What purenarcotic said. A week ago I wrote to their head asking him to reconsider their system as every week they are sending year groups home, 90 kids at a time, when my secondary only sends home close contacts.
I don't fully understand why they don't have enough staff for this but I have to assume it's so as that's what he's said.
It's probably more a decision about how you run things with the staff you have. The school I am governor of are being very strict with the class bubbles but it does mean we have had to lose some of the "extra" stuff that was run across a whole year or between years - so there's no wraparound care at the moment, no extracurricular clubs, phonics & intervention groups are just within classes now rather than across years/phase, and the nurture group which used to be children from several classes is now running for a class per term. Whereas if we called a year group or key stage a "bubble" you could still do lots of that stuff.
I know as I am a teacher. However each teacher has a class so if one class goes into isolation so does the teacher. So in theory there should be enough teachers. Why there isn't is because of online teaching and things like first aid/health and safety etc. I'm not denying what he's said, just think that if we're going to keep schools open and pretend they are functioning then there should be extra staff put in by the government.
I do feel he could have found a way. They are a large school with a not insonsiderable staff. But this seems to be how many primaries are running things. At my secondary school we have all taken on extra duties to keep things running.
Is it part of a chain? I guess it's a decision between offering less but making it less likely covid will spread/years will close or offering more but risking more infections/closures. Those decisions were made at academy trust level rather than by individual schools for us though so we weren't taking that responsibility!
No, not a chain nor an academy. Staggered times happening but otherwise pretty much seems normal. Wraparound care still running, year groups segregated but as everyone knows, there are many siblings across year groups.
My workload for access will stay the same if any exams so makes no difference to.me if it's just the core.
It's all infuriating x
Reception are out too now for the next two weeks.
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As Thora said, there is some case for redeploying people, the NHS and LEAs are certainly doing it. I don't think my son's school didn't have enough staff to begin with. There is a class teacher for every class, a big bank of TAs (it's a large school), at least 2 coaches on the permanent staff, at least 3 learning mentors on the permanent staff, apart from the Head and Deputy there are at least 4 Senior Leadership staff who are non teaching, 2 non teaching SENCos, a librarian and that's the additional staff I know of.
