{"id":101939,"date":"2021-12-27T14:06:47","date_gmt":"2021-12-27T14:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/?p=101939"},"modified":"2023-05-30T23:59:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-30T22:59:32","slug":"staff-shortages-could-force-schools-in-england-to-send-some-pupils-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/2021\/12\/27\/staff-shortages-could-force-schools-in-england-to-send-some-pupils-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Staff shortages could force schools in England to send some pupils home"},"content":{"rendered":"<hr>\n<p><!-- GUARDIAN WATERMARK --><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/education\/2021\/dec\/27\/staff-shortages-could-force-schools-in-england-to-send-some-pupils-home-omicron\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/image.guardian.co.uk\/sys-images\/Guardian\/Pix\/pictures\/2010\/03\/01\/poweredbyguardian.png\" alt=\"Powered by Guardian.co.uk\" width=\"140\" height=\"45\" \/>This article titled &#8220;Staff shortages could force schools in England to send some pupils home&#8221; was written by Richard Adams Education editor, for theguardian.com on Monday 27th December 2021 12.59 UTC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Severe staff shortages could undermine the government\u2019s efforts to keep pupils in schools, with headteachers in England saying that they may be forced to send some children home if they cannot muster enough staff.<\/p>\n<p>Despite a pledge by Boris Johnson to avoid a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/education\/2021\/jan\/04\/relief-amid-the-chaos-as-covid-shuts-down-all-schools-in-england\">repeat of January 2021<\/a>, when the government insisted schools would remain open only for them to be closed after an abrupt U-turn, school leaders are warning that the rapid spread of the Omicron variant could lead to mass absences for teachers and other members of staff when schools reopen for the new year.<\/p>\n<p>Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told the BBC that staff absences had been at \u201cunsustainable\u201d levels at some schools, with up to 25% of staff off in the week leading up to the Christmas break.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t know what next week will look like. We\u2019re not catastrophising that but we are saying we must have a sense of realism around this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"element element-rich-link element--thumbnail\">\n<p> <span>Related: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/education\/2021\/dec\/03\/staff-absences-having-massive-impact-on-pupils-in-england-say-head-teachers\">Staff absences having \u2018massive impact\u2019 on pupils in England say head teachers<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said it would be \u201cnaive\u201d to think Omicron would not have an impact on schools when they reopen. \u201cIt does seem as though choppy waters lie ahead and that some form of disruption at the start of next term is looking sadly inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barton said he \u201cabsolutely agrees\u201d with the government\u2019s guidance allowing schools to restrict attendance only as a last resort, but argued that school leaders would need to make difficult choices if there were widespread staff absences.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe problem is that if you are running a primary school, and you have got 20 staff and seven of them can\u2019t come in next week, and the pool of supply teachers that you would normally call upon \u2013 that is, people have got a relationship with your school and therefore will come and step in at the last minute or a supply agency that will charge you money for doing that at a higher rate \u2013 that pool is limited,\u201d Barton said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou will find yourself in a very difficult position of perhaps trying to teach two classes at once in the hall, stuff which will not be good for the quality of education, or you will be in the position of making a decision about whether some year groups should be in school while some aren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barton said secondary school leaders could be faced with the dilemma of prioritising classroom teaching for year groups taking exams ahead of teaching for others, \u201cbecause GCSEs and A-levels really need to go ahead if possible this year\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Last week the Department for Education launched a public relations campaign to encourage former teachers in England to sign up with supply agencies, with the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, urging people \u201cto come forward if they are available to temporarily fill absences in schools and colleges in the new year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Daily Telegraph reported that DfE sources were unable to confirm how many had actually signed up with agencies so far, but that it was \u201cat least hundreds\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>guardian.co.uk &#169; Guardian News &amp; Media Limited 2010<\/p>\n<p>Published via the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/open-platform\/news-feed-wordpress-plugin\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Guardian plugin page\" rel=\"noopener\">Guardian News Feed<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.org\/extend\/plugins\/the-guardian-news-feed\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Wordress plugin page\" rel=\"noopener\">plugin<\/a> for WordPress.<\/p>\n<p><!-- END GUARDIAN WATERMARK --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Headteachers say absence caused by spread of Omicron variant could undermine government\u2019s effort to keep children in schools<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/series\/coronavirus-live\/latest\">Coronavirus \u2013 latest updates<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/coronavirus-outbreak\">See all our coronavirus coverage<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":101952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10220698900476085_349663338397715":"","twitter_1370559253_1370559253":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[61,150,632,572,29,146,114,5,790,75,149,145,423,789,448,343,66,65],"class_list":["post-101939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-article","tag-children","tag-coronavirus","tag-department-for-education","tag-education","tag-education-policy","tag-england","tag-news","tag-omicron-variant","tag-politics","tag-richard-adams","tag-schools","tag-secondary-schools","tag-teacher-shortages","tag-teaching","tag-trade-unions","tag-uk-home-news","tag-uk-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bcpdt.org.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}