How will schools be able to go back in September?

BonsaiKitten

Glenbhoy wrote: »

If staggering is required, it must be done on a surname basis to ensure that kids from the same family are at school on the same day. That minimises trips for drop off and collection and facilitates parents ability to return to work as far as possible.

Good point. However if you're aiming to cover the maximum amount of curriculum in a short space of time I'd look for classes based on an ability split.

I am sure most principals would be reasonable and seek to have siblings in on the same day.

Glenbhoy

BonsaiKitten wrote: »

Good point. However if you're aiming to cover the maximum amount of curriculum in a short space of time I'd look for classes based on an ability split.

I am sure most principals would be reasonable and seek to have siblings in on the same day.

I wouldn't be too concerned about the academic side of things, it shouldn't be too difficult to catch up if needed, I'm sure there's a few bits in the curriculum that aren't as essential now as they were when it was being written. Alternatively, given the recession we're looking at, another year at school for everyone would slow down the release into the workforce, sure didn't many colleges extend 3 year course into 4 year course for spurious reasons a decade ago!!

KerryConnor

Streaming kids in this way wouldn't happen at primary . Mixed ability is part of guidelines for lots reasons. Social, self esteem, kids bringing each other on.

BonsaiKitten wrote: »

Good point. However if you're aiming to cover the maximum amount of curriculum in a short space of time I'd look for classes based on an ability split.

I am sure most principals would be reasonable and seek to have siblings in on the same day.

wirelessdude01

BonsaiKitten wrote: »

Good point. However if you're aiming to cover the maximum amount of curriculum in a short space of time I'd look for classes based on an ability split.

I am sure most principals would be reasonable and seek to have siblings in on the same day.

Not allowed to stream like this at primary level. Also pretty sure it isn't allowed at 1st year in secondary. I'm sure someone can confirm/deny this.

For a whole host of reasons this is not suitable at primary level but any good principal will look at trying to get all members of the same family in on the same days if indeed we are asked to have reduced numbers in class each day.

annoyedgal

I think priority will have to be given to organise a safe return in September that has the safety of children and staff at the forefront as opposed to organising it in a way that facilitates childcare for parents.
I fully realise that school has become part of parent's childcare, presumably with pre or afterschool care. However the fundamental purpose of school is to educate and socialise the child not to faciliate childcare.
I say this as a parent of two and a teacher who will be facing childcare issues myself with a staggered return. It will be a massive headache for us and at the moment i don't know how we will manage it. I think the sooner we have a workable plan the sooner parents can plan for childcare based on the new model.
To go back to the original point of how schools can to back in September i think it can be done. It will require massive flexibilty for all, parents, kids and teachers. Flexibility from employers to allow parents to have flexitime around the school day.
It will require money and lots more of it for cleaning, hot water, reduced class sizes. Staggered and reduced yard times may become a feature.
Lots of challenges but i think they can be overcome if we accept that almost all aspects of what we as teachers and parents are used to in schools will be different going forward.

CruelSummer

I actually think schools and childcare facilities should reopen as normal in September. All the latest data points to this also. Social distancing will never work for young children, and it’s long term affects on them will be far worse than threat of the virus. Imagine how these children will be affected by having their teachers in masks and appearing to stand away from them. Those at risk in the Education sector should be shielded while the rest return to work. Teachers are a hardy bunch anyway due to being exposed to countless other viruses 24/7.

History Queen

CruelSummer wrote: »

I actually think schools and childcare facilities should reopen as normal in September. All the latest data points to this also. Social distancing will never work for young children, and it’s long term affects on them will be far worse than threat of the virus. Imagine how these children will be affected by having their teachers in masks and appearing to stand away from them. Those at risk in the Education sector should be shielded while the rest return to work. Teachers are a hardy bunch anyway due to being exposed to countless other viruses 24/7.

I see the reasoning in your post, however, denying children their education because they are more at risk than their peers seems wrong. Unless we are going to provide alternative access to education for them I don't know how it could be stood over.

As regards teachers being a hardy bunch, it all depends on your perspective, no more than other workers we don't take time off for minor illnesses and ailments but we may be forced to if being symptomatic with coughs etc. means having to stay home. I think then you'll discover that it isn't that we catch things less, just we usually work through minor things like that as we're not ill enough to justify staying home. I was looking at this myself yesterday thinking if I had to stay home everytime I had a cough/mild flu like symptoms this year I would have missed a substantial amount of time. I was just thinking of the knock effect it'll havein terms of substitute teachers and exasperating the teacher shortage.

That's not even addressing the fact that staff in at risk groups may not be able to return to school.

Edit- All of this makes me think there would probably need to be some restrictions on schools returning to try mitigate some of the above

ChelseaRentBoy

Not good at all

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-children-hit-by-rare-kawasaki-like-disease-linked-to-covid-19-11987928

We realy are only at the beginning of realizing what this disease can do.

wirelessdude01

History Queen wrote: »

I see the reasoning in your post, however, denying children their education because they are more at risk than their peers seems wrong. Unless we are going to provide alternative access to education for them I don't know how it could be stood over.

As regards teachers being a hardy bunch, it all depends on your perspective, no more than other workers we don't take time off for minor illnesses and ailments but we may be forced to if being symptomatic with coughs etc. means having to stay home. I think then you'll discover that it isn't that we catch things less, just we usually work through minor things like that as we're not ill enough to justify staying home. I was looking at this myself yesterday thinking if I had to stay home everytime I had a cough/mild flu like symptoms this year I would have missed a substantial amount of time. I was just thinking of the knock effect it'll havein terms of substitute teachers and exasperating the teacher shortage.

That's not even addressing the fact that staff in at risk groups may not be able to return to school.

Edit- All of this makes me think there would probably need to be some restrictions on schools returning to try mitigate some of the above

This is the thing. Is the guidelines regarding sickness are very tight and children/staff have to stay home with even minor symptoms then there will be a very high level of teacher absences as we tend to pick up pretty much anything going in primary schools. Last year I think I personally spent most of September to December fighting off something or other. I spent most of December being very sick but still went in as that is prime school concert time and you can't not be in as the children need to be prepared. Actually at one of the whole school practices I had to swallow my own vomit as otherwise it would have meant me spewing all over a stage full of children. Thought I had got away without it being noticed, only to be asked at lunchtime by a colleague
if I had done what I had done on stage!!!!

History Queen

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

This is the thing. Is the guidelines regarding sickness are very tight and children/staff have to stay home with even minor symptoms then there will be a very high level of teacher absences as we tend to pick up pretty much anything going in primary schools. Last year I think I personally spent most of September to December fighting off something or other. I spent most of December being very sick but still went in as that is prime school concert time and you can't not be in as the children need to be prepared. Actually at one of the whole school practices I had to swallow my own vomit as otherwise it would have meant me spewing all over a stage full of children. Thought I had got away without it being noticed, only to be asked at lunchtime by a colleague
if I had done what I had done on stage!!!!

Oh God that sounds awful wirelessdude! Ew!

I hope I made my point clearly, not trying to claim we're martyrs or anything, we get loads of minor ailments year round but nothing major and tend to work through. Other people in other sectors do the same but I think people would be surprised how often teachers are ill with some sort of minor ailment or other just purely because we are more exposed than most. Not an issue as such up to now, because we just worked on and were capable of doing so. That may not be tolerated in September.

kandr10

I have to say, I hate when my colleagues come in sick and put us all at risk of picking something up. I know of a few people on our staff that have underlying health conditions and several of us were pregnant this year. Pure irresponsible not to stay at home when you’ve caught something. You can’t expect the kids to stay home when sick of the staff won’t even do it! That’s possibly another thread though!

Leroy42

Surely they will have to split the classes and have only a certain number of students attend school on any given day. So class of 30 gets split into 5 groups of 6, with one group in each day, the rest of the week stay at home. That at least would get some interaction back between the teachers and the children, and the children themselves.

Ibviouly you could juggle the numbers to have more kids in more often depending in the set up.

ChelseaRentBoy

Doesn't matter which way you dice it childrens education is going to be destroyed for the forseeable.

History Queen

kandr10 wrote: »

I have to say, I hate when my colleagues come in sick and put us all at risk of picking something up. I know of a few people on our staff that have underlying health conditions and several of us were pregnant this year. Pure irresponsible not to stay at home when you’ve caught something. You can’t expect the kids to stay home when sick of the staff won’t even do it! That’s possibly another thread though!

But what constitutes sick enough to stay home? I had a cough/runny nose for most of September and October. No doctor would (or should!)have certified me off work for that length of time for such a minor illness. In September however, maybe things will be different? It would be madness and unsustainable I'd imagine to have so many out of work for long lenths of time with those types of symptoms.

wirelessdude01

Leroy42 wrote: »

Surely they will have to split the classes and have only a certain number of students attend school on any given day. So class of 30 gets split into 5 groups of 6, with one group in each day, the rest of the week stay at home. That at least would get some interaction back between the teachers and the children, and the children themselves.

Ibviouly you could juggle the numbers to have more kids in more often depending in the set up.

We talked about this on our zoom staff meeting last week and how you could do it without inviting the anger and annoyance of some parents. No matter what way you split the children up you would be certain to pee someone off as they aren't with some friend or other of they aren't in school day the same day as their cousin etc etc.

Nermal

ChelseaRentBoy wrote: »

Not good at all

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-children-hit-by-rare-kawasaki-like-disease-linked-to-covid-19-11987928

We realy are only at the beginning of realizing what this disease can do.

Shameful, absolutely shameful. Stop trying to scare people. Moderaters need to remove this type of post, especially from a thread full of concerned parents.

"Fewer cases of Kawasaki Disease than would be normally expected at this time of year are currently being seen – not more."

https://www.societi.org.uk/kawasaki-disease-and-covid-19/

wirelessdude01

History Queen wrote: »

But what constitutes sick enough to stay home? I had a cough/runny nose for most of September and October. No doctor would (or should!)have certified me off work for that length of time for such a minor illness. In September however, maybe things will be different? It would be madness and unsustainable I'd imagine to have so many out of work for long lenths of time with those types of symptoms.

Sick leave would be a mess plus you can't subs for love nor money anyway.

History Queen

Nermal wrote: »

Shameful, absolutely shameful. Stop trying to scare people. Moderaters need to remove this type of post, especially from a thread full of concerned parents.

"Fewer cases of Kawasaki Disease than would be normally expected at this time of year are currently being seen – not more."

https://www.societi.org.uk/kawasaki-disease-and-covid-19/

To be fair to previous poster they posted an article from sky news not some obscure conspiracy theory website.

Just because you don't like the content doesn't make it shameful or scaremongering.

Leroy42

ChelseaRentBoy wrote: »

Doesn't matter which way you dice it childrens education is going to be destroyed for the forseeable.

Absolute rubbish. People have survived on home schooling, distance learning, small mixed class sizes etc for years.

It certainly means a whole new approach to education, but the majority of children will get a full education once they work out the practicalities.

Maybe more online classes, assignments, zoom classes. Maybe staggered days in school. Maybe a longer academic year.

I don't know the answer, it will require a range of changes.

kandr10

History Queen wrote: »

But what constitutes sick enough to stay home? I had a cough/runny nose for most of September and October. No doctor would (or should!)have certified me off work for that length of time for such a minor illness. In September however, maybe things will be different? It would be madness and unsustainable I'd imagine to have so many out of work for long lenths of time with those types of symptoms.

Vomiting into your mouth while preparing for a nativity play as described above for example. Whooping cough - I had a colleague present to work with this. I hadn’t yet been vaccinated as part of my pregnancy. Yes, it took him a long time to shake it and god you’d never say anyone should have to stay home at the tail end of an illness, but to go to work at the early stages of having something like that is irresponsible. In any profession. Several staff members came to work with the flu, not even taking one day to try to recover at home. Flu spread like wildfire and attendance was abysmal before Christmas (as in most schools). You simply don’t know other people’s circumstances and the ways you’re putting them at risk. I would say anything that constitutes getting a sick note. No, a runny nose probably wouldn’t but I’m not too bothered about picking up a head cold. It’s the tummy bugs, flus, infectious diseases I’m more concerned about.

And I know subs are an issue, but that doesn’t negate how irresponsible it is to show up and teach when sick when you would expect kids to be kept home with the same symptoms. (I should say, one would expect...or I would expect - I hate when kids come in when their parents knew they were ill too!)

History Queen

kandr10 wrote: »

Vomiting into your mouth while preparing for a nativity play as described above for example. Whooping cough - I had a colleague present to work with this. I hadn’t yet been vaccinated as part of my pregnancy. Yes, it took him a long time to shake it and god you’d never say anyone should have to stay home at the tail end of an illness, but to go to work at the early stages of having something like that is irresponsible. In any profession. Several staff members came to work with the flu, not even taking one day to try to recover at home. Flu spread like wildfire and attendance was abysmal before Christmas (as in most schools). You simply don’t know other people’s circumstances and the ways you’re putting them at risk. I would say anything that constitutes getting a sick note. No, a runny nose probably wouldn’t but I’m not too bothered about picking up a head cold. It’s the tummy bugs, flus, infectious diseases I’m more concerned about.

And I know subs are an issue, but that doesn’t negate how irresponsible it is to show up and teach when sick when you would expect kids to be kept home with the same symptoms. (I should say, one would expect...or I would expect - I hate when kids come in when their parents knew they were ill too!)

Oh I'm not arguing with you at all. I agree with much of what you said, my point is just in regard to cold and mild flu like illnesses that can drag on for ages but yet you really are well enough to work. I'm pregnant myself and know the worry of being exposed to illness such as whooping cough needlessly. Hard to know where the line will lie this upcoming year.

People cannot and will not be able to afford to stay home unpaid/half pay if their sickleave is used up and they know themselves it's a headcold or similar if we go down the route of zero tolerance of some mild symptoms. Obviously this is all conjecture. May not come to that at all.

jrosen

Leroy42 wrote: »

Absolute rubbish. People have survived on home schooling, distance learning, small mixed class sizes etc for years.

It certainly means a whole new approach to education, but the majority of children will get a full education once they work out the practicalities.

Maybe more online classes, assignments, zoom classes. Maybe staggered days in school. Maybe a longer academic year.

I don't know the answer, it will require a range of changes.

Your comparing apples and oranges.
Yes kids are homeschooled and successfully at that but by a parent who wants too, a parent who isn't also trying to work. Distance learning will not work for smaller kids and those parents who are working full time simply will not be able to be hands on for much longer.

kandr10

History Queen wrote: »

Oh I'm not arguing with you at all. I agree with much of what you said, my point is just in regard to cold and mild flu like illnesses that can drag on for ages but yet you really are well enough to work. I'm pregnant myself and know the worry of being exposed to illness such as whooping cough needlessly. Hard to know where the line will lie this upcoming year.

People cannot and will not be able to afford to stay home unpaid/half pay if their sickleave is used up and they know themselves it's a headcold or similar if we go down the route of zero tolerance of some mild symptoms. Obviously this is all conjecture. May not come to that at all.

I think for staff and kids, it’s totally fine to come back to work with a runny nose of the worst has passed. I think it’s fairly easy to give guidelines around it - persistent chesty cough, temperature above a certain level etc. Perhaps getting approval from a doctor to come back to school or to work. Not taking any sick leave is not acceptable. It’s not just other staff members it’s the families of the people you’re in contact with. You could have a kid living with a cancer patient for example. If stricter criteria around sickness were brought in around covid, it would be a good thing overall.
Generally the working population could do with revised conditions around Sick pay. Particularly if they need to take more time off for kids being sick. Probably won’t happen I know but definitely necessary. There’s far too much reliance on private childcare, private healthcare to prop up what should be a public system

Murple

Nermal wrote: »

Shameful, absolutely shameful. Stop trying to scare people. Moderaters need to remove this type of post, especially from a thread full of concerned parents.

"Fewer cases of Kawasaki Disease than would be normally expected at this time of year are currently being seen – not more."

https://www.societi.org.uk/kawasaki-disease-and-covid-19/

But this new illness being seen is not Kawasaki disease but instead an illness that presents as similar to Kawasaki disease and is also linked to Covid-19.
If parents are concerned, they need to inform themselves not hide their heads in the sand. There are multiple reports, from multiple sources, in multiple countries. So far, it seems to be more prevalent in countries that have had much worse infection rates with Italy, the UK and the US all reporting increased cases of this condition though numbers are still relatively small.

Hubertj

i think it is laughable to suggest social distancing will work in school, particularly primary schools. Schools either have to open or not open. All this talk of once a week or half days is nonsense.

wirelessdude01

I see the new bandwagon to be jumped on is that all 6th classes and just them should be allowed back to school for the month of June.

Leroy42

Hubertj wrote: »

i think it is laughable to suggest social distancing will work in school, particularly primary schools. Schools either have to open or not open. All this talk of once a week or half days is nonsense.

And if they can't reopen fully, do you propose they simply stay closed until a vaccine is found?

There are examples, posted here, of Denmark and others following SD in schools, so it is possible.

But if not, then we need to be thinking how we deal with that. PPE, temperature tests, daily testing, reduced hours/split classes. No yard time, or classes kept in designed play zones.

SusanC10

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

I see the new bandwagon to be jumped on is that all 6th classes and just them should be allowed back to school for the month of June.

Hadn't seen this.

ChelseaRentBoy

Terrible news

https://www.thejournal.ie/us-notification-children-covid-19-illness-5099424-May2020/

The CDC won't have done this likely.

JDD

ChelseaRentBoy wrote: »

Terrible news

https://www.thejournal.ie/us-notification-children-covid-19-illness-5099424-May2020/

The CDC won't have done this likely.

Why do you keep posting links to this? The British Kawasaki society said there is actually less instances of Kawasaki this year than in previous years. I know mainstream media are reporting it, but it's sensationalism, pure and simple. Have a little sense and do a bit more reading before you insist on keeping posting the same thing.