Schools return

I want to first complement the government on their handling of this crisis. I am a head teacher and probably shouldn't admit that I am not interested in politics.

I am however interested in children and volunteer at our hub for children of key workers.

Please, please do not send primary schools back too early. Transition is important for many vulnerable children and I believe that we are able to safely organise transition from Nursery to Primary 1 and Primary 7 to Academy safely and supportively in a remote manner whilst not being in school buildings before the holidays. In fact, like many others, this is already some way through the planning process.

We are able to provide remote learning and, although this does not replace class teaching, by placing the emphasis on health and wellbeing and family support, it is expected that the majority of our children will return to school in a good place to learn. Let us do the rest!

I am no expert on academy education but this could free up primary school buildings in each cluster to be used for academy purposes if needed and I know that the HTs in my cluster would do everything to accommodate this if required.

Why the contribution is important

By conducting remote transition for most children, only having vulnerable pupils involved in the transition activities that they need, so keeping children and staff out of primary settings until the new session (14 weeks from now instead of anything up to eight weeks if we were to return earlier) we have the best chance of starting the session with a full return to school. Social distancing is not possible in primary schools (in fact, it has not been possible in the hub although we have tried so hard) so we need to ensure the infection rate is extremely low on return.

by Sandra on May 10, 2020 at 07:30PM

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Average rating: 3.4
Based on: 5 votes

Comments

  • Posted by KSTEPHEN May 10, 2020 at 21:15

    Why can’t school reopen one day a week even.
    Remote learning is no substitute for teaching and the attainment gap will widen further.
      Also the hub seems to more about childcare than teaching.
    It would be helpful if some limited teaching could be carried out as key workers are then trying to teach their tired children in the evening.

  • Posted by ardoch May 10, 2020 at 22:40

    Is it remote learning? At the moment it seems the approach is to put resources on the website and hope for the best. If primary schools are likely to stay closed - even partially - into next session, please can the LAs plan for proper structured remote learning with teacher interaction, particularly further up the school. Otherwise some children will engage and others won't.

  • Posted by Hamiltoes May 10, 2020 at 23:00

    While remote learning may work for some families it is certainly not working well for families who are still having to work (including single parents).

    There doesn’t seem to be any research appearing on how this is actually affecting children. Their development and their mental health, specifically.

    The only thing we know for sure is that they are pretty much unaffected by the virus.

    Children need to go back to normality for their own well being, and parents need to go back to work. This has to be a priority.
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