AIBU No going back to school I’m furious.

Just a few points I'd like to make. An academy school near here has spent a lot of money making preparations to get the children back. I'm told by neighbour who works there and was very sceptical before going there last week that they've made many changes. She was very reassured about going back to work. However, they are a company and not all schools have that kind of money.

We have no way of knowing what the situation is in the homes the children are coming from. What's been happening there? Is someone in the family being shielded and may the children take home Covid -19? The whole of life is reflected in any school.

Many children are cared for by grandparents and may become carriers to older family members. Some families have grandparents living with them, other grandparents may be the main carers of GC.

We have no way of knowing the levels cleanliness and rigid washing of hands and wiping of shopping and surfaces in the homes the children come from. Will the children have been drilled at home about regular washing of hands etc?

The children have not been on holiday all this time. They will need to have free time socialising and playing out when the virus is at last retreating. Families will finally be able to get out together without so much fear and maybe a little holiday away somewhere if they're lucky. Don't be wishing the holiday period to be taken for classes right through till Christmas. As someone mentioned up thread, teaching has been going on in many schools either in school for the vulnerable and children of key workers or online. Many teachers have been teaching classes online whilst caring for their own young children at home. Very few lazy teachers in my considerable experience.

Indeed Ginny very few lazy teachers. But then there’s a section of society who play the ‘let’s knock teachers’ game with gusto.

I believe that Johnson today is talking about summer school to enable pupils to catch up. Everything must be done to get things moving again.

Mokryna - schools are alternating on different days" .
So that's a kind of shift system.
Maybe also the curriculum needs to be narrowed down to the essentials, whatever they are. After all schools functioned up to the ?60s with huge classes and basic curriculum. Not that I advocate that - too many failures and dropouts.

I’m a teacher. There’s nothing I’d like better than to get back into the classroom. Teaching online is exhausting, and I am online from 8am till 6pm most days, with marking and lesson planning on top of that. It’s not the same as being in the same room, and some students find it very tough. I get terrible headaches each evening from so much screen time, and I know some kids do as well. Their parents can give them a day off, but I have to keep going. I long for the day I can stand in front of the classroom and see rows of children’s faces.

BUT...

I would never forgive myself if I were responsible for the death of a child, or a parent, or a grandparent because a pupil picked up Covid19 in my classroom. It has to be as safe as possible. If I have 20 children in my classroom, they bring risk from 20 households together for an hour at a time. They touch desks and chairs and books and resources. Five minutes after they leave, a new set of 20 students comes in. It only takes one asymptomatic child to expose 40 children to Covid19 in the space of an afternoon.

I get why parents want their children back in school. I do too. But what we all really want is for this virus never to have happened and for everything to go back to the way it was. But it HAS happened, and we’re doing our damnedest to find a way forward. I’m so fed up with being a punching bag for angry parents who use teachers to vent their frustration with Coronavirus that I am considering leaving teaching altogether. I am not lazily lounging around the house having a paid holiday. I’m working 50+ hours a week trying to make sure that all the kids I teach get a decent education in these difficult times.

And just in case anyone asks how I have time to do gransnet during the school day... it’s breaktime.

I was part of an online group of grandparents who suddenly started discussing re-opening the schools; all were totally opposed to it. In unguarded moments it became clear that they have been seeing their grandchildren regularly, and illegally. One has been home-schooling her grandchildren since the beginning of lockdown, having no idea that she has been clearly visible in the children's bedrooms to people waiting patiently in the queue for the shop opposite.

' We are comfortable as we are' said one, who entertains her grandchildren regularly in her own home; several said: 'because it isn't fair on the other one', (left at home or going to school) and another reason was: 'it's not worth it , just for three weeks'. None of them was the slightest bit concerned about their lack of education; they were only concerned with the risk of catching the virus via their grandchildren if they returned to school. The idea of refraining from contact with them whilst they attended school seeing was not even considered.

I have read many comments on here from people who have observed lockdown to the letter of the law with regard to their grandchildren,and I was disgusted.

I would have been disgusted too eazybee, although I suspected it was going on from comments I've seen on various local Facebook groups.

It's because that kind of thing has been going on that COVID-19 is still circulating. A few weeks of properly enforced lockdown would have practically knocked it on its head and we could ALL resume some kind of normality.

The grandparents of one of my online pupils have both had COVID-19. One was quite seriously ill.

I tutored the boy before lockdown in his house and since lockdown only online.

The parents would prefer that I resume face-to-face tuition, but I've refused. For a start, it would have been breaking the rules and, secondly, I don't want to risk my own health. I haven't left the house since mid March, so I'm as confident as I can be that I'm not infected.

Their reason was that they thought they'd all had it (which they'd never told me). It turned out that the boy had been staying overnight with his grandparents one night a week, which is presumably how they all got infected.

The truth is that they can't cope with having the boy in the house all day.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to stick to my guns, but I will, despite the financial consequences, if they dispense with my services.

My DD is waiting to see how many of her pupils whose parents are angry that they are not back in school then take them out in the next year for a holiday.Yes she knows it's difficult for families when holidays are so expensive in school holidays and tempting to go when cheaper but too many families are taking the hit with a fine,then expecting the teachers in her school to play catch up .Several of her class had already missed a significant chunk of the term prior lockdown for this.
It's also been pretty soul destroying preparing the school for the returning years including Year 6s only to see a large group heading into the park together on her way home.Letters have been sent to parents but nevertheless makes a mockery of the social distancing expected,and puts the staff at risk as well as other children.

Considering the almost impossibility the guidelines issued for primary schools: www.gov.uk/government/publications/preparing-for-the-wider-opening-of-schools-from-1-june/planning-guide-for-primary-schools

I wonder what the guidelines for summer schools will be. Whose doing the planning and teaching for that. Where will it be held?

Schools will be spending a good part of the summer getting ready for September. That's when they they have the new guidelines. Hopefully BJ will talk and listen to NAHT (many primary heads belong to this) and teachers and parents this time.

Fennel. I am in France. Children are usually 30 in a class but now half classes only. They are operating in alphabetical order, so that the children from the same family are present on the days they have been allotted. I am working at a distance for medical reasons but teachers in school say that the same programme can be taught as a child is not near another therefore they concentrate more, attention is better, can’t chat to neighbours nor are they allowed to move about now. In France primary school is over four days. But in September it may return to full classes.

How old are the youngest children in French primary schools?

The system is different to the UK, children can go to the free nursery section in the school, depending on when their birthday falls, which could be as young as 2 ( one of my daughters was 2 years 2 months) and they would stay there until 5/6. Then primary is from 5/6 till 10/11 .
Children who are failing sometimes are kept down to redo the year and some can jump a year because they are doing so well.

I havent read all the comments so apologies if this has been said before. I believe it's political, the unions are flexing their muscles with the govt, advising that its unsafe for all children to go back. Govt are conceding under pressure from them.

But even those going back in yrs R, 1 & 6 are doing so part time because they can't have them all back and meet SD guidelines.

Unions are concerned about the safety of staff and children. I don’t know what is happening elsewhere but around here teachers, TAs, welfare staff, etc none are wearing masks and of course social distancing is impossible with young children.

My daughter is back teaching her Year 1 class. It's a small class of just 16. 10 children are attending

However my daughter in law is a Reception teacher and her school is almost empty, despite teachers willing to work.

If they were that concerned, all schools would have closed completely right from lockdown. I would have thought that the children of key workers would have posed the biggest risk to teachers.

Oopsminty. Makes you wonder if the fear is amongst the parents, more than the teachers. I would be interested to know what your DD thinks about govt's decision to keep schools closed to other year groups until Sept.

I could write so much about this whole issue as all my family work in education - 3 as secondary teachers and one in the education department as a data analyst for the government. They are all exhausted. Dd1 has been working 50 hours a week providing online teaching resources, tutorials etc whilst working with the rest of senior management to try and organise a return to school in August. (We are in Scotland)? and supporting her own 14 year old daughter with her home schooling. Ds/dil are working long hours whilst looking after and home schooling their 5 and 7 year olds.. None of them had Easter holidays and have had their summer holidays cut short. As a deputy head DIL is responsible for timetabling a whole academy-can you imagine the logistics involved in that? It’s hard enough in a normal year let alone with all the changes that are being implemented. Don’t forget volunteering at the hubs for key workers’ children, or working out grade assessments for central government in place of national exams, or pastoral care, or multi agency meetings re vulnerable children....the list is endless. My son is furious when he reads anything about teachers ‘returning to work’ - as he says, they’ve never stopped. One huge problem in our area is how do they actually get the children into school? Dd1’s school has a large number of rural pupils who are bussed in. Even with vastly reduced classes there will still be 300.children per day requiring transport. They can no longer have 53 pupils per bus but only 12, so they now require 25 buses per day. Where are these meant to come from? There are 4 academies in a 20 mile radius who all require transport....up to.100 coaches a day? That’s just one of the huge logistical nightmares. Returning kids to school is not easy and has nothing to do with so called lazy teachers. It’s insulting to think that it is.

For schools it’s a logistical problem - they can’t fit all the children in if they follow the guidelines, but more importantly, staffing - if a school have a couple of teachers off sick, or pregnant or vulnerable they will find it impossible to run “normally”, let alone with twice the number of classes, and not enough classrooms. Even if it’s a shift system - staffing will still be the most difficult to resolve - will teachers be expected to do all the shifts and deep clean the classrooms in between? And get exposed to another group of children thus increasing their risk of infection? I can’t see many retired teachers volunteering for that. I think part time schooling will become the norm for a while yet.

Even now with the government boasting that they’ve got school up and running, schools are finding it difficult. I asked my neighbours year 6 child if she was looking forward to going back to school, and she said I’m not going back- my school haven’t got enough teachers for year 6.

mokryna Yes, I know it's different and I think that children still start "proper" primary school slightly older than in the UK, where YR children are sometimes only four.

I've been in a French primary school and I've observed that classes are generally more formal than in the UK. I've also taught a girl with English mother tongue, who had spent two years in a French primary school. I even scrutinised her exercise books from the time she'd been in France. She had beautiful handwriting, but she couldn't actually understand what she'd written. Her lack of understanding hadn't been picked up and there was no support for her. There's still a big difference between education in France and the UK. In France, pupils are very much on their own.

It would be much easier to manage a French classroom in the current situation than a British one. It's really not possible to claim that what happens in France could happen in the UK. Not only that, but France currently has better systems for testing and tracing and can shut down schools where there are infections much faster.

Very well said Katek.

Maybe better if the government actually talked to schools rather than announcing what will happen on Monday and Headteachers haven’t been informed. And maybe if schools were actually given more money for extra staff, cleaners etc.