Schools still a covid shitshow

[noblegiraffe]

"Schools have been forced to send year groups home this week because of "rapidly rising" Covid rates among staff and an inability to find supply teachers, it has emerged.

The removal of the need for Covid testing among staff and pupils was making the situation worse, with some schools now experiencing their worst absence levels of the pandemic, a headteachers' leader told Tes.

Heads warn that some schools are having to send year groups home on a rota or combine class groups in an attempt to protect exam year groups from more disruption."

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/covid-schools-absence-send-year-groups-home-cases-spike

Some will claim that getting rid of testing would improve the situation, but clearly a situation where lots of teachers are getting ill and requiring a few days off school to recover, regardless of isolation rules, is not 'getting back to normal'.

The teachers that I know who have had covid recently would have required a few days off school despite it being 'mild' even without isolation guidance, even though teachers are well-known for dosing on Lemsip and turning up to school regardless of illness because setting cover work is worse.

Still, the covid catch-up effort has basically fizzled out, and it's looking like zero effort will be made by the government to support children in recovering their education from the impact of absences and lack of teachers.

Exams start in a couple of months for kids who are having an extremely disruptive time. The government has fixed the exam grades so that they will come out with better results than the 2019 cohort, this will basically cover up the impact on educational standards. How this will play out down the line at uni/college/sixth form is anyone's guess.

In my dept of 6 none of us had it until the end of January this year, since when 2 have tested positive. We’ve been told to stay off if positive in a bid to keep the spread to others minimal. I hate being off it’s so much harder than just going in and teaching. Staff absence is as bad as it has ever been. Y11 absence is dreadful, with exams looming.

But Noble, as we know, people will stick their in their ears, singing "lalalalala" until it affects their child.
And then ask why nothing has been done about it

I don't think most parents think like that at all.

They are very aware of the implications of their children or their teachers catching covid. We understand that there's a virus out there!

Our school has been absolutely brilliant. I have a year 13 and his teachers have really done a wonderful job preparing him for his upcoming Alevels.

Not only will they do that but they will call you a lying doomonger for posting about it.

I actually do think there's a lot of 'doom mongering' going on here

And my dc has found the reduction in exam content in two of his A level subjects very helpful too.

No reduction in either of the a level subjects I teach and the advance information is laughable

@Lilaclavenders

Not only will they do that but they will call you a lying doomonger for posting about it.

I actually do think there's a lot of 'doom mongering' going on here

What doom mongering? Versus what's actually going on in schools?

I don't know much about other subjects but I do know that the Modern Foreign Languages exams have a huge amount of help/guidance.

The only reason that advanced information has been provided is because otherwise the grade boundaries would have to be so low as to be ridiculous.

The advanced info isn't actually going to make any difference to the grades the kids will get.

The advanced info isn't actually going to make any difference to the grades the kids will get.

But it will help them by reducing the amount they need to learn. It reduces the pressure. Well for my dc anyway.

Will reducing the content and advance information have an impact on any students taking the subject onto the next level?

Since the advance info for lit is "act one" (and by the way you still need to know the rest of the play) and for Lang is "a speech", no.

I dunno, for my maths group who are grade 4/5/6, knowing that sine and cosine rule will definitely be on the exam is increasing pressure on them to learn it, where previously they wouldn't have.

@toomuchlaundry

Will reducing the content and advance information have an impact on any students taking the subject onto the next level?

Technically they left it so late to release the info that most of the course should have been taught anyway.

Good question. Thankfully my dc isn't planning to study any of the subjects that will have 'easier' exams. He is however trying to learn the whole Maths/FM content as he's planning to study engineering.

@noblegiraffe - I think part of the solution has to be more investment in education, in teachers so that there isn't the bare minimum of teaching staff allowed by LAs for each school. It would be bloody expensive to have extra staff on the books but frankly I would prefer this so that there would be:

• proper cover if teachers off for whatever reason
• specialists able to cover subjects appropriately
• teachers freed up to do other stuff including more support for kids that are either struggling or at the more gifted end and becoming disenfranchised with school because it isn't stretching them.

I would prefer more of my taxes employed more teachers. BUT actual teachers - not the nonsense that goes on in my LA area where people are supported to train as teachers and over a third of them (pre-Covid) buggered off to teach abroad without any penalty. Ditto the ones who train as teachers and then take up senior education posts in the LA at huge salaries. Ditto teachers who then take on special roles in schools to focus on resilience or wellbeing or whatever. Quite a lot of highly qualified teachers at DS school no longer, you know, actually teach.

These are not specifically Covid issues though. I think Covid has just exposed chronic under-investment in the education system. Rant over

Reduced content! Ha! Red rag to a bull for a sociology teacher...

I think part of the solution has to be more investment in education, in teachers so that there isn't the bare minimum of teaching staff allowed by LAs for each school.

I agree that there needs to be more investment in education and more teachers (and not allowing teachers to pocket the bursary and never teach in a state school). I think the role of the LA here is overstated though - the vast majority of secondaries are now academies, quite a few primaries and the aim is for all schools to be part of trusts by 2030 I think.

So the 'senior education posts' have moved from being LA roles, to being academy trust roles. I'm not sure there's much oversight of this, they certainly fucked up when they didn't put a cap on academy CEO pay.

@noblegiraffe

The government suggested solution to massive teacher absence was amalgamating classes, putting them in the hall supervised by the janitor etc.

As a short term one-off fix maybe, but surely that's not going to be the solution going forward? Educationally it's total shit.

My colleague in our little Languages Dept is in the throes of his 3rd covid bout. I doubled up all our Year 11 classes last Thursday and Friday, so my maximum of 34 pupils a room was ignored by SLT (I had 65 kids in at one point) because we had so many staff members off.

Luckily, my wild Year 11's were incredible - saw my anxiety, saw that I was doing my best to get them exam ready (first ofal less than 3 weeks away) and listened and behaved amazingly.

This isn't sustainable though. I haven't had covid at all yet, but it's only a matter of time with the numbers I'm teaching at the moment.

*first oral exam coming up in 3 weeks

Ditto the ones who train as teachers and then take up senior education posts in the LA at huge salaries.

Owwh, where? Please tell me, I do that role and earn less than I did as a senior teacher and as a headteacher.

[quote MrsAmber]@Nosetickle I’m thinking I’ll have to send him in but will test every morning, secondary school and I don’t know their current stance on this. PH state if negative they go to school, just feels like a ticking time bomb![/quote]
Totally no judgement but this is absolutely why it is spreading so much.

This has by far been the most disruptive term both at my sen school and at my Son's secondary. He's in y11 and has missed so much time from having covid as well as due to teacher absences. I'm trying not to stress about his upcoming GCSEs and just have to hope he achieves what he needs for sixth form. It just feels like we're in survival mode to make it to the end of term yet again.

Which, when you think about the disruption we've had in previous terms, is insane.

I suppose the difference here is that parents are likely to be less aware that their child's education is being adversely affected. Many will think that as schools are open, then all is well, whereas when they were (mainly) closed, it was very obvious that things were awry. I wonder which of the two scenarios has the better capacity for smooth provision of work?

Kids and staff catch colds multiple times in the school year!

Hardly ground breaking is it?

Who even cares anymore?

My kids have had it twice, just a sniffle. I honestly can’t think of a single person in real life (from all walks of life) who actually cares about it anymore.