So when are we going back to school?

[RaraRachael]

I was under the impression that NS had announced that all schools in Scotland would start back on August 11th. I have had surveys from my local authority asking when we would like the week's holiday in lieu and if we want 1 or 2 in-service days before we start back in August.

Last night a colleague posted a piece showing all the start dates from the different authorities - some were 10th August, !1th, 12th up to the 18th and 19th.

I am totally confused

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/81ce164e-adc0-11ea-82a8-65abc6fe2bb6?shareToken=b4a0548fa82991298f6ba9f804910f1e

It's near the end, paragraph starts with While ministers are considering...

To be pedantic, the WHO recommends at least 1m. And there's quite a big difference in transmissibility between 1m and 2m (I've also seen it described as 6 seconds at 1m compared to 60s at 2m (but there are other factors, such as face-to-face, voice protection etc that also increase the risk)

https://www.ft.com/content/8a8d68e6-baea-4a97-80b1-ccc8ed2eee03

From observation, even when it's 2m, most people only do 1.5m (or even less). When we got the tape measure out to ensure that my dad came over for a braai (bbq) on the patio on the 1st Friday lockdown was relaxed, it was further than we thought (we'd thought our oval table would be ok as it was, but we actually had to pull out the centre extension bit).

Anyone else seen the plans for their kids school yet? We got ours last week and I’m pleased with the plans. Each year will be in mon-Friday and have different times to stager those coming in and out, and my Ds is 5th year so they will be allocated as a morning person or afternoon. He will then attend for 3 hours and study one subject each day. This means they stay with one teacher and don’t move around the school, and classes will be kept to 15.

I think this works out pretty well for him, he can work at home too, as he’s doing highers i think this format will give him an experience that will help him when he goes to uni.

Other year groups are doing different things and the Nat 5s will be in more which I think is a good idea. I was worried they’d be in only a couple of days each week, I think bringing them in every day is so much better and gets them back to some sort of routine.

Lots of conflicting info then. Aberdeen city are claiming that they are making plans for the scenario where 2m changes to 1m.

Every council, and even every school within a single council are doing their own thing.

Nightmare for parents, appalling for children. And people "in charge" haven't a fucking clue. Do depressing.

With the numbers plummeting there is no justification for this. None at all.

Totally agree Sockyarn. No detail yet, but my council are indicating children will be in school 33% of the time. No idea how this translates to a school week, when they have also said that children will be in school full days at a time. My fear is that it could be just one day a week.

I felt utterly depressed after watching JS earlier today. How on earth can this be sustainable for another year??
Ds is starting an asn high school in August and I doubt there will be asn hubs to help working parents (I'm nhs and dh is scotrail), not jobs that can be done from home. I actually feel close to tears at thought of it.

Thanks for the link redsky.
Just realised they are quoting something he said in a webinar I was at.

The schools are under immense pressure. It's awful.

I think that parents are going to get increasingly vocal over July as they realise what a shit-show they have planned for our kids.

Then come around 1st August, St Nicola of the Dementors will announce that she has performed a minor miracle with loaves and fishes and "stay in the hoose" and how she is obviously WAY superior to that Boris bloke, she didn't get Covid after all did she, and look how a-may-zing your SNP is and guess what? Business as usual in schools from start of term. Aren't we awesome? We managed to get schools back ALL BY OURSELVES. Knighthood for Mr Swinney. Remember how tremendously brilliant we are when it comes to the Holyrood elections please, peeps.

That's my suspicion too SockYarn

Or we'll get 4 days plus a day for deep cleaning. Anything that looks like a massive vote-winning improvement on this.

@SockYarn I really hope you're right

I work in the NHS & our budgets were increased massively to help with covid-19. I even got a laptop, FFS!!!!
Recently retired NHS employees were called back to duty, overtime increased, staff redeployed during the crisis.

How can schools be expected to radically alter the way they operate, without any increase in staffing or budget?

I really feel for the teachers.

But there needs to be better funding. This is a national scandal.

@SockYarn has got it. Saint Nicola will do a massive U Turn at the last minute and my neighbours will repeat "thank god for nicola"

Like they know her personally, and why do all these Nats assume everyone votes the same way?

Anyway, this is worrying - twitter.com/EmploymtStudies/status/1272141001344389121

Not sure everyone can see that, but doesn't surprise me, and if schools don't go back fully, it will be much worse.

I want to WFH more but I can't be sure my employer will allow it, especially not for a full year.

With the numbers plummeting there is no justification for this. None at all

Totally agree. It is absolutely ludicrous. What a nightmare for working parents and the attainment gap will be HUGE if that's 18 months they're not in full time.

@thereplycamefromanchorage

We’ve been told 33% too and schools shut on Friday. So that’s only a very little more than one day a week.
Week one Monday and Thursday
Week two Wednesday
Week three Tuesday
Week four Monday and Thursday
Week five Wednesday

So it’s four days every three weeks.

That’s speculation on how they arrange it, might be more days at a time, but it won’t add up to more in total.

They will be screwed at the election if this madness goes ahead for a full year. They already don’t have a majority and even if they lose a small amount of their support they won’t get one. No majority and no support of other parties - Indyref kicked into the long grass for at least another 5 years.

I also suspect that laurel and hardy will magically pull an improvement out of their arse so that everyone thinks how amazing they are, maybe not by August but perhaps the October week

Plus how does “flexible working” work if you work nights in a care home and then need to come home at 8 am and school your children 3 days a week before going back to the care home.

I really hope you're right about it getting pulled out of the bag before August. It's going to be a fucking nightmare as it is with 2 days in/3 off (as our LA are planning) but no breakfast/after-school club available.

I've seen an article being shared today about Dutch schools going back full time for all primary pupils as of last week. I hope at the very least ScotGov are watching what happens there.

@greyishdays, suspect we may be in the same LA. That's what I thought too: 4 days over 3 weeks. Which is rubbish. Supposedly there will be more detail before the end of term.

Yeah. Probably. Not much time in school is it?

Why can't they learn from other, more competent countries? I gather that Swiss children are going back full time too. Primary children are already back at school.
I think they should at least move to social distancing of 1.5 metres, which countries like Germany have had from the start. That would help a lot.
I really get the feeling that the SNP don't believe in education.
I bet they cancel exams next year too. My DD will then have missed both Nat 5s and Highers. She was expecting to get all As in her Nat 5s. She'll end up with "qualifications" which employers and universities take with a big pinch of salt.
The most ridiculous thing is that children are mingling without social distancing already. There's not a chance in hell that any of them will spend the next year social distancing. So doing it at school is a waste of time.

If the bubbles are important, how can high school teachers move about from class to class? Surely that negates the bubble and increases everyone's exposure.

I saw this on Twitter. working parents are being encouraged to send it to their HR and SMT departments

tinyurl.com/ya8m79hn