School reopenings -current plan WAS McHugh's plan

lulublue22

Bobtheman wrote: »

I'd take anything the Government says with a pinch of salt particularly in education. Firstly it's an evolving situation. Secondly the state has a dismissal record on planning anything and is often grossly out of touch with situation on the ground.
But this was always the way. Those of us old enough to remember the 1980s recall being told there was no major tax evasion. An amnesty in 1988 was meant to yield 30m. The actual yield was over 300 million. Barry Desmond (Labour /the elder lemon) was laughed off many a Today tonight show for saying tax evasion was rife.
But yet the avg voter continued to vote FF/FG

I’ve no doubt things can and probably will change however it is still clear that the gov’s back to school plan hinges on the belief that students don’t transmit the disease to the same extent as adults nor are as adversely affected as adults otherwise they would not have countenanced a full return. Time will tell if it is the correct decision or not.

Polka_Dot

But surely schools will also be perfect environments for clusters to occur?

shesty

My worry for now is not so much that clusters will pop up around schools, my worry is that numbers will go up in the next couple of weeks and we won't even get as far as getting into the school.And then all that entails.

Absolutely hoping yesterday was an aberration in terms of numbers, and they will stay low.

shesty

Bobtheman wrote: »

Secondly the state has a dismissal record on planning anything

We are absolutely reactive in this country, very very rarely proactive.I will literally believe the kids are going back to school when I see them in the classrooms, and not before

solerina

shesty wrote: »

My worry for now is not so much that clusters will pop up around schools, my worry is that numbers will go up in the next couple of weeks and we won't even get as far as getting into the school.And then all that entails.

Absolutely hoping yesterday was an aberration in terms of numbers, and they will stay low.

I must say I think you could be right, if the plan was to go back with half of each class then we could socially distance and possibly have a chance, this go back and pretend it’s Sept 2019 and COVID never happened seems foolhardy in the extreme !!

combat14

french cases up 54% in one week with significant proportion in the 20-30 age category .. heatwave up to 41% this week with people being asked to continue wearing their masks .. such a difficult disease to eradicate by the look of it .. hard to know if we will be back to schools in only 4 weeks here

lulublue22

Polka_Dot wrote: »

But surely schools will also be perfect environments for clusters to occur?

CMO at last nights health briefing said he expects to see cases in schools but he was less forthcoming on whether he expects to see clusters. I thought it was interesting. In my opinion unless we see a rise in cases ( akin to last nights) and increased community transmission schools will reopen. Keeping them open could be more difficult though. :eek:

shesty

Yeah where I was first worried about a lack of any plan for going back, now I find myself wondering about a contingency plan for the actual plan!!

Getting too far ahead of myself really.

wirelessdude01

shesty wrote: »

Yeah where I was first worried about a lack of any plan for going back, now I find myself wondering about a contingency plan for the actual plan!!

Getting too far ahead of myself really.

We all expected some form of proper centralised online thingy for the school/area/region closedowns that will occur. Really think it should have been developed for primary.

bren2001

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

We all expected some form of proper centralised online thingy for the school/area/region closedowns that will occur. Really think it should have been developed for primary.

Do most schools not have Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom/Drive?

shesty

Our primary school was looking at Teams initially before the Easter and decided against it. I can't remember the exact reasoning but I think it was to do with either parents not being able to view the content, or too many people being able to view too much content. They went so far as to set up it up, then decided to use a different platform, which worked fine.

bren2001

shesty wrote: »

Our primary school was looking at Teams initially before the Easter and decided against it. I can't remember the exact reasoning but I think it was to do with either parents not being able to view the content, or too many people being able to view too much content. They went so far as to set up it up, then decided to use a different platform, which worked fine.

Having used the alternatives such as Moodle and Blackboard I'd be glad that there is no centralised system. They are slow and a nightmare to work. I keep as much of it away from Moodle as possible and just use it to provide links to a Google Drive resource. This would be common practice among my peers (or they've just built their own site using Google sites).

Tiny point in the grand scheme.

Bobtheman

I'm sure the state will have an online teaching plan in place just after a vaccine is up and running.
I wonder has the issue of kids recording content and then manipulating it ever been addressed? The danger ?

wirelessdude01

bren2001 wrote: »

Do most schools not have Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom/Drive?

They can have whatever they want, that's the point I'm making. At primary level the biggest issue I came across or heard from parents was the lack of a consistent approach from schools. Even within schools there was no consistency.

Bobtheman

Good piece by Fintan o' toole today. Fair. I usually find him too right on but he is very balanced on school openings. Avoids the usual drive out of the way to kick the unions.

Bobtheman

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

They can have whatever they want, that's the point I'm making. At primary level the biggest issue I came across or heard from parents was the lack of a consistent approach from schools. Even within schools there was no consistency.

Can you record content on goggle teams? The person receiving it ?

Murple

solerina wrote: »

I must say I think you could be right, if the plan was to go back with half of each class then we could socially distance and possibly have a chance, this go back and pretend it’s Sept 2019 and COVID never happened seems foolhardy in the extreme !!

I agree. I think we would stand a far better chance of keeping schools open and safe if the plan was half a class at a time.

wirelessdude01

Bobtheman wrote: »

Can you record content on goggle teams? The person receiving it ?

I had issues with children recording zoom calls on phones. Was put up on social media. Some children then refused point blank to go on the calls.

wirelessdude01

Murple wrote: »

I agree. I think we would stand a far better chance of keeping schools open and safe if the plan was half a class at a time.

All about the economy bro. Education really isn't the thing here ya know.

Murple

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

All about the economy bro. Education really isn't the thing here ya know.

I actually think it's about politics ahead of even the economy.

bren2001

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

They can have whatever they want, that's the point I'm making. At primary level the biggest issue I came across or heard from parents was the lack of a consistent approach from schools. Even within schools there was no consistency.

I wouldn't have thought that's overly an issue, all the platforms are quite easy to navigate but it's a fair enough point. From a user perspective it does make sense to have one universal one run off a government server.

wirelessdude01

bren2001 wrote: »

I wouldn't have thought that's overly an issue, all the platforms are quite easy to navigate but it's a fair enough point. From a user perspective it does make sense to have one universal one run off a government server.

Issue isn't platform really. I'll give an example, an extreme one but one I'm aware of. School A has a policy of a weekly email with no work being sent back for correction. All work distribution done via a school email address which no one answers(outlined on boards by a contributor). School B uploads work 3 times a day, 9am/12pm/3pm, 5 days a week All work had to be completed and sent back. If not emails were received and if still not sent back then phone calls came.

See the difference in approach? No wonder parents were confused. One was way over the top and well the other one, less said the better.

bren2001

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Issue isn't platform really. I'll give an example, an extreme one but one I'm aware of. School A has a policy of a weekly email with no work being sent back for correction. All work distribution done via a school email address which no one answers(outlined on boards by a contributor). School B uploads work 3 times a day, 9am/12pm/3pm, 5 days a week All work had to be completed and sent back. If not emails were received and if still not sent back then phone calls came.

See the difference in approach? No wonder parents were confused. One was way over the top and well the other one, less said the better.

I thought you were referring to a platform. A standardised approach makes sense, difficult if you have kids in two different schools.

wirelessdude01

bren2001 wrote: »

I thought you were referring to a platform. A standardised approach makes sense, difficult if you have kids in two different schools.

Well I personally think that there should be a centralised, standard approach on a dedicated platform for those children who for whatever reason cannot attend school in September. Telling SET to look after them, while SET will in all honesty probably be covering for absent teachers is a disgrace.

killbillvol2

There appears to be a misconception about that the government cares about education.

If someone could provide evidence of this I'd be astonished.

Take this quote from our new minister :
However, when asked specifically about the tender process, she said "schools will know themselves what's involved".
In other words, it's not my problem.

Teachers have always been aware that schools aren't resourced. It's dawning on some others now and then there's a large cohort who don't care if schools are adequately resourced as long as someone minds their children.

A government that had any interest in education would not have put a first time TD in charge during a crisis. A TD whose first instinct in the job was to resort to parish pump politics. But just another in a succession of half wits who have been appointed minister for education.

None of this is helped by a permanent civil service and inspectorate in the department who seem to slavishly follow UK education policy. And who have quite clearly sat on their hands since schools closed in March. Those not sitting on their hands had their fingers in their ears hoping it would all go away.

Schools have, as usual, been left to their own devices with this so called plan. Most will figure out a way of getting up and running while lowering the risk to children and staff.

The government will take credit that they reopened schools. They won't, however, accept responsibility for removing supports for children with special needs as they've told schools to put SETs in mainstream classes when subs aren't available. And they certainly won't take the blame when there are outbreaks in schools because, not only is there no space to social distance in 30 year old prefabs, but the windows don't open.

Enjoy your holidays Norma!

shesty

The piece by Fintan O'Toole previously mentioned does sum it up very well.But one line stood out to me ...his point about the Constitution stating the State "shall provide FOR education", as opposed to saying it actually provides education, creates a scenario which allows the Gov to pick and chose where it gets involved.Without going down the rabbit hole of whether or not the Church should be involved in Education, it is clear their numbers are no longer sufficient to actually provide the education system as was - taking out that little 3 letter word would push the responsibility back onto the State, in theory forcing the Dept to take on more responsibility for schools.....addressing the problem at source, so to speak.

And pigs may fly....

rainbowtrout

shesty wrote: »

The piece by Fintan O'Toole previously mentioned does sum it up very well.But one line stood out to me ...his point about the Constitution stating the State "shall provide FOR education", as opposed to saying it actually provides education, creates a scenario which allows the Gov to pick and chose where it gets involved.Without going down the rabbit hole of whether or not the Church should be involved in Education, it is clear their numbers are no longer sufficient to actually provide the education system as was - taking out that little 3 letter word would push the responsibility back onto the State, in theory forcing the Dept to take on more responsibility for schools.....addressing the problem at source, so to speak.

And pigs may fly....

Have just finished a postgrad in law and education and it’s amazing how many cases centre on that one little word. It’s not gonna change any time soon.

Postgrad10

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

I had issues with children recording zoom calls on phones. Was put up on social media. Some children then refused point blank to go on the calls.

You could put a block on zoom calls being recorded by others in your settings. You go in to your participants list and click forbid recording.

amacca

Postgrad10 wrote: »

You could put a block on zoom calls being recorded by others in your settings. You go in to your participants list and click forbid recording.

But cant they just take out their phone and record the screen using their phone?

You cant put a block on that......

wirelessdude01

Postgrad10 wrote: »

You could put a block on zoom calls being recorded by others in your settings. You go in to your participants list and click forbid recording.

I mean recording using a phone.