How will schools be able to go back in September?

mcsean2163 wrote: »

In answer to your question, if the class were on-site broadband wouldn't be required while the teacher was teaching on-site.

Again, like I said and this post again proves it, some people have absolutely no idea what blended learning means.

Boggles wrote: »

Nice.

Yeah, I never said it wasn't, go back and read what I actually said.

I'm starting to doubt this competence level TBH.

Do they bring half the class they are supposed teaching at the same time home as well?

I'm beginning to believe if I said teachers were required to tie their shoe laces, you would have ten reasons why they couldn't.

In answer to your question, if the class were on-site broadband wouldn't be required while the teacher was teaching on-site.

BonsaiKitten wrote: »

There’s a difference between putting in some planning work and informing the parents about your plans. We don’t know exactly what the final guidelines will be. No school should be publishing their ‘final’ plans before the final guidance gets released. It’s very possible that these schools will have to row back on their plans which just causes more disruption.

And no, the schools should not be under pressure to publish guidance - that’s the job of the department. Once the department has done that, schools should publish their plans as soon as they are able. As I said, in the meantime sending out a reassuring email is fine - in fact I think most schools should do that.

I don't follow. If the schools are happy with their plan let them publish away. Schools know their parents best, and it's possible that this is the reassurance that they need. I really don't see how their pro-activeness can be seen as a bad thing here.

There is guidance available, and chances are it won't change that much if at all. Like I said, schools need to be under pressure because they need to interpret within the context of their own settings. Nobody said pandemic proofing was going to be relaxing!!

BonsaiKitten

Lillyfae wrote: »

I don't see what's irresponsible about putting some inevitable work in and informing people that they're ready. With all due respect, schools should absolutely be under pressure. It's less work for when the finalised guidance becomes available, and will identify barriers to reopening which need to be put back on the DoE to remove.

There are only 5 weeks left now, when do you want them to prepare? Do they need to wait, for example, until people have already gone on holidays to countries that they will need to self isolate when they get back from them for another two weeks?

There’s a difference between putting in some planning work and informing the parents about your plans. We don’t know exactly what the final guidelines will be. No school should be publishing their ‘final’ plans before the final guidance gets released. It’s very possible that these schools will have to row back on their plans which just causes more disruption.

And no, the schools should not be under pressure to publish guidance - that’s the job of the department. Once the department has done that, schools should publish their plans as soon as they are able. As I said, in the meantime sending out a reassuring email is fine - in fact I think most schools should do that.

mcsean2163 wrote: »

As someone with a long history of competence and project delivery, I am not always up to speed with the latest breakthroughs in stupidity with which you seem well acquainted.

Nice.

mcsean2163 wrote: »

1. Satellite broadband is more expensive but available all over Ireland. https://ruralwifi.ie/broadband/ruralwifi-satelite/

Yeah, I never said it wasn't, go back and read what I actually said.

I'm starting to doubt this competence level TBH.

mcsean2163 wrote: »

4. Ask some teachers to use their home broadband like the rest of the country.

Do they bring half the class they are supposed teaching at the same time home as well?

BonsaiKitten wrote: »

As an aside I know some schools have already published a "full reopening" plan for September - some seem to be saying attending half the week, some saying all back - and I think that's incredibly irresponsible and pressuring other schools to do the same. No school should be publishing plans until we've the finalised guidance. If you've heard nothing from your school bar maybe a bit of reassurance, they're doing the right thing.

I don't see what's irresponsible about putting some inevitable work in and informing people that they're ready. With all due respect, schools should absolutely be under pressure. It's less work for when the finalised guidance becomes available, and will identify barriers to reopening which need to be put back on the DoE to remove.

There are only 5 weeks left now, when do you want them to prepare? Do they need to wait, for example, until people have already gone on holidays to countries that they will need to self isolate when they get back from them for another two weeks?

Boggles wrote: »

No government department provides broadband.

This is exclusively done by private companies.

The current issues with broadband around the country including schools cannot be magically fixed by sending an engineer.

That's why there is plan. The NBP similarly can't magically give schools in once off locations fast broadband, they are building a network, that's why it is scheduled for 7 years and can't be done before the end of August.

They tried satellite broadband for years at best it's mid band in reality it doesn't work, as someone with a long history in telecommunications you should know that.

As someone with a long history of competence and project delivery, I am not always up to speed with the latest breakthroughs in stupidity.

1. Satellite broadband is more expensive but available all over Ireland. https://ruralwifi.ie/broadband/ruralwifi-satelite/

2. Put together a list of schools where broadband is insufficient and then calculate the speed required for online learning. For example, 5mbs should be more than sufficient for zoom. Assign slots to teachers to use the broadband.

3. If the schools broadband cannot support video allow teachers to use voice only to reduce the upload requirement.

4. Ask some teachers to use their home broadband like the rest of the country.

There are countless solutions. I have listed 4, maybe try turning your negative energy into positive energy to find solutions.

mirrorwall14

antgal23 wrote: »

Teacher in ASD class in special school

Was approached a month ago to join Covid team. I'm not a middle manager but I agreed

Main aim was to interpret Covid guidance from Govt and make the school Covid compliant for September

I reckon between the ten of us we put in 150 hours , Covid guidance was so open that we spent the first 50 hours deciphering what it actually meant, the other 100 hours writing up policy and protocol

We give it 100% and we want to open in September

What will prevent us from opening is the eejits having house parties and fecking off to the Continent for two weeks

Hang on, what guidance were you given? What document were you working off?

BonsaiKitten

mcsean2163 wrote: »

There is one poster in particular here who is very active and has a strong cannot do attitude.

Personally, I would like the teachers to know that there are many parents willing to support them and would appreciate guidance.

I would love to see the following:

1. A plan

If we saw the plan maybe parents could feature in it, for instance if teachers are not able to mix with children, perhaps parents could get vetted and take the kids to the playground for a hour once a day.

So far the school has not contacted parents at all

There's so many things that could be done now.

I think every teacher in the country wants the same as you - a plan. But without Departmental guidance the school can't give you that plan. We need to keep the pressure on the State for this.

As an aside I know some schools have already published a "full reopening" plan for September - some seem to be saying attending half the week, some saying all back - and I think that's incredibly irresponsible and pressuring other schools to do the same. No school should be publishing plans until we've the finalised guidance. If you've heard nothing from your school bar maybe a bit of reassurance, they're doing the right thing.

Lillyfae wrote: »

We're talking about government departments here. If no broadband is available at the school, then the NBP needs to prioritise schools where no broadband access is available. If the problem is that there are issues with the broadband currently at the school, an engineer from the provider needs to come out and fix it.
.

No government department provides broadband.

This is exclusively done by private companies.

The current issues with broadband around the country including schools cannot be magically fixed by sending an engineer.

That's why there is plan. The NBP similarly can't magically give schools in once off locations fast broadband, they are building a network, that's why it is scheduled for 7 years and can't be done before the end of August.

mcsean2163 wrote: »

This guy...

I think everyone understood what the op was saying. As someone with a long history in telecommunications both in infrastructure and device development I would say yes, you get broadband when you are connected to a provider and schools could be prioritized. If necessary, they could get satellite broadband setup to tithe them over.

Solutions can be found. Let's have a can do attitude please.

They tried satellite broadband for years at best it's mid band in reality it doesn't work, as someone with a long history in telecommunications you should know that.

grind gremlin wrote: »

Blaming teachers for the problems in relation to schools opening is like blaming the nurses for the multitude of problems with the health system.....

Please read back over the last 10 pages or so. Teachers were blaming parents for wanting individual attention and "babysitting" as much as anyone else was blaming teachers for closures/poor effort, but we're all moving on here.

antgal23 wrote: »

Main aim was to interpret Covid guidance from Govt and make the school Covid compliant for September

I reckon between the ten of us we put in 150 hours , Covid guidance was so open that we spent the first 50 hours deciphering what it actually meant, the other 100 hours writing up policy and protocol

Fantastic, well done you and your school. I know interpretation is annoying but from the Department's perspective there has to be room for this because all the settings are so different. I have a little bit of experience in this and in my opinion a one size fits all approach would be impossible so this would be unavoidable. I wonder if all schools are preparing in this way.

As a matter of interest, what kind of resources are you lacking at your school? Has funding been requested for anything?

grind gremlin

Boggles wrote: »

You don't "get broadband", you are given whatever provider or capabilities are in that particular location.

If your understanding is they can just send out an engineer and magic up some high speed broadband, they can't.

Seriously if you are showing that level of ignorance towards what is a fundamental nation wide problem then maybe you don't have the solutions, something to think about anyway.

Maybe start at the absolute wreck that was The National Broadband plan and work back from there.

Also, if I’m not mistaken.... schools can get grants for IT but they do not come with funding for any form of tech support / maintenance. Issues with computers can take weeks to address while you wait for a volunteer parent to fix the issue.

In some school, teachers are required to use their own laptop.

There is also a cost involved in schools adopting certain platforms that would be necessary for blended learning. Funding needs to be made available to address these issues.

As it stands, I already purchase my own cleaning supplies for my classroom. I supply hand soap for the children to wash their hands in class (the school began to supply this in the run up to the closures). Our classroom has no hot water and no toilets.
Funding should have been made available ASAP to allow for schools to upgrade their IT systems and their premises.
It is a joke. Teachers are just as frustrated As everyone other parents in the country(if not more).
We do not know what arrangement need to be made for our own children for September and we have no idea what our work environment will look like when we return.

With regards to issues using platforms such as Seesaw for home learning, please appreciate that many of us were all thrown in at the deep end, scrambling to meet the needs of our pupils in a totally unfamiliar environment. Within a classroom, a single lesson can be differentiated to meet the needs of the varying abilities in the class. Proper teaching needs constant reciprocal engagement to ensure there is meaningful learning taking place. This cannot be facilitated online.
We all would love to be back in the classroom as normal, our concerns are that this cannot be done in a safe manner in light of the ridiculous amount of time the Department has wasted when schools could have been preparing.
Schools will be ill prepared for a return in September and teachers will be blamed..... again......

Blaming teachers for the problems in relation to schools opening is like blaming the nurses for the multitude of problems with the health system.....

antgal23

Teacher in ASD class in special school

Was approached a month ago to join Covid team. I'm not a middle manager but I agreed

Main aim was to interpret Covid guidance from Govt and make the school Covid compliant for September

I reckon between the ten of us we put in 150 hours , Covid guidance was so open that we spent the first 50 hours deciphering what it actually meant, the other 100 hours writing up policy and protocol

We give it 100% and we want to open in September

What will prevent us from opening is the eejits having house parties and fecking off to the Continent for two weeks

Boggles wrote: »

You don't "get broadband", you are given whatever provider or capabilities are in that particular location.

If your understanding is they can just send out an engineer and magic up some high speed broadband, they can't.

Seriously if you are showing that level of ignorance towards what is a fundamental nation wide problem then maybe you don't have the solutions, something to think about anyway.

Maybe start at the absolute wreck that was The National Broadband plan and work back from there.

This guy...

I think everyone understood what the op was saying. As someone with a long history in telecommunications both in infrastructure and device development I would say yes, you get broadband when you are connected to a provider and schools could be prioritized. If necessary, they could get satellite broadband setup to tithe them over.

Solutions can be found. Let's have a can do attitude please.

HerrKuehn

Boggles wrote: »

You don't "get broadband", you are given whatever provider or capabilities are in that particular location.

If your understanding is they can just send out an engineer and magic up some high speed broadband, they can't.

Seriously if you are showing that level of ignorance towards what is a fundamental nation wide problem then maybe you don't have the solutions, something to think about anyway.

Maybe start at the absolute wreck that was The National Broadband plan and work back from there.

Surely there will need to be local solutions depending on circumstances? I think the DOE should set the high level goals, such as all/as many as possible kids back in September.
We know already that individual schools may need to be closed due to a positive test during the year, so what should be done there?

1) Remote teaching, depending on suitability
- this will not work well for schools in disadvantaged areas.
- this will not work where school/teacher broadband is not sufficient
- this does not work for primary kids.

or
2) make up the missed time at other times of the year

Individual schools will need to look at how they have handled remote learning and see if the first option will work. If a lot of teachers have no broadband, then clearly you cant work remotely.

Boggles wrote: »

You don't "get broadband", you are given whatever provider or capabilities are in that particular location.

If your understanding is they can just send out an engineer and magic up some high speed broadband, they can't.

Seriously if you are showing that level of ignorance towards what is a fundamental nation wide problem then maybe you don't have the solutions, something to think about anyway.

Maybe start at the absolute wreck that was The National Broadband plan and work back from there.

We're talking about government departments here. If no broadband is available at the school, then the NBP needs to prioritise schools where no broadband access is available. If the problem is that there are issues with the broadband currently at the school, an engineer from the provider needs to come out and fix it.

I would suggest you take some of that anger and channel it somewhere productive, rather than deliberately obtuse and aggressive responses designed to muddy the waters of moving forward into the 2020/2021 school year. Your contribution so far has been:

Schools can't open and blended learning is impossible.

Lillyfae wrote: »

How many schools are in Ireland? They know exactly which and how many schools have issues? What is your definition of issues? Is this that the school doesn't have broadband or it's not working well? Point 1, they need to get broadband, point 2 the provider needs to be informed and send a engineer out to get it fixed ASAP.

You don't "get broadband", you are given whatever provider or capabilities are in that particular location.

If your understanding is they can just send out an engineer and magic up some high speed broadband, they can't.

Seriously if you are showing that level of ignorance towards what is a fundamental nation wide problem then maybe you don't have the solutions, something to think about anyway.

Maybe start at the absolute wreck that was The National Broadband plan and work back from there.

Murple

mcsean2163 wrote: »

I know in the UK parents go in and assist the teachers doing tasks for them on a voluntary basis. It seems to work really well and no reason it can't work here. If the law needs to change on insurance it should change.

And in this country, parents come in and assist the teachers too BUT the teacher must be present for supervision, child protection and insurance reasons. Also, parents and the vast majority of other visitors coming in to the school will likely be stopped altogether from September so while the intention is good, having additional people in the school and interacting with staff and/or children is adding to the risk.

ThunbergsAreGo

mcsean2163 wrote: »

I know in the UK parents go in and assist the teachers doing tasks for them on a voluntary basis. It seems to work really well and no reason it can't work here. If the law needs to change on insurance it should change.

Didnt know that, that does sound interesting.

However there is a different between tasks and taking responsibility for the kids (though I might have taken you up wrong altogether)

ThunbergsAreGo wrote: »

To be fair the schools are likely waiting on guidance to do just that.

I would imagine the insurance implications on the above would make it unworkable.

EVERYONE is in th dark about it unfortunately.

I know in the UK parents go in and assist the teachers doing tasks for them on a voluntary basis (before covid19). It seems to work really well and no reason it can't work here. If the law needs to change on insurance it should change.

ThunbergsAreGo

mcsean2163 wrote: »

There is one poster in particular here who is very active and has a strong cannot do attitude.

Personally, I would like the teachers to know that there are many parents willing to support them and would appreciate guidance.

I would love to see the following:

1. A plan

If we saw the plan maybe parents could feature in it, for instance if teachers are not able to mix with children, perhaps parents could get vetted and take the kids to the playground for a hour once a day.

So far the school has not contacted parents at all

There's so many things that could be done now.

To be fair the schools are likely waiting on guidance to do just that.

I would imagine the insurance implications on the above would make it unworkable.

EVERYONE is in th dark about it unfortunately.

the corpo wrote: »

You're right, I think I mean more historically. For the longest time this thread was a massive pile on on the teachers, but that's definitely moved on, for the most part. I think people are recognising that the teachers aren't actually going to be to blame for whatever does/doesn't happen in September.

Also agree with this, but I think that blame lies squarely with the Principals. Lots of teachers doing great work, lots of teachers doing no work, lots of teachers somewhere in the middle. I don't think an individual teacher is to blame for this, but everyone should have been doing the same and the expectations were just not consistently communicated to parents or teachers. The issue people on here had with the teachers in the thread is that they refused to acknowledge that not everyone was pulling their weight, like they had a complete overview of every teacher in the country.

There is one poster in particular here who is very active and has a strong cannot do attitude.

Personally, I would like the teachers to know that there are many parents willing to support them and would appreciate guidance.

I would love to see the following:

1. A plan

If we saw the plan maybe parents could feature in it, for instance if teachers are not able to mix with children, perhaps parents could get vetted and take the kids to the playground for a hour once a day.

So far the school has not contacted parents at all

There's so many things that could be done now.

the corpo

ThunbergsAreGo wrote: »

There is very little berating going on in here (at least not from this morning) -

You're right, I think I mean more historically. For the longest time this thread was a massive pile on on the teachers, but that's definitely moved on, for the most part. I think people are recognising that the teachers aren't actually going to be to blame for whatever does/doesn't happen in September.

ThunbergsAreGo

the corpo wrote: »

Of course not, I think the majority here agree the Department really needs to step up and provide a roadmap and solutions. Demand they improve broadband, I intend to as well, but there's little point in berating other posters for pre-empting the response.

Be fore-armed with the response the Department will probably give you and be prepared to demand better.

There is very little berating going on in here (at least not from this morning) - perhaps some defensive posting based on other conversations.

There is very little teachers can do in this bar "make do" - but its ridiculous how little communications there was been on anything. I think all in here are in agreement with this.

Murple wrote: »

Why is there no peer interaction? Have you not arranged for your children to see or connect with their friends? Playgrounds are open. There are some summer camps open. People are permitted to meet in small groups. You can have people to your house. Unless the country goes back into lockdown, there are many opportunities for peer interaction if you wish it to happen.

Up until phase 2 in our family, there was no peer interaction as advised by the government. We were probably stupid and over cautious but given my wife's role in a hospital, we felt it was safest.

Now I am organising playdates. unfortunately, we missed out on most summer camps as they booked out fast and my wife was still trying to organise holidays in work. We have one camp for the older child in August. It's not that easy, I've gone from working to lockdown to stay at home dad without a big support group. I spoke with a neighbor at the weekend about meeting up and he wanted to know if our children had been tested for covid19....

So lots of challenges and doing ok but a big benefit in primary schools is peer interaction IMHO. You can't play chasing on zoom and a primary school without it is something else altogether, so yeah if we know it will be academic only, I.e. on computers, maybe parents in the community who are more concerned about their child's mental and physical health than covid19 might plan to organise something etc.

I hope that addresses your concern.

the corpo wrote: »

Wait, we were agreeing?! I've no idea what's going on anymore

There's a few pigs necking Red Bull on a frozen lake in Hell right now I'm sure :pac:

the corpo

Lillyfae wrote: »

Exactly!!! That's the role of the BoMs and principals and THAT has been my point all along.

Wait, we were agreeing?! I've no idea what's going on anymore