Reopening schools question.

Missing a day will have an impact. Is it measurable? Missing a week will have an impact. It it measurable?
What about the kid that misses the first 30mins everyday?
All non-attendance has an impact, but the extent will vary from child to child. It is important to be consistent in messaging, irrespective of the child or the parent, or the reason, although I do concede that a Grandparent’s funeral is justified.

In my local authority the official polocy is that it ISN’T, only a brother/sister or parent. My hand tends to slip when recording funerals.

Either we have time or we don’t.

No, either we have the staff or we don’t. There is already a crisis in the subjects you seem to think are the only ‘real’ subjects… it’s a staffing problem… which to some degree is an investment/funding problem. Trying to help students “catch up” due to periods of closure, or lack of in class time, is going to further highlight this… getting rid of other subjects won’t mean we suddenly have more hours of maths and science teaching hours available.

getting rid of other subjects won’t mean we suddenly have more hours of maths and science teaching hours available.

And won’t help with student motivation, engagement, creativity and ability to solve problems.

Pretty sure Steve isn’t saying ONLY science/engineering should be taught. Just that the balance is off?

I’d also have lessons on decision making and self esteem as there are too many depressed youngsters.

+1

All children need a balanced education. Too much of (any) one subject they get bored and switch off. Plus there has been a significant focus on ‘character education, on top of PHSE and RSE for the last few years. Education is not just about exams, it is making students prepared to be successful in life and the workplace. Unfortunately the focus on progress measures has meant schools are under pressure and student don’t necessarily develop self-study and independent learning skills which means they struggle post-16 and in the workplace.

Pretty sure Steve isn’t saying ONLY science/engineering should be taught. Just that the balance is off?

But it isn’t.
In a 25 lesson week a KS3 child might have 6 lessons of English, 6 of maths, 6 of science, and the other 7 split between DT, RE, computing, drama, PE, PSHE, etc.

And it is important to remember that the curriculum is the totality of everything that is planned. Not all of this will be for the purposes of academic attainment. I want to furnish the kids I teach with the knowledge, skills and opportunities to live their future live in a fulfilling and sustainable way. I only have 234 weeks to do it.

Stevextc:

When I wanted to take him to his grandfathers funeral I got an email…saying how missing a day would be a disaster and they would require a week to consider…

This is terrible and probably explains some of Steve’s views on the education system

If the email said that, yes. And if it wasn’t just a standard reply to all requests for absence. Actually, even then, that would be disappointing and lacking humanity.

Second time in this thread I think we need to be looking at that specific school rather than extrapolating out to the entire education system. I wouldn’t want to work there from what we know about it, and if I had kids not sure I’d want them to be going there…

If the email said that, yes. And if it wasn’t just a standard reply to all requests for absence. Actually, even then, that would be disappointing and lacking humanity.

You’ve met our Tory overlords and their approach to Education in England, yes?

The more education systems I work with internationally, the more extreme the English system seems to me.

wife in today .

Her faculty have not got a classroom nor workspace and thus a machine in the school to work on.

there was an idea of using their own computers for in school socially distanced staff meetings and work ….. she has been using my Lenovo desk top at home …… so with no space in school and it not being portable and the school network being unable to cope with external IT equipment … that hasn’t flown – shes not alone in this issue.

IT sanctioned chromebooks are being sourced.

First meeting of the day was conducted at home where our computer can log in – then she drove to school and will be returning for a further meeting later.

Amazed it got to the 13th hour before this has been identified as an issue.

Sorry been away….
ajantom

You do realise these emails aren’t personal, they’re sent to every parent.
They’re aimed at the persistent offenders whose children miss a day a week or more, but to seem ‘fair’ they have to send to all.

Yes so why not allow a kid with 100% attendance for 4 years go to his grandfathers funeral?
How is that “fair”

Work it out…39 school weeks a year, so 9.75 weeks missed a year. So over 5 years he missed nearly 49 weeks of school.
Did he do badly in his GCSEs? **** yeah!

But you are assuming a correlation… I barely attended the last 2 years and most of the subjects I took I didn’t study at school at all. I got all A’s except history where I got a B+ which was actually one of the subjects I actually studied at school.

I didn’t even take physics, chemistry or biology (wasn’t allowed) but I got A’s in all of them at GCE.

You are such an idiot I don’t know where to start. But I do pity your offspring if they have to put up with you spouting this shite every day.

My offspring has to find a way to make money in a global economy.
Whatever he does it will need to be as cheap and as good or better than his Indian, Korean or Chinese peers.

The whole point of universal education for everyone is not to do the parents job (literally and figuratively).

Rather just because your parents do one job they could teach you, school should give you the chance to learn to do something else.

Meanwhile the “job” of parents is to give their kids a non academic education… this is NOT the “job” of the education system and isn’t what the majority pay taxes for.

After centuries of the masses being told how to behave by the Church(es) this is now being supplanted by the education system.

Yes so why not allow a kid with 100% attendance for 4 years go to his grandfathers funeral?
How is that “fair”

I have never before heard of a child being refused time off to attend a close relatives funeral. That’s a failure of a school, not the system.

his is NOT the “job” of the education system and isn’t what the majority pay taxes for

Yes. It is. You can pay to take your kids to a school not paid for by taxes if you want… but you’ll find that they will also, if not more so, focus on the “non academic education” of your kids using your fees. Schools are more than you seem to think they are, and they always have been. You’re out of step with the world, deal with it.

reading through some of these comments is really sad. Stevextc sounds like an absolute moron and can’t see the value creative subjects have on the world. Kids who want to engineers, graphic designers, musicians, clothing designers need to be nurtured at a young age.

The lack of value placed on creative subjects is shocking it was all I was good at when I was at school. And only place teachers bothered to give me any form of encouragement the end result im a product designer having worked for some of the biggest companies in the world.

ajantom and colournoise I really hope they dont stop your subjects the classes you offer are likely some kids only good part of the school week (it was for me any way),  but I have little faith in this Tory Gov.

I have never before heard of a child being refused time off to attend a close relatives funeral. That’s a failure of a school, not the system.

That is the system…. it’s KPI’s and “we will reply to your request within a week”

Stevextc sounds like an absolute moron

My qualifications say otherwise…

Yes. It is. You can pay to take your kids to a school not paid for by taxes if you want… but you’ll find that they will also, if not more so, focus on the “non academic education” of your kids using your fees. Schools are more than you seem to think they are, and they always have been.

No it isn’t where is the mandate to brainwash kids as a trade off for an education?
This is exactly what the churches did….

You’re out of step with the world, deal with it.

The UK and specifically England is not “the world”.
17.4M people think/thought its a unicorn emblazoned 1970…that being born in a country confers an automatic right to a standard of living. [don’t even bring in Trump]

It’s the world that has changed; it’s not 1970 any more and fields full of unicorns don’t exist if they ever did.
Today’s and tomorrows kids will be competing in a global market where British exceptionalism holds no weight.

UK “support” is done in India .. “UK made” products made in China and a sticker stuck on to say “Made in the UK” and wherever Dyson wanders… and the disaffected are complaining that furriners are taking their jobs…. (using their Lorean/Chinese made phone/computer)

Sorry Stevextc, the system has flexibility built into it, same as employers have flexibility for time off for funerals for close relatives. That example is a headteacher not having the balls to use their common sense.

No it isn’t where is the mandate to brainwash kids as a trade off for an education?

Who said brainwash? ALL schools provide for the development (and safeguarding) of kids beyond the academic curriculum, and always have, and always will. Your parallel universe where this isn’t the case doesn’t sound like a great place to grow up.

That is the system

It’s a poor system at that one school. I presume you ignored it and took your child out of school for the day anyway? Any parent would have in those circumstances, I hope.

Edit: just as many parents will face the difficult decision this winter about their child’s attendance if classmates and/or teachers fall ill. Some schools no doubt will try and discourage children staying at home in those circumstances… these conflicts over attendance will become amplified… and some schools will get it very wrong in the eyes of some parents. If in doubt, do what you consider best for your child, as their parent. Don’t bother holding a grudge against the school where they haven’t got it right… what’s the point?

Trying to get vaguely back on topic……..

Schools will reopen OK in the next week in England, there will be the odd hiccup,it wont be until flu season that there will be problems

Testing is all over the place, home tests only returned 14% of results within the 48hr target according to latest data!!

A cold winter will be tough

Sad (but not surprised) to see the narrative anyway being set up over the weekend and in today’s papers that any outbreaks in schools will be the teachers’ fault for not following the rules ‘in their coffee breaks’.

Just more ammo for Cumjob and Gove’s ongoing ideological assault on teachers…

Fingers crossed this works at all. My two (along with many other) where back for 3 days then off immediately. Testing came back as negative so they clearly caught the standard ‘back to school’ cold. So months of planning, hand washing, one way systems etc etc couldn’t stop a cold running through a school? I assume we will just be living with local closures and spells of self isolation measures from now on

Incidences of colds and viruses are down across the board due to lack of social contact, unfortunately I suspect that as soon as schools go back colds and flu will rip through schools like a shart through single-ply toilet paper (if you’ll excuse the metaphor 😉 )

So every time the pupils, my colleagues, or I get a cough or anything more than a mild sniffle we’ll have to isolate and get tested. I can see schools being closed more due to frequent staff absence rather than actual Covid itself.

Who said brainwash? ALL schools provide for the development (and safeguarding) of kids beyond the academic curriculum, and always have, and always will.

They have not nor is the UK “The World”.
My own personal experience was from a church school to C of FE.
I thought it was normal to have teachers tell you what to believe/think and would have not taken my A levels had I had to carry on in the school.
College was simple, subjects and time table… you attended or not.
Outside the UK this was one of the first changes in former communist countries after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Your parallel universe where this isn’t the case doesn’t sound like a great place to grow up.

On the contrary there is a universe where kids can be kids without worrying about interference from teachers who are somehow now tasked with their safeguarding.

This might feel “normal” just like it somehow being the job of banks to verify your identity … or like supermarkets are normal.

This is not in any way saying teachers shouldn’t care about the kids… it is saying it’s not their responsibility to interfere and if they don’t they are to blame.

To illustrate perhaps:

Sorry Stevextc, the system has flexibility built into it, same as employers have flexibility for time off for funerals for close relatives. That example is a headteacher not having the balls to use their common sense.

I wasn’t told “No”, I was told it would take 1 week to assess.
Very few heads have the balls to stand against the CC… who funds them. Simply look at how many are standing up with Covid.
This shouldn’t even have been a question… because frankly I had more on my mind at the time than emails threatening me with fines.
I started off phoning the school office (before we even had the date) who told me to fill out a form ….

It’s a poor system at that one school. I presume you ignored it and took your child out of school for the day anyway? Any parent would have in those circumstances, I hope.

It wouldn’t be a day without tiring him out… 700 miles of driving (in total) stop with my mum but that’s really not the point. I should be able to take my kid to his grandfathers funeral without asking permission…. without emails threatening fines…etc. just like if at the end of the year we want to go away early…

Some parents are just a nightmare to deal with, aren’t they. Joking aside, I agree with you about the fines… but I’ll wager you haven’t had to pay one.

without emails threatening fines…etc. just like if at the end of the year we want to go away early

Ah, now we get to the crux of the matter. They didn’t approve your term-time holiday either did they? 😉

Sad (but not surprised) to see the narrative anyway being set up over the weekend and in today’s papers that any outbreaks in schools will be the teachers’ fault for not following the rules ‘in their coffee breaks’.

Just more ammo for Cumjob and Gove’s ongoing ideological assault on teachers…

This is the crux…. and specifically the whole point of blaming the people who got passed the responsibility.

Our local park is full of kids and parents busy transferring whatever they have without any precautions just ready to send them all to school.

I can guarantee it will be “the teachers fault” when outbreaks occur in schools from our blame dodging government not the feckless parents.

We know teachers will get the blame for closures… I’m more worried that they’ll also get the blame for schools not being ready for mixed or at home learning when it comes to that… this government will pivot from “all kids full time at school” in England to something else entirely, overnight, and expect schools to make that shift without funding, guidance or preparation… you don’t need to be able to see the future to expect this coming down the line this winter.

Our local park is full of kids and parents busy transferring whatever they have without any precautions just ready to send them all to school.

I can guarantee it will be “the teachers fault” when outbreaks occur in schools from our blame dodging government not the feckless parents.

TBF it seems outdoor transmission risk is very very low

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1

But I guarantee it will be teachers/union’s/Starmer who get the blame

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/24/seventeen-teachers-at-dundee-school-contract-covid-19

Some parents are just a nightmare to deal with, aren’t they. Joking aside, I agree with you about the fines… but I’ll wager you haven’t had to pay one.

Not counting Covid he has a 100% attendance record for 7 years.

This is my objection …. he’s well enough ahead and never missed a day and in the “interests of fairness” the one time he’s treated like a kid barely attends etc. because no-one has the balls to actually say which kids it would adversely affect and want to keep their KPI’s up.

It’s not his job (as it were) to make up the KPI’s of kids who don’t attend… but who the teachers daren’t say. Nor is it his “job” in a wider context to attend classes for PHSE or learn how to cook etc. just because some parents are poor parents.

Him and probably something like 80%+ are effectively doing all this because of the small minority.

That is one thing but in a global economy and job market when he leaves education he will be competing against peers from countries where school is primarily about qualifications.
Being frank how many comnpanies care about PHSE?
I worked for an Indian company (actually one of the nicest companies/employers I worked for) and all they care about is qualifications and ability to learn.

TBF it seems outdoor transmission risk is very very low

I’m pretty sure that doesn’t factor in totally feckless behavior like sharing drinks…
Sadly that common sense thing…. not happening in our park.

Kelvin

We know teachers will get the blame for closures… I’m more worried that they’ll also get the blame for schools not being ready for mixed or at home learning when it comes to that…

This is because Boris and Ilk watched too much Star Trek…(example)

Chief Eng: “The di-lithium reactor is offline”
Captain “How long”
Chief Eng: “12 hours if I don’t run a safety test”
Captain : “You have 2 hours – Make it so”

Of course this type of command structure where physics can be put aside only works on TV episodes… Boris and his ilk think saying “make it so” is actually good management… and “impossible” means someone isn’t trying…

We saw this over Brexit… blame everyone but false promises but this is just exploiting the existing mentality.

So every time the pupils, my colleagues, or I get a cough or anything more than a mild sniffle we’ll have to isolate and get tested. I can see schools being closed more due to frequent staff absence rather than actual Covid itself.

I can see that going the other way actually.
There’ll be a build up of pressure to work through “mild symptoms” because ” it’s only another cold…”

There’ll be a build up of pressure to work through “mild symptoms” because ” it’s only another cold…”

And then we will really be ****.

There’ll be a build up of pressure to work through “mild symptoms” because ” it’s only another cold…”

I’m not so sure this year – not sure many employers will want to take that chance, certainly schools

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/24/seventeen-teachers-at-dundee-school-contract-covid-19

The fact that this is happening in Scotland which has much lower cases is a bit of a worry for those areas of Englandshire currently under enhanced measures.

I’m not so sure this year – not sure many employers will want to take that chance, certainly schools

Schools may not (in an ideal world). The parents of pupils on the other hand… (assuming isolation results in statutory sick pay for the employed, or no income at all for the self employed and zero hour contractors).

Nor is it his “job” in a wider context to attend classes for PHSE or learn how to cook etc. just because some parents are poor parents.

Teaching cookery skills has been part of the curriculum, for probably 100 years! I’m not sure why you don’t think that is an important part of education? Its one skill at school that every student is virtually guaranteed to actually use at some point (not the specific recipe – but the basic how not to get food poisoning, how to make something edible). I’d also suggest is far more than some parents who haven’t taught their kids how to cook; often because they themselves were never taught well in the first place. We are in a nation with an obesity issue where people where queuing in cars for a mile to get to a McD’s when lockdown lifted. I can actually think of few more useful things to both the individual and the country to teach in a school (sadly its often done badly)! Since you seem obsessed with education purely being about training people for work – I’m not sure how you would expect people for discover careers in the food sector if it wasn’t for a bit of school exposure? Many of the most core skills are highly transferable too – reading detailed instructions; planning your time; understanding basic quantities and costing; being organised and cleaning up afterwards; working with others; knowing when to ask for help.

I’m not certain what aspects or PHSE you don’t think are useful for him to learn either, or that you assume you can definitely teach better than a professional, or that most parents are well equipped to educate their children about. PHSE varies widely around the country and has evolved over the years. Many of society’s issues, are exactly the sort of things PHSE is aimed at addressing; the threads on here about relationship issues, employment problems, CV writing, parenting challenges, mental health are all things which seem to be in the general area that is covered in these sort of topics at my children’s school – much broader than the sex and drugs ed that was done at my school. More recently there’s a lot of emphasis on team work, customer service, leadership and personal development.

Him and probably something like 80%+ are effectively doing all this because of the small minority.

20% would not be a small minority. I expect that its nothing like 80% who would cover everything this touches on without the school leading the way. Even if it is, do you think that 1/5 children should be left to suffer because their parents are not as good as you at parenting? or do you think that the school can play a role in helping to bring up the life chances of that 1/5 to give them something closer to the excellent chance you think your son will get from you? In doing so does it help your son understand that not everyone in society has parents like you.

That is one thing but in a global economy and job market when he leaves education he will be competing against peers from countries where school is primarily about qualifications.
Being frank how many comnpanies care about PHSE?

I assure you, that having been looking at potential school leavers recently (as well as being a regular employer of new graduates) that qualifications are not what differentiates them. There are literally dozens of people applying for the jobs with the same qualifications, maybe even better ones. The differentiators are usually the stuff outside the “traditional” curriculum. Their communications skills, their teamwork, their confidence, their ability to talk to me as “an old git” without looking terrified. The reality is, that even with 1st Class Honours Graduates, they know very little about what we do and its going to take them a year working with us to become proficient. We turn away candidates more often for the sort of skills covered in PHSE and “cooking” type lessons, than for their technical abilities.

Stevextc, I don’t understand what you have against DT, food, art classes going on in school? If it wasn’t for these classes I would have achieved even less in school and I find your disregard for them offensive. Are they the only ones you failed at school or something and ruined your perfect grades? disregard for something that isn’t a traditional subject is shameful. There is more to life than teaching kids core subjects.

I really thought people with your views died out years ago… generally alone with Thatcherism. I guess you think a degree in art or design isn’t a “proper degree” either.

I feel sorry for your kids if you have any my parents both creatives (florist and joiner) pushed me to do what i love and embrace creative subjects.

The fact that this is happening in Scotland which has much lower cases is a bit of a worry for those areas of Englandshire currently under enhanced measures.

Although its worth noting that: 1. Dundee is not far from the current hotspots in Scotland, esp. as its a special school so will have a much larger geographic catchment area than a mainstream school; 2. The nature of special educational needs is such that social distancing is often inherently harder, and will have a much higher staff-student ratio with typically more staff in close proximity; 3. of about 2500 schools only a handful have reported cases amongst staff and pupils – and as far as I know this is the only one that has closed.