Lockdowns are no excuse to put feet up, teachers warned
TEACHERS who fail to pull their weight with remote learning must not be allowed to “put their feet up and watch Netflix”, a former head teacher has said.
Pauline Wood, who was suspended earlier this year from Grange Park Primary in Sunderland after remarking that some teachers had “sat at home doing nothing” during the pandemic, has spoken out about her concerns for future lockdowns.
She said rather than “shoot the messenger”, head teachers must face up to the issues they encountered during the last period of school closures and make sure lessons were learnt from it.
The majority of schools reopened last week for the first time since March, with the remainder opening by the start of this week.
According to official guidance, if a school has at least two cases of coronavirus within two weeks, it could be viewed as a possible outbreak.
In such cases, a year group – or possibly all pupils – may be told to stay at home and self-isolate. An academy in the West Midlands became the first school to shut down this academic year after a single case of coronavirus. The JCB Academy in Rocester, Staffs, told pupils to stay at home on Friday.
“Remote learning will still be important,” Mrs Wood said. “In some cases, the lazy schools will still use excuses like ‘we can’t mark homework because we might transfer some germs’.
“If some teachers treat remote learning as an excuse to put their feet up and watch Netflix, children will suffer.”
Mrs Wood said a difficulty heads encountered during the summer term was that “teacher unions had made it clear they would defend to the hilt any teachers who were disciplined for refusing to do any work”.
But attitudes had to change if education was to continue during future periods when large numbers of pupils were told to self-isolate at home, she said.
“If we hit another big crisis like in March, I would say if teachers don’t buy into the work, they should get put on unpaid leave. This would free up a lot of money for pupil interventions and catch-up activities. I am not a teacher basher by any means but there are a lot of people who have enjoyed being paid to do nothing.”
Grange Park Primary proached for comment.