We're opening 1st June

[singlemum81]

It was announced today that our college is to open on the 1st June for Y10 & Y12. Anyone else's secondary school opening?

Why isn’t someone asking the Government where the Secondary School guidance is?

I was in a union meeting where they said all the kids not spreading it, only applies up to age 13. The government are probably trying to find a way round that before they post advice for secondaries

But some sort of message to the Secondaries would be good, even if it is to say they are looking at the logistics and that they are not expected to open on 1st June but hopefully later in the month.

It seems so strange that schools in normal times are expected to maintain certain standards and are monitored to ensure they are, and now there appears to be no regulation and the disparity between schools is huge.

All the reports I've read about kids not spreading it relate to under 10s.

They effectively suspended all schools guidance and inspection, gave no guidance and so of course schools are doing different things. The keyworker definitions and guidelines were given to schools at about midnight on Thursday night and schools were expected to organise by Monday morning. The laptop support for year 10s getting pupil premium was announced on a Sunday afternoon to the public and schools guidance was days later.
The government are in chaos.
Apparently no one on the front bench has children in state schools.

I’m not blaming schools by the way, it just seems strange to go from a system that was pretty rigid and full of rules and inspections, to nothing!

I think part of the issue is that we've got a system where there are 3 types of state schools and all of them are subject to different regulations. Only LEA schools have to follow the national curriculum and employ qualified teachers, in an academy they can disregard the NC and the only qualified teacher they legally have to have is the SENCO - obviously Ofsted ensures a certain standard. Building regulations for free schools are inferior to those academies and lea schools have to follow. Minimum classroom size has long been used as a maximum to keep costs of new buildings down so we have lots of very small spaces for teaching and class sizes are only regulated in KS1, in our local primary there are classes of 34 in KS2.

What the government has done is abandon all requirements for schools to do anything other than provide childcare for key workers, they haven't got a clue what to do next.

In some countries with a very rigid national curriculum its will have been far easier to move teaching online in a more coordinated way. More regional controls would also be easier. UK system is very disjointed.

And all the not spreading under10 thing is hotly contested.

There is almost NO international data or research into children over 11 which is bizarre.

Please don’t rely on any ‘research’. It’s not rigorous. We know nothing about spreading at the moment.