Rota for school returning?

[looloo247]

What has been proposed by your school for 1st June? Our head has said that we will be returning on a 2 day a week basis - half the eligible children and staff on a Monday/Tuesday and half on Thursday/Friday. Seems to work on paper, however latest government guidance says that schools should only offer full time places to eligible children so I'm wondering whether the plans will change.
Has anything been decided by your school yet?

We've had a 3 week rota while we've been caring for key worker and vulnerable children but are going to have all available staff in from 1st June. Even then, it'll only work if half of the eligible parents decide to keep their children at home.

More recent guidance says no Rita's which is intriguing. More secondary guidance to follow - so much for 3 weeks notice!

Yes I saw that rather unhelpful announcement about rotas. I think most heads agree that without rotas we can’t re-open. We can’t split classes into two groups of 30 and have all kids back because we’d need double the classroom space! It’s guidance not statutory so I think it will rotas or no return. That or they are going to have to start building some new classrooms pretty quickly!

Think the guidance is designed to make us the bad guys when people can't get their children into school full time for going back to work.

@1066vegan so even your key worker children are on a rota and can't access school every day if needed?

I read the guidance about no rotas and I also saw advice from a head on Twitter who said that instead of a rota, schools should prioritise one year group. So fewer places. All staff will probably need to be in all of the time so I don’t know how lunchtimes etc will work. Probably over the course of the whole day!

@NCTDN No, the children are in every day but the numbers work out for a staff rota. SLT are in every day but the rest of us have 1 week in school and 2 weeks wfh (although some of us sometimes pop in on a wfh week if it's easier to do a job in school).

Just reread my first post and realised how unclear and ambiguous it was.

We have been told to all be available normal hours. With the new government guideline saying no rotas (ridiculous!) it looks like absolutely everyone will be needed. We have another trust school nearby where half the staff have been off because they are vulnerable so if we're not needed in our school I bet they'll send us there.

I'm getting stressed about my own DC. DH teaches a KS4/5 subject and we thought he would be able to work from home a bit longer but his head already seems to be making arrangements for the year 10s and 12s to come in. My DC will go to their school but the wraparound provision isn't open. I don't know what I'm supposed to do about picking them up and dropping them off if we're both in normal hours.

re lunches, at the moment the key worker and vulnerable children are all eating in the Hall at the same time, with the tables spread out.

From 1st June, all children at my school will eat in their classroom (which won't be their classroom for half of them). No more hot meals. Packed lunches provided for FKS1 and FSM children if they request one.

Yes, I suspect all lunches will be in the classroom. If we are stretched to one staff member per bubble, I'm not sure how the staff member is supposed to get a break/go to the toilet.

@DippyAvocado We were (half) joking about having to buy Tena Ladies! We'll need to be with the children in our bubble at breaktimes and you can't ask somebody to cover your class for a couple of minutes because you can't have contact with children who are in a different bubble.

Also I cannot understand how, even with a teacher plus TA per class, the children can be supervised adequately if one (or more!) of them needs a 1to1. This could either be for a few minutes or for most of a session. Plus one of you is doing the cleaning/ supervising hand washing etc.

Im going to have to take 15 children to the loo with me if I get desperate, aren't I

But seriously, if a child soils them self who will I call on 1. to stay with the children I was working with and 2. to accompany me while I change them for safeguarding?

We've had a rota for the past few weeks, and a new rota will start from 1st June with only half the children in at a time per class so only max of
8 per adult.

Nothing has been said to parents about this, so those hoping for their Y1 child to be in for school for a full school day will be disappointed.

Minor issue, but we've also realised that we won't be able to have a cup of tea or coffee during the day.

We aren't allowed kettles in the classroom for health and safety reasons, couldn't leave the children at breaktime and won't be able to use the staffroom at lunchtime because we need to socially distance from adults in different bubbles.

I hadn’t even thought about the going to the toilet issue! Luckily, I’ve been told I’m not expected in school on June 1st but I could well be called in for the next wave. I’ll be around 30 weeks pregnant at that point so not being able to go to the toilet will be a huge issue!

Thanks vegan that makes sense!
No tea is not a minor issue - I couldn't cope
I've not seen the latest guidance about rotas. Is it guidance or statutory? We were planning on half a class Monday Tuesday, deep clean Wed and other half thurs Fri.

I thought you should be off if you are pregnant?

I don't think any of the guidance is statutory as they know most schools won't be able to manage it. Just leaves it open for parents to blame schools rather than the government.

It's going to be a nightmare.

I thought you should be off if you are pregnant?

The guidance is that where possible, I should work from home. If all the children are expected back before the summer, it may not be possible for me to work from home because they’ll need me for a class. I’m telling myself that I’ll probably be in and, if I’m not, fine. I’d rather be prepared to go in than not.

Will be interesting to see what happens seeing as it appears a lot of schools have planned to have half the eligible children in at a time. Like a previous poster said - they'll need to be building a lot of mobile classrooms very quickly I think!

The NAHT guidance makes much more sense. It is just a shame that the government did not put out all the guidance at the same time - when they announced wider openings - rather than 4 days later when schools had been madly planning.

The reasoning against a rota system is to avoid cross contamination. So you should have 15 kids and 1 adult in one room and accessing one outside space and no one else using that space. Similarly it is to avoid 1 adult teaching different groups on different days. To enable that to happen you only open to the amount of children that you can accommodate with the staffing and space available starting with the key worker/vulnerable kids and then the youngest kids in the school.

In an infant school that could possibly be just the reception children but in a primary it could be the year 1s and 6s as well.

I am not saying that school should open in this way - just how I interpret the guidance!

@looloo247
I also thought that the guidance was that the children should keep with the same teacher? So if on a rota will the same children be in all week and with different teachers?

We're not too bad for space at our school and have a few breakout rooms. Each staff member in will be allocated a room which will be kitted out with a kettle etc so that's their staff room alone for the week. Not sure how it's going to work with timings etc.