Has your school been told this if schools are closed?

[drspouse]

We are looking for a new school for my primary aged DS (he's in a PRU and can't remain there indefinitely).
We booked two school tours this week, waiting on a call back from a third, one of the schools said "yes, let's get it out of the way in case schools are closed". The other was fine but rang today to say no external staff are being allowed in (no sports coaches etc.) I asked if we could have a tour while closed if they were closed, based on the teachers I'm seeing commenting that they have been told they'd be in school if the children are off, unless they have to stay home for some other reason.
The school said no, if the school is closed all teachers will be off and will be self-isolating and that this is the advice they have received!
I'm struggling to find anything that says this, official advice is only "schools remain open". I'm not sure the secretary really understands what "self-isolating" means.
This could leave us with no school for September (he's supposed to do a transition over the summer term, though that would be delayed if the PRU is closed).

I remember your last thread...

This situation is so crazy I think all sense of consistency and normality is now long since gone. The video of going around idea might work - indeed my uni did this when they had to call off the open day this weekend and it was really well received.

I had to detour to the school office this morning to quickly check something out (their mass email hadn't gone through to everyone) and the poor office manager was so distracted she disinfected the sign in screen five times during a 20 second conversation bless her!

So true @kupo!

Our staff won't be in school if school closes.
We have made plans for working from home in terms of planning and preparing online lesson materials.
Our school night have the off staff visit it if we are still allowed out of the house but there won't be many in a t all even in that situation.

There is no official policy. Nothing at all. Schools really are having to figure it out themselves right now.

OP do you expect this to be a priority for schools at the moment?

We had an email this morning saying that all external visits into school are now cancelled. This would include parents and prospective parents. It must be awful for you op but the schools are trying to figure it out as they go along and do the best they can by their students.

It's not the visits I'm bothered about, if you read my OP. It's the confusion over whether anyone will even be allowed in if the school is closed.
We need to do this some time (even with no pupils there), and the paperwork is likely to be delayed as well. So the sooner the better.

Op, you're being unreasonable here. No one knows what's going on. We're planning for today during the day (in terms of logistics). Do you want a school to book you in for next week, then close and forget about you in the chaos of sorting out their own pupils and staff.

In times of global emergency, we really need to think beyond our own personal circumstances.

I get it. It sucks that things are uncertain and your son might not cope well with that. But the schools in the uk need to put the health and wellbeing of their pupils and staff first. And right now, they don't even know what that looks like by the end of today.

Why do you think global markets are tanking?? Uncertainty.

The trouble is, schools don't know what's happening. They're told to carry on but as of today they will be in reduced staff due to the new guidelines. Lots will hit the 'at risk'
Groups including senior management. They will have fluctuating numbers of pupils in. They are probably desperately trying to keep school itself working right in the difficult climate, Jeep the children safe and I panicked, maintaining the hygiene and cleanliness of their pupils and classrooms, covering for missing staff, preparing for school closures in Terms of knowing what and how they can do it.

Whilst this is one of your priorities it is, unfortunately, quite likely not in the schools priority list right now.

Yeah- my school is planning less than 24 hours ahead too, in terms of who we are open for tomorrow.

I can understand this situation is very worrying for you, but I think schools are doing their best, and I think you are blaming them for saying what you don't want to hear.

It's possible that their insurance means they can't have individuals on site if the school is closed, or maybe they have agreed this with teaching unions in their school.

OP I remember your last post (about how your son ended up in the PRU) and although I have a lot of sympathy for you, I think right now you are being very unreasonable.

Teachers are unbelievably stressed working in unprecedented conditions - along with the rest of the country. We are planning and teaching lessons for pupils who are in school, as well as upskilling to deliver lessons remotely to those who aren't in school, in Scotland this week most of the SQA coursework has had to be packaged for collection tomorrow, we are being asked to develop contingency plans for how we will deliver lessons if school closes, and we are covering for the many absent colleagues.

I do truly understand that your child needs significant support with transitions, and that viewing schools is vital - but right now, those schools are focussed on the pupils that are actually currently in their care - some of whom are struggling with the massive social changes taking place right now.

I'd put money that any tour just now would be a negative experience as the staff involved will be juggling so many different urgent priorities that trying to squeeze a tour in might become just a step too far.

Hi - I'm in a country where schools are now closed, as of this week.

Two weeks ago we cancelled all visitors from outside the usual community. No visiting authors, no outside coaches, no peripatetic music teachers, no supply teachers & definitely no prospective parents (this is big for us - prestigious international school with a reasonably transient population, so generally there's prospective parents pootling around regularly).

Once we closed to students, last week, we were meeting as staff still for training about distance teaching & for planning for a couple of days. We were meeting in the smallest groups possible - every meeting was queried ie. 'OK the Maths dept have a meeting, do Maths TAs need to be there or can it all be emailed? Pastoral group meeting - can this just be Heads of Year & then they disseminate to form tutors?'.

For whole school training, it was voluntary, with vulnerable staff conferenced in from home, & groups capped at 12 so we could sit far apart in training rooms.

Honestly - there's absolutely no way anyone not part of teaching staff or essential maintenance/admin personnel would have been wandering around the building.

Definitely no tours!

I don't know if your prospective school is like this yet, but I think it's fair that they may not want you in! It's a difficult & stressful situation for everybody.

I run specialist provision. I have suspended all transition related activities, including requests for visits from prospective parents. We are in crisis at the moment. We are trying to meet the needs of vulnerable, challenging pupils on much reduced staffing, whilst also prepping to support them and their families as best we can if closed. It's a massive piece of work and unfortunately the needs of current pupils have to be prioritised over prospective pupils for now. If this rumbles on beyond Easter, it does mean that September placements may start later.

We have been told by HT that nobody can go in if we are closed.

I think you may have to accept that you need to decide upon a school without looking round it. Go and have a look at the outside and look in Facebook to see if there are any parents that will share their views with you.

Unfortunately whilst I appreciate this is very important to you, schools have got on far more than they probably ever have before right now and giving a tour will not be a priority. I’d plan for the schools to be closed from Easter until September and if they aren’t, you can look round then. However, in the meantime, I would choose the one you think is best suited and sign him up for that one. Presumably you can change your mind if at some point in the future you get to have tours and feel the other one is better suited.

Oh dear OP I do not think this would be a priority for any school to accommodate at the minute , as frustrating as that is.
I think it’s time to start going to plan B, whatever that may be.

Completely selfish and unreasonable demands on schools from you OP.

I don't see where I've demanded anything or been in the slightest bit unreasonable.
Looking round a school is a reasonable request.
Wondering if the advice has been the same in other schools re post closure is a question not a demand. Try and read what I've written.

Looking round a school is a reasonable request.

Absolutely but at the moment the schools have told you it is not possible for the imminent future. Realistically teachers are frantically planning to teach remotely and get things set up for that before potentially not having access to the school and its full resources.

At the moment, things that are normally reasonable to do aren’t possible and this is going to be the new norm for quite a while.

@drspouse Looking around a school is not a reasonable request when there is an epidemic and people are told to limit all unnecessary contact. It's not an huge emergency for you to be able to look around the school when the staff have to keep themselves, their families and children safe. They don't know whether you or your son could be carrying the virus

If it wasn't a reasonable request when we made it (last week, in fact the week before in one case) they shouldn't have agreed. But they did. Then they cancelled. We said fine but were confused about the advice they seem to have been given for post-closure.

You still don't seem to have noticed that I didn't ask for rescheduling while the school is open (and we weren't intending to take our son round either, at least not for the moment).

Anyway since nobody seems to have worked out what I actually asked, I'm going to leave this thread.

The problem is we've had NO official advice for what to do if schools close. None. Schools are having to work it out for themselves.

If we close then the building will be closed to visitors.

We have already stopped many visitors into school. Interviews are being held by video call for example.

When closed, Staff may be allowed in on occasion to pick things up or gather materials they might need to create online learning materials. But they will be observing social distancing throughout.

It would be extremely unlikely that we would allow potential parents and students into the building at this time or whilst closed. I'd imagine most schools should be the same.

Whilst not unreasonable to ask, I do think it is unreasonable to expect or insist them to let you go round school, even if they've closed to pupils. I know this must be inconvenient and not ideal for you but these are difficult times for us all.

There are lots of things that were reasonable last week and now aren't and most definitely won't be next week, I'm afraid.

I'm sure that you've heard the news about schools closing by this Friday at the latest. All the work in schools has been around how to support the children currently there, wtf will happen to children in receipt of FSM and those who are vulnerable and preparing some sort of lesson packs.

Public exams were officially cancelled about 3 hours ago.

I do appreciate that this is incredibly stressful for you but, as others have said in the current circumstances, you need to be directing your communications to your child's current school and the LA, not criticising schools who aren't 100% clear on what's going on as that's exactly the situation that they're in.

It was really considerate of the school to call you to cancel, I would say, given that their to-do lists have been about 45 million things long this week.

What's happened now the schools have closed? Did you look round

Hopefully not - unless virtually - given the social distancing guidance.