What are schools doing about vulnerable staff and those without childcare?

[WowLucky]

We have 6 with official shielding letters - they will be wfh for the foreseeable.

We have 3 with seriously ill shielding partners. Whilst guidance is that the healthy partner does not need to shield, being at work would cause them considerable anxiety and likely result in them being signed off by GP. Atm we are allowing them to wfh too. What are other schools doing?

We have a further 12 who have declared vulnerabilities but are not officially shielded. We are asking them to return with individual RAs if they want them, some will clearly be too anxious to do so, resulting in GP certificate.

Then we have 14 with no childcare of their own. They have no "right" to stay at home but what else are they supposed to do? It frustrates me that they are all women (ie it is automatically assumed that the mother's work will suffer) but I can't do anything about that. So, we have said we will be as flexible as possible for those, but it does make planning very difficult when you have to work around husbands shifts etc.

We are keen to be fair and keep people safe. As the available staff are required I school more, how is the "fairness" issue being dealt with?

Are you applying the same principals to teachers and other staff? Some roles are easier to do effectively from home, some remote teaching is still required so teachers came be useful at home, difficult for a site manager or catering staff to wfh, for example.

I think we have a plan but interested to hear how other schools are managing it.

Sorry, I should have said this is from a staff of 140, otherwise it sounds like the entire staff!

My school is allowing (i) shielding staff (ii) staff who live with someone who is shielding and (iii) vulnerable staff to continue to wfh.

Vulnerable (not shielding) staff can ask to come in but will need an individual risk assessment.

Thank you. What sort of % of staff does that amount to? It's the vulnerable but not shielding ones that are causing me the most trauma. Guidance is that they should wfh "where possible". Whether it's possible or not is dependant on what we're trying to deliver as a school, ie how many children we aim to have in.

What are you doing about the childcare people?

What about people who really can't do anything useful from home? Caretakers, cleaners, catering?

I don’t know, sorry (I’m too junior to know the overall picture!)

Bear in mind this is for the current situation with only 1/4 of Y10 and Y12 (and a handful of vulnerable/key workers’ children) in! I imagine it’s not an issue at the moment. In my department we are all happy to cover for each other as necessary.

Yes, that's where we are. We can do what we're doing now without having them in but will need to bring them in to offer more.

For this term, the following groups of bods aren't in school:

LSAs who have children not in school
Pregnant women
People with asthma (even though only a few of them are on the 'proper concern' list, there was a lot of anxiety about it)
Diabetics
All BAME members of staff unless they complete an individual RA. Only one woman is in, because she has nowhere else to work - she's not allowed anywhere other than her classroom and the toilets. She's fine with that.

Goodness knows what's going to happen in September!!

Oh, and I'm currently at home because my partner is going into hospital next week so I'd have to take some compassionate leave. That causes issues with bubbles, so not been given a bubble.

They don't need me for a bubble yet anyway, so I'm plugging away at year 3 and 4 online learning videos etc.

I remembered we also have some post chemo staff.

We need the advice in the BAME report that we know they/the gov/PHE are sitting on.

Doesn't this all depend on what where possible means? I take it to mean that if you can discharge the duty of teaching your students from home you should be at home. The guidelines do go on to say that if vulnerable staff are I school they should be given the safest possible role in the school and suggests they are the ones doing remote learning for example. I think if you don't pay attention to that bit you are taking a rather 'staffing' rather than 'staff welfare' approach.

In my opinion.

Also in my opinion, the number of staff available should inform the plans, rather than the other way round.

But this is the brave new world of thinking the term vulnerable means nothing...

the number of staff available should inform the plans

Yes. First question for us was what was the deal at home. Also, there is still LOADS to be done not in the classroom. Forget the normal stuff we'd be doing at this time of year like class lists, planning for Sept (ha), reports etc... all this homelearning stuff is really time consuming.

I guess that depend how "essential" you think teaching and education are Piggywaspushed

Not really; everyone knows education is essential but there are currently models for delivery...it depends on how essential the presence of a medically vulnerable person is in a classroom...

I do think the significance of being vulnerable has been underplayed of late. My DH would be highly likely to become very very ill indeed if he contracted coronavirus.

What 'safest possible role' do you plan on giving the vulnerable?

Surely the "wherever possible" means if the job can be done from home and if the aim is to get children back in school it can't be done from home.

On the basis of our robust risk assessments, every job is "safe" but we can give vulnerable people the groups most likely to adhere to SD. The more staff we have in the smaller we can make the groups so everyone is better protected.

I don't know what the answer is , which is why I asked, but there has to come a time when people can't stay at home indefinitely while children are missing their education, surely?

In every other sector "where possible" would mean where it's possible to do the job from home and whilst it may be possible to offer a contribution from home it is not possible to fulfil the role.

I don't agree with you but hey ho. I'd certainly be cross if healthy people with childcare needs took precedence.

If you are talking secondary in my opinion lots of heads are over interpreting current guidelines.

I actually do think a person's healthcare the moment is more important.

If they fall very ill you lose them any way.

As I said I think staff available should dictate plans made. And I don't think highly vulnerable people should be in classrooms at this present moment.

And if you are letting partners of the shielding stay at home don't you run a risk of very much upsetting and overlooking the actual vulnerable?

I work in primary and childcare needs is not a valid reason for us as we are keyworkers do all children can access school or a nursery orchildminder now

I don't know the overall picture at our place (too unimportant!) but I have a partner who is in the extremely vulnerable category and has been shielding. We open tomorrow for year ten and I am working from home for the next three weeks at least (it will be reviewed then). I am extremely grateful for this.

Don't get me wrong sad, I absolutely think you should be. It's just my (it seems one woman) campaign to acknowledge that the vulnerable are in a risk category. Personally, I think the shielded and the vulnerable should be WFH in schools especially. (Atm I am WFH as my DH is vulnerable : I am more than sure this will change )

It looks like pressure from various areas is going to relax the SD rules to get all kids back in September and then this will become really difficult.

All of our shielding/living with shielding/vulnerable staff are at home-it’s a lot of people. It’s meant we can only have one of the ‘required’ returning groups in yet, on top of the ever growing numbers of KW.

We will not be able to open our school any more until those members of staff are told they must return OR we are allocated money long-term to replace them all.

I am currently at home planning and marking all the work for remote students in 2 year groups. I will be expected in when another bubble opens. There is a constant stream of requests to make sure i am doing enough and it's clear that a gp letter doesnt hold mu h weight

We've been told childcare isn't an excuse - as key-workers we must take up the places for our own children. Only heard of one friend who has been told her kids' school hasn't got capacity for kW children and she's had to jump through lots of hoops (including written confirmation from the head that there is no space).

Childcare issues aren't being taken into account as we can access keyworker provisions. I know my head has offered to take a few KS2 teacher kids into our Year 7 KW group to allow staff back if they have a genuine need for it.

I work in a school where we have two officially shielding and wfh, one with asthma who is isolating and other who has severe anxiety about her child catching it so they are letting her wfh!

This has annoyed me because she's not the only one with children at the school and yet they are letting her do it!

But keyworker provision may NOT be available for the littlies...mine has had to go part time because of the way preschool has organised it, so that's me having to work from home two days a week plus arrive late and finish early on the days she can go.

So it's not as simple as saying "childcare is no excuse." What happened to employers being expected by Boris to be flexible? (My head is being brilliant about this, btw.)

Our head and SLT are also very much of the "you're a keyworker therefore you must have somewhere to send your child". Plans to reopen with 10s and 12s have been made with zero consultation with teaching staff.

We are 'lucky' in that we've been able to find a nursery that's actually open, with space for our 4 year old (his current nursery is closed indefinitely at the moment) but we're paying over twice as much as we were before.

Colleagues have had issues with spaces for some kids but not others, or schools being closed once a week for cleaning. They've had to take unpaid leave. Others with a household member shielding can request unpaid leave, but it may not be granted. Super-understanding there!