Thread by @karamballes

1/ Thread: Draft DfE guidence
Initial thoughts
'How can we get all students back full time without spending any extra money?... Oh and make it look like we're being safe'
Also feels bit like CEOs wrote this to usher in the new normal of education
m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/school-r…

Logistics is a reoccurring theme, particularly in secondaries which most the guidence seems to be designed for
7 yr groups staggered starts and finishes, but no rotas so 7 different different timetables of lesson start and finishes. How to timetable staff? Attach to yr groups?

Many classes are bigger than 30, most my classes last year were. Also some schools have more than 240 in a year group. My school would have to increase numbers in the lower sets, students who need more support would get less time with the teacher than usual.

4/ Big narrowing of curriculum, cramming Maths and English, does this mean lots of non core subject staff have to teach outside of their specialism.While they catch up on these will they ever be able to catch up on the other subjects,impact on students who love creative subjects?

5/ No social distancing in primary so you can squeeze them into small rooms.
1m advised for secondaries but not at all times, so probably doable in private schools, but not in state schools, in essence no distancing in state secondaries, the 1m is just a pretence so the gov can..

6/ claim they are encouraging infection control when they know the reality is there will be none.

Some small rooms with 30 students will be a struggle for a teacher to be 2m away, I also dont spend an hour close to someone in a supermarket however its advisory so in reality..

7/ there's no social distancing for teachers. I notice there is no mention of support staff, so what about teaching assistants who usually work next to a pupil and not at the front?

8/ I assume this means that staff will have to be attached to specific year groups? Otherwise they will be mixing 'year group bubbles'

Interesting that PHE have made a judgement on masks in regards to teaching and learning rather than on public health.

9/ so no 1m+, not even the +. I know a lot of people working in education would feel a lot more comfortable with masks being worn. How come other countries can teach their students with masks but ours can't? I would like to point out this is the exact opposite to SAGE's advice

10/ SAGE
High confidence schools are high risk of infection due to large number of contacts
High confidence enclosed areas for long periods are high risk of infection
High confidence social distancing is important to cut transmission
High confidence without 2m should wear masks

11/ Primary schools with circular tables will have to buy new tables, will struggle to 30 students in rows into some of our smaller rooms.
If they are crammed in all day with little ventilation it doesnt matter if they are face to face as two tables would keep a larger distance

12/ however it's a good way of enforcing the 'all students should sit in rows' comment from Williamson the other day, I bet this line came from an academy CEO, bit like the just catch up on English and Maths.
The new normal..

13/ Earlier it said teachers stay 2m away where possible, here it says 1m for no more than 15mins, but its advisable so on reality this isnt going to be able to happen

Fines: with shielding letters ending those households who dont feel comfortable will be divided by income

14/ Top private schools will be able to offer proper social distancing for high risk households, many middle classes may well be willing to pay the fine, but disadvantaged families wont be able to afford the fine, these are also the families most likely to be high risk, due to..

15/ multi generational households, and also due to the reductions in the benefit system, particularly mobility and other support to go to work many parents with health conditions have been plunged into poverty.

16/ I wonder what "robust measures" mean? I work with school refusers, main reason for poor attendance is mental health issues like high anxiety, trauma, impact of bullying or medical conditions. Robust sounds a bit like 'getting tough' when the reality is many of these have ..

17/ failed by austerity. Ever encountered a panicking older teen suffering from clinical depression on the verge of a panic attack talking about suicidal thoughts as they say school and family are doing what they can but they desperately need professional help but there's no..

18/ access to an underfunded CAHMS and all the child counsellor jobs in the area went long ago? Its heartbreaking you feel almost as helpless as the teen does. Another cause is SEND students who arent having their needs met in school, once again this is result of cuts to CAHMS..

19/ and school budgets, 15k support staff jobs have been cut, many supporting the most vulnerable students. CAHMS can take up to 2 years between applying for assessment and receiving report. Economic divide is also apparent here, theres a growing private industry filling the gap.

20/ This means that parents with the money can get an SEND child assessed and supported whilst the disadvantaged are still stuck in the queue. It's the same with counselling, I know someone who's daughter was the victim of grooming while in primary school, there is no state...

21/ support available for her child, so she pays £80 an hour every week to get her child the support she needs. This isn't an option for victims from the most deprived families. Robust better mean supportive measures rather than punitive, otherwise you are punishing the most ..

22/ vulnerable and likely disadvantaged pupils in the country for the government's negligence in providing adequate support. Let's not even get into cuts to child and social services etc which will also have supported these families, and the general stress of austerity on poorest

23/ Unlike the safety measures that are advisable, this one is compulsory and overrides all social distancing rules.
It also bans extra space, one of the main measures other countries have introduced to reduce risk of transmission and it's been banned.

24/ So the government might be desperate to get students back, but they arent willing to provide the extra money to make it safer. What happened to 'whatever it takes'? This is one of the measures that would have made union members a lot more comfortable.

25/Contingency is sensible, I wonder what they class as 'high quality'? Live lessons?

Once certain GCSE subjects are dropped will we ever get them back? Many big academies cut non-core subjects to save money. 'Broad balanced" curriculum going right out thr window, which is

26/interesting when gov and commentators has gone on about how school is so much more than just core subjects and this is vital for student wellbeing

27/ Yep students missing out on non core GCSE, what if they wanted to learn these at A level? Are those opportunities now gone?
Several non-core teachers have contacted me with concerns for their jobs, some schools were planning redundancies pre Covid,we now know who will get cut

28/ Does this mean secondary teachers are going to have to learn the year 6 syllabus and then write a curriculum? Not all primaries will have taught the syllabus in the same order so different students will have different gaps. Will they have to do SATs in secondary?

29/ They are predicting an increase in disruptive behaviour, I guess that's another reason they had for scrapping social distancing, but dont all schools try and reduce poor behaviour already?What does this new focus look like?I bet they have a zero tolerance approach

30/ championed by certain MATs. I point out that I believe in firm consistent behaviour policies however I think zero tolerance has become fetishised as a cure for issues in education. Zero tolerance behaviour management is shown to to disproportionately impact certain groups

3q/ particularly the vulnerable, SEND, MH nd other groups. Will provisions be out in place to prevent isolation, exclusion or offrolling? Another blow for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged with needs it being met
Reads like DfEs favourite CEOs had a hand in writing this.

/ Ofsted wont be inspecting schools, except where they will be inapecting schools. However by October it seems Ofsted will be back to normal.Does this mean the 6th Ofsted framework in 9 years?

33/ Staggered break and lunch so they can use the same area but with cleaning in between. Back to basic logistics again. 15 min lunch 10 min clean, 7 year groups is about 3 hours so will need how do we staff that and provide cleaners? Different toilet per year group as well

34/ Not multiple year groups in assemblies but fine for 240 students of same year group to be in a hall at the same time. I think it's time for all 650 MPs to cram into parliament with the high risk ones included as that's what they are expecting of education staff.

35/ School buses: I think this might win the award for WTF are they thinking. Looking forward to 7 different queues and enforcing seating by year group. Moment bus leaves school they are all going to switch seats. But they do have to wear masks on the bus but not in school?!

36/ What if they take their masks off once the bus leaves school? What about the bus on it's way to school, who is going to enforce the queues and the seating? Good luck bus drivers, at least you and the students are supposed to have the protection of masks and you wont have ..

37/ hours in less than 1m space with them. But if students take masks off on the bus it makes a mockery of the whole year group bubble idea, however considering families will have children in different year group bubbles it's already a joke

38/ Aim is to make parents feel safe about their children, but children are low risk so gov can take lots of risk, as for safeguarding staff, how well do you think this guidence protects them?
Guidence will be must and advisories, can see how this plays out

39/ Musts will be everything to do with having all students in and the CEO fetishes, facing forwards, uniform, narrowing curriculum, robust measures, zero tolerance
Advisory will be everything to do with social distancing and staff safety, the measures that will cut transmission

40/ As I said it's about reassuring parents, but staff concerns.. well read between the lines, they can get stuffed. Take your kid for a haircut with 8 ppl in the building and the hairdresser will have more protection than a teacher in classes of 30 for 4/5 hours.

41/ And if you need any PPE, I assume for cleaners and first side, buy your own PPE

42/ In summary everyone better do everything they can to get the number of infections down,and TTI and test capacity better be "world class" by September otherwise we risk schools being transmission hubs, in these conditions Covid can rip through schools and into communities

43/ It feels like the aim is to have all students back in, all parents back to work, children are low risk and staff can just take one for the team.
Also allows certain MAT practices to be forced onto all schools, I see various repercussions which I'll cover tomorrow.

42/ Just realised I missed a point on this slide. GCSE and A-levels will have "adaptations", coursework, cuts in curriculum,hope this is clarified very quickly, otherwise how do you plan your schemes of work? However I bet MAT CEOs have already got a head start on the rest of us

44/
1/ Part 2: Repercussions
Staff who are either shielding or living with shielding family members. With no social distancing or even masks in schools which are essentially a mass gathering (consider a secondary with 2k pupils) many high risk household wont feel comfortable.

2/ I know of many older staff planning to take early retirement, I know, it's also worth remembering there's plenty of younger workers who have health conditions or live with those who do. Fed up with teacher bashing in the press, and SLTs brushing aside their health concerns..

3/ many of these are already planning exit routes out of working in education. Third of NQTs leave within 5 years, about half of teachers have less than 10 years experience, in recent years 8.5% of the profession are leaving for reasons other than retirement. What is the lack of

4/ concerns for those in risk categories going to do to these numbers? We are in danger of losing a lot of experienced staff and I theres also a danger of seeing many from those ethnic groups more heavily impacted by Covid also deciding they dont want to take the risk.

5/ So this could reduce diversity in the education workforce just at a time when voices are calling for the exact opposite. They also cant all go off to become DfE or MAT consultants like those #edutwitter Ed-Celebrities who will be praising this plan as it fits their narrowing

6/ vision of "no frills" state education. The CEO, consultants and those who get millions without tendering processes wont criticise the government, why would they? They are the ones who have benefitted most from academisation and marketisation, no they will post derisive

7/ comments about those who believe in a broader more diverse curriculum as jealous enemies of progress and throw up straw men arguements of binary choices of their sensible side of the scale against the "chaos" proposed by those they disagree with.

8/ Students shielding or living with those who are. With most shielding letters ending by August, how comfortable will these families feel about no social distancing, masks and whole year group bubbles?
Dont think the threat of a fine is going to work for many high risk families

9/ I seeing a lot of high risk families saying that if infections arent considerably lower and they havent gained more trust in the TTI and testing regime then they are seriously thinking about homeschooling. Many of these will be disadvantaged multi generational homes.

10/ Narrowing curriculum and staff: today government spoke of £14b for schools as part of thei "operation speed" this was in their manifesto, education funding has had real terms cuts since 2010 of just over £14b from its annual budget, while gov funding proposals sound like its

11/ plugging a gap the reality is that the £14b extra for schools is the total extra money over 5 years, the plans were for it to be back loaded, t and by the end would mean around half the cuts would be in place, and student numbers will be higher in 2025 than in 2010

12/ this means 83% of schools are still facing real term funding cuts. There is also the issue of how this money is distributed through the funding formula. The most disadvantaged areas and schools are still set to recieve real terms cuts and be hardest hit.

13/ The areas and schools set to see real terms increases are those in more affluent areas. For all that rhetoric about needing to support the disadvantaged, reality of actions tells a different story. This means redundancies and budget cuts are still coming up for many schools

14/ Considering how many MATs and Free Schools have cut Tech, Music, Art, IT etc if schools are being expected to focus on core subjects only then there's a good chance theres two sections where the redundancy axe is going to fall. Creative subjects and other non core..

15/ PE perhaps as gov wont say if the PE and Sports grant of £320m will be continuing. It will be down to heads but they could be forced into it by necessity. As this is the modus operandi for certain bit MATs they are busy doing this to schools they take over anyway.

16/ the other way to plug budget gaps will be cutting support staff like TAs, you know, the staff who specifically support those vulnerable students the government has suddenly become very concerned about. I notice the proposed plans didnt make any extra funding promises

17/ Already non core subject staff are worried about their jobs. If these jobs go will they ever be restored or do we end up with a permanently narrowed curriculum?
What impact does a narrowing curriculum have on students well being?

18/ Throw in the suggestion that tougher discipline systems are being recommended alongside a narrow, uncreative curriculum focused on an exam factory mentality and we have a recipe for disaster for vulnerable students with extra difficulties of trauma, MH, SEND or poverty.

19/ All those calling for all students to be back as soon as possible kept saying schools were important not just because of learning but for well being, will any of these people be speaking up against draft plans that are a 'turbo charging' of the policies that have seen a

20/ massive increase in MH issues in students? Check the stats, our schools were dealing with a well being crisis before Covid.
If this is followed expect more exclusions, more offrolling and more homeschooling. The gov was already planning a 25% increase in alternative provision

21/ Tory manifesto also promised to introduce Secure Schools, the first contract to set one up has been awarded with several more already in the pipeline.
Those that dont comply wont be supported by the corporate entities taking over education, they will

https://twitter.com/karamballes/status/1199011316037500929?s=19

22/ farmed out to those schools that care or end up being warehouses. The most indepth look at off rolling came from the respected and independent Education Policy Institude, report freely available on their site.
Summary of those most impacted is here.

23/ Reminded of a conversation I had with @NExclusions near the end of last year on this that I'm going to included in the next few sections as I think it applies to of these plans go ahead.

24/ As you can see I believe austerity and marketisation has led to an abandonment of the vulnerable and disadvantaged.

25/ Why weren't these media commentators and MPs not as outraged by the impact on the disadvantaged for 10 years? Why now?

26/ They supported the destruction of vital services as balancing the books, or getting rid of the dependency 'trap of welfare' when in reality we were just punishing children for the bankers mistakes.

27/ If disadvantage causes an education gap, shouldnt we be looking at reducing disadvantage? More children are now in disadvantaged families than 10 years ago.

28/ The thing is that the government amd DfE knows their policies are damaging to the disadvantaged and vulnerable, they acknowledged this in a leaked report and ploughed on ahead anyway

29/

30/ Why do we get offrolling? And why is it more prevalent in certain big MATs?
They are corporate entities and they have to protect 'the brand'

31/ The problem when league table positions become the main factor of success is that students are reduced to data points, those who need extra support can be seem as a drain on resources.Every child should matter, unfortunately I dont think everyone running schools believes this

32/ We shouldnt have a system where APs need expanding. We should be looking at what's wrong with the system. We certainly shouldn't be accelerating the issues that sees vulnerable and disadvantaged pushed out of mainstream education in increasing numbers.