So how is your school managing bubbles of 230?

[UncertaintyBlues]

I'm secondary and I am absolutely fine with going back. I'm not anxious about the virus, I'm more anxious about how the heck it's meant to work in September.

Our school has announced that it will be a case of the students staying in rooms and staff moving round. But that is all they know at the moment. More details will follow in a couple of week. My first questions are:

1. So are we not setting students? Or will they be able to move around within their year group bubble? I can see our school saying, for the example, that the maths department is year 7. Our departments are quite separate so it could work.

2. How will I cope sharing a room with 4 other teachers. Things will get lost/moved. Will we have to live with a box of maths books and text books/science/English etc. Every subject has text books of some kind.

3. How will we deal with the fact that at lesson changeover, students may be left alone while the next teacher comes? Patrol the corridor?

Anything else I haven't thought of? Has anybody's school made an announcement with actual detail?

I sound grumpy and I bloody am. I want my classroom back, I want to know where all my bits are for the kids. I usually login and get all my lessons up at the beginning of the day. I run like a well oiled machine. The idea of legging it round the school every hour to the next class, faffing about logging on and getting to their lesson and then not being able to find the projector remote is filling me with anxiety!

It’s early days, but I think the idea is to divide the school into zones, 1 per year group. Pupils would move from room to room within zones, and teachers would move from room to room and zone to zone.

I work part-time so do not have my own room and am quite used to moving for every lesson. It’s not great.

Yes I think my school building will lend itself well to zones. Our departments are pretty well defined and could very likely hold students moving between rooms etc whilst separated from other groups.

The zone idea works until you get to PE, technology, art and drama/music.

The guidance is a lot of "if possible" so I think some places will just go with normal plus handwashing. We have no idea yet.

We have year groups of 400....

I wish the government would just own it. You know, just admit that they are sending the kids back and there isn't really a solution to the infection. Because huge bubbles are pointless. I will be going back and having to run round the school for bugger all reason. All that stress for literally nothing. Year groups of 400?! I rest my case!

Agreed. If they just said go back and wash your hands more I think I'd have more respect. This stupid logistical nightmare isn't useful/helpful or worthwhile.

We haven't had the full guidance yet from our head but she mentioned extra sanitising stations and keeping one way systems.

I reckon kids will move so that specialist facilities can be accessed e.g. science labs/technology rooms. The guidance seems to talk of avoiding staying in close contact for more than 15 mins so actually, you could pass others on corridors as it's no where near 15 mins between lessons.

They are looking at separate areas for pupils to go at break/lunch -luckily, we have a few large spaces available so could make that work.

I'm so looking forward to being back in a more 'normal' way.

I am less looking forward to trying to prepare Y11/13 for their exams which aren't looking like they will be modified in any way.

I found these examples online :

unitedlearning.org.uk/portals/0/unitedthinking/Examples%20of%20protective%20measures.pdf?ver=2020-07-03-192023-697

Not sure which one seem most feasible.

I was just reading those Piggy. I think the issue is everyone's context is different. So parts of those examples will work and parts won't.

We have outside space that is quite well segregated so hopefully lunch and breaks can just be separated. But getting food to students is a big issue. The MAT own the catering provision (surprise ) so they won't want to encourage students bring their own food. We simply don't have the indoor space to not stagger. Which then becomes a logistical nightmare re lunch, supervision and the timetable.

We have the same issue with indoor space. Two canteens : one is very cramped and , of course, the queuing system is a recipe for disaster. How do we retrain kids so the don't push and shove ?

Duties need very careful consideration, too. The lunchtime supervisor who manages a queue is definitely very close to students for a very long time.

We are aa split site school so, in theory, zoning kids is possible but, in practice hard. if staff are to move to kids that could be an 8 minute walk with laptop ,books etc. I don't get who supervises the kids in between lessons. We may choose not to do this . In which case I am not sure what we do!

Measuring classes is underway and many of them will not fit 30 kids in any way that means the teacher can position themselves to be 2, or even 1, m away from the front desks.

I actually think U shapes are better for that.. More clear space in the middle.

Yes lots of our rooms don't fit 32 with a 1m gap let alone 2m at the front. New build school and its tiny.

I'm not sure what the answer is, I do know the students need to be back for their own wellbeing. (although I'm not signing up to the narrative they are all traumatised and need weeks of "recovery").

Duties is really interesting, ours are done by school staff, TAs, office staff and some teachers. I don't see how this can continue.

It looks like we will have year group zones and students can mix and change rooms within their zones.

We won’t have to lug around books or equipment as it can’t be shared between bubbles. The copying budget will be increased, apparently.

The details are quite fuzzy still.

Had more info and it looks like we are having year group zones. 7-9 stay in one room taught mixed ability and years 10-13 move within their zone to facilitate sets/options etc. Teachers will move between classes.

I think that's the best/only option really although it will be tricky for all of us.

Same as @PumpkinPie2016 but how are they bubbles if we as staff are going between the year groups??! More like blisters than bubbles..

At least if we move we'll know exactly who we've seen. I worry about leaving students in their own rooms. Mixed ability y9 maths will be interesting!!

Also "pack" mentality may develop over rooms if students are in them all the time. Behaviour management is going to be very interesting.

My school is just having basically a normal school day with an alleged staggered start (it really isn't) some lunch zones and hand gel.

That is literally it.

Oh and tape on the floor.

Masks are forbidden.

Piggy to be honest I'd accept that. Anything much different is a logistical shit show, will impact loads on behaviour and doesn't really keep anyone safer.

I think public health need to act faster for local outbreaks and have small shutdowns as soon as they occur..

Yeah, except you haven't seen how our kids behave in the corridors!!!

It's more that there have been no reassurances about cleaning, toilets, etc etc. And masks have been outright banned.

I do agree about your pack mentality thing though.

Ugh, we've had no further updates yet. I'm going to be frank, I would rather my school didn't bother with this bollocks. It's so clear that it will not make a difference. The only thing it will do is stress everyone out, impact the kids and increase the poor behaviour. I'm so done with it all. It would be good if we could be back as normal with extra cleaning. To be perfectly honest I would be happy to clean down the desks after each lesson myself.

Yep the corridors are awful where we are too. I'm hoping that the incidence in the community will be low enough by September that 5 mins in a corridor won't spread it too much.

Masks is difficult. At least a ban is consistent. Unless they're all wearing one (unlikely) there's very little protection to you and I can forsee huge behaviour issues with 'so and sos got my mask' stuff.

Lack of cleaning is not on, though where schools are supposed to get the money from!

Just been talking about it all with my HoD (I am 2nd in dept) and my head hurts.

Behaviour management is going to be interesting to say the least!

Also thinking about lesson transition- normally we set the starter up on screen but with moving, the kids will either already be in the room or arriving at the same time so there won't be time. Thinking maybe a bank of activities in a booklet but it's a lot of work/printing and apparently we can't give out too much paper

We're having year groups areas with kids staying in one room and teachers moving. I think it will be a behaviour nightmare. There is going to be some allowance for movement to practical drama/dt/science spaces but it hasn't been clarified or guaranteed yet, so I don't know what space I'm planning lessons for yet.