Learning hard lessons before our schools reopen
Principals fear a teacher shortage
Teachers have travelled a long road to get schools back. The challenge now is staying there, writes Wayne O’Connor
ABUSY hum of staycationers means the only quiet street in Killarney this summer is New Road, but all will change once children are back at school in the next fortnight.
New Road is home to four schools despite being just 600m long. A fifth school is a couple of hundred metres away on New Street.
On September 1 every year New Road wakes from a summer slumber into a hectic jamboree of new school bags and running children. Anxious parents dice with buses for street space as they try to get children to school on time. This trend continues until the following summer. The local council has moved to stem the chaos by making the road one-way to traffic during school hours.
But Covid-19 will present another challenge so school officials are to meet with local gardaí and members of the local municipal district to address further concerns before the end of the month.
It remains to be seen how successful the Department of Education’s new pod system will be here, where traditionally children have been able to mingle with others from outside their own school while making their way to and from school, or waiting for buses.
The pod system is designed to limit the spread of Covid-19 in schools, where pupils are segregated into small groups within their classes limiting interactions with others.
St Brendan’s College principal Sean Coffey said staggered opening hours among the Killarney schools will help ease the morning rush, but there is a challenge about how to manage the buses after the three second-level schools in the area finish each evening.
To prevent congestion and students loitering or congregating, he is considering a proposal to allow children who live in the town or near school to leave for home “seven to 10 minutes earlier than normal, but only under the guarantee the lads will all head home and not hang around”.
He has faith they will. “The students are going to have to take ownership and understanding of the capacity for this to spread. The reality is school contact is as close as meat factory contact. There will be 900 people here every day so everyone must lookout for each other.”
To help minimise risks with school travel, Bus Éireann is developing a seating plan for each bus to give students an assigned seat.
The Department of Education has set out a roadmap for the full return to school, and how it can happen safely. Issues like those above can be dealt with by individual schools outside the Government’s plan but such problems represent a snapshot of the challenge educators face in trying to keep youngsters safe when teaching resumes later this month.
Every school has challenges unique to their environment, so teachers and principals need tailored responses.
BUILDINGS
There are very few school buildings across the country that have not been altered in some way to cope with social distancing.
These requirements differ across age groups, and social distancing does not apply to children until they reach third class. For later years the plan states “a distance of one metre should be maintained between desks or between individual pupils”.
Pat Crowe, principal of North Kildare Educate Together National School in Celbridge, is concerned this requirement lacks clarity. “It could mean you need to have a metre between the pupils in a pod. Or it could mean there is a requirement to only have a metre between the separate pods. Separate parents can argue that point either way and both could be correct.”
The Department of Education has since said “some flexibility in the implementation of measures may be required at times”.
Things are a little clearer for secondary schools where the public health advice sets out social distancing of at least one metre, or two metres where possible, between individual students and staff.
In some instances schools have re-purposed gyms, offices and other spaces to create new classrooms and lower the number of students in each room at a given time. But this comes with added strain as more teachers and supervisors are needed.
To address this the Department of Education is offering additional hours to the 2,800 teachers who are working part-time in secondary schools, allowing job-sharing teachers to work additional hours and making it more attractive for teachers on a career break to provide substitution and supervision cover. Contact is also being made with 6,000 teachers registered with the Teaching Council who are not currently active.
At Coláiste Bhaile Chláir in Claregalway, Co Galway, the students will now be in zones within the school, with different parts of the building allocated to different year groups.
Principal Alan Mongey said the decision to locate the year groups to zones meant changes also had to be make to the school timetable. This amounted to 1,500 timetable edits, as each of the 1,200 pupils, 88 teachers and 11 special needs assistants would have to be moved to other parts of the school at different times depending on a student’s subject choices.
“That shows the logistical nightmare many schools face,” Mongey said. “There is a lot going on that people can see. There are obvious physical changes but there is a lot going on behind the scenes that people won’t really notice but it is necessary.”
Spaces have been adapted so students will have somewhere to go at break time. Sheltered areas are also being erected outside. “People have to take off their mask to eat so people do need more space at break time,” he added.
HANDWASHING
For months the country has paid heed to the importance of handwashing and good hygiene yet many schools have never had hot running water in student bathrooms.
Education Minister Norma Foley’s roadmap insists provisions will be made to improve hand hygiene in schools but the plan focuses on supporting “access to hand hygiene products and consumables” such as hand sanitisers.
While current public health advice states “hand hygiene can be achieved by handwashing or use of a sanitiser (when hands look clean)”, a child’s hands are not always going to look clean during the school day without access to hot soapy water.
The government plan admits “existing handwashing facilities in schools were not designed for the enhanced level of handwashing envisaged necessary in a post Covid-19 environment”. But it makes no specific mention to providing hot water in schools.
According to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, hot water and soap is more effective than hand sanitisers at removing harmful germs.
The department told the Sunday Independent it recognises hot water is preferable but “interim guidance” states cold water will do. It has made €102m available for schools to carry out minor works to create space in schools and add washing facilities.
Mayfield Community School in Cork is one of those schools where bathroom upgrades were necessary but many schools find public procurement rules makes implementing physical changes more difficult to complete, said principal Kieran Golden.
“We have only just installed hot water, which you wouldn’t think is hard but we have had some difficulty getting three tenders in and then trying to organise a builder and a plumber in August,” he said.
“We got some of our work done earlier in the summer but those things around procurement and making sure the boxes are ticked can delay when they happen.”
Pupils and teachers also need clean schools. Many schools have taken on extra staff or hired cleaning contractors to help caretakers and existing staff with a heavier burden. In Killarney, St Brendan’s College is going to have fog machines to help with cleaning.
DELIVERY OF LESSONS
When children return to Coláiste Bhaile Chláir there will be a focus on theory for the first few weeks to minimise students moving from classrooms to subject specific areas such as the science labs.
This will also be a feature of how classes are to be delivered at Mayfield Community School, where even the lockers are being moved to match with student pods.
“Subjects like metal work will be taught in the classroom at first until we are settled back in,” Golden said. “For home economics we could see
make demonstration videos so they will be able to recreate and perform tasks at home.”
The notion of children wandering around the corridor from room to room
between classes has been consigned to the past for now. In most schools teachers will now move between rooms.
The use of handouts or sharing of copybooks, pens and equipment are likely to be out of bounds. “Everyone will have to make sure they have what they need with them and parents will have a role in this too before sending their child to school,” Golden added.
SUBSTITUTE COVER
Every school the Sunday Independent spoke to last week expressed concern about access to substitute teachers in the event of a someone being unable to attend work due to Covid-19.
The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation said schools must get “priority access” to testing. Should there be a surge of the virus this may prove difficult as the HSE never matched its target of 15,000 tests per day when the virus raged earlier this year.
In Celbridge Pat Crowe said rapid access to testing is crucial. “In previous years, up to 50pc to 60pc of teachers would be displaying some form of symptoms at any time from October onwards. The difficulty is trying to source adequate cover if multiple teachers have symptoms at the same time,” he said.
“If we can’t source that cover, previously we would break up the class and send them around the school, but that isn’t possible any more.
“Parents may well have to expect they could get a text at short notice asking them not to bring their child to school. That means how they work will be impacted. Parents will have to be cut some slack by their employers.”
For secondary schools, there is concern about adequate cover for teachers in specific subjects, especially science. The Government roadmap makes provision for extra teachers, but it is clear schools fear not having enough teachers.
“The doomsday scenario is when you have a class you just can’t cover [with a substitute teacher],” Crowe said. “We need to know what happens then and it could be that children in that class can’t come to school on that day.”
‘Handwashing facilities are not suitable for the Covid environment’