It took nearly all of 2020 to record two million Coronavirus cases, the UK has added a further million since the 19th December. Just that.
Schools are much fuller during this lockdown too as the government has massively relaxed the rules on who can attend and there is no cap on how many can (it was 20% last time). At some primary schools, there are classes with only 3 or 4 kids at home and the rest still in school. Across the country, support staff are generally now in full time and only the teachers are working from home. At our school, we are running out of staff available because as well as supervising kids in the classroom, over a 100 free school meals boxes have to be delivered each week - which was fun this week in the snow, and welfare calls are being made to all students at home. School's had to ask support staff who are normally part time if they would come in on their days off too (paid) as we are so short of people to supervise.
We commented on that today, I’m in construction and my sector has been encouraged to continue to work, last time I had 3 months off, technically I could ask for my kids to be in school but wouldn’t dream of it to be honest
I'm starting to wonder what the legal implications are. TAs work with a class 'under supervision and direction of a teacher' but if the teacher isn't in the same room, does that still count? TAs are also not trained to manage behaviour and to safeguard to the same extent and I'm not sure what a teacher on the other end of a computer screen could do if there was a fight for example. Senior leadership are still in school and could respond to a call out but the teacher would be expected to do something to keep everyone safe until they arrive, a TA is not. Last time, all key worker and vulnerable kids were supervised by a few teachers and support staff all together but now they need to be in separate bubbles for their live lessons and teachers can't be used to supervise as they have their own timetabled classes to be teaching.
I work in social care albeit office based and we were all allowed to work from home in Spring. Now we're being made to go into the office, I've refused, played the stress card (not proud to have) and have since resigned.
To be fair, if it was bad enough for you to resign then I wouldn't say you were playing any card and you should be very proud to have recognised a bad situation and got yourself away from it. Having had to do that myself I know how difficult it can be but it's always better than staying in a toxic situation and allowing things to spiral further to save face.
yes and when it kicks off in a school it kicks off, people would be sursprised, T A are being used as low paid teachers in lots of schools
My sister isn't a 'teacher', though she is a special needs 'assistant' at a secondary school, she has her own 'classroom' and there's no other teacher in it. She is not unique, though I'm led to believe it's not that commonplace. Other than her qualifications; I'd love to see someone explain to me how she's not a teacher.
I guess it would depend how many students she works with at once, if she plans all her own lessons independently, if she has lesson observations and is held directly accountable for the students' progress, if she writes reports and does parents' evenings. Without knowing her role it would be hard to say. Has she considered getting the qualifications formally?