch when both back in school

"better ventilation for schools" is something that is posted constantly without any actual thought of what it means or how it would happen.

Let's just say for a minute that the Government said money is no object. It would still take YEARS to achieve this in every school in the UK, or do people think there are 1000s of Heating, Ventilation and AC (HVAC) technicians and specialist building firms just sitting on their arses, doing no other work waiting for this call? Let alone the prep work for engineers/designers to survey all schools and design these systems?

It's not a problem that just throwing money (which the government won't do anyway) at will solve.

Secondary here and we already have 34% off with COVID we’re online as a result

I am also amused by the idea that workforce absence translates into people's heads as teachers. So the solution is always TAs and in house cover teachers. Who may also get Covid and be absent!

Also - site agents, catering staff, pastoral teams. These teams , especially the first two, massively affect the day to day running - and safety- of a school site.

I don't believe the 25%. Article actually says up to 10%, 20%, 25%. Some businesses may be badly hit. Some not at all. One of my part time jobs we haven't had a single person off with covid, since the beginning.

The measles we vaccinate all children against? There's a plan...

Sure. I'm planning on getting my kids vaxed once it's available.

But the covid vaccine isn't even remotely as effective as the measles vaccine. The measles vax provides something close to perfectly sterilizing immunity. The covid vax is nice and all, but it doesn't actually stop the virus spreading each winter.

"Deep-blue" parts of the US have jabbed the kids, masked the kids, and are making the kids eat lunch outside in the freezing cold. And they are still closing schools. These measures are not going to stop omicron from spreading, just blunt the edge a bit.

Blunting the edge might be a good idea.

@Oblomov22

I don't believe the 25%. Article actually says up to 10%, 20%, 25%. Some businesses may be badly hit. Some not at all. One of my part time jobs we haven't had a single person off with covid, since the beginning.

Tempting fate there oblomov !

We already had a situation where with delta, education staff were 37% more likely to become infected than other workers (source ONS) so it really isn't looking great for schools in terms of workforce absences, I'm afraid.

Do you work where the majority of the people you mix with aren’t vaccinated @Oblomov22?

@NinaDefoe

It will be just fine! They will have so many retired teachers queuing up at the door at 8am the first day back schools will be over-staffed if anything.

In the unlikely event that doesn’t happen maybe the Government should appeal for parents to come in and teach a few lessons of Year 9 maths. What could go wrong?

I heard they are offering £250 of shopping vouchers for retired teachers to come back to teaching. Of course they will be lining up.

"Blunting the edge might be a good idea."
Most of us are fine with doing stuff to blunt the edge, but I think the point is that we need to have contingency plans for widespread absences anyway.

I've had to arrange alternative childcare this week, as nursery cannot operate at current staffing levels.

As if yesterday A&E wait times were 40 hours.

Anyone who has not been living under a rock for the whole of 2021 should know that the COVID-19 vaccine and the measles vaccine are not remotely comparable. The COVID-19 vaccines are mostly for preventing serious complications. They are less good at stopping spread and they are certainly not going to result in COVID-19 being wiped out of the country, as is possible for measles.

I think giving children the vaccine is fine, I just don't think we should kid ourselves that it's going to have dramatic effects on the spread of Omicron.

@user1477391263 and What contingency plans would you like?

All well and good giving staff no PPA or using admin staff. But that work still needs doing.

We don't have the tech capacity for a single room with 64 kids being taught one live streamed lesson. Each room of 32 would need supervision which means the same number of staff are required. Class sizes are already 28 minimum so no spaces to combine (apart from options subjects, in which case why combine French and dance?).

Supply and cover staff are difficult to get and retain. They also get covid too.

If you think for £14k per year you could control 30 teenagers of varying attitudes and abilities, including those with challenging behaviours, whilst guiding them through a lesson plan in maths or chemistry or german, well good luck with that.

Combining classes is my worst nightmare. We have 3 rooms that can accommodate more than 30 kids (although we actually have classes of 34; they sit at a fold away table in those rooms, or we have a board across a sink in science).

1 room is the canteen. We eat in there.
1 room is the sports hall. We already teach in there.
1 room is the actual hall. We have over 100 Level 3 BTEC students with 16 different exams running until the 20something of January. And then the Year 11 BTEC students in February.

Speaking of exams, we've managed to bring in less than 50% of thr invigilators we need; usually retired people. Seems like no one wants to come into a school.

A PP has asked what we want, for us to be more productive.

We need to protect our exam classes. Our year 13 cohort have never sat external exams as their GCSEs were cancelled. This has a huge impact on our vocational students studying BTECs etc as their Jan 21 exams were cancelled, followed by June 21 exams. These Jan 22 exams are crucial, not only for their qualification but future study; if the only exams they sit are done terminally they have not had the chance to develop the skills that vocational study supports. They will move to university without the chance to develop proper exam skills, independence and resilience etc as although we have done internal assessment and numerous mock exams, they haven't sat in an exam hall with the real pressures, feelings and experiences.

We needed a staggered start to the year. Or blended learning to just reduce the number of bodies in the building. If we could have just had exam classes for a few weeks (plus keyworker support as we have done previously, or even all of year 7) we wouldn't have 2000 students in a building (more than 60% unvaccinated, more than 50% refusing to test as of the end of term). A few weeks to reduce the pressures and impacts would help. Tomorrow I will see my students with exams in a fortnight and I can't guarantee they will sit them. I'm confident that some of them won't.

That is a horrible situation to be in, and not only will we be firefighting, dealing with poor behaviour, a lack of supply teachers, cleaning toilets myself, we will be dealing with declining student mental health with the stress of all of this. My emails from distressed students over Christmas have already indicated this.

I know the thread is about schools, but it's also about the article itself. Sorry I wasn't referring to schools in my comments, I was referring to businesses generally. Some will be very badly hit, others not so much.

In secondary's here many children have had first vaccination and many have had second, even in year 8. At least that helps.

@PersonaNonGarter

It won’t be 25%

20% of our staff tested positive on the same day, just before Christmas. 25% seems high as an across the board percentage but not unlikely in some schools.

@TerraNovaTwo

at some point soon omicron will run out of people to infect right?

^^

Adult popuiation about 55,000,000

Infections per week about 700,000 (conservative estimate) means 78 weeks
Infections per week about 1,400,000 high but possible) means 39 weeks

Assuming that everyone can get a mild form. If you assume vaccines give 75% protection against any disease (over optimistic, that's the figure for protection against hospitalisation, not being ill at home, and assumes total adult vaccination) then those figures become 58 and 29 weeks

But, it doesnt allow for previous 'wild' immunity (unknown levels), the vaccination levels (over a third completely unvaccinated in sine boroughs) or the likelihood of exponential growth in the early weeks.

TL:DR - maths isn't going to save us.

@Timetobuckup

And as per usual they are telling us this 2 days before schools are due back in.

@Mickarooni yes care homes and health settings as well.

Just seems such a throwaway article with little sense of urgency on how it will bugger us all up.

as per usual they're telling us 2 days before

With the greatest of respect, the staff shortages in all sectors due to high infection rates has been widely broadcast. Why are you waiting for the school to tell you anything? This is a moving target that we all need to prepare for.