Unions say not to engage with any plans to return

[Twinklelittlestar1]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/may/12/plans-to-reopen-schools-on-1-june-in-jeopardy-as-education-unions-tell-staff-not-to-engage-with-prepartions-1?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Yes. The NEU sent it's members an email on Monday saying that. The Nasuwt and Unison agree. Also the HT union too I think.
They want the government to guarantee safety in schools for the children, staff and wider society.
In alignment with the section 44 of the Employment Act.

Absolutely. Surely we deserve that. We shouldn't be put in this position at all

As an NEU member I agree

Also agree. To be fair our head has only sent very vague messages about reopening so I'm yet to hear of any concrete plans. My sons schools and nursery haven't sent any communication about opening yet. I'm starting to wonder if many actually will.

Can I ask why you wouldn’t want to return to work if the transmission rate is reduced?
Schools aren’t currently closed. They have fewer pupils attending but they aren’t closed.
How do the staff who are currently in with the keyworker children feel? Do you know if there have been cases of staff falling ill while working in schools currently?
I’m not being inflammatory, I just want to understand why people are afraid of returning to work in schools. (Not journalist, SAHM that was a teacher)

I don't agree. I think it's hugely unfair to not engage with SLT over the issue. That's one of the ways the safety will be assessed. I'm actually seriously considering changing my union (not the only reason).

What Gustavo said.

So can I just check - is that two non teachers on the staffroom thread policing teachers talking about the situation they're in? As well as all the teacher-hate spread all over AIBU and everywhere else? You have to do it here too?

My God MN has become a horrible place.

So can I just check - is that two non teachers on the staffroom thread policing teachers talking about the situation they're in?
You mean me? I’m not policing anyone. I’m genuinely interested in how people feel and how safe the staff in school currently are. I have children who would be asked to go back on June 1st. How safe the staff feel that this would be is very interesting to me.
This is not an exclusive board that I’m not allowed to comment on!

You don't want to know anything about how the staff feel, you want to tell them all about how stupid they are for feeling it and why they should do what you think they should do. And you feel entitled to do that on a board where staff are trying to talk to each other about the very difficult situation they're in.

Don't bother replying, I'm hiding this thread and MN in general, this situation is already hard enough to try and deal with.

I agree with the NEU position. Our Head is aware and all of our staff (including senior management are supportive). We shouldn’t be engaging in plannning for a return on the 1st because it is too soo. And not safe. I am more than happy to engage in planning for re-opening with sufficient time and resources to do is safely but rushing it through is just irresponsible. The health and safety of our pupil and staff is worth more than that.

If you were a teacher Gustavo, then you should know exactly why.
I think everybody now just needs to follow union advice and not engage with people who have popped over toa STAFFROOM thread for a bit of a barney .

Not a teacher but absolutely support teachers wanting to be clear on how their safety will be handled. I think it's appalling that the government has thus far ignored the teaching unions questions about this. Thank you teachers

@Gustavo1

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-revealed-least-26-teachers-have-died-covid-19

26 teachers have died, totalling 65 school staff. That’s with the bare minimum in. We have one teacher, one member of slt, one support staff and one first aider in each day. We have 800 students in my school and currently have 5 attending so the risk of me bringing it home will be significantly higher than it currently is.

I feel nervous having to go in as I don’t feel protected. One of the key worker children now has a parent with confirmed COVID, I was in with that child and now am at home with my family with no option of being anywhere else. My cousin is a nurse and after work is having to now do our elderly relatives shopping after very long shifts as we are concerned about me carrying on whilst I’m a potential contamination risk.

I was in school the same time as the cleaners were, I don’t feel very confident with their training bearing in mind the room we had been in was barely given a dust, including the surfaces we had all been sat at.

I am so torn. I want to go back to work (in school) and the children need some form of consistent education, even if we don't go full-on curriculum. But I don't think it should be up to the schools to manage this. We just don't have the capacity. Not in terms of space, resources or staffing. Telling us to work it out is just shifting responsibility, without giving us the resources.

For schools to start up properly again, what needs to change is outside the schools: testing, treatment, PPE, staffing the Nightingales so that Covid-positive ill people can be isolated and treated before they become dangerously ill. Then it will be safe to be ill. Because, let's face it, children may not generally suffer from Covid, but they are super-spreaders of infectious disease, and probably 50% of staff in any school will already have health vulnerabilities.

That seems a little dramatic.

I have a lot of respect and admiration for teachers and school staff. I taught for many years before having my children and appreciate how much time, effort and care and self sacrifice goes into the job.

I apologise if this has derailed your thread and won’t continue with this.
Sorry @Twinklelittlestar1

What would you want to happen for you to feel safe to return?

Time to recruit extra staff to split classes, time to source PPE like face masks and shields, time to install extra hand washing stations (currently we have one bottle of hand gel and struggle sourcing soap and paper towels), time to plan more outdoor learning providing (outdoor shelters, outdoor learning resources), time to source plastic screens, thermometers to test temperatures etc. All of this can’t just happen with a few weeks notice!!!

@minielise thanks for that article. It’s awful that so many staff have died.

@tiredmummyxyz at ours we wouldn’t be able to split the classes and have more than a couple of year groups in at a time because we wouldn’t have enough rooms. Near my school we have some church halls and a football stadium- I’m wondering if we will end up with some classes and teachers being offsite to make it more achievable!

Yes - we’re the same! We would need all of our classrooms just for the 3 year groups initially proposed so when the whole school goes back it’s going to mean either finding additional facilities or pupils just going back a few days a week. I don’t think this is going to offer the childcare cover that so many are hoping for anyway and at what cost?

So torn on this.

Waiting til September doesn’t seem the right thing. Autumn term is terrible for bugs anyway. There won’t be a vaccine by then or treatment so I don’t think it makes sense to wait til then.

Summer term, open windows, fresh air , sun and vitamin D seems a better starting point. But I’m still torn. My child is suffering mentally but there is a risk to teaching staff. I don’t know.

There isn’t a right answer here.

@DobbyTheHouseElk you have hit the nail on the head. There's no right answer here. Suffering in some way no matter what happens.

@TiredMummyXYZ I’m secondary so ours isn’t clear yet anyway.

I can’t work out what we will do about kids having subject teachers, the sets are completely different for core subjects as they are options - so an art group might have half a class that also does history, some that do Spanish, one that does media and another doing German. So it’s not like the kids can stay and teachers move rooms. They will more than likely have a combination of top to bottom sets in there too.

I can’t work out how we will do it (luckily not my job to) because if we are expecting each group to stay with one teacher and their subject teachers setting work it won’t be that different to home schooling- no way could I clearly explain everything as accurately as their subject teachers.

Our school are asking parents what they want to do on 1st June. So they can assess the need.