I’ve been thinking about going back in September.
We have been in since June-all non shielding staff, in small and closed bubbles-no mixing at all, staff in small groups eating lunch spread out in the hall, meetings by Zoom, closing early one day for cleaning, leaving promptly so cleaners can get in, no visitors, parents not hanging around etc This was manageable because we had so few children in.
I wonder how quickly it will be before it starts to feel like we did in March? If people start getting ill with coughs and temperatures -which they will do,
Covid or not Covid, absence rates will be high, people will be anxious, ex-shielded people will be understandably more so, lots will hang on heads needing teaching staff in to keep things running as normal so bubbles don’t have to close.
Usually, we stagger in anyway, unwell because we know we’ll be letting the school down, but will be still feel like that if we have a temperature or cough? Pressure from the head to come in anyway, is usually high-will this change?
You can usually get supply teachers, but you couldn’t find them in that last week in March-will that be the same? If you were a supply teacher, would you want to go and cover a teacher in a class where there had been a positive case but the class was still in? What if three kids and the teacher were off with symptoms but no tests back yet? Would SLT honestly tell the supply the symptoms situation in the class, or would they fudge it, just to get a warm body in there? If you found out as a supply that there had been a
Covid symptoms but the school has omitted to tell you, how would you feel?
What if that class had one supply on Monday, then a different supply the next day, and the next? If you were doing supply with an underlying health condition, how would you feel about that? If you were a supply teacher going from school to school, staff room to staff room, as a daily supply-how many different schools could you spread to if you had it but hadn’t developed symptoms yet?!
Will we have parents evening end of September/October? This would involve meeting large numbers of new people in confined spaces. Would we need masks-if we do in shops, surely we will do in that situation? What about Ofsted? Will we still have book scrutinies if marking is going to be different? Lesson observations? Wall displays? Will they want us all off the site promptly to get deep cleaning done like in July or will we be back to late nights spent planning and having meetings as before?
I’m just waffling here, but I’m just wondering what you think the autumn term will look like?!!