Education Guidance for Education and Childcare Settings

[BertNErnie]

It's arrived.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings

Each setting’s circumstances will be slightly different. Any setting that cannot achieve these small groups at any point should discuss options with their local authority or trust. This might be because there are not enough classrooms or spaces available in the setting or because they do not have enough available teachers or staff to supervise the groups. Solutions might involve children attending a nearby school. If necessary, settings have the flexibility to focus first on continuing to provide places for priority groups and then, to support children’s early learning....” it goes on

early years settings - 3 and 4 year olds followed by younger age groups
infant schools - nursery (where applicable) and reception
primary schools - nursery (where applicable), reception and year 1

Im not a teacher, but having to generally keep an eye on the guidance. This is a mess.
Maybe unions and schools will rely a lot on the words above. Presumably if one school doesn’t have enough classrooms the others in LA/trust won’t either.

That cleverly leaves the poor school staff to explain to parents how they are deciding how to allocate places rather than politicians admitting to, and dealing with underfunded and overcrowded schools and classrooms.

What do you do for the 7 days before your class is allowed back?

Cover one of the other classes where their teacher is now off with symptoms I would imagine.

*Aragog

Cover one of the other classes where their teacher is now off with symptoms I would imagine.
*
Except groups aren't allowed to mix and that teacher's class would also be self isolating.

I work in a nursery and normally have24 pre school children. We can only have 8 in. A group and we have 2 rooms so if we prioritise 3 and 4 year olds then the toddlers stay home and we have 16 pre schoolers in. How do we decide which 8 each day are not able to attend?

How do we keep 3-4 year old children sat on their own at a desk for 3-6 hours? 🤷‍♀️ Even my brightest most driven children would struggle massively with this and it will be severely detrimental to their perception of school.

I'm a FE teacher. We have specialisms. I can only teach my bit of the curriculum. We have to swap classes and rooms (science equipment).

We also have adults effectively. My students are mostly 16-25. They also actively push boundaries, snog their latest love interest between lessons, stand crowded in the smoking shelter and come in on dedicated crammed college buses (agricultural campus). I can't even rely on them bringing their own pens and paper.

Scared now.

You know, this makes some of the batshit suggestions I've read on TBing threads on here seem the height of sensibleness.
Buckets, anyone?

This has the potential to be a colossal fuck-up of epic proportions.

Hopefully, everyone's head will have the same attitude as this one:

I wish my head was as sensible as that one.

Can see a lot of teachers leaving profession. It has been touch and go for a lot of us anyway with the erosion of pay, pensions and working conditions.

If my kids were already independent I would be off. Life's too short.

I see a few contradictions.
How can year groups be reintroduced gradually, but all be in for a month before the end of term? End of term is 17th July for us, so 17th June, everyone is in? That's not gradual from 1st June!
Also, the vast majority of our students take the bus. They travel at least 5 miles on 40mph roads and hills. They cannot walk or cycle.
Never mind the rest of it!

I've just read the whole document & have never felt so anxious. Secondary core teacher. It just won't work. And I don't want to send my children in either. It's awful.

it's back to hand washing & you're on your own basically!!!

I'm not sure I would find that letter very reassuring to be honest. (He got the less/ fewer thing wrong for a start.) He sounds so lost. And talk of losing children sounds sensationalist to me. I would hope that our Head will come up with something that might help parents feel less anxious.

Everyone knows it won't work. Even the naive parents. Call me cynical but maybe it's the means to get the second wave in before the autumn.

The equivalent of the bygone days of the chicken pox party.

Call me cynical but maybe it's the means to get the second wave in before the autumn.

This ^
Parents, children and teachers and school staff are now the cannon fodder. Added to shop staff and NHS staff.

@wantmorenow I'm honestly starting to believe that myself.

@Poetryinaction And led/lead. Lots of punctuation errors too...

Yes @thescrewinthetuna that's my thinking too. We are the next disposable group but we dont get any protection at all. At least NHS staff have PPE now and shop staff have perspex screens. We have nothing.

They need the second wave to have peaked before winter to minimise impact on the economy and not have the NHS collapse on their watch.

The poorest and the public sector are expendable. Teacher shortage at the end of all this will be solvable by a mix of increased class sizes (post-Covid belt tightening, we’re all in this together BS) and more of the mediocre online stuff they’ve paid their best academy buddies to cobble together.

I thought the current plan was to avoid a second peak. That’s wheat they’ve been saying in the press conferences. That’s why we’re trying to keep R < 1.

You’d have to hope that it’s somewhere near the bottom of the probably between 0.5 and 0.9 at this point.

That’s what they’re saying but their actions, to me, don’t indicate that it’s the truth. I genuinely believe they want another peak before winter and this is the sneakiest way to do that without actually coming out and saying that.

Staying in the same classroom could be so risky if there is poor airflow. This American associate professor of biology explains the risks really well:

www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

That Head's letter is appalling, are you sure it's even real?

I just checked out the headteacher letter by googling the school - it's real. The sentiment is touching but could have been worded (and punctuated) so much better.

Current NEU guidance for teachers is to not engage with school planning for return and to actively tell your head, if asked if you can return on 1st June, "I am awaiting further guidance from the union." That's what I'll be saying.

It is not safe to return yet.