AIBU No going back to school I’m furious.

trisher in regard to your above post, your comments in that post is the reason I brought forward the engagement of the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) in helping to resolve the problems in education sector encountered in this crisis.

The HSE are a very powerfull government agency which the Johnson administration under legislation have to listen too.

As many industrial and other sectors have found in past times, having the HSE engaged and onboard can be a huge asset in any safety matter.

In fact schools were open way before the skips and the general retail sector.

They are not fully operational though are they grandad. I think they have done an amazing job but they arent fully operational. Just like schools.

I'm out too.

There's too much hot air today anyway.

Does the Health and Safety Executive have skills in building classrooms and creating teachers out of thin air?

Somebody's record appears to have stuck.

Grandad1943 do you really not know about the funding crisis schools have been facing for the last 5 years that many have been operating on the "robbing Peter to pay Paul" system simply in order to function? So there is no money but you want schools to open for longer. This will involve extra costs. Teaching Assistants are employed on a contract with specific hours, quite often they are not paid during school holidays and their pay is often very low. Most schools couldn't operate without them but if they are asked to work extra hours should they do that for nothing? Usually schools are cleaned on a fairly sketchy system which clears up most of the mess but certainly doesn't disinfect or deep clean. In order to do that in every classroom cleaners will once again have to work longer and be paid more. Office staff (also on low wages and hourly pay ) will have to be paid extra, because they are an essential part of safeguarding in schools
Teachers probably could (and most likely would) work the much longer hours and spend nights and weekends doing all the necessary planning, marking and assessing. Of course this would subject them to even more strain than the job usually entails and as a result you may get more abscences with stress and more leaving the profession, so in the long term this may be a real catastrophe.
All of these measures would need the government to relax the intense assessment and regulations the curriculum presently demands and to provide more funding. I think most who know something about education realise this isn't going to happen.

Galaxy the refuge services throughout Britain have performed exceptionally on behalf of all who reside in the UK even when little or no protection could be offered to those in that industry throughout.

The vast majority of retail outlets reopened yesterday with in many cases great innovation, imagination and cooperation of all in that sector bringing that about.

However, what do we see in the education sector, little or nothing in the shape of the above, just excuses and diversions.

Grandad, most shops arent fully operational, the household waste service (tips rather than the service provided by bin men) is not fully operational, the postal service has only just become fully operational , are you calling these industries a waste of time.

Britain

I think you are all talking about England.

Luckygirl, I am like the vast majority of the British public unable to indicate any innovation or imaginative fundamental thinking in our schools simply because there seems to be little or none of the above to be witnessed.

What I and others do see after three months of this crisis would be that the vast majority of children in Britain are still not receiving any consistent, regular and structured education.

Simply put the children are not going to School due to the failures of those who are supposed to be responsible for their education.

"Many independent schools in England have announced they have opened their doors to all of their primary school age children this week, with more schools to follow next week."

This government has scored an own goal here and it won't be able to deny the fact that it is failing so many youngsters. The social divide will be even greater as results from private schools will soar above those of the state sector. Inequality once again.

I wait on.................

Luckygirl

"Perhaps some concrete examples of absence of both might be helpful."

Luckygirl. If you read my post @15:59 thoroughly, you will see I suggested the use of the Health & Safety Executive to assist in the full reopening of Britains schools.

Perhaps a response from you to that would be first of all appropriate????

To add to the other countres question:

I think that a proportion of children will be going into school daily in Wales, which means one day per week for each child. The aim is to check-in, catch up and prepare for the summer and September.
As well as the proportion of children returning to school, there will be the children of key workers who have been attending throughout.

There seems to have been a co-ordinated effort in the Continuity of Learning Plan to help teachers with the ongoing education of their pupils.
It was planned that those without a laptop would be helped; money was provided to ensure those pupils would have re-purposed school devices and connectivity.

There will be staggered starts and breaks.
This could mean that only those pupils whose parents are able to transport them may be able to attend as bus services are not that regular in some areas.
The summer term will be extended by one week.

It will depend, of course, on parents being happy and willing for their children to return and transport being available.

Not all State borders are open in Australia and not all schools will be re-opening. State Premiers have made different decisions. The school year runs from January to December anyway. There is a 2 week holiday at the end of June/beginning of July and not another one until September.
Closing the borders kept the numbers of COVID19 cases down. However, it is now winter there.
It is quite a different scenario to England.

"Perhaps some concrete examples of absence of both might be helpful."

Lucky girl in regard to your post @16:11 today, if you look back through this thread you will see that I have put forward several arguments in regard to how schools could once again become fully functional.

The most prominent of those was for a "double shift system" in the School day. However, that was readily dismissed by the education establishment on this forum as that would disturb the sectors comfort bubble....obviously.

Except for wondering - perhaps they DID contact the appropriate agencies and were told to go fly a kite, particularly on the budget front. Education, like health, has been on a starvation diet interspersed with active reductions for a long time.

I'm out.

Well, after three months of this crisis the schools are still not anywhere near being fully operational. Therefore it can only be concluded that the above quoted innovation and imagination, if it exist to any extent at all, is not working.

So, we once again witness the "Education Establishment" retreat to its comfort bubble to take up it's preferred stance of engaging in the personal attack of anyone who tries demonstrate any form of fundamental imaginative thinking.

No doubt the above is the real reason the education sector demonstrates no sign of becoming fully functional when almost all other sectors are regaining that functionality.

Oh dear - if you only you could see the innovation and imagination that every school is employing to further the education of children at this time. I am witnessing it daily.

Perhaps some concrete examples of absence of both might be helpful.

You're just determined to be negative and attack the very systems provided to support children.

The arrogance is astounding. You give NO solutions.

Over and out. No point trying to engage with such an imperious and contemptuous attitude. No solutions. Just accusations.

We continue to witness a complete lack of any innovation by those speaking in support of the education establishment in this thread, but we are able to view an overwhelming amount of negativity and excuse-making by the same.

As example to the above, all the major companies in the distribution industry in Britain quickly approached the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) at the start of the coronavirus pandemic. In that action, those companies requested the suspension of the LGV Drivers Hours regulations which was readily granted and applied which ensured that food and pharmaceutical products remained on the shelves of our supermarkets as panic buying ensued at the beginning of this crisis.

In the above, the education sector should be carrying out similar, for should it be felt that the current budgets and regulations are an impediment to the sectors ability to bring about the safe reopening of schools for the children of all parents, then an approach to the HSE, being a government agency, may well bring substantial gains.

It has to be remembered that throughout the second world war Britain's schools and education system remained fully functional even when one in every five schools in the United Kindom was damaged through bombing or were used as emergency accommodation for those who lost their homes during the Blitz.

Even when all the children in Britains largest city's had to be evacuated to the countryside for their protection, the schools and education systems in those rural areas maintained the learning to all the children that were evacuated to them.

In the above, those teaching both in city's and rural areas used civic buildings, churches and even pubs to accommodate learning and through that were highly successful in the maintenance of education to that generation of children throughout those six years.

Thinking outside the box was essential in those terrible times and has been essential to the survival of many organisations in these unprecedented times by way of bringing about their continuous operation during the lockdown and now in the safe reopening of many other businesses.

Will we see the return of the same innovative but fundamental thinking in the education establishment in these times, I very much doubt we will, but I can only hope I am wrong in that judgment.

GagaJo

I think opening the school for a longer day is possible. It would however need extra staff. For example, in my old UK school, my old classroom was only big enough for about 10/12 students with the new regulations. My Y10 class had 34 students in it. That would be three shifts of students. My room was only empty previously for 3 lessons a week.

If the day was extended, and if the NUMBER of lessons a week per subject were reduced (currently it is preset, the school doesn't chose how much English to teach for example), it would be possible to have morning and afternoon school.

If we started at 7.30am and ended at 7.30pm, it would be possible. But you'd need between 30 & 50% more teachers to cover the extra lessons. Not possible for a teacher to teach that much because it wouldn't allow any time to prepare lessons, marking, data entry and all of the other totally unnecessary admin teachers have forced on them.

A lesson takes on average between 30 & 60 mins to plan and resource. There is some reusing possible BUT the government keep changing the syllabus so we can't do that as much as people who don't work in education think we can.

We already have a teacher shortage in the UK, thanks to underfunding. You'd need a massive recruitment drive to staff it.

Grandad1943, CLEARLY you didn't read my message.

Here are some solutions. Teachers are very very experienced in thinking on their feet, outside the box, or whatever euphemism you want to use for their problem solving ability.

So. A solution given. Would YOU like to address the recruitment and the funding?

Or are you negatively just passing the buck?

At the moment he hasn't booked any accommodation for next year, so I guess that's a saving, but he's still missing out on the whole university experience.

There is no "negativity" in the education sector on the ground. Teachers are, as I have said, working round the clock to implement the government's edicts, even though they are aware that is essentially an experiment.

The UK government having failed to prevent the arrival of coronavirus on these shores and not taken the right steps soon enough to prevent tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths, it is hardly surprising that teachers voice concerns about the safety of the "guidance" (guesswork) that is coming their way.

They are used to being responsible for the safeguarding of our grandchildren, a job they do well.

Other countries are further down the road to full opening of education because they acted more quickly and more efficiently to clobber the virus and can make these decisions with a fair degree of certainty that all will be well. We are not yet ion that position.