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1st June School Reopenings

The government have released a planning guide for primary school leaders to help prepare them to open their schools for more pupils during the coronavirus outbreak. 

Key Points 

The government expects schools and trusts to work closely with: 

  • parents, staff and unions as they normally would, when agreeing the best approaches for their circumstances 
  • their local authorities to determine what services they require and agree on any specific arrangements during this period 

Preparing your school 

  • Health and safety check of the building– consider undertaking a check of the buildings concerned 
  • Cleaning and hygiene– Once children are back in school, all frequently touched surfaces, equipment, door handles and toilets used during the day will need to be cleaned thoroughly each day.

You may also wish to consider your plans for: 

  1. the availability of soap and hot water in every toilet (and if possible in classrooms) 
  2. the location of hand sanitiser stations, for example at the school entrance for pupils and any other person passing into the school to use, and their replenishment 
  3. the location of lidded bins in classrooms and in other key locations around the site for the disposal of tissues and any other waste, their double bagging and emptying 
  4. ensuring you have a good supply of disposable tissues to implement the ‘catch it, bin it, kill it’ approach in each classroom and enough to top up regularly
  5. Movement around the school– try to reduce possible contact between different groups of children 

Reviewing your staff for availability in school 

  • Audit your whole staff to ascertain who will be available to be in school from the week commencing 1 June 
  • You may also be working with some staff who are anxious and may value the opportunity for discussion and reassurance. 
  • Clinically extremely vulnerable individuals are advised not to work outside the home. 
  • Clinically vulnerable individuals who are at higher risk of severe illness– have been advised to take extra care in observing social distancing and should work from home where possible 
  • If clinically vulnerable (but not clinically extremely vulnerable) individuals cannot work from home, they should be offered the safest available on-site roles, staying 2 metres away from others wherever possible 
  • If a member of staff lives with someone who is clinically vulnerable (but not clinically extremely vulnerable), which includes those who are pregnant, they can attend work. 
  • If a staff member lives in a household with someone who is extremely clinically vulnerable, it is advised they only attend work if stringent social distancing can be adhered to 

 

Familiarise yourself with the maximum safe group size 

  • Unlike older children and adults, early years and primary age children cannot be expected to remain 2 metres apart from each other and staff. In deciding to bring more children back to early years and schools, we are taking this into account. 

You should, therefore, follow these measures as best as you can:  

  1. avoid contact with anyone with symptoms 
  2. frequent hand cleaning and good respiratory hygiene practices 
  3. regular cleaning of settings 
  4. minimising contact and mixing 
  •  Children, young people, and staff where possible, should only mix in a small, consistent group and that small group should stay away from other people and groups 
  • For primary schools, classes should normally be split in half, with no more than 15 pupils per small group and one teacher 
  • Vulnerable children and children of critical workers in other year groups should also be split into small groups of no more than 15. 

For the complete list of government guidance, please visit gov.uk

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9 comments

How are schools going to work with at least double some triple the number of classes? There are not enough rooms or staff. We can’t afford tissues, soap or paper towels. We have approx one tap and sink per 25 pupils! The cleaning team come in once a day. Why can we not meet more than one person outside our home with social distancing but it is ok for us to have contact with no distancing or ppe?

If something happens to a member of staff will the education Secretary,the health Secretary and the prime minister resign because of the decision to open schools far to early against scientific advice?

That’s a ridiculous question and not at all helpful to the situation we all find ourselves in!

The reception and year 1 age groups chosen are the wrong ones. It will be so hard to get them to socially distance and once they experience what new school life is like there will be a lot of children that won’t want to come back!
The different opinions on the science is also not very reassuring. Trust has been lost in this government so I am unable to feel confident in their plans and that their intentions hold staff and children’s best interests at heart. It is not about education or the welfare of the disadvantaged only about us providing childcare so People can go back to work At any cost I am afraid.

Do not feel ready at all. Not been in school since we closed and feel completely detached from it all although I’m SENCO.

Schools should not be opening wider on the 1st June. There is no way that we can implement things like shops are. We also are not going to have any sort of PPE.

I would never be able to teach again if a child or member of staff died.

My yr 2 son goes to school on the days I work as I’m a key worker. There are reduced children in school but I would not be happy to send him full time in june if the class sizes are bigger due to the risk of not been able to social distance & we still dont know the full risks to children contracting or passing on the virus.

How can it be considered safe for the children to be in close contact with non family/household members when the government are still saying you can only meet one member of your family out side. Children of this age have no understanding of social distancing and why should teachers and children be used as the experiments in this Surely it would of been more conducive to have the students that would be leaving school/college so they could of actually sat their exams

We are planning to reopen on or around the 1st June and are trying to put stipulations in place to make our nursery safer for staff and children. The issue with social distancing is a huge concern as we know this will not work with young children and the conflicting advice from different doctors, scientists and stories in the media add to our concerns. We have staff with pregnancies and underlying health conditions who are shielding and the advice for these people is very vague. They were told to stay at home for 12 weeks which takes us to the 15th June, can they still be furloughed if the nursery is back open? And then what happens after this date?
The whole situation is vague and raises more questions than it answers.

I strongly disagree on bringing back Nurseries and reception children. It is impossible for them to social distance and it is not something they could understand. We spend so much time teaching our children to socialise, to be independent, make choices etc. Are we now going to undo all the skills the children have learnt. I don’t think this will be the right environment for Nursery & Reception aged children

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