COVID IS STILL CAUSING HAVOC IN SCHOOLS
HUNDREDS of children in entire year groups have been sent home to learn remotely again in recent days as Covid continues to cause havoc in schools.
For some there will be no online teaching available either, owing to teacher shortages.
Headteachers said high levels of staff absence and lack of supply cover means they have had no choice but to close some year groups entirely.
Exam years are being prioritised for face-to-face learning with the first summer exams since 2019 only weeks away.
Attendance across Wales continues to slump with more than one in 10 pupils missing classes on average, and more than 15,500 children off school for a known Covid related reason in the week to March 25.
Bridgend council said some classes in three of its schools were closed at the end of last week due to staff testing positive for coronavirus.
In Tremains Primary, the observation class and pre-nursery group were temporarily closed. The situation was being reviewed over this weekend. The earliest they can reopen is tomorrow.
At Mynydd Cynffig Primary School two reception classes were temporarily closed.
Both are expected to reopen tomorrow.
Online learning was in place in the meantime.
In addition, Bridgend’s only Welsh medium secondary, Ysgol Llangynwyd, asked all year eights to learn from home last Thursday and all year sevens were working from home on Friday. The school also asked all year nines to work from home on Wednesday.
A Bridgend council spokesperson said schools are monitoring the situation closely, with 9.2% of staff absent as of March 24.
All year nine pupils at Haverfordwest High VC School and all year nine pupils at Henry Tudor School in Pembroke were sent home to learn from home on Thursday “due to staff shortages”, Pembrokeshire council said on its website.
All year 10 pupils at Rhyl High School were also learning from home on Thursday while all year sevens were told to learn from home on Friday.
In a message on Denbighshire council’s website Rhyl High said it had had to sent pupils in those year groups home “due to high levels of staff sickness in the school”.
The school remained open to all other year groups.
At Ysgol Dyffryn Taf in Carmarthenshire all year eight pupils worked from home on Thursday and all year nine pupils were told to work from home on Friday.
In a letter to parents headteacher Julian Kennedy apologised: “This week, a considerable number of staff have contracted the virus.
“This puts a significant strain on our ability to cover the classes of absent colleagues and, in turn, our ability to keep children safe across the school day.
“For several weeks we have been booking as many supply staff as possible, using non-timetabled staff time and postponing things such as interventions in order to keep all children in school.
“Teacher supply agencies are themselves struggling to meet demand across Wales, compounded by the unavailability of many of their own staff.”
Thursday’s letter added: “We have reached the point where the level of Covid-19 related staff absence and the unavailability of supply staff means that we cannot keep all pupils safely on site for the rest of this week.”
The letter added that year eight and nine timetables for the days they are away “will be formally suspended to allow staff to be deployed with other classes” and “online teaching will not therefore be put in place.” Pupils were told to check Google Classroom for ongoing homework or other assignments.”
Apologising to parents, Mr Kennedy said the school would work hard to keep further disruption for the coming week to a minimum, adding: “I would stress that the prevalence of the virus and its impact on each individual who contracts it are beyond the control of any school.”
One class at Ysgol Plas Brondyffryn special school in Denbigh was also closed at the end of last week “due to staffing issues caused by Covid-19”.
Elsewhere headteachers said they were struggling to keep classes open with so many staff off.
Hugo Hutchison, headteacher at Monmouth Comprehensive, said one in five staff were off last week.
He warned: “We are on the verge of closing the school to certain year groups and have only managed to stay fully open so far through colleagues taking on extra classes and the collapsing of certain points of the timetable.
“Staff absence through Covid is at its worst since the pandemic began. We are scenario planning until Easter and may need to partially close if things do not improve.”
Wrexham council said some children had been working remotely last week owing to staff shortages, but did not say how many or in which schools.
A spokesperson said: “Some pupils have been learning from home due to the impact of Covid on staffing levels, but this tends to be no more than a day at a time, and schools work hard to ensure there’s as little disruption as possible for students.”
We asked all 22 local councils how many schools are affected by closures owing to staff absences but only a handful responded.
An Anglesey council spokesperson said: “All our schools continue to ensure education provision for learners.
“We will not be reporting on instances where individual schools have moved to blended learning.”
Merthyr Tydfil council said all its schools were fully open but latest half-termly data showed a 12.9% rate of teacher absence and 15.2% support staff absence.
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “We know that some schools have been operating under staffing pressures, and we continue to work closely with local authorities and supply agencies to help alleviate some of these staffing pressures.
“We have also extended our scheme to place newly qualified teachers into paid posts in schools for another term. This scheme was introduced in the autumn and has not only helped to create extra capacity in schools but also enabled those at the very start of their teaching careers to gain valuable experience.
“We have also provided a total of £128m to the Recruit, Recover, Raise Standards programme in 2020-21 and 2021-22 to fund additional teachers and other school staff.”