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

I have figured out the one teacher /one class thing... it's for cover!

If one child/adult in one class 'bubble' gets tested positive, all the rest of the group self isolates for 14 days. hey presto : no cover required.

The secondary bit is very confusing . The guidelines make it sound as if the 'face to face' starts June 1st. Boris definitely said a 'few weeks' and indicated it was a last step 'perhaps in July'.

The fact that the guidelines came out during the daily briefing, so that no members of the public or journalists had seen it, stinks to high high heaven.

There will be no music, no drama, and No Fun.

I agree about assemblies : presumably left in because they are a statutory requirement...

No mention of parents' evenings, teacher meetings etc.

Who cares for the children of key workers (so that their teacher/ TA parents can teach their classes of 15? And where?

Still waiting for answers to this, and we have several other children who will now need to be in as their parents are teachers / school staff.

So the numbers of key worker children are going up. We will have enough for at least 2 groups of 15, as well as the other year groups who are allowed back. We just don't have the space or staff to make this work.

What else do people want from the government though? Much more prescriptive and it doesn't apply to all settings.

It's pretty clear the guidance is take this and apply it to your setting. You can change timetables, school day timings, offer part time schooling etc.

The government are damnned if they do and damnned if they don't.

It's all well and good saying smaller class sizes etc. But I don't think they realise that it isn't workable, particularly when more children start to come back.

I am a core subject teacher with a leadership position in secondary and me and the other department leader cannot fathom how it would work.

For example, when Y10 and 12 come back. The Y12 classes are small enough not to split but must be taught by a specialist so we have to have certain teachers with certain classes.

Y10 normally have 10 classes (we are a big school). So now all of a sudden, I need 20 classes and 20 teachers. Great,except I don't have 20 teachers! I only have 18 and some are part time so don't work every day. Oh and one has a medical condition which makes her vulnerable and one is pregnant so that leaves me with 16. Do I just leave 4 classes to their own devices then?

Plus, once all children come back (looks like late June for primary and probably Sept in secondary), there aren't enough rooms and teachers to make smaller classes so I expect it will be a case of having them as normal.

Assembly can be solved by not having them- we did that the two weeks before we closed.

Lunch - no idea. We usually have 30 mins but we finish at 2.30pm anyway. We have 1500 kids in school -no idea how many sessions we would need to facilitate lunch for them.

No PPE required either.

I love my job and would give anything to be back with the kids in school but this guidance just looks like it's going to make it a Mount Everest size headache!

Re the half classes but then getting everyone back in gradually makes no sense.

We are an infant school, as said previously. If the aim if for al, primary to be back for a month then half classes on June 1st is pointless.

We will have potentially 2/3 of our school back on June 1st, 181 children plus and year 2 KW children. We will then have 3 weeks until the remaining children are back. We have one other spare room we could use - the computer room. We are an old school with smallish rooms and no spare capacity at all.

Aragog - we are the same. Its more than 2/3 isnt it as it will be year 2 key worker and vulnerable children as well - and it will be a bigger group of key worker children.
The younger ones will just get used to the new routines and how it works. Then it will be all change again as there are clearly not enough classrooms in the country to carry on with 15 after that initial few weeks.

Having read the guidance, I think I now understand why it's primary first. Children in the same group, with the same adults (and yes, it will have to be adults, as we will need to go to the toilet, or to wash our hands, and the 4-6yo children can't just be left to it in that time). This is sensible as it means each adult will only be exposed to 15 households all day.

However, I get the feeling that they can't work out how this would ork or even be beneficial in secondary, so have just given up for now. I am sure there are ways to invite eg. Year 10 in to see a teacher of the course they are most worried about, but it doesn't really seem likely to be of much academic benefit.

@Grasspigeons
@Aragog
The guidance does say that infant schools won't be open to year 1, so at least that has been considered.

Grasspigeons - yes, it will be more than 2/3rds and I do suspect the kw numbers will rise too. Guess we have to hope not all reception and year 1 children will return. I think that's what the government is hoping, but schools will need to plan for them all potentially coming back.

And three weeks after that - the whole school.

Query - does it? I missed that bit. That's going to cause an awful lot of confusion amongst parents right now as that's not been clarified at all in the briefings. Our city has a lot of separate infants and junior schools - all independent from one another, even where they include the same name.

Mind - it's still only for three weeks isn't it, if they want all primary in for a month before the summer.

How does this one class one teacher thing work for keyworkers in secondary?

We're currently on a rota once a fortnight, with three different classes. If we stay as we are then a third of teachers are going to have to isolate if one kid has symptoms.

If the new guidance is followed that would be 3 teachers (maybe 6 to allow breaks) in all the time and everyone else from home? Seems a bit rough on those 3/6.

Jesus. As if teaching wasn't hard work before all this. The stress levels are going to be enormous for staff, pupils and parents. (Not a teacher btw) ... to all of you having to contemplate and deal with all this.

That's going to cause an awful lot of confusion amongst parents right now as that's not been clarified at all in the briefings.

It already has amongst our parents. They want to know why their children aren't allowed back when they're in yr1.

pumpkin the guidance also says the children must stay in the same small group all day every day. I don’t know about your school, but in my year 12 class I have 10 students who have at least 4 different subject combinations between them. So they can’t all stay together all day every day AND have meaningful teaching. I did think we could manage it by having them stay in the same group for a day (eg Monday-option block A, Tuesday-option block B) but that would mean having different groupings on different days, which isn’t allowed.

So would that mean for Secondary that Y10 pupil will have the same teacher for the whole time regardless of subject. What is the point of that?

@Aragog Yes, it definitely considers infant schools, though I'd suggest not with clarity (why announce something on national television if it doesn't apply to a significant proportion of schools!)

Here's the relevant section:
"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, settings should prioritise groups of children as follows:

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
We will revisit this advice when the science indicates it is safe to invite more children back to schools and colleges."

I do appreciate that this kind of policy will never fit all situations, but I just wish that they'd release the policy before making statements to the general public that aren't even accurate.

ineedaholidaynow, they accept that there will need to be rotation of teachers in secondary school. But they have to stay with the same small group of pupils.

For year 10 there will be a lot of subjects they all take (eg maths, English, science) so if you do mixed ability teaching they could at least get something out of attending part time. However, if I teach year 10 face to face with twice the number of lesson (for me, because each previous class is now needs two lessons) the remote teaching of other year groups will necessarily suffer.

That just doesn’t work at all for year 12 because (in England at least) there are no core subjects.

Our HT announced that we will continue to teach on-line and the Year 10s and Year 12s will have one contact session with their subject teachers such as a progress check. He is trying to timetable it so that he minimises the number of staff on-site at any one time and how often staff are on-site.. So Year 10 Johnny may come in Monday morning for an English session, back in Tuesday morning for Maths, back in Wednesday morning for MFL.

It will be the same for Year 12.

Cleaning is outsourced like most schools - so the whole cleaning thing is a nightmare. They will flush the tanks with regards Legionnaires disease etc

I think I would prefer the remote learning my DS is doing. Full timetable with live classes. No faff of working out how he gets to school, school is very rural so all pupils get school buses from a very wide area.

DS's school also has Prep and Pre-Prep so assume they would quite like to utilise the Secondary classrooms to spread the young ones out, and have less pupils in the communal areas eg dining hall

staffassociaterepresentative, won’t that mean the children are mixing with different groups on different days?

@StaffAssociationRepresentative is that one to one contact or in small groups? If one to one could that not be done remotely?

No mixing and in small groups. Teacher based in one room. Desks labelled in alphabetical order

So for example
10A1 9 - 9.50
10A2 10 - 50
10B1 11 - 11.50
10B2 12- 12 50

Then I go home - job done