Westminstenders: Where are we now?

[RedToothBrush]

Twenty thousand people
Cross Bösebrücke
Fingers are crossed
Just in case
Walking the dead

Where are we now, where are we now?
The moment you know, you know, you know

Just that.

Don't really want to reflect more than that right now.

£5 an hour is pretty close to a volunteer rate.

More support for children to help overcome the loss of learning during these lockdown weeks should be welcomed but only if it is properly funded and capable teaching provided with a considered plan not some knee jerk government rushed and poorly implemented action.
As a Governor at a small rural school, we struggle to recruit any part time 'out of hours' staff. We are miles from any potential source for student tutors. There is no public transport. Some pupils use provided home - school transport to travel so have no flexibility to arrive earlier, stay later. As with most guidance from the DfE at this time, there is little to no evidence that any of those who are drafting or approving it have any current knowledge or experience of schools - their pupils, staff, buildings, communities.

If people are determined to see the negative in everything then there is little anyone can say to the contrary.
Watching Newsnight on the schools issue now

The Government has declined to participate in Newsnight

@thecatfromjapan

They're so shabby.

Gavin Williamson: a prime specimen of Johnson's Cabinet of shifty, incompetent mediocrities, incompetents and zealots. Sacked by May for leaking details of closed meetings.

Can you imagine a Top Trumps of this lot?

Integrity: 0
Intellectual power: 0
Capacity to fuck things up even more: 10

I want the Grayling card if thats the game

Not surprised about that Queen seriously? why should they bother with Newsnight given the bias of the programme

Lol school leader on Newsnight. “government guidance has come out at 7’ o clock in the evening to be implemented from the next day.

Forgive me for this but holy fuck, it’s not even dark at 7pm in the springtime, what the issue with this. Get it sorted schools.

So Louise how do you expect to garner any actual knowledge from a govt that won't do interviews with people it hasn't given the questions to?

You're just being a wind-up now, Louise.

You know as well as I do the problems with having to change plans for opening a school being changed at 7pm for 8:30 implementation.

Louise, I'd like to see you create, say, an event for 300 people between 7pm and 8am tonight. You also need to inform all parents and do safeguarding, and be ready with valuable content for said event which should last 7 hours. For every day until the end of July. Off you trot.
FGS

LOL @ 'I want Grayling.'

@thecatfromjapan supporting the Tories has clearly taken it's toll

Paying schools to source the provision does sound to me like it will be planned and funded.

I am afraid that it sounds like another 'back of an envelope idea.'
It's not being negative to question why any half cock scheme is good enough for our children.

Now here is a positive idea - why not ask teachers what they would do to help the children catch up with missed work?

“government guidance has come out at 7’ o clock in the evening to be implemented from the next day.
Forgive me for this but holy fuck, it’s not even dark at 7pm in the springtime, what the issue with this. Get it sorted schools."

Louise Are you joking ?
Have you ever actually had to organise something for a large number of vulnerable people, while satisfying a number of legal regulations ?

The government apparently has as little idea as you do, which may explain a lot about how dire their performance has been

Louise by way of example that your opinion of school staff and the work that they have been putting in is ignorant.
Johnson announced Yr R, 1 and 6 pupils to return on a Sunday afternoon. First guidance published Monday evening. School senior leaders then started to plan. Many went for a rota or part time plan because of the restrictions of max no of children to staff bubble and further restriction in actual classroom capacity to also permit 2m social distancing. Next amended guidance on Thursday evening said provision must be full time. The guidance is now on the 5th or 6th iteration. School senior leaders - back to the drawing board.
Schools cannot go 'rogue' and just decide to ignore all the guidance.

I would say the biggest barrier to more children returning at the school where I am a Governor is parent fear/concern. This is a direct result of the handling of the pandemic by the Government.

And put some proper money into the scheme. Get your tax dodging friends to stump up!

It's back to the Cummings/Gove idea that anyone can teach. They can't.

Why not fund schools with online learning packages and laptops for those needing FSM to enable interactive learning and let teachers teach online as many private schools do?

My grandchildren aren't yet old enough for school but this is making me really angry. The way they have dealt with the covid tracking and tracing has been a joke and now they want to squander our children's future.

Although I suspect that the loss of SATS isn't too much to get upset about.

BCF again it's onus on the school having to jump to the govt's impossible bar, set without any actual knowledge of how schools function.

For comparison to the UK,
I posted this on another thread, describing the process to reopen German schools pt:

"...when schools returned pt here on 4 May, it was the result of several weeks planning and discussion,
so the planning was started during the higher deaths in March-April

Head teachers were given guidelines about distance, hygiene etc and asked to plan for their individual schools, including what resources they needed

• e.g. extra staff, budgets for training, then frequent deep cleans -

and what pt system they thought best suited their schools

This new system had to slide in to replace some of the ongoing online education

They consulted with the local authorities and sent in the final version to be signed off.

It was decided - on the basis of need and ability to SD - that the first students to rotate in should be the final year of primary school and the 2 years at secondary with exams next year.

They agreed the reopening date and planned when to rotate in other forms
Also that PPE would be optional for staff & students, to help reassure those who wanted this secuirty

It was all done on the basis of consultation & information,
no grandstanding or scapegoating by anyone that I could see.

The whole process seemed reassuringly calm and professional, no drama

• which is as it should be: don't bugger about with kids' education"

I think we need to remember Gove and Cumming's history in "education", which explains a lot.

BigChoc

I notice
They consulted with the local authorities and sent in the final version to be signed off.
It was all done on the basis of consultation & information,

This Government has wantonly ignored local authority public health expertise, in favour of giving money to their private chums to fail to organise proper testing, and this is yet another silly idea that someone has had. This Government does not do consultation.

I don't know how old Johnson's children are - the one he doesn't acknowledge is probably the only school age one, so he will neither know nor care.

Mind you BigChoc - the Germans learnt in a very hard way what happens when a Government goes bad. Which may be why they are making better efforts now.

@LouiseCollins28

Lol school leader on Newsnight. “government guidance has come out at 7’ o clock in the evening to be implemented from the next day.

Forgive me for this but holy fuck, it’s not even dark at 7pm in the springtime, what the issue with this. Get it sorted schools.

Ignorance. Stunning, completely oblivious ignorance. Prideful ignorance, even.

Remember the civil servant who said we didnt get the ventilators cos of pettiness over Brexit?

He's being retired off

news.sky.com/story/sir-simon-mcdonald-top-foreign-office-civil-servant-to-retire-early-next-year-amid-department-shake-up-12009117
Sir Simon McDonald: Top Foreign Office civil servant 'to retire early next year' amid department shake-up
Sir Simon McDonald was said to be planning to be the top mandarin in a larger department but he will apparently step down in 2021.