Are you having face to face meetings in school?

[thebookeatinggirl]

I'm trying to gauge what is happening in schools, to see if I'm being unreasonable or not. Face to face meetings, meaning mask wearing and socially distanced in the same room.

So far this week I've been expected to attend

• PM review meeting (40 minutes) face to face with Head in his tiny office
• Pupil Progress meeting (30 minutes) face to face in small staff room with 3 other staff
• meeting with a child's social worker (20 minutes) small room

Staff meetings are still on Teams but there's rumblings about 'getting back to normal' and meeting for 1.5 hours in a small classroom again (10 staff) from after Easter.

I'm socially distancing at home from my CEV husband, and will be until March 31st, and although I'm in teaching every day, I really feel that this isn't minimising risks. I don't want to do any face-to-face meetings with adults outside my 'school bubble', and especially outside agencies when the conversations could just as easily be had over the phone/Zoom etc and feel this is against the risk assessments, though nothing specific is written into them about meetings. I've been made to feel like I'm being difficult and unreasonable when I've raised it.
Thoughts?

If you cannot social distance then you should be wearing masks. If there are no bigger rooms to use, could the meetings be held after school in classrooms? We meet face to face and social distance/ wear masks as we feel comfortable according to our individual circumstances and levels of concern.

Yes. We wear masks and have all the windows open.

Yes. Primary. Full staff meetings and i've had to be in meetings with social workers, family workers, ed psychs and the actual family where it's me and the family and everyone else is remote. And vaccinated!

No for whole school staff meetings but there are face to face meetings for mock deep dives, performance management and lesson feedback and we meet face to face in year group teams. All meetings are conducted without masks snd some of them are in small offices. It makes me uneasy.

Mixed bag then. At least adults must wear a mask in my school when meeting, even if socially distanced. I'm shocked that in some schools that's not the case. It just annoys me so much that I'm socially isolating from my DH and wouldn't sit in a room with him for 30 minutes, but I'm expected to with random adults who are in and out of peoples homes all day. It seems that the normal rules in the rest of society don't apply to schools, just because we're in working everyday.

We have staff briefings 3 times a week in the school hall, all masked. I'll have a department meeting on the Training Day but that will be in a classroom so properly socially-distanced.