Concerns over phased return options

This idea was locked by a moderator

It is no longer possible to add comments or ratings to this idea.

Moderation reason: Thank you for your idea. As it is similar to an existing idea, please contribute to that instead by using the Search and Filter function on the website.

As a primary teacher and parent of a pre-school aged and P1 aged child, I have concerns about the options for phased return which I expect many parents may share.

One option suggested for phased return is a ‘week on, week off’ model where children would attend school for one week and then be at home for the second week to allow for smaller class sizes. For working parents, this will cause a huge hassle with childcare most likely falling on elderly grandparents which will defeat any attempt at protecting them from the virus. The lack of consistency with this model would also mean that any progress in learning is likely to be severely hampered in the classroom. I also question how work and feedback would be provided for the at home learning students are meant to be engaging with when not at school every second week. This would not be able to provided in the same way as currently as teachers would be teaching the second half of the class who is at school that week.

The second option of classes split into specified days a week that they attend would at least go some way to give parents more consistency in organising childcare to enable them to work from home or return to the workplace.

Other countries are trialling a system where half the class attend Mon/Tues, schools are closed on Weds for deep cleaning and teachers work from home to set work for the week for children working at home on their days not in school, and the other half of the class attend school on Thurs/Fri. This would ensure that all students would have time at school each week, enable deep cleaning of schools (in theory) and ensure work and feedback could be provided for children when working at home as well and I would argue this would better support students’ education and the country’s ability to support the workforce returning to work most effectively due to less childcare considerations.

Why the contribution is important

We need to consider the impact on working parents of phased schooling options as well as ensuring children’s education can be progressed.

by HTMM on May 06, 2020 at 07:40AM

Current Rating

Average rating: 0.0
Based on: 0 votes