Is morality something you expect of others?

gillybob what useful contribution does your post make to the discussion?
Of course you could take the view that parents working is the only reason BJ is interested in opening schools, the education of most children being something totally outside his usual remit. In fact the education of the poorest being something he and his party have steadily eroded. Anyone remember Sure start? and then of course you have the staff who used to work with those pupils, the steadily disappearing Teacher's Assistants.

Oh well, not culpable me. I kept to the brief nearly into page 3 until the heat got to me.
Politics is a mean game.

I see two early derailers who I don't think are teachers.

Interesting to see how things are being thrown up so that we (the ordinary citizens )will then forget all about important points such as the refusal to withdraw the whip from the Tory
MP accused of rape ,the dubious integrity of some of the Cabinet, the handing out of contracts without proper tenders.
Funny how these things crop up . !

Maybe the only solution is to close all schools for the next year or two All parents of school age children will lose their jobs but at least teachers continue to be paid in full .
Otherwise Why not think of a solution, like other businesses, factories, shops, hospitals, restaurants, cafes ........ have all had to do .

Ellianne

Sorry, westendgirl, but the topic was going swimmingly along the lines of the OP until the teachers themselves derailed it. No one had a go at the profession until they started up.

Indeed, it was going swimmingly with all the non teachers piling in and saying what school should be doing without any knowledge of how schools work, how school budgets work or even what HTs and their staff have been trying to work on for the past few weeks.

Sorry if a few teachers spoiled it all with a bit of reality.

Sorry, westendgirl, but the topic was going swimmingly along the lines of the OP until the teachers themselves derailed it. No one had a go at the profession until they started up.

I really am fed up with the" well I went to school so I know it all" posters on this site . What is it with some of you that you always have to have a go at the teaching profession?. Lucky girl your post was spot on .I really don't think that most of those commenting have the slightest idea of what life in a school today is like.

By the way the original post was asking the question "can you expect morals from others if you don't have any personally ?"

Perhaps some of you could answer the question instead of using it to be unpleasant.

Isn't the crux of the matter that the government want children back in school so that all their parents can get back to work?

It is very important that children get the education that they deserve but safety has to be paramount.

I just hope that the measures that have been put in place are adequate and all children can resume their education without more disruption.

Ellianne

If you care to read back Maisie we were discussing physical space .... church halls, marquees etc. when I posted my comment. Not many teachers are experienced at adapting premises, or understand the logistics of erecting portacabins and marquees.

You don't get it, do you? It might be possible for a primary school to use one or two extra spaces, but for a large secondary school, it really just is not possible. There aren't the spaces available and teachers would spend half their time moving from one site to another.

Yes, that is where the promised tutors could make a big contribution.

Elegran

GRowstuff I have no magic formula for success, I only notice than within the best-of-the-possibilities there is still a weak point. It is the same weak point that is always there when homework needs to be done and may not be supported, but it is magnified when schooling is only part-time. It takes careful organisation which I am sure will happen.

I agree, but schools can only do what's possible. If anything becomes of the promised tutors, maybe they could be tasked with contacting hard-to-reach pupils individually.

None of us have been required to do anything like this before - we are all innovating, and teachers as much if not more than anyone else.

Schools are bound by strict safeguarding rules - they are not free to innovate at will. They are trying very hard to find ways forward within the constraints that are placed on them. Reasonable constraints of course - parents need to be reassured that they can send their children to school safely.

I would not dream of telling people running a business or factory how they might innovate to take account of the current circumstances; nor would I accuse them of doing too little or failing to use their imaginations - how could I? - I do not work there or have intimate knowledge of the systems there.

So - people should not presume to criticise schools when they know absolutely nothing about the work they are doing or the constraints that they are trying very hard to find ways round. What is it with the teacher-bashing and school-bashing? Do we do this with nurses or doctors? - I could cite some pretty poor examples within the health services, as all of us could with any organisation.

If you care to read back Maisie we were discussing physical space .... church halls, marquees etc. when I posted my comment. Not many teachers are experienced at adapting premises, or understand the logistics of erecting portacabins and marquees.

GRowstuff I have no magic formula for success, I only notice than within the best-of-the-possibilities there is still a weak point. It is the same weak point that is always there when homework needs to be done and may not be supported, but it is magnified when schooling is only part-time. It takes careful organisation which I am sure will happen.

No, Maisie, teachers on here have gone to great lengths to explain how they are bound by financial constraints, restricted by the narrowness of the curriculum, undervalued by society. The implication being they aren't allowed to experiment in school, throw out the rule book, turn the system on its head. Therefore they are not renowned for being innovative in a crisis like this, nothing to do with their method of teaching. They haven't been required to do anything like this before.

???

I missed that! I agree! It's contemptible. It's exactly what teachers do every single day.

Ellianne

"Do sports outside, utilise sports halls, erect marquees, teach outside whenever weather is permitting."
I suggested this way back in May GrannyGravy and posted examples of schools and teachers who were going all out to achieve this. Thinking outside the box, innovating, experimenting are all vital, but that is not what teachers are particularly renowned for. Adapt to the new conditions, be flexible, don't have meetings about every little thing. Be practical while considering the safety aspects, be ready to scrap something instantly if it isn't working. Just give our children the chance they deserve, they have been denied so much. They are our responsibility.

Thinking outside the box, innovating, experimenting are all vital, but that is not what teachers are particularly renowned for.

Comtemptuous and patronising all in one sentence, Ellianne.

Elegran

growstuff "so it would just require organisation to complete interactive work in class with follow-up work being done at home."

Hmmm I suspect the weak point there for some children could be the "follow-up work being done at home" If parents are at work and children home alone, what is the betting that for the very ones who need most supervision and have the most catching-up to do after lockdown, the follow-up work will be skimped (at best)

So what do you suggest if there's an outbreak and a school has to keep on closing? It's better that distance learning is controlled rather than happening at short notice, possibly for weeks at a time. There's supposed to be extra funding for tuition for those who need to "catch up", although I haven't seen any details about ow that would work in practice.

We were talking to a friend recently, a retired head of the history department in a rough school in Manchester. He was talking about the classroom assistants who were often told not to go into a class room because they must fill in forms. Apparently it was not uncommon for children to insert razor blades into rubbers and throw those around the room. He said it was necessary to have the assistants just to watch the children since he couldn't watch all the children at the same time.

I'm sure everyone agrees that children should go back to school asap. But how, when class numbers and class room sizes are incompatible? Plus, the financing is not available.

In September temperatures will start to fall and apparently covid spreads more rapidly during cold weather. Covid is not going away any time soon. America is about to reach 5 million cases, numbers of cases in France and Italy are on the increase. There is no reason to suppose that the same will not happen in hte UK.

More importantly, the results of studies on children are beginning to appear. They are suggesting that children under 10 are not transmitting the disease at a rate any where near that of transmission between adults. The studies are also showing that teenagers transmit the disease at the same rate as adults. This should be cause for concern.

Finally, there are many middle aged and younger adults who have suffered from covid and lived to tell the tale. These people are beginning to talk of the current state of health and they are suffering from a variety of long term symptoms. On the news the other day there was an interview with a woman who started an organisation for sufferers and it now has 15,000 members. (sorry, I forget the name of the association) There were also interviews with other suffers in their 30s and early forties whose lives have changed dramatically because of the after effects. As they began to recover from covid, none of them thought that they would suffer other problems.

"I must confess to not having fully read this thread, but it does seem that there is a lot of very misplaced contempt for the teaching profession on it..."

That is where you are wrong MaisieD, no contempt, just exasperation and a desire to push forward. Nothing but admiration for those who are giving it a go.

growstuff "so it would just require organisation to complete interactive work in class with follow-up work being done at home."

Hmmm I suspect the weak point there for some children could be the "follow-up work being done at home" If parents are at work and children home alone, what is the betting that for the very ones who need most supervision and have the most catching-up to do after lockdown, the follow-up work will be skimped (at best)

Blended learning and rotas and using other spaces are all on the agenda of schools and their leaders and are being actively discussed. And indeed have been used already up to the end of the summer term.

We are lucky to have an excellent community hall next to the school with safe access across the school grounds: and lucky that the committee of the community hall have stopped all other activities there to create a safe space for the children, because they value their education.

So much is going on and there will be more. I hate this assumption that teachers and school leaders are lazy and doing nothing; and just looking for problems. We are thinking ahead and making contingency plans for the inevitable instances when staff and pupils will be denied access to school, either because they are infected or because the track and trace system has ordered them to do so.

But....replacing them with new teachers, and employing more teachers so that numerically more and smaller classes can be started is financially impossible. School budgets are cut to the bone - parents supply toilet rolls, pens, books, paper etc. all the time in schools. And teachers dip into their own pockets for paper towels and so much more.

Everyone in the system is more than willing to go the extra mile for the pupils - but we cannot print money that we do not have.

I do think schools will open, and will try to allow as many children as possible to have full time education. The infection rate remains to be seen and very small schools will simply close again quickly if there is a case. What I find really fascinating is that a government which has systematically cut funding over the last 10 years so that even before Covid there were schools operating shorter weeks suddenly seems to value education. Not of course to the extent of giving more money of course just of pontificating and preaching.

Ellianne

^I know that there is a Plan B in place.
Reopening might then need to involve some kind of rota system or concentrating on exam classes.^ Excellent growstuff and hopefully a plan C and D in someone's head too.

Don't you think that school Head Teachers and Governors might have thought all this through already?

I must confess to not having fully read this thread, but it does seem that there is a lot of very misplaced contempt for the teaching profession on it...

The stench of BO in classrooms at the end of the day is going to be lovely, that made me laugh!