Is morality something you expect of others?

Seems there are many others who follow the (amended) old saying Those who can, do. Those who can pass on what they can do, teach it. Those who can't pass it on and have no idea how that is done, criticise the teachers"

indeed, my grandchildren go to excellent private schools- large premises, lots of spare room and land, and classes of 15 max- so going back won't be a problem for them.

What about the rest Elianne- those who are already crammed in classes of over 30 in small classrooms - as said, even if it would be possible to solve the physical distancing (somehow- no idea how a 'can do ' attitude can turn a classrooms with 15 double desks with hardly any space to move around- but even if you could) - where would you suddenly find double the number of qualified teachers to teach them, especially in times of shortages, especially in some subjects?

And unfortunately ( on GN) there are those who put teachers on a pedestal.
Other professions have been getting on with it, and so must teachers, come September, they are not a protected species!
I think Grandad1943’s posts are spot on.
Schools will adapt however they can within the classroom, but our children cannot be left to their own devices any longer than 6 months.

I think he means we in general rather than we in particular. All his kids go or went to private school anyway where the classes are much smaller so it wouldn’t apply to him in particular, if that makes sense.

I just fear that children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or even those with full time working parent/s education will suffer considerably if schools are unable to offer full time education.

Parents are told repeatedly that taking little Johnny/Joanna our of school for a family holiday is detrimental to their education and they will be unable to catch up.

Do sports outside, utilise sports halls, erect marquees, teach outside whenever weather is permitting.

There must be a solution as part-time education cannot just continue until/if a vaccine becomes available.

For all the negative posters......what would you do then?
Also why must teachers be so ‘looked after’ more than all the other workers? They can’t stay at home forever and teaching online has been very very patchy.
There is no other solution, the schools must reopen in Sept.

"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.

Even if they only open on a rota system it would be much better than nothing! We can only hope!

GrannyGravy As I've already written, my local comprehensive has 2300 pupils. This is quite a small town, but almost all the teenagers from the surrounding villages come here. I've been doing a mental count of all the church halls and similar spaces I know. At most, there would be space for 200 pupils. Then there would be the problem of transporting staff between sites every change of lesson. It really just would not work.

I have 3 family members who are primary school teachers and will be going back to in-service days tomorrow with the children coming in later in the week. They were all involved with online teaching and with the hub school rotas and so have not, as some believe, been sitting at home on their bottoms since March.

As they all work in poor areas of cities or large towns,*eazybee*, there is a limited supply of church halls, libraries and youth clubs within easy reach, and there would be competition among local schools for them anyway.

I am very worried for their safety when they have to spend each day with a full class of children, and it won't be long before the weather makes outdoor teaching impossible. All the classes can't get into the bike shed at once.

Ellianne

Yes, *trisher, sadly school nurses no longer exist in the state sector. She costs the school £50k a year.
Class sizes of 20.
It might be another world, but it is a "can do" world.

Only in the private sector I think. When, if ever, did you hear of state schools with 20 pupils per class?

Jabberwok

Even if they only open on a rota system it would be much better than nothing! We can only hope!

As far as I know, the plan is to open full-time. I've seen the handbook with expectations my neighbour's son has been given and it's very impressive. There will be a number of restrictions, such as not sharing textbooks or equipment and there will be designated toilets. Movement around the site is going to be strictly regulated. Staff will move to classrooms and practical lessons won't take place.

However, I know some of the staff in the school and I know that there is a Plan B in place. They are fully expecting classes to be sent home. The question is when. The infection rate in the town is still 1 in a 1000, so it's realistic to expect 2 or 3 pupils or staff to be infected at any one time. The problem is going to be those who are asymptomatic and/or before symptoms become evident because there could be a real outbreak. Pupils will then take infection back to their families. They could really do with their own testing station with rapid results.

If there are a number of classes with infected pupils and/or a number of infected staff, the school will have to close. Nobody wants that, but reopening might then need to involve some kind of rota system or concentrating on exam classes.

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.

Have the people making these bright suggestions ever worked in a state secondary school?

Do they know that schools will be getting no extra money. Even the wonderful pay rises for teachers (which caused so much teacher-hate on here not so long ago) have to come out of existing budgets. So where is the money coming from for all this wonderful outside the box thinking?

And I'm sure that the staff and pupils will love to be taught out of doors in the middle of winter..

I'm especially intrigued by Do sports outside. Where on earth do you think they do them usually?

lemongrove

For all the negative posters......what would you do then?
Also why must teachers be so ‘looked after’ more than all the other workers? They can’t stay at home forever and teaching online has been very very patchy.
There is no other solution, the schools must reopen in Sept.

There is another solution. The trendy term is "blended learning", which is a mix of face to face and distance learning. This would allow pupils to be in school for half the time and for half size classes, giving more classroom space. Plans are already being developed for this kind of learning, should it be needed.

Secondary pupils already spend some of their time working independently, so it would just require organisation to complete interactive work in class with follow-up work being done at home.

I was wondering about sports too Maizie. Incidentally, pupils have been told that changing rooms will be out of action, so if they have PE, they need to wear their kit all day - the stench of BO in classrooms at the end of the day is going to be lovely, especially in a classroom above ground floor, where windows don't open.

This dichotomy between the "it should be can-do" and "irresistable force meets immovable parameters" will run and run. Once the schools have been open full time for all pupils for a few weeks we will see the pros and cons. Too late then to start again from scratch.

^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.

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

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...

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.

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.

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)

"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.

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.

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.