Covid-19 - School closures and partial school closures

Moderator note: This post and following posts have been moved from this thread: Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control
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Just heard from my daughter, the secondary school teacher. She is so stressed by what the government is planning for schools - it is chaos. Apparently even cleaners are going to be expected to work through their holidays now. Support staff, who don't even get paid for break time and dinner time (i.e. they are only paid for normal classroom time and not school holidays) are going to be asked to work anytime from 7am to 7pm, 7 days a week, including normal school holidays.

So the reason for closing schools obviously no longer exists. No staff shortages, there are apparently no vulnerable staff, no staff parents and no staff carers (this includes cleaners and support staff). All these people are obviously superhuman, with no responsibilities themselves. No mental or physical health problems.

They have no idea how many kids are going to turn up on Monday - 5 or 500? And no idea how many staff either! No plan, just a government edict that they are now childminders, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week...

I feel so angry!

 

So the central government plan is to put the kids of key staff into a situation where they are going to be at high risk of exposure and become super carriers and spreaders, so they can infect their parents who are key workers...(obviously some parents are at high risk of exposure and being super carriers themselves, but many won't be because they are not front line health care workers).

Now if I were a key worker, would I be putting my kids into this environment and going to work, or staying home and prioritising my family?

 

So despite the warnings from the teaching professions, it appears the government is going ahead with its plan regardless:

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/coronavirus-government-sets-out-plans-for-emergency-powers-over-schools/

As if the profession isn't already struggling to recruit good quality student teachers (and a third of qualified teachers leave the profession within 5 years in England). This is going to have such a long term detrimental impact on the quality of our children and young people's education, far beyond the amount of school kids are going to miss in the coming months. I want key workers to be supported to work in this crisis, but this is not the way to do it.

I'd like to know how other countries are dealing with this problem.

 

In our case the list of 'key workers' entitled to the new 'childcare service' is extensive. It includes people like delivery drivers, who are not skilled professionals. Harsh as it is, if these people can't either swap shifts with someone else or get childcare, it would be easy for their employers to replace them. The government has also said only one parent (in a two parent household) needs to be a key worker for them to be able to keep sending their kids to school, and haven't even specified that their child needs to be below the age that they need childcare supervision.

It also includes those with a social worker involved in their lives. I used to work in schools with these adolescents, and their behaviour could be extreme and their emotional needs high (requiring one to one work outside the classroom). One boy I worked with had burned his teachers' cars at his previous school. It would have been much more sensible to have got youth workers involved to support this particular group of kids at this time. To be honest, I can't see many of them even agreeing to go to school now - the police often had to bring in my lad! So, actually, the most vulnerable kids are likely to be left unsupported.

Prior to this it was headteachers who decided whether a school should shut based on whether it was a safe environment (including whether there were enough staff available to keep children safe and to keep the school in reasonable repair). Now,the governments response has been to create a 2 years crisis legislation that can force schools to stay open regardless and for greatly extended hours, by relaxing the safety and staff ratio rules. So the children of 'key workers' will be going into an unclean (because there will not be enough cleaners) and unsafe environment (lack of teachers and support staff) for up to 12 hours a day. This includes forcing special schools to stay open to all pupils, even though the staff-pupil ratio for children with complex needs is usually a minimum of 1:1. But this isn't what the public are being told - no, they hear that the government are 'doing everything' and ensuring that key staff can keep working.

This is not what my daughter was envisaging, she was expecting to work as part of a skeleton staff, only supporting the children of absolutely essential key professionals (mainly front facing healthcare workers, police, essential highly qualified utility workers etc.)

 

A much younger relative is a schoolteacher in Lima.

Schools are closed. She's still working from her flat but via video link & teleconferencing.

They have soldiers on the streets helping police social distancing measures.

 

IM's employers cancelled leave early last week. They are never allowed to carry leave over from one year to the next, but are now permitting it subject to approval.

Of course cutting back on staff in recent years makes booking holidays very difficult as there has to be a minimum level of cover and often they end up negotiating between themselves so that everyone gets their holiday.

I appreciate it's different with the like of school staff whose holidays fall between set dates.

 

They haven't cancelled their 'holidays', they are forcing them to work during times and dates they are not contracted to work (they only have a term-time contract). However, school cleaners are on minimum wage, as are many of the school support staff. They are going to be asked to work in an environment with an ultra high risk of getting infected. I suspect many will just quit. I remember when I worked in schools, they were constantly struggling to get decent cleaners, schools are extremely hard places to keep clean.

 

No, I understand that @Simbindi. I wasn't trying to compare the two. Just discussing that aspect of employment.

I understand the school buildings being open longer etc will mean far more work. If anything they need to be doubling their cleaning staff and I have no doubt that they are underpaid.

They need to be supported as much as anyone else. They probably need to be CRB checked too so it's not just like they can recruit extra staff to assist them.

 

It's the government's approach to all this that is so concerning. Note, none of the private schools will be facing this issue - Eton closed before the government even announced school closures! It's that the government have ignored everything head teachers have been telling them and are taking a route that is counter-productive and will actually be putting key workers kids and vulnerable children at much higher risk. It's also completely unworkable and will result in the long term loss of staff (when there are already shortages). I suspect stories will start appearing next week, once the reality of what is now being proposed manifests itself (some schools may cope, others certainly won't).

Edit: School budgets are already over-stretched and they have not been told they will be given any additional money to cover this.

 

I'm certainly not defending them. I would be interested to hear who was advising the government about managing the different aspects of this. Like schools, for example.

If head teachers weren't involved then who was? Obviously the buck stops with whoever is in power, but just how much of this is down to the "it's not what you know, but who you know" when it comes to plum gigs and being seen as "expert". I'd like to know who and what the justification is for how it's been managed.

Also, I've seen in the news about how shambolic the whole thing is. Much has been made about workers self declaring as "key workers" fulfilling roles on the government list. That nobody will know who or how many are going to show up on Monday. Yet, one of IM's colleagues was contacted by his child's school last week and told that key workers would have to declare themselves and proof from their employer was needed. He was required to bring in a letter from work last week. This is a regular state school - nothing fancy.

So why is it that some schools seem to have different information & be handling it differently to others?

These questions aren't directed at you personally @Simbindi. Just general questions really.

 

I put a link in an earlier post about how head teachers have been warning how this will be counter-productive (sorry, can't remember which one).

Originally the government were quoting figures suggesting only 10% of children or less would be required to be in school, and they said nothing about forcing schools to be open 12 hours a day and throughout the holidays. So my daughter had an image in her head of managing a small class in a restricted part of the school that could be kept extra clean, helping the kids to manage some degree of isolation from each other (spacing them a couple of metres apart). So teachers like herself (healthy, with no children of her own) could be in school supporting the kids of essential key workers, and other teachers could work from home, helping to deliver online learning for all the other children. She was really keen to play her part (please note, she usually works 60 hours a week and spends lots of her holidays planning and in school doing admin and lesson and curriculum planning).

But on Friday the bombshell dropped. The new 'crisis' legislation relaxes all the safety rules that protect children and removes a head teacher's discretion to close a school on safety grounds, including when there are not enough staff. This also applies to special schools. So the legislation is not just to enable schools to close, but also permits the government to force them to stay open. It only applies to state schools, key workers whose children are in private schools will still have to arrange childcare for them. Presumably this includes a lot of doctors, amongst other professionals.

But the government has given a very wide list of 'key workers', not just the list of professional workers anticipated. So lots of people could put themselves into this category. Other countries have kept this number low and added that childcare only applies if the key worker would be prevented from going to work if they couldn't send their child to school, usually meaning they are either single or both partners are key workers. Without this restriction, closing schools becomes counter productive.

My daughter works in a state secondary school in a deprived area (which will have parents working at the local nuclear plant as well as in all the other key areas). They also sent out letters on Thursday (they couldn't do this before, as the school closures hadn't been announced by the government until Wednesday afternoon), but they have no idea what will happen in practice with the numbers of pupils and obviously cannot know what their staffing levels will be except on a day to day basis as you cannot predict who will start showing symptoms (and no ones going to be tested, so even if it turns out to be a minor cold the person will have to stay home). This is why the number of eligible children needs to be kept very small - small enough to form a mini-class, with normal school rules and behaviour expectations applying to them. In Somerset, many school children depend on school transport, which is another issue that has not been addressed.

Caring for children and young people in an informal setting is completely different and actually requires different professional skills than teaching. I have also been a youth worker in the community and in youth centres, as well as working as a learning support worker in schools. A teacher can manage a class of 30 in a normal school, because there are structures and rules in place to manage problems and behaviour (including senior teachers and other support staff available when required). However, in a youth work setting, you actually need far more staff proportionally because kids behaviour is different and more challenging - at least 2 adults in every room and a ratio of less than 10 children/young persons to every qualified youth worker. Without this you are putting kids at risk of bullying and cannot keep them physically safe (i.e. from having accidents). None of these details have been thought through here.

Some schools may cope, depending on which actual kids turn up (their behavioural and emotional needs etc.), what additional community support there is, what proportion of school staff are not vulnerable or self-isolating themselves etc. But many won't be able to - you cannot just change a school into a 12 hour day state childcare facility overnight, simply by creating a piece of legislation saying 'it is so'!

 

Sure, I'm not disputing any of that @Simbindi, but it would be useful to understand who was advising the govt if head teachers are not being heard.

Unless we can get the people who really do know what's going on and how to organize it heard then the chaos continues.

It does seem that some schools have either had extra input or been more proactive - possibly to do with being in a bigger metropolitan area like London or just they've taken the initiative themselves. One of my husband's colleagues had to provide proof of key worker status from his employer last week.

So there are differences for whatever reason.

 

I think differences in schools will depend on how they are already affected, staffing numbers, parental attitudes, social and economic differences etc. I know that in my daughter's school, if they had sent out the letter asking for key worker information early (before Thursday) then they would have created a very bad situation amongst parents. They had to wait until the government made an official announcement before telling parents or students anything.

Additionally, some headteachers and school leaders are much more supportive of their staff than are others. Some heads will speak out publicly and prioritise the welfare of all their staff, sadly others don't take this approach. My daughter is lucky in this regard - she started in a new, very supportive school this September (her first job with a leadership role) but has left 2 schools because of the lack of support shown to staff by the senior leadership team (as opposed to her department head). Each time she left, she was upset at leaving her students, but had to consider her own welfare. It's very hard to explain this to people, but so much about a school depends on senior leadership and how much they listen to normal staff and support them in their teaching and classroom behaviour management. What these leaders say publicly may not reflect the feelings of the rest of the school staff. This is one of the main reasons teacher retention is so bad in the UK, even more so with the pressures of league tables and OFSTED ratings being prioritised.

My daughter's school had planned ahead, but this was on expectation they were to provide a service for normal school hours only, for a maximum of 10% of the school roll (any more and the closure of the school isn't going to help stop the virus spreading) and for most staff to be able to work from home, delivering lessons online. They were well prepared if things had gone as they had expected them to go, with all staff having filled in forms specifying health problems and caring responsibilities etc.

School systems do have the information about parental jobs and electronic means of contact on their system, but these details are often incorrect because the parents don't keep them up to date.Obviously, there was no time to audit this data and predict how many students would likely be eligible to come to school (and parents might still opt to keep their kids at home even if a key worker).

I don't think headteachers were expecting to be told that they would be forced (legislated) to keep their school open, whatever the circumstances or staffing levels, during school holidays and for greatly extended hours (way outside even normal school breakfast and after school club hours), especially as they had been warning that this would be counter-productive in terms of the need for people to practice social distancing and with so many staff needing to self-isolate.

I have been thinking more about this, and if schools are to provide a more informal childcare service (rather than a skeleton staffed educational environment) they absolutely must ensure that parents and children/young people sign a new bespoke 'behavioural contract' if they want to keep their child's place (schools have lengthy school-student contracts already, but these are obviously written to be adhered to in a structured educational setting where kids are only at school for 7-8 hours maximum). If the child or student refuses to behave, they must lose their place because their will be no support or structures in place to deal with them. Being at school in this current situation must be understood to be a privilege, not a right, by both parents and students.

I know the head teacher union was involved in the talks about closing schools and how to help key workers keep working, and the need to keep vulnerable children safe. It appears they did voice their concerns about various proposals and the draft crisis legislation. There is no way the unions would have agreed to what is now being expected of teachers and support staff, and normal teachers certainly weren't asked to contribute to the discussion. But ultimately, it was/is a government decision.

Another problem with getting the 'extended service' idea to work (even if they accept it is beyond current school staff members to manage) is the lack of sufficient formal youth services. I have a certificate with an 5 star outstanding rating from OFSTED for Somerset Youth Services, which they gave to all the youth workers at the time of the last assessment (about 13 years ago). Now that service no longer exists and most of the county's voluntary youth services have had to shut down due to not being able to raise sufficient funds. I know youth workers who tried to continue to work unpaid, but the demands of the job centre prevented them from doing so. It has been heart-breaking to watch the demise of young people's service both locally and nationally. Just this year, my council cut the funding and was closing down its 'Young Carers' service, as it wasn't a 'statutory service' (i.e the LA isn't required by law to support young carers).

From what I've seen, the discussion about keeping schools open didn't consider the potential problems of children's behaviour in a non-educational/non classroom environment, and only teachers were involved in the discussions, not youth workers who would have highlighted this. I know a few teachers who are also youth workers. but they are a rarity. Most youth workers have lost their jobs and have had to go into completely different work. But there are still experienced youth workers 'in retirement' that could be asked to come back to help. However, it may well have been that the headteachers did raise this issue of managing behaviour and maybe this will come out in public over the coming weeks.

I think the behavioural problems will only start becoming apparent to teachers once the new system starts, and as I've said, things may work out differently in different schools. Every school is unique and each has their own strengths, weaknesses and 'feel'. Even my daughter hasn't really thought about this in any depth, although she had to deal with some pretty bad behaviour from some of her Year 11 groups when they realised schools were closing (but before it was announced that teachers would be grading their GCSEs...). She is still in shock that she is now expected to be a child-minder rather than a teacher and the unrealistic expectations teachers (and other school staff) are having thrown at them, with no regard to their mental and physical health.

She says she will be going into school on Monday, the school will see who turns up, and then they will have to come up with The Plan. But obviously, the next day may very well be completely different!

 

Regarding school closures and childcare for key workers, I found this guidance on the Scottish government site, which makes very good sense (it allows the number of places to be restricted as needed). There doesn't seem to be anything comparable for England:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/c...critical-childcare-provision-for-key-workers/

 

Relevant part of post copied from this thread

I was thinking a bit more about the school policy. The policy of allowing children of essential workers to go to school looks to me to be a disaster. Presumably within a week or two ALL these children will be infected, with the result that ALMOST ALL key workers, as parents, will also be infected. This is the opposite of what we need. My idea would be that if one parent is not a key worker they should do the childcare. If both are key workers they should alternate, not just for their own sake but to preserve a body of key workers for the next month.

 

I absolutely agree on that - if my teacher daughter was still living with me she would have had to stop going into school in order to protect me (I have asthma and suffer from repeated infections as well as the severe M.E.)

 

I really hope this helps reduce the spread of Covid-19. In Italy, are all schools completely closed? Or do you still have schools open for “key workers” as in the UK?

 

I don't know but think they're closed for everyone.