MNHQ here: Details on school closures from the Department of Education

[AnnaCMumsnet]

Hello

We have been contacted by the Department of Education about the school closures affecting Primary and Secondary. They say:

"The Secretary of State for Education, Gavin Williamson, has today announced plans to keep early years, schools, colleges and universities open from January.

"The government will now begin applying the contingency framework for education and childcare settings in areas of the country with very high rates of incidence or transmission of the virus, with the first areas to move into the framework listed below. The framework requires secondary schools and colleges to offer face-to-face education to exam years, vulnerable and critical worker children, and remote education to all other students.

"Please note that vocational exams scheduled for the first weeks of January will go ahead as planned."

Return dates for primary and secondary schools & colleges in England

4 Jan – majority of primary schools start returning
4 Jan – secondary schools and colleges to provide remote education for exam years and face to face for education for vulnerable and critical worker children
11 Jan – face to face education for exam years and vulnerable and critical worker children and remote learning for other secondary school and college years
18 Jan – secondary school and college students return for face-to-face education

"In the following local areas under contingency framework, all primary students will receive remote education. The areas will be reviewed on 18 January and any secondary schools in the areas will provide remote learning except for exam years and vulnerable and critical worker children:

London
Barking and Dagenham
Barnet
Bexley
Brent
Bromley
Croydon
Ealing
Enfield
Hammersmith and Fulham
Havering
Hillingdon
Hounslow
Kensington and Chelsea
Merton
Newham
Redbridge
Richmond-Upon-Thames
Southwark
Sutton
Tower Hamlets
Waltham Forest
Wandsworth
Westminster

Essex
Brentwood
Epping Forest
Castle Point
Basildon
Rochford
Harlow
Chelmsford
Braintree
Maldon
Southend on Sea
Thurrock

Kent
Dartford
Gravesham
Sevenoaks
Medway
Ashford
Maidstone
Tonbridge and Malling
Tunbridge Wells
Swale

East Sussex
Hastings
Rother

Buckinghamshire
Milton Keynes

Hertfordshire
Watford
Broxbourne
Hertsmere
Three Rivers

"For more information please go to www.gov.uk/government/news/school-contingency-plans-to-be-implemented-as-cases-rise."

Just posting this here (from this morning) so , well done DfE, MNers can now see for themselves how poor and incompetent your decision making and messaging is. You have just literally had days to come up with something, announced it in parliament , sent out press releases, posted on MN and now changed it because a few HTs queried it (and presumably you realised you were breaking your own 'Greenwich Law')

Yes, that will save granny. So what, at least granny actually had a life while she was alive!!

Couldn't resist highlighting this delightful nugget of ageist nastiness though...what is wrong with people?!

Jesus I’ve just read LittleBearPad’s comments.

Does everyone seriously believe the staged photos, that children are spending their days at individual desks, in airy, ventilated classrooms with a teacher 2m away? That each bubble has their own sink and toilet? That cleaners come in and disinfect everything like every other workplace?

I’ll say this again, with a weary sigh. Schools have been operating on shoestring budgets and a skeleton staff for years. Do you think they’ve got slack to pay for extra cleaning requirements or supply when staff are isolating?

All it would take to mitigate risks would be for the DFE to actually LISTEN to ISAGE and WHO recommendations and then FUND schools properly to put measures in place. That’s it’s.

And as for where they could get the money from, how about a tiny slice of whatever they paid for now unused Nightingale hospitals with?

I'd very much like to know why sen and alternative provisions have been so ignored in guidance. Beyond "you're staying open regardless." Only Kate Green mentioned us yesterday.

We have a higher number of adults to pupil ratio, more pupils with health issues and fewer groups who can cope with unfamiliar faces with supply staff. No ppe unless changing a child or teen, very close physical working environments and no masks.

And yet when rate rise and bubbles close and staff are ill or having to look after their own children, classes, bubbles and schools have to close.

Sen schools have the same transmission rates as secondary.

I completely agree we should be open; I know the safeguarding issues we had in lockdown and how hard it's been for some pupils to return. We are 50% social workers, Ed psychs, therapists.

Why aren't staff in these settings (who are mostly low paid but highly skilled teaching assistants) being treated and valued as front line hcps and being offered vaccines soon so they can continue to do their highly specialised work and look after, protect and teach society's most forgotten about vulnerable pupils?

I completely agree we should be open

To a point, if rates are as high as they are in some areas down south it's folly. It's perfectly possibly to run a part time rota for our pupils to half the number of staff and pupils in classes but keep up a routine of school attendance, full time for those most in need.

And testing may not be an option for some of our pupils.

Everywhere has changed its practice. Schools now are not what they were a year ago.

Yes they are! Bar a cardboard 'station' at each classroom door with a box of tissues and a bottle of hand sanitiser, plus a strip of tape down the middle of the corridor, my school is exactly the same as it was a year ago!

I can go hours completely forgetting there is a pandemic/epidemic until I goto the shops for lunch and realise I don't have a mask with me when I get there.

The DfE had handled this incredibly badly. £1k bonuses for their own staff, the government giving £2bn+ to their cronies and yet the NHS and education remain chronically underfunded.

"Schools are safe" my arse.

What an utter joke.

If it’s not safe to send secondaries back without testing HOW IS IT SAFE TO SEND PRIMARIES BACK??

If areas of London have closed with lower rates than our area (pockets of 900/100k) HOW IS IT SAFE TO SEND OUR PRIMARIES BACK??

If we know from experience that rates came down in Lockdown 1 (schools closed) but didn’t in lockdown 2 (schools open) HOW IS IT SAFE TO SEND PRIMARIES BACK?

If we know that community spread both drives AND is driven by schools and community spread is at an all-time high, HOW IS IT SAFE TO SEND PRIMARIES BACK??

And finally WHY can’t we ask children of all ages and teachers to wear masks? What’s more important - them being in school or them not having to wear a mask?

Schools are NOT SAFE. I was a conservative voter all my life. This government is lying to us. It’s making one mistake after another. It’s sentencing thousands more people to death with its incompetence.

If they want schools to go back like we all do, they need to GET RATES DOWN AND MAKE PRIMARIES SAFE!

Sorry for caps everyone, am just hopeful that maybe this get picked up in the event someone is skim reading it who has a modicum of input into decisions.

Also are teachers allowed to complete remote teaching from home so they can be safer or do they need to be at school? The government haven't even given them the first thought have they?

Applause to @SnowGnome

Well said.

Official DfE guidance on facecoverings in primary:
face coverings will not be necessary in the classroom even where social distancing is not possible. Face coverings could have a negative impact on teaching and their use in the classroom should be avoided.
They could change this ^

Yes - masks should be in all classrooms from age 6 now - as they are in Italy, Spain, France, asian countries who haven't managed to suppress the virus to very low levels, large parts of the US (the bits that are doing ok with numbers) etc etc

If their children can manage, so can ours. Do we really think our children are so pathetic they can't cope with something so minor to save lives? It's the least that needs to be done.

It's a predominantly airborne transmission route so you can wash your hands until they're red raw and bleeding but it's going to do next to nothing to stop spread, particularly if children are sitting right next to each other inhaling each others breath for 6 hours a day with LITERALLY NOTHING stopping the exposure.

It also shows DfE can't do basic risk assessment.

Which has a more negative impact on teaching in the classroom? Masks (teachers can get clear ones, by the way), or having half the class off sick, including the teacher?

Gavin if your reading this.

I'm discussed at your statement you just made in GMB.

How DARE you basically say schools have been given 78b funding, instructions, guidance, tests and PPE and time and then say "if they are still struggling after all the support ......." and basically say schools will be at fault.

Get your backside into a school. Go and visit the people who's lives you are deciding on and talk to people on the ground.

You are clueless. If you care as much about children's education as you say you do go and find out what students are actually going through, what schools are actually like.

I really don't see how DfE are ensuring a safe workplace for teachers without masks. It's so basic, it's akin to allowing building sites to operate without hard hats.

There are many reports of teachers in ICU now and some who have died. It's an appalling breach of workplace safety that the most basic of safety measures is explicitly advised against in DfE guidance.

@SnowGnome

What an utter joke.

If it’s not safe to send secondaries back without testing HOW IS IT SAFE TO SEND PRIMARIES BACK??

If areas of London have closed with lower rates than our area (pockets of 900/100k) HOW IS IT SAFE TO SEND OUR PRIMARIES BACK??

If we know from experience that rates came down in Lockdown 1 (schools closed) but didn’t in lockdown 2 (schools open) HOW IS IT SAFE TO SEND PRIMARIES BACK?

If we know that community spread both drives AND is driven by schools and community spread is at an all-time high, HOW IS IT SAFE TO SEND PRIMARIES BACK??

And finally WHY can’t we ask children of all ages and teachers to wear masks? What’s more important - them being in school or them not having to wear a mask?

Schools are NOT SAFE. I was a conservative voter all my life. This government is lying to us. It’s making one mistake after another. It’s sentencing thousands more people to death with its incompetence.

If they want schools to go back like we all do, they need to GET RATES DOWN AND MAKE PRIMARIES SAFE!

Sorry for caps everyone, am just hopeful that maybe this get picked up in the event someone is skim reading it who has a modicum of input into decisions.

Excellent post.

The decision to close schools in some parts of London and not others makes no sense. Lambeth's case rate is higher than Southwark's abs yet their schools stay open? Why? Won't this not just make closures less effective? Do DfE not realise that children often go to school outside their borough? Do they not realise that these places are all really near each other? They need to explain the rationale

Just echoing this. Lewisham and Greenwich both notable omissions from the list.

Schools are NOT SAFE.
I want my children back as much as anyone. I have a Y11 with SN and SEN but still no EHCp (thanks to Govt cuts). He is at an Appalling Academy (thanks to Govt cuts, & the only school within 30 miles). He WILL fail his GCSE';s this year and the effect on his MH will be awful (1 suicide attempt already re this). I am scared if schools stay shut.
BUT it is quite clear that they will be either outright shut or severely disrupted for longer than necessary due to the Govts wilful incompetence. Providing basic PPE, funding for laptiops (both my kdis qualify and not a sniff), funding for hand gel etc. It isn't THERE.

Gavin Williamson / iany of your Dept if reading, you should be utterly ashamed - to your boots. Your 'statement' yesterday was so poorly worded your Dept had to ask MN to post a clarification late last night.
Your further words this morning have made it clear that parents going back to work, teachers and most importantly children are all 'cannon fodder',
Your inability to tell the truth or to organise the proverbial drinking match in an establishment which makes beer is simply shameful.

sb: 'Gavin Williamson / any of your Dept if reading'

Great post 52. Sadly, as with their facebook page, they won't be reading.

I think the little *s in the 18th Jan column of the DfE poster is telling.

For primary it says Y1-6 at home in some areas- does that mean EYFS can go in?

I asked questions, that’s all, about what money could be spent on now that would make a difference.

Schools have received money for cleaning, it’s not enough but they have.

The school I know, well, is not the same as a year ago. No assemblies, segregated playgrounds, segregated classes. Doors and windows to the outside are open pretty much the whole time. It’s obvious the children don’t social distance and I’d hate my children to experience some of the measures there have been pictures of - SD pool noodle on your head anyone.

But ranting about the DfE doesn’t help anything.

thanks, @Piggyinblankets.
I didn't think it was very likely but it's got it off my chest, much like in the Relationships board where they suggest you write a letter to the person then burn it!
I wrote to my MP, the Conservative Party HQ and the PM's office last year about an issue I felt strongly about (Cummings trip and BJ response to it). I have never in all my years felt the need to write before. It took 3 months for my MP to send a cut and paste reply. Never even had a 'thank you for your letter' from CPHQ or no 10.
They couldn't care less. We are all cannon fodder now.
(sorry for the downer)

@MNHQ

Will you be putting any of the questions raised on this thread back to DofE?

I think there are some important ones which have still not been answered publicly, and which it would be scandalous if policy has been made without full consideration (ie answers to questions in those areas should be readily and rapidly available)

@LittleBearPad
Schools have received money for cleaning, it’s not enough but they have.

No, they haven't.
The DfE said that they will refund some of the money to schools if they have to buy in extra cleaning as a result of having a full scale outbreak.

This is not the same as funding enhanced cleaning and just shows, again, how effective the DfE propoganda has been.

Schools have received money for cleaning, it’s not enough but they have.

That isn't true.