New Fred. It nearly ended in tiers.

[Cismyfatarse]

Sorry. Lost track of what was proposed. Hope this will do.

I wouldn't be devastated to see extra school in the summer holidays - conditional on not being able to go anywhere much, they've had plenty of time loafing about at home and tracking around muddy parks.

Teachers can't be expected to do it though as part of their existing job though.

I don't think teachers would want to do extra hours during the day or during summer, even if you paid them to do it . Not a dig at teachers btw, I'm just thinking that they already say they are under pressure.

I think the sad reality is 'education' delivered by cheap non-teachers that isn't an education after all but more of an out of school summer club.

I think it would be really unfair to ask teachers, and local authorities to do this. They’ve been dumped on enough.

I think extra days in the summer holidays would be great for kids to catch up. But completely understand teachers need holidays too. No idea what solution is.

DH's parents have their appointments for the vaccine, as do my folks. Something positive to cling to over next few weeks.

Jeanne saying she hopes to vaccinate all adults by May which funnily enough coincides with a certain election. No mention of jag number 2. Its all bullshit to make us think they are wonderful and keeping up with rUK. Well, they still aint getting my vote.

I can't see any quick fixes - I don't think I'd be very tempted if my boss asked me to do an extra 4 weeks in my holidays this Summer, even if it was a nice chunk of extra cash and I've not had the year teachers have - the P1 teacher's got to get out a week's worth of post half term work as it is, whilst then jumping quickly back to the class room the week after that.

What do you propose jabba that they delay the vaccine rollout so that it doesn't look suspicious?

It's such a hard one about the summer teaching. I wonder if it isn't a bit much for the kids. I feel they've really suffered. A summer with hopefully a little normality might do them the world of good!

I couldn't care less about any possible motives, if it gets the vaccinations done sooner then great. Adults done by May could make for a much better summer

I propose they be more honest and realistic. e.g. "we aim for all adults to get their first dose by the summer" or even more realistic "we aim for most adults to get their first dose by the summer".

According to the aforementioned omni calculator, I won't get my first dose until September at the earliest. That's not summer. And I'm classed as vulnerable.

According to omni, my date is now later and i'm looking at June now by which time I'll have moved from group 9 to group 8.

My young adult DC are the week after me now. I'm taking it with a pinch of salt to be honest, at one point I was into 2022.

For catching kids up, maybe the thing that's most needed is extra bodies in schools to support teaching - so no extra hours but a lot more focused time for each child which would maybe make catching up easier and allow for differentiation to address the unequal access and provision children even in the same class will have had.

An army of decent teaching assistants basically, who can work with small groups on whatever they've missed? Maybe some of it could be done with volunteers too - I'm kind of thinking of companies like the one I work for, they're big on going community's voluntary projects and in our case every single person is at minimum a grad, normally in something STEM. I could well see them going for an initiative where they allowed staff to go in, on company time, and work as support once a week or similar.

Ideally we'd have loads of well qualified teachers who would get properly paid to do it of course...

It's such a hard one about the summer teaching. I wonder if it isn't a bit much for the kids. I feel they've really suffered. A summer with hopefully a little normality might do them the world of good!

I agree with this. I think we all need some peace and relaxation. Children, teachers, parents.

As long as kids have some activities open, for the wee ones especially.

When we returned in August, the academics (for most) hadn't really slipped, but I noticed a big change in concentration and stamina.

Summer teaching is a non starter imo- very few teachers will sign up for it and the children who need it most will be the hardest to convince to go.

Smaller classes and the end of presumption of mainstreaming would go so far to closing the gap, but are probably unlikely.

A possible solution would be to use this years' batch of students. I know last years' PGDEs and BEds were passed regardless of missing the final placement, but I don't know what would happen this year. An additional (maybe even paid...) teaching practice or changing the probation year to more of a teaching practice model could work.

Someone has suggested longer days. I've noticed in the hub by 2pm some children have lost it and are happy to join in with our story/smart board time. I'm not convinced longer days will be good for children or staff. We have been given PSA's for every class this year. And closing the gap teachers. I feel what we need is some staff with counselling training. Some children didn't have a good experience in lockdown and don't want to be home but don't want to be at school. They need specialist help.

I question the normality - if indoor play dates, seeing relatives and normal activities open, great, if it's another summer trudging around the same two parks then there's not much difference to lockdown. I hope it's more normal than that.

Whilst summer school/ catch up would be good for some kids I think teachers need a rest after the stress of this year and it's only February.

I really hope the HE places are allowed to do more in person work from April. £9250 per year fees are still payable for undergrad coursesin England. My DS is due to graduate this summer with a BMus degree from an English conservatoire. His type of degree has the minimum amount of academic written exams to qualify it as an academic degree. (It used to be a 3 year diploma, but employers what degrees) Students choose conservatoires for the 1:1 lessons and opportunities to play with other people. This is what DS is best at and if his final assessments are done remotely there will be issues of fairness. The current online substitutes are very limited. No-one has devised a way of playing in real time with other people remotely. My fingers are firmly crossed for him and all the other performing arts students. It's not only medics, teaching students and lab based sciences students who need to be in.

@rogueantimatter

I really hope the HE places are allowed to do more in person work from April. £9250 per year fees are still payable for undergrad coursesin England. My DS is due to graduate this summer with a BMus degree from an English conservatoire. His type of degree has the minimum amount of academic written exams to qualify it as an academic degree. (It used to be a 3 year diploma, but employers what degrees) Students choose conservatoires for the 1:1 lessons and opportunities to play with other people. This is what DS is best at and if his final assessments are done remotely there will be issues of fairness. The current online substitutes are very limited. No-one has devised a way of playing in real time with other people remotely. My fingers are firmly crossed for him and all the other performing arts students. It's not only medics, teaching students and lab based sciences students who need to be in.

And also students studying sports, drama, dance, art, cooking/hospitality..... the list goes on and on.....

Fingers crossed rogue, they need prioritising. titsbum that must be right, I couldn't imagine my dcs' teachers would want more work this summer. It may be too soon to know what's needed.

yeah but isn't music something you aren't supposed to do in lockdown? at least not in groups etc as it spreads the virus more? DD is in a school band and music class and its not allowed. She's having to do it all at home (but I like that because I can hear how well she's come on). She's been practising loads and I think she's actually doing better 121 rather in a whole class, but that's high school not university. I've just heard that most Glasgow university departments have told their students its all online for the rest of the year but hopefully back to normal by september.

Yes, lots of practical HE courses indeed. I'm ashamed at focusing on such a narrow group.

jabba that's lovely to hear about your DC. DS is doing jazz. It's all about the group interaction; accompanying the other players, improvising, practicing together to get it tight, composing as a group, listening to the balance of the individual parts as a whole, working with the acoustic of the space etc.

His course goes on until the 3rd week of June and doesn't officially end until the second week of July so they could get a lot of in person things done from April onwards.

From September to end of December they did lots of playing together in a socially distanced way and livestreamed events. Getting recordings and videos done is useful for getting work.

oft, I thought university finished in May? If its later then they might get to go back after all.

I am just looking at how sharply the numbers are coming down.. Surely the scottish govt should be thinking about opening up sooner rather than later. Or am. I living in cloud cukoo land

Non practical degrees in Scotland mostly finish teaching at Easter with exams (if any) taking place after Easter break through May. Generally two terms of about 11 weeks teaching and about a month of exam timetable after each period.

I think most won't have any face to face or physical exams with the hope to be back in in September.

Obviously lots of degrees have more teaching or placements.