School reopenings -current plan WAS McHugh's plan

deiseindublin

I really hope they don't just throw FE under a bus, after years of every scheme going trying to get bums on seats.

teachinggal123

deiseindublin wrote: »

I really hope they don't just throw FE under a bus, after years of every scheme going trying to get bums on seats.

The belief is that FE needs a major reorganisation and a move to 12 months provision. This could be the perfect excuse to do some of that work.

Or so I’m told.

deiseindublin

Pretty convenient I'd say.

Rosita

Whatever happens regarding the use of space in shared facilities as mentioned in the last number of posts it won't touch the sides of the broader problem of accommodating people through social distancing across the country. The majority of school I know of anyway don't have such a facility that can be just commandeered nor the staff numbers to supervise even if they have a load of extra rooms suddenly.

And I must say I don't think reading between the lines of what some experts are saying at the moment (one Doctor is calling for travel restrictions within Ireland to be reintroduced) that "just get on with it" will be the solution. Things could potentially be very delicate infections-wise by late August. Blunt-instrument solutions for schools such as let's-pretend-the-virus doesn't exist might not be the optimal approach. By the end of April Australia had the virus "suppressed in the community" and were among the model countries for dealing with it. Yesterday they had nearly 500 cases in one day alone. That sort of experience will concentrate minds here too.

mirrorwall14

Guidance for third level and further education has issued https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/fc7a0-guidance-for-further-and-higher-education-for-returning-to-on-site-activity-in-2020-roadmap-and-covid-19-adaptation-framework/?referrer=http://www.gov.ie/backtocollege/

€178 million package of supports

Quote:
In that context, higher education and further education facilities are advised that physical distancing of 2 metres be maintained. The impact of physical distancing on capacity of teaching areas is acknowledged, however, this impact may be attenuated through staggered provision of classes/lectures, a widening of opening hours and other sectoral and context-specific measures approved by Government within public health guidelines.

Rosita

The two-metre advisory for an environment which might as well be a different planet, space-wise, to the average school really raises the bar on Post-Primary school returns.

km79

“Widening of opening hours “ is jumping out at me .......

r93kaey5p2izun

Rosita wrote: »

The two-metre advisory for an environment which might as well be a different planet, space-wise, to the average school really raises the bar on Post-Primary school returns.

But it actually applies to a lot of FE colleges based in post primary schools. These are actually quite common across the ETB sector - not just a small number of schools. Especially in disadvantaged areas. So this distancing and reduced interaction will be expected to happen in the exact same classrooms and corridors as the pp classes, during the same school day.

At 9.00 a teacher may have a class with 6th Year Biology in Lab 3 with 24 18-year-old students packed in, banging elbows. No masks.

At 10.00 the same teacher might have a class with QQI Level 5 Lab Skills for a pre-Uni Science course. Most students probably 18-19 years old. Suddenly, it's 2m distancing if teaching, masks plus visor recommended if doing group work.

Rosita

Simeon Mysterious Minibike wrote: »

But it actually applies to a lot of FE colleges based in post primary schools. These are actually quite common across the ETB sector - not just a small number of schools. Especially in disadvantaged areas. So this distancing and reduced interaction will be expected to happen in the exact same classrooms and corridors as the pp classes, during the same school day.

At 9.00 a teacher may have a class with 6th Year Biology in Lab 3 with 24 18-year-old students packed in, banging elbows. No masks.

At 10.00 the same teacher might have a class with QQI Level 5 Lab Skills for a pre-Uni Science course. Most students probably 18-19 years old. Suddenly, it's 2m distancing if teaching, masks plus visor recommended if doing group work.

That's assuming there are different advisories. Very difficult to see how that can happen.

km79

There has been no mention of the latest guidelines in the media ?

s1ippy

mirrorwall14

km79 wrote: »

There has been no mention of the latest guidelines in the media ?

https://merrionstreet.ie/en/News-Room/Releases/Minister_Harris_announces_€168_million_package_for_third_level_institutions_and_students.html

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40019732.html%3ftype=amp

km79

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

https://merrionstreet.ie/en/News-Room/Releases/Minister_Harris_announces_€168_million_package_for_third_level_institutions_and_students.html

https://www.google.ie/amp/s/www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40019732.html%3ftype=amp

I had been checking rte , indo and Irish times
I also notice they have not publish results of vforT survey
They could not published the student one calling for LC cancellation quick enough !

mirrorwall14

km79 wrote: »

I had been checking rte , indo and Irish times
I also notice they have not publish results of vforT survey
They could not published the student one calling for LC cancellation quick enough !

Yeah it is odd they haven’t got there yet. It’s a big announcement

deiseindublin

km79 wrote: »

“Widening of opening hours “ is jumping out at me .......

I think that's fair enough. We want to open, we want the staff and students to be safe, there are only so many variables to play with, opening longer is one I'd be happy with, as long as it wasn't a euphemism for just working even longer.

pandoraj09

My sister is on the BOM in her PP school and they have a number of students not being sent back to "normal" school when it reopens due to underlying health issues either themselves or parents. The school now has to work out some way of providing tuition for these students. Our school building is round and the classrooms actually get narrower the further up each room you go, so social distancing impossible especially as kids enter/leave the room pushing/shoving. How will it work with SNAs? They'll hardly be able to sit right beside a student now, usually in our school sharing a book with them too. A lot of kids won't do PE. They "forget" their gear and usually sit huddled together at the door of the sports hall looking at phones. We have a designated teacher system where we send troublesome kids to a certain teacher where they sit until the bell goes. That can't happen now.....Every time I think about it I can think of more and more problems.

teachinggal123

I'm getting seriously worried now I have to admit.

I was walking the dog through the park last week and there were a few soccer matches on. One was u18 and there were probably 50 or more young people on the sideline watching and messing and climbing all over each other. Then a goal was scored and everyone piled in. No notion of social distancing or hygiene anywhere.

Thats what we are going back to my fellow teachers.

Big, big trouble (and a lot of sick teachers) ahead.

Rosita

pandoraj09 wrote: »

My sister is on the BOM in her PP school and they have a number of students not being sent back to "normal" school when it reopens due to underlying health issues either themselves or parents. The school now has to work out some way of providing tuition for these students. Our school building is round and the classrooms actually get narrower the further up each room you go, so social distancing impossible especially as kids enter/leave the room pushing/shoving. How will it work with SNAs? They'll hardly be able to sit right beside a student now, usually in our school sharing a book with them too. A lot of kids won't do PE. They "forget" their gear and usually sit huddled together at the door of the sports hall looking at phones. We have a designated teacher system where we send troublesome kids to a certain teacher where they sit until the bell goes. That can't happen now.....Every time I think about it I can think of more and more problems.

In reality we can't just imagine the common or garden scenarios and plan around them. There'll have to be a whole reimagining of how school works. This will include an acknowledgement that physical attendance is not the only way education can be delivered. Online classes will have to play a significant part especially in subjects e.g. non-practical where this is more easily practicable. This will have the added advantage of making things more robust if schools have to close.

And when all that's decided we'll move onto the question of state exams and how they will operate. This will be a school year like no other. Until the following year maybe.

linguist

Apologies if this has already been said but it's certainly how I'm thinking.

There's a good way to go yet. Firstly, we fear the Dept disregarding cautious NPHET guidelines. There are good reasons to hope that wouldn't happen. I would imagine the AG would advise against it from the perspective that it could open the State up to legal claims. I also imagine insurers would back out of cover if public health guidelines were not being observed.

However, if it gets to a point where an unsafe opening of schools is proposed, any teacher is free to go to their own GP and discuss their concerns and those are, of course, psychological as well as physical. And if you feel your physical or mental health is put at risk by the proposed reopening plans you're perfectly entitled to ask your GP to sign you off sick. I am certainly thinking along those lines. Nobody has to be a martyr here. I'm conscious that there's over a month to go and people could worry themselves sick. We all need to mind ourselves. There are good reasons to believe that a cautious return will happen for the reasons I've outlined but ultimately we are all entitled to seek our own medical advice and I really think that's something that teachers should be prepared to do.

wirelessdude01

linguist wrote: »

Apologies if this has already been said but it's certainly how I'm thinking.

There's a good way to go yet. Firstly, we fear the Dept disregarding cautious NPHET guidelines. There are good reasons to hope that wouldn't happen. I would imagine the AG would advise against it from the perspective that it could open the State up to legal claims. I also imagine insurers would back out of cover if public health guidelines were not being observed.

However, if it gets to a point where an unsafe opening of schools is proposed, any teacher is free to go to their own GP and discuss their concerns and those are, of course, psychological as well as physical. And if you feel your physical or mental health is put at risk by the proposed reopening plans you're perfectly entitled to ask your GP to sign you off sick. I am certainly thinking along those lines. Nobody has to be a martyr here. I'm conscious that there's over a month to go and people could worry themselves sick. We all need to mind ourselves. There are good reasons to believe that a cautious return will happen for the reasons I've outlined but ultimately we are all entitled to seek our own medical advice and I really think that's something that teachers should be prepared to do.

I await all the 'soft' teacher, suck it up, get on with it comments.

linguist

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

I await all the 'soft' teacher, suck it up, get on with it comments.

My point being that every individual teacher is entitled to look after their own health. And let's face it, we all work in staffrooms where certain people have no qualms about interpreting that liberally in 'normal times'! These are not normal times. If you don't feel safe you don't feel safe and you are entitled to stand up for yourself. Maybe it's time more of us played the game!

Blondini

Will Yam wrote: »

You won’t get any. They aren’t allowed here.

Good. There are some real illinformed imbeciles over on the other thread. Some of the most idiotic ridiculous stuff I've ever read.

spurious

Thanks to those for reporting posts.
One month break for our latest under bridge dweller.

teachinggal123

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-lack-of-preparation-for-reopening-schools-is-terrifying-1.4309042?mode=amp&fbclid=IwAR2ZL-SCXLQgVo2OKi61fwK9SqtNiEjblFgBcriB7S9au5GXg-yPXU563U8

Behind a paywall - not a happy read for teachers

byhookorbycrook

teachinggal123 wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-lack-of-preparation-for-reopening-schools-is-terrifying-1.4309042?mode=amp&fbclid=IwAR2ZL-SCXLQgVo2OKi61fwK9SqtNiEjblFgBcriB7S9au5GXg-yPXU563U8

Behind a paywall - not a happy read for teachers

Just as well most of us won’t be paying to read an “ opinion piece “ then.

wirelessdude01

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Just as well most of us won’t be paying to read an “ opinion piece “ then.

He actually has a right go at the department.

killbillvol2

Here's the full article:

One of the advantages Ireland has in dealing with the pandemic is the ability to see into the future. What is happening in Asia now will happen to us in August or September. And one of the things that is happening there has huge implications for what we will be doing in those months: reopening schools.

Public health policy here has assumed that children don’t spread the virus much. But in South Korea, one of the countries that has dealt best with the crisis, evidence has emerged that, while children under 10 were half as likely as adults were to spread Covid-19, children over 10 are “even more likely to infect others than adults were”.

Opening schools that have been closed since March 12th is the single most important thing the Government has to do. Children are suffering and the most vulnerable are suffering most. A survey of more than 700 second-level teachers by researchers at Trinity College Dublin found that students in disadvantaged secondary schools are three times more likely to have disengaged from their teachers during the lockdown. The picture is unlikely to be any brighter for primary school kids.

Any decision to close schools will be made on public health advice, according to the Department of Education. “There is no such advice at this point,” a spokesmans said.
"Balancing the different risks demands a massive national effort to reconfigure schoolrooms, to build temporary classrooms and install new toilets, to recruit extra staff for teaching and cleaning and to provide huge amounts of protective and sanitary equipment." File photograph: iStock
The Government is faced with an excruciating dilemma. There are two absolute imperatives: to control the pandemic and to get children and young people back into the classroom. But it is extremely difficult to do both and the news from South Korea makes it even harder. If kids over 10 are more infective than adults, putting them together indoors in the same rooms for hours on end is no less dangerous than doing the same with grown-ups. If the Dáil can’t sit in Leinster House, how can kids sit in a classroom?


As of now, Foley and her department can’t tell the parents of a million children how the school day will work
Child welfare, social justice and economic recovery on the one side and public health on the other exert equal and opposite pressures. Balancing the different risks demands a massive national effort to reconfigure schoolrooms, to build temporary classrooms and install new toilets, to recruit extra staff for teaching and cleaning and to provide huge amounts of protective and sanitary equipment. This effort has to be on the same scale as the radical and urgent reorganisation of hospitals at the start of the pandemic.

But there is no sign of any such plan. Schools are due to reopen in just five weeks. In the last week of May, we were told that “a roadmap for the reopening schools from late August will be ready within a fortnight”. We still don’t have it.

Last Thursday, the new Minister for Education Norma Foley was in the Dáil, presenting her department’s annual estimates. Here are her own words. Read them and weep: “I should explain that the revised estimate presented today does not include any provision in relation to Covid-19 at this stage… it is my intention that the exceptional funding requirements of the education and skills sector for this year… will need to be addressed as part of the supplementary estimates process. This will allow a clear picture as to the scale of the investment needed in the sector to ensure that it is adequately funded to respond to the unprecedented challenges that currently exist in our schools...”

So, as of last Thursday evening, the department not only had no budget for the radical changes that need to be made in schools, it had, by its own account, no “clear picture” of the scale of investment and action required. If there are no estimates of cost, it can only be because the department has not done the detailed work that would identify what each school needs. In its misnamed Planning for Re-Opening Schools document of June 12th, the department pretty much says this: “It is not feasible, from a cost, sustainability or delivery perspective, to identify and implement the additional classroom capacity (through pre-fabricated units, construction work) across each school.”


What does “not feasible” mean in the context of a national emergency? This is too hard so we’re not doing it. Is that it?

‘As normal’
As of now, Foley and her department can’t tell the parents of a million children how the school day will work, how many hours or days children will attend, where the extra space will be, what will happen with PPE and sanitation, what immunocompromised children, parents or teachers are supposed to do, how transport will operate, or what happens after a pupil or teacher tests positive.

Monica Hickey, 5th class teacher, and Matt Melvin, school principal, at St Etchen’s National School, Kinnegad, Co Westmeath in a classroom that can now accommodate 20 pupils according to the HSE guidelines on social distancing in schools. Photograph: Alan Betson
Monica Hickey, a 5th class teacher, and Matt Melvin, school principal, at St Etchen’s National School, Kinnegad, Co Westmeath, in a classroom that can now accommodate 20 pupils according to the HSE guidelines on social distancing in schools. File photograph: Alan Betson
This is, frankly, terrifying. The underlying condition of Irish education is the history of church control that makes schools private entities. We saw what happened in March and April in an analogous situation – privately-owned nursing homes were left to their own devices with lethal results. Are we about to do this again with schools?

Scariest of all is this simple sentence from Foley last week: “I am absolutely committed to the goal of reopening our primary and post-primary schools as normal at the end of the summer.” As normal – can there be two more dangerously deluded words? It is, literally, old-school thinking. We can’t send our children back into a world that has vanished. The Government seems to be leading us into a great national test without having done its homework. The results cannot be good.

byhookorbycrook

Thanks for that , but I’ve lost any respect for the Irish Times throughout the pandemic with their anti-teacher rhetoric and “ ball hopping.” One article that I’d have to pay for is one cent I won’t be giving them .
But good at least that one article isn’t crucifying teachers who want to their school community to be as safe as can be managed while we wait for a vaccine .

Treppen

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

Yeah it is odd they haven’t got there yet. It’s a big announcement

It's unofficial though. Regular unions should be doing this survey

SligoBrewer

deiseindublin wrote: »

I hope to God TUI fight that, would be so unfair.

First time for everything I suppose.