PP 2020/0134(2)
STANDING COMMITTEE OF TYNWALD ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
EMERGENCY SCRUTINY
FIFTH REPORT FOR THE SESSION 2019-20
EDUCATION DURING THE EMERGENCY
Volume 2 of 2
STANDING COMMITTEE OF TYNWALD ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS EMERGENCY SCRUTINY FIFTH REPORT FOR THE SESSION 2019-20 EDUCATION DURING THE EMERGENCY
3.1 There shall be a Standing Committee of the Court on Public Accounts.
3.2 Subject to paragraph 3.6, the Committee shall have –
(a) a Chairman elected by Tynwald,
(b) a Vice-Chairman elected by Tynwald,
(c) four other Members, who shall be Chairman of each of the Policy Review Committees (ex officio) and the Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs and Justice;
and a quorum of three.
3.3 Members of Tynwald shall not be eligible for membership of the Committee, if, for the time being, they hold any of the following offices: President of Tynwald, member of the Council of Ministers, member of the Treasury Department referred to in section 1(2)(b) of the Government Departments Act 1987.
3.4 The Committee shall –
(a) (i) consider any papers on public expenditure and estimates presented to Tynwald as may seem fit to the Committee;
(ii) examine the form of any papers on public expenditure and estimates presented to Tynwald as may seem fit to the Committee;
(iii) consider any financial matter relating to a Government Department or statutory body as may seem fit to the Committee;
(iv) consider such matters as the Committee may think fit in order to scrutinise the efficiency and effectiveness of the implementation of Government policy; and
(v) lay an Annual Report before Tynwald at each October sitting and any other reports as the Committee may think fit.
(b) be authorised to require the attendance of Ministers for the purpose of assisting the Committee in the consideration of its terms of reference. (c) be empowered to issue directions under Standing Order 5.6(3), provided that any direction so issued shall be reported to Tynwald within a year.
(d) be the Accounts Committee referred to in section 3 of the Tynwald Auditor General Act 2011, with the relevant powers and responsibilities in relation to the Tynwald Auditor General; and
(e) be the Tynwald Public Accounts Committee referred to in section 3 of the Tynwald Commissioner for Administration Act 2011, with the relevant powers and responsibilities in relation to the Tynwald Commissioner for Administration.
3.5 The Chairman, Vice-Chairman and any member of the Committee shall not sit when the accounts of any body of which that person is a member are being considered.
3.6 Should the need arise in relation to a particular matter, such as a conflict of interest, Tynwald may elect an alternate member for the purpose and duration of the Committee’s consideration of that matter. Subject to paragraph 3.5, a conflicted member so replaced shall continue to serve as a member of the Committee for all other purposes.
The powers, privileges and immunities relating to the work of a committee of Tynwald include those conferred by the Tynwald Proceedings Act 1876, the Privileges of Tynwald (Publications) Act 1973, the Tynwald Proceedings Act 1984 and by the Standing Orders of Tynwald Court.
Committee Membership
The Hon J P Watterson SHK (Rushen) (Chairman)
Mr L L Hooper MHK (Ramsey) (Vice-Chairman)
Ms J M Edge MHK (Onchan)
Mrs J P Poole-Wilson MLC
Mr C R Robertshaw MHK (Douglas East)
Copies of this Report may be obtained from the Tynwald Library, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas, IM1 3PW (Tel: 01624 685520) or may be consulted at www.tynwald.org.im
All correspondence with regard to this Report should be addressed to the Clerk of Tynwald, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 3PW. Table of Contents Volume 2
ORAL EVIDENCE ...... 1
12TH JUNE 2020 EVIDENCE OF HON. ALEX ALLINSON MHK, MINISTER, AND PROFESSOR RONALD BARR, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SPORT AND CULTURE 3
WRITTEN EVIDENCE ...... 25
APPENDIX 1: 26TH MAY 2020 - TRANSCRIPT OF AN EXTRACT FROM ‘THE MANNIN LINE’ MANX RADIO 27
APPENDIX 2: 2ND JUNE 2020 - EMAIL FROM SIMON QUIRK 35
APPENDIX 3: 4TH JUNE 2020 - EMAIL FROM KATIE AND NICK DYSON 39
APPENDIX 4: 4TH JUNE 2020- EMAIL FROM MELODY ANSARA 43
APPENDIX 5: 4TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM IAN HARRISON 47
APPENDIX 6: 4TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL SUBMISSION 51
APPENDIX 7: 5TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM LEYRE N’SHIMBI FERNANDEZ 55
APPENDIX 8: 5TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL SUBMISSION 59
APPENDIX 9: 5TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM SAMANTHA CALLISTER 63
APPENDIX 10: 5TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM FIONA KNEEN 67
APPENDIX 11: 6TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM CAROLINE MADDRELL 71
APPENDIX 12: 6TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL SUBMISSION 75
APPENDIX 13: 7TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL SUBMISSION 81
APPENDIX 14: 7TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM SAMANTHA EVES 85
APPENDIX 15: 8TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM FIONA FITZPATRICK 89
APPENDIX 16: 8TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM FIONA CLEATOR 99
APPENDIX 17: 8TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL SUBMISSION 103
APPENDIX 18: 8TH JUNE 2020 – ‘A WORD FROM WILL’ BULLETIN FROM MR WILL GREENHOW, CHIEF SECRETARY – EDUCATION AND OTHER TOPICS 107
APPENDIX 19: 8TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL SUBMISSION 121
APPENDIX 20: 8TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM DAVID PEACH 127
APPENDIX 21: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM SUSAN PAGE 131
APPENDIX 22: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM CHEZ 135
APPENDIX 23: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM KATE LORD-BRENNAN MLC 139
APPENDIX 24: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL SUBMISSION 143
APPENDIX 25: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL SUBMISSION 147 APPENDIX 26: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM KAREN DAVIES 151
APPENDIX 27: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM LESLIE FOSTER 155
APPENDIX 28: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM ANDI AND STEVE HUMPHRIES 161
APPENDIX 29: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM MAX KELLY, PRESIDENT, IOM BRANCH NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HEAD TEACHERS 165
APPENDIX 30: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL SUBMISSION 205
APPENDIX 31: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM SARAH HARPER 211
APPENDIX 32: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM LINDA GREEN 215
APPENDIX 33: 9TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM GERALDINE O’NEILL, LOCAL NEGOTIATING SECRETARY, NASUWT 219
APPENDIX 34: 10TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM HAZEL JORDAN 223
APPENDIX 35: 12TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM SUE MOORE, HEAD TEACHER, QEII HIGH SCHOOL 227
APPENDIX 36: 12TH JUNE 2020 – EMAIL FROM ANNETTE BAKER, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HEAD TEACHERS 233
GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO REPORT...... 237
29TH JUNE 2020 – LETTER FROM HON ALEX ALLINSON MHK, MINISTER FOR EDUCATION, SPORT AND CULTURE 237
RESPONSE RECEIVED AFTER REPORT PUBLISHED ...... 245
4TH AUGUST 2020 – LETTER FROM ISLE OF MAN NAHT 245 ORAL EVIDENCE
1 2 12th June 2020 Evidence of Hon. Alex Allinson MHK, Minister, and Professor Ronald Barr, Chief Executive Officer, Department of Education Sport and Culture
3 4
S T A N D I N G C O M M I T T E E O F T Y N W A L D C O U R T O F F I C I A L R E P O R T
R E C O R T Y S O I K O I L B I N G V E A Y N T I N V A A L
P R O C E E D I N G S D A A L T Y N
PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE
EMERGENCY SCRUTINY
HANSARD
Douglas, Friday, 12th June 2020
PP2020/0157 PAC-ES, No. 6/2020
All published Official Reports can be found on the Tynwald website:
www.tynwald.org.im/business/hansard
Published by the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 3PW. © High Court of Tynwald, 2020 5 STANDING COMMITTEE, FRIDAY, 12th JUNE 2020
Members Present:
Chairman: Hon. J P Watterson SHK Mr L L Hooper Ms J M Edge Mrs J P Poole-Wilson Mr C R Robertshaw
Clerk: Mrs J Corkish
Assistant Clerks: Miss F Gale Mr S Wright
Contents Procedural ...... 97 EVIDENCE OF Hon. Alex Allinson MHK, Minister; and Prof. Ronald Barr, Chief Officer, Department of Education, Sport and Culture ...... 97 The Committee sat in private at 12.03 p.m...... 114
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Standing Committee of Tynwald on Public Accounts
Emergency Scrutiny (Education)
The Committee met virtually at 11 a.m. Proceedings were conducted and broadcast live from the Legislative Council Chamber.
[MR SPEAKER in the Chair]
Procedural
The Chairman (Mr Speaker): Good morning, everybody, and welcome to this public meeting of the Public Accounts Committee. This is one of a series of meetings in which we are examining aspects of the response the state of emergency. I am Juan Watterson, Speaker of the House of 5 Keys and I am Chairman of the Committee. With me are Mr Lawrie Hooper MHK, Ms Julie Edge MHK, Mrs Jane Poole-Wilson MLC and Mr Chris Robertshaw MHK. The topic today is Education in the Emergency Situation and we want to explore what has been delivered and the preparedness for returning to full education provision for all of the Island’s young people. We asked people to contact us with their thoughts on this topic and we 10 received 35 submissions, some of which combined the views from several people. We would like to thank everyone who took the time to write to us and we have identified a number of common themes, many of which we will be asking about today.
EVIDENCE OF Hon. Alex Allinson MHK, Minister; and Prof. Ronald Barr, Chief Officer, Department of Education, Sport and Culture
The Chairman: Before we continue I would just like to call on Ms Edge who would like to make a short personal statement. 15 Ms Edge: Thank you, Chair. I would just like to acknowledge that I am still an associate member of ASCL union. Thank you.
20 Q185. The Chairman: Thank you very much. I would like to welcome you, Minister, and Prof. Barr. Minister, would you like to make a brief opening statement?
The Minister for Education, Sport and Culture (Dr Allinson): Thank you very much, 25 Mr Speaker; and thank you very much to the PAC for inviting us along today.
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On 3rd March I was given the honour of being made Minister for Education, Sport and Culture but unfortunately by 23rd March I had been responsible for closing all the schools. I do apologise for that. We are in a very strange time and it is quite odd that we are now 12 weeks to the day since the first case on the Isle of Man; and that 12 weeks seems like 12 years considering 30 what we have had to go through. I think it has been a real learning experience for the entire Island but particularly for the Education Department, and our teachers and our pupils and their families. It is something that has been quite brutal for some, particularly those that we have lost in our community. But it has also been a really good learning experience in other ways, particularly in terms of the resilience 35 of the services and the way we react to issues like this, and the acceleration in terms of online teaching and remote learning. So I very much welcome the PAC’s Inquiry into how we have dealt with this because I think there are some really good lessons we can learn from this experience to actually take our service forward and become more responsive to pupils and their families. 40 Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.
The Chairman: Thank you, Minister. Mrs Poole-Wilson.
45 Q186. Mrs Poole-Wilson: The question to Prof. Barr please. When the virus first became an issue, what work streams were established and which teams led these?
Prof. Barr: With regard to how we handled the virus, or … ? 50 Mrs Poole-Wilson: Correct.
Prof. Barr: We basically had just reconfigured the SLT group which continued to meet on a weekly basis and more often as necessary. That SLT group obviously includes Glenn Shimmin as 55 Director of Finance, Geoff Moorcroft as Director of Education, Sue Mowle in terms of Inclusion and Safeguarding, Paul Bridson in Sports and Yvette Mellor in Corporate Services. And we also have Mary Slater our OHR business partner. So those meetings never stopped. We also then had meetings with the cluster groups of the high schools and we also had a couple of meetings with secondary heads. So there was a series of meetings, many of which 60 would have followed the normal pattern that obviously had to be done increasingly through the remote Teams process.
Q187. Mrs Poole-Wilson: Thank you. I think the question was specifically about any work streams to address the Education 65 Department’s response. For example, on 20th March your Department statement said, ‘The plans are already underway to provide for more education for pupils online and ensure they have access to these resources’. So were these plans being drawn up by the Department? And how much of a priority was this? 70 Prof. Barr: Yes, they were being drawn up by the Department and obviously that sat with Geoff Moorcroft, as Director of Education, and the Education Improvement Team. They started working on these plans actually before the schools closed, and indeed I filtered an email to my SLT at the very beginning of March saying that this was going to be a problem for us in terms of 75 the progression of this virus. Right at the very beginning of March I started to discuss this with my SLT and I am more than happy to share the initial email that I sent to my SLT, I think it was around 2nd March saying we will need to start thinking about how we are going to react to this.
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Q188. Mrs Poole-Wilson: Thank you. And specifically in terms of any other work streams that you established to address the 80 impact of the virus, can you tell us what those work streams were and how you prioritised them, please?
Prof. Barr: We also had a finance work stream, and Glenn can possibly tell you a little bit more about that in terms of how we were reacting to lack of income coming into the 85 Department and how we were going to deal with that, and how we were going to deal with school meals. So there was a range of work streams that involved different officers and their own divisional staff across the Department that dealt with school meals, that dealt with finance, and that dealt with the learning; and also with individual schools’ concerns as this process unfolded. 90 Q189. Mrs Poole-Wilson: Thank you. I believe the Minister would like to add something at this point.
The Minister: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. 95 Again, right at the start of the health emergency I think there was a lot of uncertainty about the way the Island was going to react in total. The first case in the United Kingdom was on 31st January, and by 28th February there was obviously evidence of person-to person-spread. And then we had our first case on 20th March. On 16th March DESC sent out guidance to all teachers in terms of how to provide education 100 remotely in the event of a school closure, and this was the start really of trying to plan ahead for remote teaching and remote education for those people would not have kept coming to school; but also at the same time we created the hub whereby we would consolidate those children who were seen as vulnerable at the time with various criteria, but also those children of key workers. In terms of the Cabinet Office, we did quite a lot of work on the basis of the UK model 105 of key workers so that we could maintain essential services on the Island. So at the time there was a lot of movement around this but also dealing, as Ronald Barr has said, in terms of school meals and how we would use the estate properly, but also how we would redeploy staff and a huge number of teaching staff and support staff were redeployed into the health sector; and obviously also the NSC, when it closed, has now been used as a 110 storage sector for the Department of Health and Social Care in terms of PPE. Thank you.
Prof. Barr: Can I just add to that, that obviously we also did a lot of work around free school meals and Chrissie Swales and Glenn Shimmin and others worked initially with schools in terms 115 of planning for that and setting up the voucher scheme that we set up in terms of planning how we were going to feed children who were entitled to free school meals. There was also quite a lot of work that was done as a separate work stream around pre-schools with Chrissy Callaghan and colleagues in DHSC.
120 Q190. Mrs Poole-Wilson: Okay, thank you very much. Can I ask the Minister: in planning your response how did you interact with the Central Emergency Response Teams across Government?
The Minister: Right at the start of the health emergency I was asked to join the National 125 Strategy Group which at the time was sitting on a daily basis and working across Government in terms of obviously Education but also Health, DFE, Cabinet Office. And what we were trying to do there, was very much approach education from a health aspect – because obviously we were worried about the health of our pupils, staff and their families – but also looking at how the Education Service could support those pupils who needed to come into school, particularly in
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130 the units, those children with special educational needs who needed that support, but also to support those essential workers who needed to go into Noble’s to prepare it for the eventual increase in cases that we started seeing in March. So there was actually a very good central team-working effort, from my point of view, but also Ronald Barr was seconded to sit on Gold Command which was meeting on a daily basis, and 135 the Chief Officers Group as well. So there was a huge amount of co-ordination between the various Government Departments to create a co-ordinated response to the health emergency.
Q191. Mrs Poole-Wilson: Thank you, Minister. Has that changed over time, and how? 140 The Minister: It has. I remained on the National Strategy Group on a daily basis for the first 10 days of the health emergency, and after that it was seen to be less important for me to sit on those regular meetings and so I went back to being a CoMin member rather than on the NSG. But certainly, in the initial phases when we were dealing with uncertainties around the health of 145 students and when we were dealing with reallocation of staff, I think it was absolutely right that Education was at the forefront of the national response to the pandemic.
Q192. Mrs Poole-Wilson: Thank you. We have received feedback that lack of cross-Government co-ordination is impacting 150 families, particularly citing the Department for Enterprise and Treasury actively promoting return to work leaving parents, particularly mums, being told by employers to return to work with no provision for their children. What is your response to that, please?
155 The Minister: I think that is a very valid criticism. In terms of the overall planning, what we have been trying to do is work quite closely with DFE, both at a Gold Command Chief Officer Group level but also at a Council of Ministers’ level. There have been some issues in terms of the rate of change, I think, the Department for Enterprise has been quite keen on getting the various economic sectors open. 160 But in terms of the educational input we have been relying very much on the advice of the Senior Clinician Group and also Public Health in terms of how we phased that, and this was particularly evident in terms of pre-school nursery and childminders, that from a clinician point of view there seemed to be some increased risks involved with very close contact with children at the early stages, and so there was I think a reticence to open up child care particularly when it 165 was extremely hands-on. But that reticence was perhaps the delay of that provision for those families who wanted to get back to work. In terms of opening up the schools, we had similar issues in terms of the logistics of it, the rate of change. During the Easter holidays we kept the hubs open to provide for education for key workers and vulnerable children. We made the decision to close them, during what was the 170 TT half-term to enable some consolidation and an ability to have a bit of a breathing space, I suppose really, for the Education Department and head teachers so that we could plan for the return which will start on Monday. So whilst there has been a co-ordinated approach perhaps the rate of change has been slightly different because the logistics of opening up schools, particularly in terms of getting back 175 redeployed staff, can take a little bit of a while to arrange.
Prof. Barr: I think if I can just add something else there which is obviously Geoff Moorcroft produced a roadmap based upon the return of year groups, which was based around our judgement in terms of prioritising educational need in terms of the year groups and how we 180 would return them.
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The other thing that I would say is that at Chief Officer Group there were regular discussions with Mark Lewin and other chief officers with myself, because we were also keen to represent the interests of children who were vulnerable. I think the Committee is right to see that clearly Treasury and the Department for Enterprise have a priority in terms of protecting the economy. 185 We have a priority obviously to try and ensure the children’s interests in terms of their education and those that are most vulnerable are also protected in that space. We gave head teachers very clear guidance that, as well as prioritising key workers, they were to prioritise where possible any children they felt were particularly vulnerable.
190 Q193. Mrs Poole-Wilson: Thank you. If I could move on, we have had a lot of feedback about the apparent disparity of provision between different schools and teachers. One comment being that education provision on a small island should be equitable, not a postcode lottery. So can I ask Prof. Barr: what guidance has been issued by the Department to schools about 195 appropriate learning support for different year groups?
Prof. Barr: Extensive guidance has been issued by the Department, sometimes on a daily basis. Geoff Moorcroft, the Director of Education, sent out a daily email updating head teachers in terms of what learning might be available, what things they should think about progressing 200 and things that they could do within the schools. And that was, as I say, done on a daily basis. The issue we have had around all of this, which perhaps the Committee may have realised, is that we are still dealing with a work-to-rule across all of Education in terms of teaching and some of the teaching unions. And so they have not being willing to engage with us in terms of setting up potentially new QA systems and other systems to monitor what would be online 205 delivery; and certainly I am not going to tell you that, as Chief Executive, I am satisfied with the quality of online delivery. I think there has been some excellent online delivery and I think there have been some areas which have not been to the standard we would have liked, but I am afraid sadly it has been partly mired in the industrial dispute and the non-co-operation that we have had from some 210 teaching unions. And also you will appreciate this is a new type of learning and even in England the English government has not set out its standards by which OFSTED could judge that learning. So it is something we are very keen to progress and we have been pushing out a lot of information to head teachers – some of them have picked that up and have utilised it in very innovative ways, and some not so much. 215 Q194. Mrs Poole-Wilson: Thank you. Just one more question for me. I understand that schools do usually work autonomously with central Department support but, given the schools seem to have co-operated and collaborated around staffing the hub schools, was this not a situation where it would have worked for the Department to co-ordinate 220 a central response co-opting teachers to work centrally to deliver both online learning and perhaps specified guidance for year groups?
Prof. Barr: The specified guidance for year groups and other things were actually pushed out to schools, and there has been a group that was led by Joel Smith in terms of IT and learning that 225 has been in place for some time and so we also capitalised on that work and sent that out to schools. The issue we have had is that in asking schools to do things … On a number of occasions they would say, ‘Well, we’re not prepared to do that because it is part of the ongoing industrial dispute that we have with you’. So the Department has had to manage that pressure throughout this entire crisis. And so we 230 have not had the kind of integrated approach that I think many to be fair in the teaching profession would have liked, and we would also have liked. But as I say, because of the ongoing dispute, we have been somewhat stymied in some of this.
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The Chairman: Thank you. Ms Edge. 235 Q195. Ms Edge: Thank you, Chair. I would like to focus on communication throughout COVID. For the Minister: we have had reports from parents of mixed and confusing messages throughout, most recently the dates of the phased return. What has the Department been responsible for communicating, and what has been delegated? 240 The Minister: Thank you for the question. In terms of communication with parents, what the Department has been trying to do is to send out really clear messages in terms of recommencement dates through press statements and also through the press conferences. We have also been sending out regular updates to head 245 teachers and asking them to send those on and communicate those to their parents. I am quite happy to pass over to Ronald Barr now, because from my understanding it is the head teachers who have the database for their parents rather than the Department. Could you fill us in about that, Ronald?
250 Prof. Barr: Yes, that would be correct, Minister. Each individual school – and indeed Ms Edge probably knows this – is their own data controller, so they hold the datasets. So the Department does not have the ability to contact parents across the Island because the datasets are held by the individual head teachers in the individual schools. So what we have been doing is we have been communicating on a daily basis 255 with the head teachers, and Geoff as I said would send out a daily email at the end of the day with links and other information. Geoff and I also convened a number of meetings virtually with the cluster groups, in other words the relevant high school and their feeder primary schools, and we had hour-long meetings with each cluster group on a range of occasions. There was at least three or four cycles of those 260 meetings that took place. So we have pushed a lot of information out to head teachers but they have ultimately the ability to disseminate that information to parents. We do not.
Q196. Ms Edge: Thank you. And for Prof. Barr: there was new legislation in this direction that was issued with regard to 265 data sharing. Did the Department not pick up on that?
Prof. Barr: We are aware of the legislation around data sharing, but that was obviously between, as I recall, the different Government Departments. It did not extend to the individual schools and data sharing within schools. And so we were relying, as I say, on schools to say, you 270 know your parents … And, to be fair, some head teachers were willing to work with us on this; and again I am afraid it was one of those things where in some cases a head teacher said, ‘Well, this falls within the industrial dispute and therefore we are not willing to do the full amount of information sharing that you would like’. So again I think that accounts for some of the variability of information. 275 There was also, despite very clear messaging from the Department about when schools would open – so, for example, that all school sites would open on 15th and 16th June. One or two head teachers misrepresented that and apparently thought that their own schools would be open on 15th June, which of course was not the case. What we said was the sites would be open and then obviously key-worker children would return to their own schools across the Island 280 on 17th. So there has been a bit of mixed messaging and I am aware that there have been some posts on social media and that has added to the confusion I think amongst some parents around all of this. Indeed we had to ask one or two head teachers to take posts down because what they had put out was inaccurate information and had not been authorised by the Department.
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285 Q197. Ms Edge: So if you were aware of mixed messages, did the Department set up a monitoring system on how the continued communication was taking place with students and parents?
Prof. Barr: We are made aware of social media. We have somebody who monitors everything 290 that goes on in social media. But clearly we work closely with Comms. We are also aware from some head teachers, and indeed from other sources, of people who had become aware of various posts that are available on social media and have been seen on social media. Obviously where we know that they are inaccurate we go to great lengths to make sure that those pieces of information are either corrected, or that is then taken down. 295 Q198. Ms Edge: So have you got a record of what individual schools have done and what they have provided to parents and students during the crisis?
Prof. Barr: I do not have an individual record of each individual school in terms of what 300 communication they have had with individual parents. What I can tell you is the information that we have disseminated to schools and what we asked them to then disseminate to parents. We did not have a mechanism to therefore then check about what actually was sent to parents.
Q199. Ms Edge: For the Minister: in a media briefing on 2nd May, you stated that schools 305 volunteered to remain open during bank holidays. It has been suggested to us that in fact schools were not asked – that information from the Department was received by email on 2nd May, an hour before the briefing. Does that surprise you, as Minister, that the schools only received that an hour before the briefing? 310 The Minister: Well, again if I can come back to Ronald Barr, because the decision about staying open over Easter was made in conjunction with head teachers. If you would like to detail that, Ronald?
315 Prof. Barr: Yes, we had a meeting and we actually discussed this with regard to, as I recall both the Good Friday and the Easter Monday and indeed the May Day bank holidays, and those were referenced in the meetings that Geoff Moorcroft and I had with the head teachers. We said very clearly in those meetings that we were expecting, because of the state of emergency and because at that point we only had about 3% or 4% of children in school, that we would keep 320 that going through the Easter holidays and the May Day bank holidays; and also because of the 800 teaching staff that we have, we had 200 who were shielding or who had underlying health conditions and therefore were not in a position to help in schools. But the other 600 staff, effectively, we split them into three-week rotations and so on that basis staff were prepared to work through those holiday periods because clearly they had one 325 week in school and then two weeks when they were not in school. When they were not in school there was an expectation that staff would be getting on with online learning materials and doing other preparatory work. But there was also a clear guidance from us that people should take some leave. And so if you had a three-week rotation, yes you might well be working through one of the Easter weeks, but you would then in return be getting another week off 330 during that three-week rotation period. And I have to say that three-week rotation period certainly from our point of view – and certainly we never got any negative feedback around this – has actually worked very well throughout the entire crisis.
Q200. Ms Edge: Okay, and just with regard to co-operation and obviously communication 335 during this. Did the unions not suspend their action during the crisis? Are you stating that they continued their action during the crisis?
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Prof. Barr: Yes. Not all the unions: ASCL, which represents primarily senior leaders in high schools, suspended everything except one element of their action. So they suspended the bulk of their work to rule, but other unions did not do so. 340 NEU, of course, has not been in dispute with us but NAHT and NAS/UWT continued with their work to rule.
Q201. Ms Edge: And for the Minister: can the Minister just advise who actually took the decision to close during the TT period? 345 The Minister: The TT half-term that was scheduled was discussed in the Senior Management Group, and our inclusion safeguarding advice was that actually keeping closed during the past two weeks would be beneficial particularly for staff but also for families and children to try and get them back into a more normal routine as we reopen the schools from 15th June. 350 So that decision was made at the Senior Management Team. It was then discussed with head teachers and also with the teaching unions at the JNC shortly beforehand.
The Chairman: Ms Edge, final question?
355 Q202. Ms Edge: Thank you. Obviously the schools will be back from Monday in a more operational way, shall I say. How, as a Department, are you going to gather information and actually be fully aware of any progress, and for students and parents any of the issues that have been raised – and obviously as the Committee we have received submissions. How are you going to gather this information 360 and ensure that the process is picked up on it for any future emergency situation?
The Minister: Well, if I could just add that we have obviously been monitoring the number of children and the number of students coming in to all of the facilities and kept a close eye on that. 365 I suppose what you are talking about is identifying individual educational needs. Throughout the health emergency teachers have been reaching out to children at home trying to identify those needs, particularly in terms of those children who were not vulnerable prior to the restrictions of movement being brought in, but that may have become vulnerable during this very difficult period for our Island. 370 I think you are quite right that there will be a degree of work when children come back into their classes to identify those deficits in their education, but also any wellbeing problems that have developed. The Inclusion and Safeguarding Team have worked quite closely to give teachers guidance in terms of what they should be looking out for, how they can reintegrate those children back into their schools who have lost out on eight weeks of schooling, and how 375 they can then deal with any issues that arise. We have also been working in terms of keying up the educational psychology support and the listening service as well. So we are quite aware that as children come back to their schools whilst their educational needs are paramount, also we need to look after their wellbeing needs as well. In terms of your question I think you also wanted to actually know about the operational 380 mechanism for gathering this data, so perhaps if I can pass over to Ronald to detail how we will collect some of that data?
Prof. Barr: That will be dependent upon the schools. And, just to be clear, obviously the school sites are all open on 15th June and we have got 385 enhanced cleaning. We have had to source another 20 additional full-time cleaners and five additional full-time caretakers. We have also spent I think about £70,000 on new cleaning stations, and all of that has got to get up and running and operationalised on 15th and 16th which is why all the school sites are not open. But on 17th June all the school sites will be
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receiving children and that will then be the start of the process within schools, for them to start 390 then making a determination about where young people are with their learning, where the children are, and how have the more vulnerable children been getting on. There is a big piece of work that I know many in schools are keen to get started on in terms of hopefully getting four full weeks at least with children before what would be the start of the summer holidays. Then there is a broader question about what additional support we might manage to put in 395 over the summer to help children who have obviously struggled during this period. So we are looking forward to working constructively with teachers. They will get to know very quickly, I think, where their children are once they get the children back into classes; and obviously we have recognised that our educational psychologists and other people involved in the listening service and other groups that we have I suspect are going to be extremely busy. 400 And indeed, conversations I have had with Glenn on the finance side is looking at how we might have to plan and prepare for additional resource in that area which I think is almost inevitable in terms of the mental pressures and strains that families have been under.
The Chairman: We will move on now to look more at the online learning provision. 405 I call on Mr Hooper.
Q203. Mr Hooper: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Members of the Committee have mentioned we had quite a lot of evidence submitted and obviously the Minister and Ronald Barr have not had chance to see this evidence, but it speaks 410 to some of the questions here about supporting and provision of remote learning. So just to give a very brief flavour of what we have received: one of the statements we received in was actually very supportive of work that was put in place commenting, ‘The school set work, and kept in touch with children having video messages, online chats with teachers’ and that actually there had been a lot of check-ins on that basis. 415 But on the flip side of it one of the statements we had in was asking us to note ‘the extreme concerns raised by the limited provision of quality, structured teacher-led sessions and assignments, and a lack of contact with class teachers’. In this context of the disparity that has been highlighted, obviously you mentioned in your opening remarks that the Department provided schools with significant guidance in this, 420 including a 10-page guide that was issued at the start of the crisis. I would like to ask you: do you think the document and the guidance was fit for purpose? And then, what else has followed since then?
Prof. Barr: I would say that the guidance was fit for purpose. Obviously as you will know, 425 Mr Hooper, this has been a moveable feast. It is new territory in terms of we have always had some blended learning, certainly in higher education, but to scale it up in this way for schools has been quite a challenge. So it is continually something I think that is being refined, based around the experiences that we are having in terms of the feedback we are getting. And then, as I say, going back to my earlier point which is that the English government has 430 yet to provide us with definitive standards by which this quality of learning can be measured. We need to very quickly get into that space, and one of the things that we could do is to move this forward; and if we can resolve this industrial dispute then obviously we can make more rapid progress in doing that.
435 Q204. Mr Hooper: Okay, thanks for that. In your remarks earlier you said that only 3% to 4% of children were attending school, actually physically attending the hub sites. So that means around about 96% of children were at home, which means this remote learning was absolutely vital for the overwhelming majority of children on the Isle of Man.
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440 Given that the Department issued this central guidance which you feel was fit for purpose and was adequate, how did you ensure the schools and teachers were actually following this guidance?
Prof. Barr: We were not in a position to do that because of course the schools are not 445 co-operating with us in terms of the schools inspection and review processes, and that would also reach in terms of what delivery we are doing remotely. So not only do we not have any guidelines from England about what the standards would be, but we have the issue of the fact that on the Island we had two teaching unions who were not going to co-operate with us with regard to the SSRE process, which is the process by which Geoff 450 Moorcroft and his team gauge the quality of learning in schools.
Q205. Mr Hooper: Okay, so given the challenges that you have already identified then in ensuring a level playing field as it were, and actually I think we appreciate that the level playing field is not in place for a wide variety of reasons, can you advise what support was provided by 455 the Department where schools or teachers were having difficulty or struggling to provide this kind of remote or online learning?
Prof. Barr: We had Joel Smith who is the key adviser in this area working with schools, and where we got individual communities where schools came back to us we did our very best to 460 support them if there were issues around the technology platform. So, for example, if there were issues around GTS, liaising very closely with Graham Kinrade and other officers in that area to ensure that we were getting the sort of platform to be robust. We did have issues around obviously both the use of Teams and the use of Zoom and obviously we were concerned at the beginning of this crisis because there were some very 465 publicised areas in the use of Zoom where in place like Singapore it was hacked, and all kinds of images and things appeared in children’s homes and virtual classes. So we have tried very hard to resolve those issues with GTS, and worked with schools and provided them with the sort of guidance and assurance that we need to make sure that those platforms are working as effectively as we can make them work. But again that has been 470 something that has been an evolving process as the crisis has evolved – these issues have come up and we have tried to address them.
Q206. Mr Hooper: Okay, just a question really for the Minister more than for Ronald. Given that Ronald has just expressed there have been some difficulties trying to bring the 475 unions on board with some kind of QA process, can the Minister please advise the Committee actually what steps were taken to try and engage teachers and unions with developing a new QA process, or an appropriate QA process when it comes to remote learning? And why the Department seems to be relying on waiting for the UK or England specifically to produce guidance, when generally we do not follow the UK in terms of their education system? 480 The Minister: Absolutely. And again right at the start of this health emergency I think there was a disparity in terms of which schools had taken on online learning, online resources and which had not, and that became … I think a lot of these inequalities and disparities have been amplified by the restrictions brought in by the health emergency. 485 In terms of quality assurance of online –
Q207. The Chairman: Minister, I am terribly sorry. You are coming across rather muffled, Minister, if you could just –
490 The Minister: I do apologise, I will move a little bit closer. Is that better?
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The Chairman: No. Further away is usually the thing for muffled. Further away and louder!
The Minister: Okay, is that any better, Mr Speaker?
495 The Chairman: Marginally, yes.
The Minister: Okay, I do apologise, it was working before. So just to backtrack, there were obvious differences between the ways individual schools had taken up remote learning before the health emergency was declared. And what we have gone 500 through has amplified these differences between different schools. In terms of quality assurance of online resources, that is incredibly difficult at the best of times. The Chief Inspector of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman, has recently said that even Ofsted find it impossible to actually guarantee the quality of online resources. But during a health emergency when we were socially distancing and when teachers are teaching from home to pupils at home 505 it makes it practically impossible to do, apart from setting clear guidance and some aspirational ideas about what should be provided. Now, as we move forward, and with the passage of the new Education Bill, I hope we can try to familiarise ourselves with the issues, but also draw up some clear guidelines of the minimum requirements which we can then move forward with. But at the moment that has been extremely difficult to provide. 510 I think that Ofsted have excellent examples of remote learning but whether that is online or physical, it is often …
The Chairman: I am terribly sorry, but you are going back into muffled again. Perhaps I can ask Mr Hooper to move on to his next question and we will start again? 515 Q208. Mr Hooper: Yes, thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the Minister for that answer, I think I get the direction of where he was trying to go there. I mean, he talks about setting some aspirations in the guidance. So turning to the guidance itself then, the guidance does reference a number of very specific challenges that are identified 520 to delivering remote learning. Specifically it highlights: unclear expectations of pupils and parents; a lack of accommodation for pupils without access; and a variety of disparate digital tools that could cause confusion. Could the Minister or the Chief Executive please comment or advise on how the Department tried to address these challenges? 525 The Minister: If you would like to answer that Ronald, because bearing in mind my sound is not particularly great … ?
Prof. Barr: Obviously we have been looking across other jurisdictions, not just in the UK, 530 about examples of best practice and how these things could be tackled. As I have said earlier this morning, Geoff put out a very, very full, not an email, almost like a newsletter with links and advice and guidance that his team were picking up in terms of how to address those issues. So we were continually signposting schools in the direction of: ‘You might want to look at the following link’; ‘You might want to look at the following learning resources’; ‘You might want to 535 now look at the following paper that has been published in the following journal’ – to try and help them in terms of providing some guidance and support around all of this.
Q209. Mr Hooper: Thanks for that. I think that what I am trying to get at is the guidance sets out a number of very clear 540 challenges and it also sets out very clearly actually a number of things that the parents might be able to expect. So it talks about video conferences and check-ins with pupils. We have actually had a number of submissions in evidence that clearly seems to show this was not the case, this
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was not happening; and I am sure the Department was getting similar feedback and the schools were getting similar feedback as well over the last 12 weeks of the closure. 545 So what I am asking really is: what specific actions were taken and what specific guidance was issued? What did the Department do to try and ensure schools could try and address some of these key challenges that were set out in that initial set of guidance?
Prof. Barr: Well, like I said, we directed the head teachers to: ‘These are things that you 550 should be doing’ and ‘These are the sort of ideas of best practice’ and ‘These are the things that you could be doing’ and ‘These are things you should be doing’. But again, I come back to the fact that during the industrial dispute we had no mechanism to actually follow up in terms of quality assurance because the teaching unions are not working with us in terms of the school review processes, and that is mired in the industrial dispute over 555 pay; and although ASCL withdrew their objections to a lot of this and NEU were not involved with this, NAHT of course represents the vast bulk of primary head teachers and school leaders in primary schools and they were not willing to work with us in any of this.
Q210. Mr Hooper: Thanks for that. 560 I think I have got a lot more questions on this, but I can feel my time is about to run out so before it does I would just like to touch on a very different topic, in terms of school leavers. We have had a number of submissions in respect of concerns parents are raising, about what will be happening now with those children who are on their way out of the education system, leaving GCSEs, or A-level university students who will go into university for the first time? 565 Obviously, all of this will have been significantly impacted by the coronavirus crisis. Can the Minister or the Chief Exec comment on what support has been put in place and what work is under way to try to support these children and young people that are leaving the education system, which at this point in time may have a very significant effect on their future prospects? 570 Prof. Barr: Can I just say quickly on that, that we have done a lot of work with UCM around this in terms of ensuring that there is support for higher education students. Jo Pretty and her team up at the College in terms of not just planning for the area you have described, Mr Hooper, but also for potentially university students who will not be able to return full time to their 575 universities in the autumn; and for UCM to think about ways in which they can support the students who are about to go to university or indeed who are at university and may not be able to return to university in September or October of this year. So there has been quite a bit of work done around this. There has also been a lot of work done by Jan Gimbert and by their colleagues in DfE in terms of what we are going to do to 580 support young people and indeed the wider workforce in terms of retraining. We suspect that the economic crisis which we have not really referenced this morning is going to lead to potentially significant long-term unemployment and obviously in education we need to be prepared for this. And certainly Jo Pretty and Jan Gimbert have done a lot of work with this and have engaged 585 with Mark Lewin, my opposite number in DfE, and other officers in terms of producing something which we can then bring forward perhaps under the revised Programme for Government.
The Chairman: Right, I am afraid, Mr Hooper, that is the end of your time. 590 Mr Robertshaw.
Mr Robertshaw: Thank you, Mr Chairman. Can I just double check my volume level? I do not want to be accused of shouting at the Minister or Ronald.
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The Chairman: It is the volume we would expect from you, Mr Robertshaw. 595 Q211. Mr Robertshaw: Thank you. I have got four questions, Mr Chairman. My first question is the obvious one. You have gone from the concept of two-metre distancing in schools to then one-metre distancing a few days ago to what I suppose could be 600 called ‘normal’ behaviour with regard to yesterday’s announcements by the Chief Minister. So a simple question: how soon can the schools all be fully open?
The Minister: If I can answer that? Can I just check my volume? Can you hear me, Mr Robertshaw? 605 Mr Robertshaw: Yes I can. Thank you.
The Minister: Lovely, okay, I just wanted to check on that. I think you are quite right, even with one-metre social distancing it becomes incredibly hard 610 to provide education for children. And that is not just us; I think that has been seen around the world. So that is partly because of the actual architecture of our schools, partly because of class sizes and partly because of capacity. We have also got to remember that we need the staff there as well to teach – it is not just about buildings. So the Chief Minister’s statement last night in terms of removing the social distancing 615 restrictions is pivotal to getting all children back to school. What we have been clear about throughout the health emergency, though, is given people’s fears and given children’s health concerns and their parents’ health concerns, we would not make it obligatory that they had to return to school; but we hope over the next week we can get all the schools reopened, all those key workers and those children who are currently in the hubs back to their schools, and then 620 from 22nd June we will be opening it up to years 2, 6, 10 and 12. We will be arranging to contact all head teachers on Monday morning so we can discuss helping accelerate the return of all pupils to the Island’s schools and we are also working with DOI in terms of the bus system to supply the transport – but also in terms of the catering as well – for when they are at school to see they get there. So I am confident that we can get all 625 those children who want to come back to school, back to school within the next two to three weeks.
Q212. Mr Robertshaw: Thank you, Minister. My next question is frankly, blunt, but it is intended to be so for good reason, so no offence is 630 intended. This is looking back to what was, for a minute or two. Two-metre distancing only ever, as the CEO has said, gave access to 25% of children to schools. That would have been left to all the teachers to end up being fully employed in the schools and yet at the same time they would have been trying to cope with distance learning for the rest, which effectively was the majority and 75% of the children. 635 So my point to you is that the two-metre concept was always, always going to be inoperable or unworkable. Did the Department ever bluntly tell CoMin very clearly that this concept, this directive simply would not work? Or did you just choose to follow a CoMin directive on this two- metre requirement?
640 The Minister: Mr Robertshaw, I do not take that as blunt at all, I think it is a very good question. In the roadmap document that was issued after the consultation with teachers, we actually acknowledged that with the two-metre rule we would not be able to provide education. We optimistically thought 50%, but actually following on from that when teachers went round with tape measures and measured up their individual classrooms it became quite clear that it 645 was going to be even less than that.
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At the start of the health emergency there were issues with an awful lot of fear, and when we looked at other jurisdictions when they did open their schools sometimes only 40% or 50% of parents felt secure enough to send their children back to schools. That was another part of the equation as well. 650 But I think you are quite right that there was always going to be the need for remote learning and we were also relying on those staff who could not come back into a school environment because of their own health concerns, or concerns of their families, who we would then rely upon to provide distance learning. I think there is some comparison to be made with King William’s College and the way they opted for online learning relatively quickly. I have talked to 655 their principal and they spent two weeks trying to set up Microsoft Teams and found it extremely challenging. All of their classes were closed, none of their teachers were in school, they were all providing online resources and their average class size was 14 or 15. And even they found it difficult. So I think that shows the problems of moving in a very short time space from a physical 660 education environment to a remote one.
Q213. Mr Robertshaw: Thank you very much, Minister. So from looking back on what might have been, to looking forward to what hopefully will be: overall, the Isle of Man finds itself in a good position. Between now and when the borders open 665 we obviously found a clear opportunity to form a plan to respond to the possibility of future sporadic re-emergence of the virus. We now know a great deal more about how to respond to the virus than we did at the start. It was a shock for us all. We know when we cannot return to emergency powers should there be a reoccurrence, but how long do you think it will be before your Department has produced a plan that everybody 670 understands – teachers, parents, children – in the event of a sporadic return of the virus? Thank you.
The Minister: Again, I think that is a very valid question because we do not know what is going to be happening over the next year, there are so many variables in terms of whether we 675 get a second wave, or whether the virus burns itself out and how we respond as an Island to that. The Council of Ministers are currently working on a clear plan of escalating restrictions should we need them in the future and what I have asked them to do is actually look at the evidence about schools, because as we have gone through this period there has been more and more 680 research done on the contribution schools play towards the transmission of the virus within the community, and also the risk of children continuing to go to school during a viral pandemic when it is COVID-19. I would like to think that, should we get another outbreak or another surge in the number of cases, we can respond to it in a much more strategic way than we did back in March. We could 685 perhaps close one or two schools in a particular locality if they had an outbreak of coronavirus, or we could actually make the pragmatic move of keeping those schools open, given the fact that the risk to those pupils – as long as the staff worked – would be relatively small; but obviously the knock-on effects for their parents and the wider economy and their overall mental health and wellbeing would be affected by school closures. 690 So I think what I am saying is, yes, we need to develop our online resources to keep those children who cannot come back to school for the foreseeable future because of underlying health problems, but we also need to have a slightly more strategic and surgical way of dealing with any outbreaks that may occur until the time that we can eradicate the virus.
695 Q214. Mr Robertshaw: Thank you, Minister, that is very clear. Thank you. And my final question, which I think you have just touched on before, so forgive me. We obviously want to see all children back to school as quickly as possible. But it does remain your
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policy does it not, that if a parent chooses not to return their child to school before September that that will be classed as permissible with regard to the Department’s position? 700 Is that correct?
The Minister: That is, and I think that the choice, the ability for a parent to choose when to send their child back during very uncertain times is very important. However, there is an obligation on the Department to deal with those concerns if it can but to support that parent 705 and their family with the education for their child. We are not just saying, ‘You don’t have to come in; we will ignore you’. We are saying, ‘You don’t have to come in; we will deal with your fears, we will deal with your concerns. And if you still don’t want to come in we will support you and we will support your child’s education’. Which is why even when we get the majority of children back to school, we will still need to 710 further develop, refine and improve the remote learning experience that they should expect.
Mr Robertshaw: Thank you. Can I now hand back to the Chairman, please?
715 Q215. The Chairman: Thank you very much. So just to take us into the final section, then, this is the real tension between the Department for Enterprise and the Treasury on the one hand prioritising the economic return and your Department is focused very much on vulnerable children. The parents have kind of been left hanging in the middle, haven’t they, whilst the pressure on the one hand is to get people back to 720 work and on the other hand your priority is to look after the most vulnerable children? That has left quite a gap, hasn’t it?
The Minister: I can answer that. I do not think there has been a huge amount of tension between Treasury, DfE and 725 Education. I think, as I have said, we have been working together with an overall strategy for dealing with the health emergency. So at no point have I come under any pressure from other Departments to bring children back to school, or staff back to school, when it was not safe to do so. I think what there has been is a real need to give clear guidance for schools to try to make 730 sure that the educational provision is uniform across the Island at a time when it has been very difficult to meet, but it has been easy to share ideas online. But I think what we have experienced in Tynwald and even today has shown that online communication, with all the best will in the world and good platforms, can be problematic and can lead to misunderstandings.
735 Q216. The Chairman: So has the advice, Minister, been that it has been safe to go back to work, but not to go back to school?
The Minister: Well, the various different companies have responded in various different ways on an overall risk assessment which is exactly the same as we have done in schools. We have 740 looked at the individual schools and we have seen where it is safe to bring pupils back, and then planned for that. I know various companies have done exactly the same and they have managed to get the majority of their people working from home when that is more appropriate, with the right support. And we have been trying to make sure that the majority of students who have been 745 studying from home get that right support from their head teachers.
Q217. The Chairman: You mentioned it is going to take another two to three weeks to get all children back to school. What is holding this up?
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The Minister: Part of that is that we have always said, as a Department, we would support 750 parents, pupils and teachers and other school staff with a gradual phased return to normality. What we have said is that from Monday the schools will open and the staff will come back, and they will need to take apart some of the social distancing restrictions that they set up when we were looking at a two or then a one-metre guideline. They will need to dismantle those and get the schools ready to return all the pupils that are currently in education to their own local 755 school, and then make sure that we can provide for all the other pupils over the following weeks. The things that we need now to do, given the announcement from the Chief Minister yesterday, is work with other Departments such as DOI to provide the transport services we need, and to make sure we have got the staff we need – and Ronald Barr has already had a chat 760 about the number of extra cleaners and caretakers we have brought in to ensure that our schools are safe, not only now but running into the future as we deal with the threat of coronavirus.
Q218. The Chairman: So what we are saying is that we cannot reopen the schools and offer 765 that normality to everyone who wishes to take it up because we are not quite sure how much cleaning it takes and whether we have got enough teachers?
The Minister: Not at all, Mr Speaker. What I am saying is that from Monday morning we will not be opening all the schools. We 770 will be gradually reintegrating children into those schools but we will do it in a controlled, orderly manner so that we get it right, so that we have classes for them to go into where they feel safe and they can actually benefit from the education they receive. (Interjection by Prof. Barr)
775 Q219. The Chairman: I am still not sure what the reason is for taking two to three weeks to achieve that.
Prof. Barr: Can I just come in there, Mr Speaker? Obviously we did risk assessments for every single school site on the Island. That was a huge 780 piece of work and obviously we have these cleaning stations and we had to get additional cleaning staff. All of that has got to be operationalised on the Monday and Tuesday. Some of these school sites obviously have been closed for 10 weeks or more. So getting them up, operationalised and running – and then obviously on 17th June all the sites are open. Now, the information I have had from head teachers is that we were expecting about 20% of 785 children back on Wednesday 17th because there were a lot of key workers who did not actually send their kids to the hub school, but now that the local schools are open they would send their children there. And of course with all the teachers back in school, their kids would also be back in the system. So we were anticipating about 20% of children back on 17th, which is quite a jump from 6% which is what we had on the Friday before Practice Week. 790 In reality we now think that there might be as many as 40% of children back on 17th, obviously because of the Chief Minister’s announcement. And indeed four head teachers contacted me yesterday saying they had about 50% of children who were wanting to come back into their school. So I anticipate that we will have significant numbers of children in school on 17th, 18th and 19th; and then, as the Minister has said, we will have another significant number 795 back in school on 22nd. And indeed we will talk to heads on Monday about whether we can actually get all of the year groups back.
Q220. The Chairman: Yes, I think the Chief Minister is definitely talking about the language of ‘We are now at the new domestic normal’. But what we are hearing from the Department is that 800 normal is still two to three weeks away.
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Prof. Barr: Well, I will be astonished if we do not have children back in schools quicker than three weeks. I think all children will be back before that.
The Minister: Mr Speaker, ‘normal’ is next week; ‘full normal’ will be the week after. But as 805 the Department has always said we will work with parents, we will work with teachers and we will work with everyone to do this in an orderly fashion so it is sustainable and works.
Q221. The Chairman: And if I could just pick up on where Mr Hooper left off in terms of online learning. King William’s College has run a virtual school since Easter, I understand, and we 810 are still not there several weeks later. Is that really good enough? Are we nearly there?
The Minister: I have already tried to explain why comparisons with King William’s College are not particularly applicable to the rest of the Education Service on the Isle of Man. They have 815 done a very good job. They have set up a system that works for them. What we have been trying to do is enable head teachers to set up a system that works for them and their pupils. And we are dealing with some pupils who may not have online access. There is also still a lot of controversy about whether online classes and online lessons educationally are the right things to do. But what I think we certainly need is more of a structure 820 around remote learning so that parents know what to expect and know who to go to if their expectations are not met. Certainly I have been talking to several head teachers who during this process have dramatically improved the services that they give to their pupils and to their families.
825 Q222. The Chairman: But would you give an assurance, Minister, that if people do turn up to school and they are in those year groups they will not be turned away?
The Minister: That is why we are having a gradual return, so that that does not happen. We need to ensure that we have the staff, the facilities and everything else that we need to run 830 schools. Closing them has been incredibly easy; opening them up is much harder. But by having a gradual return to full-time education over the next week or so we can guarantee that pupils will not be turned away from the door.
835 Q223. The Chairman: Thank you. I think that brings us to time; but Minister, Prof. Barr thank you both very much for joining us today. And whilst I know we have been asking some perhaps testing questions, I would hate for that to take away from the huge amount of work that has been put in by Department staff, teachers, assistants, caretakers and the wider education community in making the best of a bad 840 situation and I am sure that you, too, would also echo those sentiments.
The Minister: Mr Speaker, can I just thank you and the PAC for your questions. They have not been blunt, they have been pointed and they have been extremely relevant. But can I also say I apologise to those pupils and those parents who feel that they have not received what they 845 expected. Throughout this difficult period we have been working very closely with teachers, with the teaching unions and with parents to try to get us through this. We are now in a much better place than we were. However, we need to carry on with that co-operation and that communication. 850 But I think one thing that this says to all of us is that by working together we can achieve far more than working individually. So whilst there are criticisms of the Department that I will
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accept, I also am in a Department with some fantastic people who work with us right the way through our schools from caterers and cleaners to teachers. Thank you, Mr Speaker. 855 The Chairman: Thank you, Minister. And with that, the Committee will now sit in private.
The Committee sat in private at 12.03 p.m.
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25 26 Appendix 1: 26th May 2020 - Transcript of an extract from
‘The Mannin Line’ Manx Radio
27 28 PACES COMMITTEE, TUESDAY, 26th MAY 2020
PACES – MANNIN LINE - Extract
[00:07:53.680] - SPEAKER: M16 Dr Allinson: … water sports and fishing have restarted and as we start the summer now might be the time to try something different and take up a sport or pastime you have always 5 been interested in.
WK: The focus of the briefing then quickly turned to Education. The Minister commented on the challenges provided by online teaching and said people had a new-found appreciation for the value of schools. He acknowledged the difficulties of parents trying to continue full-time jobs 10 and assist with home education, then confirmation that the phased reopening of all schools would take place from 15th June.
Dr Allinson: After the half term, on Monday 15th June all schools will reopen and after two days of extra preparations all the children who were already being taught in one of the hubs and 15 their teachers will return to their own school. The Department is currently working with all sectors of Government to perfects plans for catering, cleaning, support staff, transport and testing capacity so that we can further reclaim our schools. Over the next week I will be discussing further plans to allow the key year groups to return to their schools. 20 WK: Those are years 2, 6 10 and 12, by the way. When children do return though, classrooms could look quite different.
Dr Allinson: In terms of social distancing if we stick to the two-metre rule we are perhaps 25 looking at classes of maybe six up to 10 in each class. That is really quite restricting. And also we need to think about the mental effect of walking into a classroom which looks and feels very different to the one you left just over two months ago.
WK: And some new ideas for expanding capacity have been considered. 30 Dr Allinson: I have already been approached by people who have marquees on the Isle of Man, for instance, who have said ‘If you want us to put that up, we will do that’. We can look at temporary accommodation either in sports halls, village halls those sort of areas. 35 WK: Among other considerations teachers will have access to PPE including aprons, masks and gloves and that is the situation for now. Going forwards, some new opportunities which have surfaced during the pandemic could be continued including possibly allowing A-level students who attend lessons at other schools to 40 Zoom in and participate remotely.
AW: Alex Allinson was on yesterday by the way, it just feels like Saturday because it was a bank holiday. Paul said, ‘Andy, nearly six weeks since Mr Skelly at the Department of Enterprise said we 45 were in a good position to get ahead of the game against other jurisdictions. I just wish Mr Skelly would give us some good news, we certainly need it. The nation needs politicians who are not totally in the spotlight to tell us what they have been doing. We need leadership.
______Private Transcript Page 1 29 PACES COMMITTEE, TUESDAY, 26th MAY 2020
Well, tomorrow I will certainly ask Mr Cannan where we are regarding … Mr Skelly was talking about new streams of income, new businesses which are being attracted to the Isle of 50 Man. ‘Andy, I have just listened to the news’ says Garth ‘and the student saying basically she will not vote for someone who did not agree with her wanting to bring Syrian refugees to the Isle of Man. In other words ‘I am not playing with you if you do not agree with me’. Not a grown-up attitude. ‘Maybe when she is old enough to work and bring up her own family worrying about 55 paying bills and their safety, she may be mature enough to deal with politics’ says Garth – Garth’s words. And a note in from, let’s see, Mr Ashford … this says Mr Ashford will be considering data arising from the Bank Holiday, he said ‘you should also say what Mr Ashford said; says Dave. ‘He said hairdressers and beauty parlours are not being made to open, only if they feel really safe 60 with the correct PPE’. Well, I do understand, Mr Ashford did say that, maybe I need to make that extra clear, you are not being forced to open. Nobody is forcing you to open. Only if you want to open do you open. And Graham ‘Andy, they have told us that we cannot do car sharing to go to work but we can take a taxi. Isn’t that the same thing?’ says Graham. 65 Well maybe it is. ‘I was on a single decker with 20 people on it, though government policy in England the limit is supposed to be 10. But obviously everybody is going back to work and they are saying thousands of people will be heading back to work today. You just wonder exactly what is going to happen now. Nobody 70 quite knows what is going to happen. As the Chief Minister has said: ‘This is in your hands now’. Very nice of him to pass the responsibility. Colin: ‘I’d like a question asked at the Government briefing if possible. The question is: ‘Small businesses were given £3,000 to help through the coronavirus times. Some businesses opened 75 and traded within a week of closing and kept the three grand. Whereas other businesses like mine’ – Colin is a barber – ‘and other hairdressers have had to stay closed and we cannot claim any more help. Lots of small businesses find this very unfair as we will be one of the last businesses probably to open. Keep up the good work …’ That is Colin at Colin’s Barbers in Ramsey. 80 So well, again, I will put that to the Treasury Minister tomorrow just to see what he thinks about whether people who claimed the £3,000 and went back to work fairly quickly, whether it is equitable … Sue Moore is headteacher of QE2 and a member of the Association of School and College Leaders. Good afternoon, Sue!’ 85 SM: Hello, good afternoon.
AW: Sue, what is the situation at QE2? Are you open at the moment at all?
90 SM: Yes we are, we have been open all the way through for children of key workers, so that included Easter holidays obviously and we have got a lovely little team of people who have been here with us.
AW: When will you be open more? When do you expect more pupils back? 95 SM: Right, before we can take any more pupils back we have got to open up the areas of the school that we closed down. We closed most of the school down to reduce cleaning needs and keep everything safe. So we have got to mark out all of the corridors, all of the entrances so that people can see the two-metre distancing. We are awaiting delivery of handwashing stations,
______Private Transcript Page 2 30 PACES COMMITTEE, TUESDAY, 26th MAY 2020
100 mobile handwashing stations so that people can wash their hands when they come in and when they leave. And we are nearly organised in terms of rearranging every classroom because in order to keep this social distancing we have to keep children and staff two metres apart. So that means we can get about six, seven or eight people in each classroom depending on the size of the room. 105 AW: Sue, how do you get your head round this? Can you visualise how this is going to work?
SM: Because we have been doing a gradual increase in numbers over the last two or three weeks, we have opened up one area of the school. We have got what we call three Minister 110 hubs operating at the moment. So children who have a place are told which entrance to come in, which room they are going to be in and then they are given a designated work area in that place. But, yes it has been a learning curve, I have to say. I have been really grateful to people helping us, the site staff have been fantastic – Adrian Mooney, who sourced the handwashing 115 facilities for us; my fabulous groundsman has been marking white lines outside for everybody. The team here is wonderful, the site staff, I can’t tell you. The kitchen staff who have been coming in when they are not supposed to, in the holidays, etc. We have had admin team working from home dealing with emails, etc. It has really been a team effort and everybody learning as we go. 120 AW: Sue, how badly do you think education, not the standard if you like, the amount of education. How much are the children going to be behind?
SM: At this point it is difficult to know. We said to parents fairly early on, for the younger 125 children to focus on the core subjects – English, Maths, Science, and if they manage to do a couple of the others as they go during the week that is a bonus. Obviously for the Year 10 and the Year 12 they have been focusing on their exam subjects. With Year 9 they choose their options this year and normally we would start them in September. We have actually started them early, so instead of carrying on with the subjects until the end of 130 Year 9 if they are not going to take them for a GCSE we have said ‘Don’t worry about those any more. Focus on your options subjects’. So actually we think that some of Year 10, 12 and 9 might actually be ahead of where they would have been. We did a survey a couple of weeks ago of all the teaching staff to see whether children were engaging with their learning. And over 95% of students were engaging with their 135 learning. And over 70% were engaging with pretty much all of their learning. So it has been a really good picture. I would just really like to thank all of the parents because I know it has been tricky for them but they have been doing a fantastic job supporting their children at home.
140 AW: What modifications are going to need to be made then at QE2 to allow … You mentioned classrooms. Obviously there is the canteen, sports changing rooms. Who is deciding? Does Government decide what goes where, or do you?
SM: On the ground, we have to, because each school is very different. We did have, the 145 Friday before last, a visit with the unions. We had got together and we were quite concerned about making sure that the decisions I am making on the ground are safe. So we had a visit from somebody from Health and Safety, a week ago on Friday to just come on and look at what we are doing currently and make sure that that is okay and if there is anything we had missed; and we will have to do the same again before we open up any of the other parts of the school. 150 The dining room has been quite interesting. I know we have got quite a large dining room we are very lucky, but we can only seat 26 people at a time. So clearly that means we have to
______Private Transcript Page 3 31 PACES COMMITTEE, TUESDAY, 26th MAY 2020
stagger lunchtimes; and as we expand we probably will not be able to provide lunch for people, they will either need to just come for half a day or bring a packed lunch and eat it in their room.
155 AW: Sue Moore is head teacher of QE2, and, Sue what support have you had from Government, Public Health, Education Sport and Culture?
SM: Public Health, I have to say Dr Ewart has been wonderful. I have had three virtual meetings with her. One as a union rep and the other two as a head teacher. She has given her 160 time really very generously because obviously we have got huge concerns. We want to make sure that what we do is safe and we were getting very confused messages from elsewhere.
AW: In what way: confused?
165 SM: How important the social distancing is; whether hand sanitiser is good enough or whether handwashing is better. Things like that. So to be able to ask Henrietta Ewart direct, and she was very clear with us, very clear about the rationale behind things; really, really helpful.
AW: In many ways you are the junction between policy and practice, Sue. You are the person 170 who has to interpret the words and the policies and make sure it works for people within your school – obviously teaching staff, ancillary staff and pupils as well. Where do you stand on exams at the moment?
SM: (Laughter) Yes, I do not know if you know I am also a trustee for one of the big exam 175 boards for AQA so I have been having Zoom meetings with people from AQA –
AW: I knew AQA when it was NUJMB, years ago!
SM: Aah, there you go! Yes I have to say, I had never heard of Zoom before all this began. 180 Now I am zooming away, probably more than I wish to be, but yes. So it is a challenge. The whole business with exams is a challenge whether you are a student, whether you are a teacher, whether you are one of the exam board people trying to make sure this is all done fairly. The heads of subject, the teachers who teach the children for their exams, have had to do 185 something which would be difficult if you knew you were going to do it in advance, but they had no warning at all. So they have had to work out a predicted grade based on whatever evidence we had when we went into lockdown and they have had to send that – well, we have not yet, we are in the process of checking those to send into the exam board. The exam boards then receive all of this, so they have had to set up systems to get all of this submitted. They have then 190 got to do a very complicated process of checking to make sure that teachers are not going completely … ‘Oh, we will just give everybody a Grade A. So they have got two systems to check that people are being fair and balanced. And so they could change the grades that we submit. So we are not allowed to speak about this at all in any meaningful way to parents or to the students. They have to wait till they get their results in August. 195 AW: You have a Special Needs Unit at QE don’t you?
SM: We do.
200 AW: How is that working?
SM: Right, well it has not been open. The children in there are very vulnerable, health-wise; and I think their parents, very sensibly, decided they would be safer at home. We are planning to
______Private Transcript Page 4 32 PACES COMMITTEE, TUESDAY, 26th MAY 2020
open that after TT fortnight, but obviously because of the needs of the children there that 205 requires a lot of very careful risk assessment and planning.
AW: In times like this, Sue, with the fact that nobody has ever come across this before, you tend to learn an awful lot about the people around you. I am guessing you have learnt a lot about your staff. 210 SM: My staff are the dream team. They are absolutely amazing. We did not have a lot of notice for the school closing so we were very quickly got all the admin team, who normally work on designated computers at school, we had to get them a laptop and get that set up so that they could work from home. The support-for-learning staff who work with the children on the 215 special-needs register, or our vulnerable children, they have been phoning them regularly from home to make sure they are okay. My key stage staff have been in regular contact with parents and children. The teachers have been busy, not just doing all these predicted grades, but actually setting work, learning how to use Google Classroom, learning Google meets Zoom – you name it! 220 Our technical skills have improved hugely; and people have just been amazing. Another thing is, I mean, a lot of my staff have got children of their own. So while they are doing this, they are also having to support their own children and I am sure working parents will know how hard that is.
225 AW: You are in charge of the money also, Sue, you will see the budgets and what have you. Have you been spending more during lockdown, or less than you would have done?
SM: We have been spending more in terms of communications. We have had to buy additional things like the hand-washing units. But actually that bill has been picked up centrally. I 230 think our biggest expenditure has been on the dining room because we have been providing the meals free. So we have been spending on ingredients and on staff salaries but we have not actually had any money in. So that is the area of budget that I am really very concerned about. But we have been told that that would be picked up centrally.
235 AW: Sue, you are a head teacher so you know everything. When will we be back to normal?
SM: Ha ha, I wish I had the crystal ball. I really do not know. I mean, the Isle of Man has been doing very well compared with other places. I think the Government has been doing a great job in difficult circumstances. We do seem to be keeping the virus under control but we cannot get 240 complacent. It would be much easier for me if we could just say, ‘Do you know what? We are over this now, everything can go back to how it was’. That would be fantastic. I would not have to worry about having a third or a quarter of the school in with the same number of teachers, and so on. But at the moment people’s safety matters more than anything else and I think the baby steps that the Government is talking about 245 is really important.
AW: Sue, we wish you well. Send our best wishes to everyone at QE2 and hopefully we will be back with an outside broadcast in the not-too-distant future.
250 SM: Thank you very much.
AW: Good to talk to you, Sue. That is Sue Moore, head teacher of QE2 in Peel. Interesting times. Any thoughts? Text 166177, email [email protected] Or call 661368 as soon as you can. 255
______Private Transcript Page 5 33 34 Appendix 2: 2nd June 2020 - Email from Simon Quirk
35 36 Archived: 03 June 2020 12:34:28 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 02 June 2020 13:30:57 To: [Committees] Subject: Scrutiny of education during the emergency period Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal
I'm the parent of a year 13 student at[School redacted] . We've heard almost nothing from the school. I know these are very challenging times, but I can't help but feel he's been a bit abandoned and really doesn't know what to do. This is my son's final year, the culmination of 13 years of study and it feels like he's been cut adrift without any guidance or advice at all.
The only communication we've had is this, very recently (19th May):
"Dear Student and family,
We hope you are keeping safe and well. Now that you have officially left[School redacted] , we would like to assure you of our continued support as you seek your onward pathway. We fully appreciate that in these times of uncertainty, you may feel slightly anxious or nervous. We have put together a collection of resources on your Google Classroom, which will hopefully be of use to you regardless of your next step. There are resources on university life, employ-ability skills and independence skills such personal finances and cooking.
We have also detailed some websites which might be of use to you at this time:"
The email goes on to list websites such as the job centre, university college etc.
I don't think this is adequate. Weren't his teachers available during this time to offer help and advice in preparation for the end of these childrens school life? What else have they been doing these past months with the schools closed?
The fact that he'd left school was a surprise to him, and I don't think this is the way he should have found out!
I did contact[Name redacted] directly, and he maintained that help was available but needed to be requested. I felt this missed the point, young people do not and should not have to reach out for help when help is available and being funded by our contributions. I do not feel this has been done proactively or with any considerations for the needs of these students.
I understand the focus has been for teaching those who are still undergoing education, and I can see why year 13's would be at the lower end of the schools priorities, but I think this year 13 will have been prepared for life after school poorly as a result.
Simon Quirk [Contact details redacted]
37 38 Appendix 3: 4th June 2020 - Email from Katie and Nick Dyson
39 40 Archived: 09 June 2020 12:55:05 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 04 June 2020 14:59:14 To: [Committees] Subject: Schools home learning Importance: Normal ______
Good afternoon,
We saw online that a committee is to scrutinise the provision of learning during lockdown. We felt very strongly that positive voices should be heard in this matter.
Our daughter attends[School redacted] primary school and is in Year 2. We have nothing but compliments for the school and it’s staff. They have done their utmost to help our child still feel connected to school whilst she has been at home and has provided thorough and appropriate work for us to consider as a family for ‘homeschooling’.
Our daughter has had regular contact from her teacher and has enjoyed those interactions. As parents we have valued the variety of methods the school have used to support our daughter’s learning at home and we have always felt there has been the right amount of contact for us to, not only feel connected and supported, but also not so much that we would feel overwhelmed or pressurised- it must be an extremely hard balance to achieve.
The ability of the staff to adapt quickly whilst also continuing to plan for an uncertain future must have been a real shock to the system and yet the professionalism and friendliness displayed by the staff and their senior leaders has been a great reassurance for us as parents.
In a situation no one chose to be in where rules and regulations have regularly changed and at a fast pace, we would like it to be known that we have been completely impressed with the adaptability and resilience of the teaching profession on the Island.
Well done to everyone Many thanks Katie and Nick Dyson
41 42 Appendix 4: 4th June 2020- Email from Melody Ansara
43 44 Archived: 04 June 2020 16:11:49 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 04 June 2020 15:14:32 To: [Committees] Subject: Education during lockdown Importance: Normal
Dear Committee Members,
I understand that education during lockdown will be reviewed and scrutinised, and that you have invited members of the public to comment on this matter
I am the mother of a Year 10 student at[School redacted] My son is in a critical year, with GCSE exams next year. He has missed almost a quarter of this school year, and will be far behind by now.
Since the end of March, my son has been provided with work via google classroom by his teachers. This has been inadequate, mostly unsupervised and hardly any feedback given. He has basically been told to do work online, and submit. This is not the way to teach a student. Two months went by without any communication from his teachers - I emailed each one individually and asked how my son was doing. I was appalled that his Chemistry teacher said he had not even logged onto the platform and had therefore done zero chemistry work in two months - I had not once been informed of this. This is not an isolated incident.
At the beginning of May, I emailed the Head[School redacted] asking why zoom classes (actual face to face online teaching) was not being provided. The head[Name redacted] , thereafter wrote to all parents and said zoom lessons would be starting shortly. Another month went by with zero zoom classes. Some teachers began once a week zoom lessons, but some teachers decided it was not beneficial to the students and therefore have not provided any lessons to their students. Apparently it is a teachers decision whether they provide zoom lessons or not - surely as a teacher, it is their job and they should not be given the right to decline teaching their students via zoom.
My son[Redacted] learns best from actual teaching where the teacher explains the topics (either face to face or via zoom classes).
My major concerns is the lack of communication to parents, the lack of actual teaching, the lack of teachers marking children's work (the children have been asked to self assess - basically just handed answer sheets and they mark their own work).
I appreciate that some teachers have worked very hard, but there has been an inadequate level of education, which is undeniable.
Thank you for looking into the education during lockdown, and hopefully the Department of Education can learn from this experience and improve the education to students should a crisis arise again.
Kind regards, Melody Ansara
45 46 Appendix 5: 4th June 2020 – Email from Ian Harrison
47 48 Archived: 04 June 2020 13:07:02 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 04 June 2020 11:26:18 To: [Committees] Subject: school remote education/public account committee. Importance: Normal
Dear sir, I felt compelled to submit a comment although my own personal one I do feel that my views are shared by many parents and grandparents on the Island. I have watched my own grandchildren’s education so far slip away due to the lack of remote education from Mr Allinsons department, there has been no remote education directly from there school and only set a maths quiz to do online, they have only had one face to face meeting with there teacher via TEAMS, (Mr Allinsons preferred way of taking criticism) are these teachers so busy at home they cant educate there pupils and set home work at least once a week, these children should be back in school as Mr Allinson well knows the chance of infection from child to child is extremely low and from child to adult is also very low, how are we going to police social distancing with 5 year olds, the harm Mr Allinson and his department are doing to these children not being at school is considerably more than the threat of covid- 19, these so called teachers who are now going to have up to 20 weeks off with full pay should be ashamed, we need these children educated this Government seems more interested in opening the pubs that education, it should have been part of the teachers weekly work to make contact with their pupils it’s the least they could of done for there £40,000 + a year and pension.
Kind Regards Ian Harrison [Contact details redacted]
49 50 Appendix 6: 4th June 2020 – Email Submission
51 52 Archived: 09 June 2020 08:26:32 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 04 June 2020 19:50:44 To: [Committees] Subject: Education during lockdown Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal
Dear Committee Members
What Education? That's the question I've been asking during lockdown.
As an independent parent of a year 9 teenage daughter, I've been working from home since the end of February. I feel my daughter has not been taught by teachers, but she has just been asked to read information and complete exercises on the likes of BBC Bitesize. No guidelines or conversations took place before lockdown and those during lockdown with my daughter's form tutor and her science teacher were instigated by me, mainly because my daughter needed support. Only email support was offered but when I suggested telephone or video chats, these were out of the question nor offered to my daughter.
The school and teachers could have done so much more to engage with pupils and parents during lockdown. I am not a teacher, yet I was expected to support my daughter with school work that I couldn't access or knew anything about beforehand as teachers didn't engage with me, as well as holding down a full time job with poor internet connection due to the amount of traffic and the service provider's poor infrastructure.
I'm addition, lifting some restrictions on 20 May without any thought given to children, particularly teens (and those who are an only child) was irresponsible and done without any consideration as to what their mental health may be in. In my situation my teen was suddenly given some freedom and could meet up with others. She met up that evening with a group of other year 9 children and got drunk for the first time. My daughter and another child ended up in hospital, both having alcohol levels of 190. My daughter has since got drunk again and is now receiving counselling from Motiv8. This would not have happened had things been done differently.
I have made contact with her school to request that my daughter be accepted back on 15 June, even just for a couple of weeks on mental wellbeing grounds and as a key worker who cannot return to their office for some months.
Our children, especially those who were taking exams, have been neglected and their futures jeopardised. Both children and their parents have been let down by the IoM Education Department and the Island's Ministers.
Yours faithfully
[Name redacted]
53 54 Appendix 7: 5th June 2020 – Email from Leyre N’Shimbi Fernandez
55 56 Archived: 09 June 2020 08:38:07 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 05 June 2020 08:05:32 To: [Committees] Cc: [Contact details redacted] Subject: Feedback on education during the lockdown Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal
Good morning
I’ve been provided with this email to share my opinion on how I found the education (or lack of) during the lockdown period to date.
I’m very disappointed that my child, who attends[School redacted] and is in year7 has received nothing but homework uploaded on different online platforms, which makes it difficult to manage anyway!
It was several weeks after the lock down (after Easter break, to be precise) that a group of parents discover “It’s Learning platform” which meant, our kids had been missing on homework for Maths and English up until that point. Really poor approach that this hadn’t been monitored and I would have expected at least a message/phone call/email to make me aware that my child had not logged on or completed any homework for several weeks.
I’ve been in contact with my child’s tutor, who is a very professional and supportive teacher, but have expressed to her my concerns with the lack of engagement from school.
I would have expected at least one hour a day of online lessons (Zoom or similar), not only to explain the topics they are studying but to keep the kids engaged, give them the opportunity to ask questions, make them “part of”, provide feedback on the work presented…. How are parents suppose to teach their kids, French if they don’t speak the language? How are parents suppose to work full time, whilst also “home- schooling”, which in my case has meant having to do my research after a full day’s work to be able to explain to my child the subject he was working on.
Also, the fact that the Dr Allinson stated at one of the Government briefings that my child’s education is “not critical”, “not that important”, made me feel somehow sad. If that is what the Minister in charge of my child’s education thinks, there is a big problem. I will remember his words when I take my child out of school for more than 10 days on the basis that his education is not critical or important until year10.
In summary, I would have expected schools to:
• Have online sessions as soon as the lockdown was imposed
• Have ONE online platform with all kids added (rather than having to wait to be added to the different subjects) where expectations/guidance for the week ahead were clearly set, as well as homework along with a teacher’s video explaining the subject the kids are working on
Many thanks and regards Leyre
57 58 Appendix 8: 5th June 2020 – Email Submission
59 60 Archived: 09 June 2020 08:49:44 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 05 June 2020 10:06:04 To: [Committees] Subject: Comments for Tynwald Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal
Good morning,
I understand you are interested in views and opinions on home education offered during Covid- 19 school closures.
I have two children at[Name redacted] school, one in[Class redacted] and the other [Class redacted] I am completely satisfied with the home learning provided by the school. There was immediate advice given and age appropriate activities suggested for every year group across the school as well as ideas relevant to the whole school such as links to Manx Birdlife etc. The school set up a gallery where home learning photos were posted on their website and held virtual assemblies where certificates were awarded so children still received recognition for their work. They quickly adapted the system and the home learning packs started to be sent out weekly. More importantly though, the teachers maintained a good level of contact with the children. We received a phone call and a postcard and there were fun videos that we could contribute to. Sports, gardening and other less academic challenges were regularly uploaded for us as well. As I am a key worker my children also attended[Redacted] for approx 3 weeks. The teachers there worked hard to keep them safe, happy and busy. My daughters teacher waved goodnight to us as she was leaving one night and we were in the playground. It was almost 6pm, which shows the hours staff were working. The teachers at[Redacted] have clearly worked tirelessly throughout this emergency, adapting quickly to a whole new way of working and I am 100% satisfied with what was provided.
Thank you
[Name redacted]
61 62 Appendix 9: 5th June 2020 – Email from Samantha Callister
63 64 From: samantha.callister Sent: 05 June 2020 10:14 To: committees Subject: Education during Coronavirus
Good morning,
I have seen an update through 3FM that you will be holding a review of the approach to education on the 12th June and are inviting people to comment on the subject.
Like many others I am sure, as a family we have really struggled during lock down and my children’s education (age 8 & 12) has been the hardest part. I work a full time role which involves long hours, so managing to balance this and homeschooling has been very difficult – on occasion just impossible. Thankfully the support provided through [School redacted] for my son has been excellent. The resources available have been great, very varied, and continue to be added to as we move forward. My son’s teacher is in touch regularly and we have had a number of video calls where he has been able to see his friends. Head teacher, [Name redacted] has been in touch regularly and proactively reaches out for pictures of the children learning but also enjoying their time with family or outside in the countryside. His approach has been refreshing and above all I have felt very little pressure to achieve specific tasks. I appreciate my son is still only in year 3 so the demand to continue learning is less.
Unfortunately, my daughter’s story is a real contrast. My daughter was already struggling at school [School redacted] and her first term in year 7 was very hard. She battles with [Redacted] and as a result does not enjoy learning at all. Throw in the fact I am not a teacher and also trying to work a full time role, the last 10 weeks has been distressing and very stressful. I am sure you will know but the school are using Google Classroom to set up work. This platform has been used in a number of different ways by a number of different teachers and we have found it difficult to navigate. The amount of work is overwhelming for [Name redacted] and a lot of it is just uploads of PowerPoint or links to quizzes. I struggle to see where the school are actually teaching my child. We get a huge amount of notifications through the day, to the point that I have removed [Name redacted] from non-core subjects because it was just too much. I really do appreciate this is difficult times and each individual teacher is probably doing as much as they can but no one is looking at the overall view and how it is feeling as a student. I think my overall frustration is that there are no online classes happening. As I have said, I am not a teacher and [Name redacted] struggles without support . There has been no additional support from the school in any way for her. The expectations are for her to just crack on. I have tried to see if I could get her into [School redacted] as at least this would give her some structured learning time – we live in [Redacted] but she attends [School redacted] – but we were denied this option as she was not a student. Absolutely ridiculous, surely the government should be considering all schools together? I was not in a position due to work to get to [Redacted] and back every day. The response from the Head Teacher at [School redacted] was nothing short of rude. [Name redacted]has had no direct contact from her form tutor, head of year or Head Teacher and although I have attempted to raise my concerns on a number of occasions with I get a standard response. I have now had to set up a tutor for [Name redacted] maths (that I am paying for myself) – which is ironically online – just to make sure she is getting the basics that the school obviously cannot provide.
I’m afraid to say that we have given up with everything else and she has done very little learning over the last 4 weeks. It’s just impossible and I cannot continue to see her go through the daily stress and struggle.
65 So, I am very very concerned about her return to school – whenever this may be – as she is likely to be way behind where she already was. I feel the whole set up has been designed for students that are academically clever and find learning easy but near on impossible for children with support needs. How are the schools supporting those children that cannot simply help themselves? I hear that other schools are managing to run online sessions between students and teachers so I am baffled that [School redacted] has not been able to do the same.
My concerns have already been sent through to Dr Allinson so he is aware of the challenges we are facing as a family.
I’d be more than happy to comment further if required.
Kind regards Samantha
Samantha Callister [Contact details redacted]
66 Appendix 10: 5th June 2020 – Email from Fiona Kneen
67 68 Archived: 09 June 2020 09:06:54 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 05 June 2020 14:41:11 To: [Committees] Subject: Education during Covid 19 Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal ______
Dear Sir,
I have a daughter in year 10 at[School redacted] high school and I am extremely worried about her education. She is a very conscientious young lady and has been working consistently throughout the school closure period, even through weekends and holidays.
However, the work being sent In certain subjects has been very haphazard- in particular science and I have had to contact the school to highlight this.
She has found it difficult to contact teachers and has struggled a lot.
I feel the high schools are inconsistent with their approach, certain schools are providing much better interaction with the pupils than others.
When we received the letter to say exams would go ahead in the Autumn as normal, my daughter was distraught. How can they possibly sit exams in key subjects when they have lost a whole term at least of schooling ?
Please can you forward mine and my daughters concerns to the relevant parties.
Yours faithfully
Fiona Kneen
69 70 Appendix 11: 6th June 2020 – Email from Caroline Maddrell
71 72 Archived: 09 June 2020 09:31:00 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 06 June 2020 16:00:24 To: [Committees] Subject: Education, parent and child wellbeing and future plan clarity Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal ______
Hi
I hope you don’t mind me contacting this forum, but I have concerns in regards to local, island v UK variance in the consistency of education support, coupled with the mental health of both children and parents-and thought this might be a good forum in which to raise them.
Firstly, whilst I understand the predicament that faces teachers from the 15th June, when they will all be teaching in some form from the 17th, but I can’t understand why for the last 9wks there has been no provision/a consistent provision for at least some face to face learning for children (ie through Teams so that children Allan interact with classmates and teachers) who can access it across all year groups?Certainly my children in reception and Yr 3 at [Redacted] have only been privy to various PDFs (which requires computer access if that the argument for not providing face to face teaching) with no supporting “lesson plan”, whilst other schools, such as[School redacted] have been providing Zoom lessons, daily plans etc. I, and many colleagues and friends are growing increasingly frustrated by the one off video communications (nothing educational) which we have received, where teachers detail how busy they’ve been painting their houses, walking 10,000 steps, baking, gardening, etc. It seems unfair of teachers to communicate such things, whilst receiving full pay, benefits and job security-something that those in the private sector do not have the luxury of, and in fact verges on insulting to those parents who struggle to find time to even go the toilet as they try to juggle working from home full time in less than ideal workspaces (i.e. my sister-in-law works on an ironing board), try to teach their children/not neglect them entirely, run a family home when things such as a trip to the shops takes so much longer than usual and pay their bills-not knowing what the future holds for them (i.e. redundancy, cuts to their hours, furloughing coming to an end, etc).
As a parent of younger children, I know that firstly education and social interaction with classmates is very important to their development (and also, understand that in normal circumstances, a maximum of 1 wk out of school for holidays is permitted due to the pressures for teachers to complete everything that’s required within the academic year). I know that young children require quite intensive face to face teaching and can’t be left alone with a book full of questions/tasks-especially if they aren’t strong readers and also it takes a qualified teacher to know how to teach early yrs properly, especially maths where they style of teaching is very different now. Equally, I know I’d struggle to teach/help an older child completely A-levels in subjects I didn’t do! This feeling of pressure on a parent to keep their child “up to speed” is really quite stressful as no parent wants their child to be disadvantaged, and certainly knowing more children are returning to some kind of teaching, leaves those parents “left to it” further stressed that their child will suffer educationally as a consequence....and feeling neglected sitting on screens for non ideal amounts of time.
As such, I am keen that The Government gives parents more clarity on the plans (even if it is that their children won’t be returning so that we don’t continue in the state of not knowing) and aligns schools so that ALL parents receive the right level of support so that our children achieve their expected milestones and are not disadvantaged by the ongoing situation when compared to their peers in schools, such as[School redacted] that were much quicker to respond to the situation and find appropriate work arounds to ensure that the yrs syllabus is largely followed for the remainder of the academic year. I worry that 9 weeks has already been lost, and that children in “non-key” year groups/non key working parent sectors (albeit I believe all working parents are key to the islands economy ultimately) wont return to school this academic year, and based on recent communications (whereby it was communicated that we should expect less support as they will be teaching key workers children in their specific year groups), it will leave those children of non key yr groups and whose parents are “able” to work from home completely unsupported and left behind. I believe parents have largely been left to it and I really feel for those working from home full time whilst trying to school their children/look after younger siblings etc and trying not to constantly feel like they’re failing. Realistically with only 6wks left not all children, (esp the likes of yr3, yr5, yr7, yr8) are returning if the current
73 circumstances of no cases for over 2wks and no active cases in the community hasn’t justified a change in the governments stance/teachers union stance-then I don’t see what will. Children are identified as not being super- spreaders and rarely react adversely to the virus if they have no underlying health conditions. It seems at odds that children attended school without social distancing rules in the early stages of the pandemic when we had cases daily, but now teachers at secondary schools on the island are only offering a few hours of lessons a week to yr 12 A-level students. I fear we are doing such children a huge injustice and will crush the aspirations of some children...and in doing so, the mental health of those children.
Ultimately when the boarders do open during the summer hols or post summer hols there will likely be another bunch of cases so are non key workers just expected to multitask for the foreseeable future. Ideally, all kids would return after half term (as has already been the approach in Guernsey and New Zealand) and then we could all be a bit more at ease that our children haven’t missed an important term and a half of education. (Equally, I’m unsure how nurseries can return to relative normality whilst schools can’t-its not like a 6mth old-4yr old can look after itself without any close contact interaction).....a risk that nursery nurses have to accept, whilst some schools are making parents sign letters stating that their child will socially distance or else they’ll be sent home.
It’d be great if you could raise some of my concerns at your next meeting.
Kind regards, Caroline
74 Appendix 12: 6th June 2020 – Email Submission
75 76 Archived: 09 June 2020 11:07:16 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 08 June 2020 21:43:11 To: [Committees] Subject: Education in lockdown Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal
Hello
First off I should state that I am a[job redacted] who works[part-time] . Secondly I should state that I am a mum of three.. pre-school, year 1 and year 3.
I will start with a moan, but please read to the end... I believe that schools/teachers have taken a pounding of abuse on social media, now I have done everything that has been asked of me by my [Redacted] and department. So I do believe I have done my job as well as I could of. Researching what to send home, how to send it home, how much to send home was so time consuming. It was pathetic how little we all had to show for a days work. However there wasn't a book, a policy, a how to for us to follow. Some parents are delighted with what they received and others really cross. No two houses on the island are identical, so no one solution was going to ever work. Also many teachers have also undertaken a lot of CPD training which they wouldn't ever usually have time to complete. Although there is nothing to show the parents for that work.
I do know firsthand of teachers who have been in tears over the rudeness of others about why we should have been furloughed. Not just on social media, also first hand. This hasn't been a pleasant time.
I don't feel like we have been well supported by our department during this period. They didn't ask all schools to do the same thing which has left to parents being really cross about the different service we as schools provided across the island. So it is understandable that people felt angry.
So moan over ... This is my reflective response now...
I am passionate as[Redacted] about the creative curriculum, 6Rs and E4L etc.... I believe our department are equally passionate about these things... So they could have been public about years R to year 9 learning other things... We can not teach your child phonics over Microsoft TEAMS effectively so rather than try and fail (causing metal health stress for children and parents) we could have given parents a different list of "learning"... Colouring in helps fine motor skills, making models from junk helps creativity, playing a board game of an evening helps build positive relationships and resilience, having a scrap book and the freedom to investigate your our own topic creates resourcefulness. Just learning to be bored and then having to find your own fun has so much evidence that the is experience develops creativity. I could go on and on...
This period of time was never forever, no child in FS to KS3 will fall behind because of covid.. I don't know enough about higher years to comment. Our department could have stepped forward and reassured parents that all these other things are learning, really useful learning! Our department could have reassured parents it would all be okay from a central position.
We were at the time in a state of emergency! No one had a book or a policy on this. We were all making it up... Please don't loose sight of how we felt at the time when all this was going on. Hine sight is amazing, but at the time we, none of us had that.
77 It also upsets me that some schools expected children to be on screens for the whole time. I loved hearing about year 7 and 8 hub school children crafting, painting, completing team building skills etc... These are the experiences our children need (and yes I believe that 11-13 should not grown up too quickly)... These skills will build a creative generation equipped with skills for life that will see them have a resourceful outlook on life. Being in front of a screen for a full school and going home to a TV, iPad or XBox won't.
I have chosen not to follow my children's homeschooling work set by their school... because I would have found this very stressful to teach all three different things at once.
We have done an hour to 90mins of formal learning a day.. We have walked everyday, played board games everyday, baked regularly, read a lot everyday, observed in great detail the change of seasons, and crafted lots. As both a parent and a teacher I am pleased with how we have used our time in lockdown. I don't believe my own children will have fallen behind by not doing the work set by school.
Conversely I have written work for my class at school to acess. And yes, anyone trying to get any work done at home with children will have found it difficult... Fortunately teachers are used to working after their kids go to bed anyway.
My oldest had the opportunity to speak to his teacher and class on Teams, but to be honest this was a nightmare to organise. My younger two had to be in different part of the house, my husband had turned one daughters room into an office and was hiding. We were struggling with bandwidth for them both to be online at the same time. I actually missed every other meeting he was asked to attend because it was getting too much for our house to cope with. Plus aside from saying hi he wasn't getting anything out of it.
I have lots of friends who are part time mums and they have 90% enjoyed spending time with their children. (10% of our lock down time has involved crying and shouting, but then it does out if lockdown too!) Those who found it hard were full-time parents, parents with a child of school age and another under 3 years old and those who don't actually have positive relationships with their own children to start with.
This period of time was never ever going to be fair from the prospective of all children having the same experience. But it isn't fair when they are at school anyway, because children whose parents invest time and interest always do the best... Schools fine tune children but we don't raise them. Parents raise children... Parents teach children to read because a teacher can only, at best, hear each child in a class read for ten minutes tops a week. Parents teach children how to have positive relationships by how they treat others. Parents allow their child to succeed or fail at school based on their decision to value a bedtime routine and provide a quality breakfast... the list for this goes on too... To truly move education forward in the Isle of Man this is where we need a bigger focus, parents need to invest bin their children. Plenty do, and they are the ones who succeed.
So to sum up... If we could have done one thing better the department could have led us all to be a more united work force providing similar experiences for all... And... They (Geoff or Ronald) could have been to a briefing, one of Howard's briefings at 4pm and told parents that there is more to learning that sitting in front of a screen and writing on worksheets... That parents were doing okay, not every child was doing the same thing, but that didn't mean any child was learning more or less than another... For 9 school weeks of their lives we were just muddling through.. colouring, crafting, building Lego, making dens in the lounge... This was all okay - it was never forever and having an enriching childhood free from pressure that then develops poor mental health is the best gift we can give them.
78 Hope this helps, be kind... Every teacher and every parent was just trying to do their best and wants the best going forward.
Yours faithfully, [Name redacted]
79 80 Appendix 13: 7th June 2020 – Email Submission
81 82 Archived: 09 June 2020 09:35:29 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 07 June 2020 21:05:51 To: [Committees] Subject: Education provision during Covid 19 crisis Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal
Dear Sirs,
I am responding to the public invitation to comment on the above topic.
My daughter attends[School redacted] Primary School in[Redacted] and is in her reception year.
She had an extremely challenging time settling into her first year of school but had, by and large, overcome this prior to the lockdown restrictions being implemented.
She has now not been to school for the best part of 3 months and you can imagine our worry about her wellbeing when she eventually does return.
Her school have sent us weekly work sheets for us to tackle with her, but my husband and I have been working from home throughout the pandemic and so it has been difficult to schedule time to complete this homeschooling, although I have tried my very best as I don't want her to fall behind.
During this period, we have received one phone call from her teachers, and a letter from her teachers telling the class what they have been up to, but aside from the emails I have sent into school every day week with pictures of the work she has completed, and a summary of any other activities we have squeezed in, there have been no attempts to engage directly with the students or try to deliver any online teaching.
As the weeks have dragged on, it has been more and more difficult to get my 5 year old to engage with her school work, because I am simply not her teacher. She is 5, and I am her mum. She is not self sufficient and she needs more direct engagement from her teachers.
I, and many other parents are becoming more and more frustrated with this situation and there is no end in sight for us and our children as there is still no telling when her year group will be returning to school.
I want my daughter to go back to school as soon as she is allowed. It is not only her academic education and development which is suffering, but also her social development. Not only that, I do not think children's mental health and the effects of this period of isolation, is being considered at all.
Not to mention the crushing pressure upon parents working from home to deliver their children's education whilst also trying to be a balanced and good parent AND fulfill their contractual obligations to their employers.
If this situation is to carry on, the online teaching provision needs to be delivered by TEACHERS. Not left to parents to decide which bits of a worksheet they can manage to get their reluctant Reception aged child to engage with that week.
83 We have also been offered no assurances as to what will happen in regard to our children's transition into year 1. Reception is a milestone year of school for these little ones and this is being completely overlooked.
They have missed almost half of their first year at school and the effect of this upon them will be huge. There have been no communications as to how the teachers are going to help them catch up, or consideration given to the fact that these little ones might want to see their familiar reception teachers' faces when they return to school, having done all this work that they are so eager to show them. They need routine. Familiarity.
In fact the communications and reassurances to parents have been absolutely minimal.
I do not blame my daughter's teachers for this as they are absolutely wonderful and are only following direction from the school head.
But I feel as though we have been forgotten. This is my daughter's future we are talking about, her formative years which we are continually told are so critical. Yet we are being left out in the cold by some of the most important people that will shape that future.
It is not enough.
Yours faithfully,
[Name redacted]
84 Appendix 14: 7th June 2020 – Email from Samantha Eves
85 86 Archived: 09 June 2020 09:44:38 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 07 June 2020 21:41:01 To: [Committees] Subject: Delivery of education during the Coronavirus pandemic Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal
Dear Sirs
In relation to the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee this week, I would like to share my experiences with the Committee. My daughter is in Reception, and so it is only that year that I can comment on through experience.
The main issues have been as follows:
The provision of online resources by teachers was aimed at families where one or both parents were not working and therefore had time to spend home schooling their children. This has resulted in the children of parents working from home being at a disadvantage to their peers as we simply have not had the time to spend using these resources and often resorted to endless days/ weeks watching ipads and tvs. The longer this has gone on the more reluctant our children are to actually sitting down to do any school work at all. Our children should not have to suffer because their parents have continued to work through this pandemic. Not every employer can stand the cost and disruption of losing hours and hours each day for a parent to home school their child. That responsibility is and should remain with the Department for Education.
There has been a reluctance from the schools to get younger children online and engaging/ interacting with their teachers and peers, which has resulted in a significant decline in my daughters relationships with her schoolfriends and others outside of our immediate family. The excuses cited are that the children in Reception are too young and still need help from their parents even to do this. This is contrary to the message from[School redacted] who are engaging all years, including Reception, in online teaching with two lessons per day. It is not unreasonable to expect our schools to be delivering a minimum of 3 classes per week to allow for the fact we have larger class sizes.
In addition to the above, schools have been given total autonomy in relation to their approach to home schooling. This has resulted in there being huge inconsistencies across schools which has only served to frustrate parents further.
Parents are not teachers, we are not trained to teach children and certainly children are not as receptive or engaged with their parents as they are with their teachers, so the burden of home schooling should never have been passed to us, especially those working who are physically not capable of performing 2 jobs at the same time.
The general feeling amongst parents as I see it is that the provision of teaching has been totally substandard and there has been a sense of abandonment of our children.
Can you please advise if the results of the committees review will be publicly available, and if so , when.
Kind regards
Samantha Eves
87 88 Appendix 15: 8th June 2020 – Email from Fiona Fitzpatrick
89 90 Archived: 09 June 2020 10:17:18 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 08 June 2020 09:59:10 To: [Committees] Subject: Fwd: Letter from Fiona Fitzpatrick regarding back to school plans (including questions from other IOM families) Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal Attachments: Letter to Dr Allinson from Fiona Fitzpatrick.pdf ;ATT00001.htm ;
To whom it may concern,
Please find my submission for the committee’s consideration of the government’s response to ensuring a consistent and world-class education model for the island’s children during the crisis.
The submission is in the form of a letter sent to Dr. Allinson and his CEO this morning, outlining my own questions as well as those of many other IOM families.
Yours faithfully,
Fiona Fitzpatrick
Begin forwarded message:
From: fiona fitzpatrick Date: 8 June 2020 at 09:36:43 GMT+1 To: [Alex Allinson MHK; Prof Ronald Barr] Cc: "Skelly, Laurence (MHK)" Subject: Letter from Fiona Fitzpatrick regarding back to school plans (including questions from other IOM families)
Dear Dr Allinson,
I hope this finds you well.
Please find attached a letter outlining my questions (and those of some other IOM families) regarding the plans for education over the coming months.
91 Many thanks for your consideration,
Yours sincerely,
Fiona Fitzpatrick
92 [Contact details redacted]
8 June 2020
Dear Dr Allison,
Following our exchange via your Facebook page last week, I wanted to share my thoughts in a letter to you and your Executive team. With this in mind, I asked other families (via social media) if they had any questions they wanted me to share with you. I hope that this will be of some help when preparing future public briefings.
I will detail my thoughts and questions at the top of this letter, and list the questions from the other families below.
It’s important to me to begin by saying thank you to you and to everyone in Tynwald who has been involved in the Isle of Man’s response to the Corona virus crisis. We all realize that this is a novel and complex situation, and that we are all learning as we are going. My family is immensely proud of the government’s response across most sectors.
However, in terms of the plan to return the Island’s children to their schools, there are some questions that many of us feel are unanswered.
With the impending end-of-term milestone at the end of July, the uncertainty over who is going to be allowed back – and when - is causing some anxiety. We and other parents are concerned that if our children do not get the opportunity to go back to school before the end of term, that they will have been off for half of the school year, with very little educational support from schools or the Department. This is concerning both in terms of their education and their mental wellbeing.
From speaking to several teachers, my understanding is that some schools are forging ahead and putting their own plans in place, while others feel that they are in the dark and are awaiting your direction. We understand that it has been necessary to evaluate many moving criteria, and so must have been complex to plan anything in minute detail with any degree of certainty.
However, now we are in the superb position of having no cases of the virus for three weeks, a position that many countries in the world must envy. This means that the set of moving criteria has now stabilized:
• The rate of likely continued staff absence must now be known (those who need to continue to shield) • We know the size and capacity of each school • We know the total number of pupils; the number in each industry-sector cohort and the number in each school year. • Each school has - I believe - a good idea of the number of pupils whose families would wish them to return as soon as they are eligible. • We know that the social distancing rule will be reduced to 1m from the 15th of June.
1 93
Therefore we have the variables at our disposal to make all the calculations necessary, and it must now be possible to publish a pupil/date-specific roadmap for the return to school. This must go further than the phased-return table that was published this week, which omits three key considerations:
• Provisional dates for each sector or class to return • Certain professions that don’t seem to have a place in any categorization • Clarity as to whether schools should move ahead quickly and devise what the return to their own school looks like, using your suggestions on the updated roadmap; or whether they are awaiting clear and detailed directions from you.
As I said to you in last week’s email, I think everyone will understand if this new roadmap needs to change due to e.g. a change in Covid-19 case rates. However, a clear detailed roadmap would be of great help in managing parents’ and children’s expectations and anxieties.
My own questions to you are as follows:
1. Please can you publish your plan to get all children back to school by end of July? You have communicated that your intention is to get ALL children back to school by the end of term (ref. an email response to a question posed by one of the mums on the Island). The current information published on the Department of Education website is not enough for us to understand how this will be possible.
2. Please could you extend and clarify employment-sector definitions? Many of the schools are unable to tell parents which sector their job falls into, and therefore whether their children are eligible to go back, or in which week they can go back. My partner and I are both consultants to industry (Food and Energy sectors) - please could you let me know what sector our children sit in?
3. Please can you confirm schools’ level of flexibility in terms of implementing Social Distancing? In the updated information on the Dept. of Ed. website, you make reference to schools making their own judgment-calls around the flexibility they might need to show in certain contexts in terms of implementing social distancing. Can you confirm that the schools are clear that they have this flexibility?
4. Will there be online teaching hours to support those at home going forward? In the updated version of the Dept. of Ed Roadmap to the Gradual Expansion of School Provision, you suggest that schools should consider the feasibility of asking staff who are working from home whether they can take on the online teaching hours that would be necessary to support those at home. I’m not sure this happened much, perhaps you can confirm? But most importantly, can you confirm the plan for this going forward? If available staff are back at school from the 15th, who will be available to teach, coach or even check in with those children at home, who (certainly at primary level) have had very little contact with their schools up until this point?
5. What is your Department’s plan for pupils to catch up? Is the Department taking a position on how the Island’s schools should approach catching up on the lost time, or should each school take their own position on this? Should children be held back for some time before moving up to the next year? Should they continue on to the next year and catch up on the work they have missed before they start their new work? Will there be Summer School? If so, when and how?
2 94
6. Can you please confirm that you will commit to developing a pre-emptive plan for managing remote schooling from this autumn? It is likely that we are going to find ourselves in some kind of lockdown or distancing situation again, come autumn or winter. It is imperative that our children don’t find themselves in the situation they have just experienced: no school for potentially 5 months; zero contact hours with teachers for many; and for some, zero clarity on whether they will return before September. It is therefore essential that a future-proofed lockdown plan is developed for education.
7. If reduced staff numbers due to shielding are a limiting factor in supplying a world- class education solution to the crisis going forward, please could you publish your plan to address this?
Thank you for a detailed response to each of my questions above, your time and consideration is very much appreciated. Below I have listed additional questions and concerns from the other families that have contacted me. Each bullet point represents a point or question from a different parent. I know that they would appreciate a response on all of these questions too.
Yours sincerely,
Fiona Fitzpatrick.
3 Children
Questions from other parents are on the next page.
3 95 Questions received from other parents:
Questions relating to coherence of approach and communication: ⁃ I’d like to ask: why are all schools seemingly doing things differently? According to the comments above. Why aren’t children being treated with equality? Why are some parents hearing from schools and others aren't? ⁃ I think my biggest issue is the inconsistency between each school on this matter. There should be a mandatory minimum that all schools should have been providing and will provide for this ongoing period. And I think this should involve video lessons or social calls etc. ⁃ Some schools have sent out details of what to expect if your child couldn’t or wouldn’t be back before September, others are in the dark. ⁃ In terms of the back to school plan, why do we hear one thing in the press conferences from the CM, another via emails from Dr Allinson, and something else in his press releases?
Concerns relating to the published plans for return to school: ⁃ We need specific dates on when all years go back.. not just "they hope to get the remaining years back "...this is not good enough and we should be told dates. ⁃ They can be specific on dates on other issues and need to be on this. ⁃ They need to be able to give is dates so we can plan and also tell the kids because at the moment it's so up in the air.
Concerns relating to the lack of provision of an island-specific online learning offer ⁃ I would like to know what provisions are being made for those children who are in the year groups that can’t yet go back? By way of virtual lessons? Zoom calls etc. Surely this is a possibility? ⁃ If you could also add in the letter the question if there is a plan to reform education. We don’t know what the winter be like, let alone other viruses. There is technology available and in my opinion it is an opportunity to include it in education. Home learning, as is today, is terrible. There will be vulnerable children, there will be bugs, it should be possible to include them all, even if they have to stay home for a while... and it can be as close a September. ⁃ Maybe I am misunderstanding the situation but for the years not returning, won’t their teachers have capacity to do lessons via video or even pre- recorded? I’m not expecting a full day each day of virtual teaching but there has to be some sort of provision for the children unable to return. And to help support parents trying to school at home (especially when working full time while trying to do this!) I understand their predicament from the 15th June, but I can’t understand why for the last ⁃ 9wks there hasn’t been a provision for at least some face to face learning for children who can access it. I think all most have received is web links and PDFs, but no sort of lesson plan or “it’d be good to cover this for the week” or this is what we’d normally look to have covered by the end of the year. Private schools and some UK schools have been much quicker at putting online classes in place and more structure. I just think parents have largely been left to it and i really feel for those working from home full time whilst trying to school their children/look after younger siblings etc and trying not to constantly feel like they’re failing. Realistically with only 6wks left not all kids (esp the likes of yr3, yr5) are returning if the current circumstances of no cases for over 2wks and no active cases in the community hasn’t justified a change in the government stance/teachers union stance then I don’t see what will. Ultimately when the boarders do open during the summer hols or post summer hols there will likely be another bunch of cases so are parents and children of non key workers just expected to multitask for the foreseeable future. Ideally all kids would return after half term (as has been the approach in Guernsey and New Zealand) and then we could all go into the summer hols feeling a bit more energetic and prepared
4 96
Confusion and concern around who is eligible to go back to school and when: ⁃ If we’re both key workers, even though we’re working from home, when can they return? My daughter needs some structure and support in her learning and we’re struggling to provide this. There’s a lot of iPad time happening and she’s very fed up of being alone all day. we also classify as key workers but our head teacher didn't believe key worker status applied to us and had told us our daughter cannot go back before the rest of her year group (reception) Seems like the school heads can interpret the regs to their own end. on govt website it states finance sector workers are key workers but the definition is very broad. Head Teacher was having none of it. ⁃ I think the autonomy of individual schools is part of the wider problem. Each is a separate legal entity so makes own rules ⁃ My daughter’s school made it clear that if a parent is at home during the day, key worker or not, then the child should stay at home ⁃ Who is supposed to decide, the school or the Department?
Concerns relating to September returns ⁃ I think it would also be good to know their plans for September, would the current years that are going back still be going back in September? For example my daughters in year 2 but will obviously be year 3 come September, so will she be going back to year 2 in September or will it be the new year 2’s? ⁃ What will happen to next year? How will they grade the kids this year to move into next year? ⁃ Totally agree. none of the kids are ready to.go up a year as they have missed out so much ⁃ I have the same worry. No plans of the time it if going to take to a) get them back to where they were when they left b) get them to the end of their academic year and c) start the new academic year. How do they propose over 18m of teaching into 1 academic year?
Concerns relating to Social Distancing in Schools ⁃ Also I think social distancing within bubbles will be crazy for young children. Can children play freely and normally within their own bubbles? ⁃ I agree with others that kids mental wellbeing is becoming the key concern now. ⁃ Could you ask that now social distancing will be down to one metre if the schools inside will be back to normal and not the one way systems etc..David Ashford has already said the WHO evidence is that kids do not spread or pass onto adults.. given the figures we have how can they .justify these measures still in schools..will do the kids mental health just unnecessary damage and the end of their year an unpleasant experience ⁃ I’d like to know why they are removing books, toys and resources from classrooms and enforcing social distancing, to the point that the Head Teacher at my daughter's school had told another parent, that parents will have to sign a contract confirming their children will social distance and if they don't they will be called and asked to collect their child from school, when this wasn't done in Hub Schools? ⁃ I completely agree. By far the greatest risk to children is to their mental health. One of the desks in the Reception/Yr1 class is facing a wall, literally up against it. The poor child who gets that desk will have to face the wall all day as we've been told children have to sit at their desks all day, even to eat lunch.
Provision for Children this summer: ⁃ Summer School : Will their be summer school for those who want it to catch up on school work?
5 97 ⁃ MSR - will it be open? ⁃ Which other venues for children will be open? They have been locked up with not much to do for so long, pubs and restaurants are opening, so what else can open for children? ⁃ Summer Camps: Which summer camps will be allowed?
Concerns relating to hand washing advice in Schools: ⁃ What is the Department’s recommendation to schools? Lots of concern over children’s hands being red-raw and washing every 10 mins.
Questions around support for children who are SEN or have support from Nurture groups: ⁃ I’d like to know what support will be provided to children who are SEN or have support from Nuture groups during part of their school. Any info at all on this would be helpful as I don’t think that any briefings have covered it up date? Thank you.
Uniforms: ⁃ Could you please ask about uniforms? I would like to wash their clothes every day but that'll be really hard with uniform! Could children wear their own clothes for a while?
Childminders: ⁃ Can Childminders collect my children from school?
School deep cleans: ⁃ Can you ask for confirmation that the schools have been deep cleaned and who inspected after if they did. Some schools have in a very sorry state.
6 98 Appendix 16: 8th June 2020 – Email from Fiona Cleator
99 100 Archived: 09 June 2020 10:24:49 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 08 June 2020 15:04:41 To: [Committees] Cc: [Contact details redacted] Subject: Education provision during the emergency period Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal
Dear Committee
We fully supported the decision to close the schools. The communication regarding closing the schools and general communication surrounding all matters in relation to education has been poor. As a business owner and employer, key worker and parents of three school going children aged under eight, it has been very challenging with the last minute communication on what was happening in relation to the schools.
We made the decision not to send our children to their hub school due to the unfamiliar environment and the message at the outset, that the focus was not on educating the children. Now that their own school is reopening, we are pleased to resend them on 17th as both of us are key workers. The communication surrounding the return is not acceptable. We still do not know what they need to do? What time do they return, is it going to be staggered as suggested, do they wear uniform or their own clothes? What will happen when they get to school? What is a bubble? How will it work? Will the teachers be in PPE? Who will be their teacher? As a parent the he list of unanswered questions goes on. We feel we are not an interested party. It is as if, the Government and the Department of Education are the only interested party.
It worries us that the pubs are to open next week and there is still no clear education strategy on when the children will get back to their own classrooms. There is something not quite right about this. Education is the foundation of everything in society, not to mention the mental health of the children and their need to socially interact with their peers.
There is a school of thought that some of the education unions are digging their heels in so they can use the current pandemic as leverage to agree their requested measures. If there is any truth to this, it would be morally wrong as this is not a time to champion one’s agenda!
At the beginning of May, when it was mentioned that things may not return to normal even after September this provoked us to communicate with our school. We as parents were making do but if there was no end in sight, purely, making do, is not acceptable. At this point we realised that each school were left to decide their own agenda for each year. In industry such an approach would not be acceptable, as every school is trying to devise a programme to say to teach year 3 although every year 3 school on the Island follow the same curriculum. A huge duplication of effort. Surely certain schools could have been tasked with the best approach to teach a certain year and with this specialism a better end result would be gained.
We felt that the week should be broken down into essential work, desirable and additional learning for those parents who are not working full time and have the ability to teach their children from 9 until 3.30 as per the proposed timetable for our children. The time it took to prepare a weeks learning x 3 was purely unacceptable. Our children are of an age where computer based learning is suitable for fun items but not for all their work.
101 It is important to kick start the Manx economy and as necessary all workers should now be back at work, whether that is home based or office based. Whichever way as an employer, our staff are not available to work, if they are expected to home school.
We understand change is constant at present. As long as we maintain closed borders and together with the medical evidence on spread from children, we feel we are safe to send the children back to school at this moment. The retail sector have been working throughout this period and the amazing NHS key workers, why should teachers be treated differently, when they cannot do the majority of their job remotely.
If anything changes or the borders open there may be a need to close the schools again but this is our best opportunity and we must seize this moment.
We are happy to input further if necessary.
Yours faithfully
Ryan and Fiona Cleator [Contact details redacted]
102 Appendix 17: 8th June 2020 – Email Submission
103 104 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 08 June 2020 20:28 To: committees Subject: Scrutiny of education during the emergency period - submission
Dear Members
I would like to offer a few comments in relation to the provision of education during the emergency period.
I am the father of two daughters aged 10 & 9, both attending the same state primary school. One is in [Redacted] other in [Redacted] although in this school the two year groups are combined into [Redacted] combined classes.
In brief, I have been rather disappointed with the provision of online learning and the levels of teacher interaction since the lockdown.
The last day that my daughters attended school was Friday March 13th, nearly 3 months ago. We took them out of school from Monday 16th March, ahead of the formal closure, because we did not feel that it was fair on the teachers given the environment around the virus at that time.
Since then we have had one phone call from the teacher of one of my daughters. Even accounting for a class size of 25-30 pupils I believe that a more proactive approach should have been provided for pupil/teacher interaction in the three months since that time. Even the offer of a weekly video call for 10-15 minutes would have been welcomed and I believe this would be practical to deliver. I am not sure why this kind of interaction was not offered and whether there was some kind of directive from the Department in this respect.
In terms of online access to learning materials, there was the launch of the It’s Learning platform, which has at least provided some semblance of learning offering for primary age children, though it is no substitute for teaching. We received notification of the launch of this portal on April 16th, one month after the closure of schools. Up until that point there had been no advice offered from the school or the Department.
However even despite the best endeavours of two parents working full-time, this becomes a mere portal for offering activities to keep them occupied, it's not formal learning. For example I have been trying to support them with maths. However the process they use for arithmetic is very different to how I learned many years ago. We have become so concerned by the lack of structured learning that we are now paying for a teacher to provide 1 hour maths tuition per week for each of my daughters, ironically this is provided via Skype and works perfectly well. Both daughters are completely engaged for their own hour of learning.
The levels of teacher interaction on It’s Learning are also fairly minimal in our experience. One assignment is set per week and once submitted the teacher provides a short paragraph of feedback.
I do not blame the teachers as they are, on the whole, excellent, and my kids respond very well to the and have a huge amount of respect for them, as I do. However I do wonder what kind of overarching guidance and resources are being offered to enable the teachers to be able to offer effective online teaching/pupil interaction.
A few year ago the Isle of Man Government touted itself as being at the forefront of e-learning. The success of the Manx ComputerBus and the use of Apple products by students and teachers were showcased as evidence of this. Even now there is an Apple Regional Training Centre at St Ninian’s School. At a broader level the Government has been very keen in recent years to push the Island as a world-class tech hub, as evidenced by the PR push around the desire to position the Isle of Man as a Silicon Valley in the Irish Sea https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-new-silicon-valley-emerges-in-the-irish-sea-bhsdpb093 . Yet it seems that our ‘product’ now lags behind our messaging.
I have two nephews at [School redacted] In my mind there is no doubt that the state schools offer a more advanced infrastructure in terms of technology. Yet, they seem to be enjoying a level of formal education ( several hours live online classes per week) which is way ahead of what has been offered to state school students, certainly when compared to primary level.
105 Like many parents I know, we just feel that the best interests of our children have been ignored. The Minister for Education stipulated in the press briefing of 8th June, when asked to compare the Isle of Man to New Zealand’s approach (full opening of schools, no social distancing) that there's a lot of fear among parents around reopening of schools.” I would be keen to see the evidence of this as we have never been asked for our opinion either by the school or the Department.
Best Regards [Name redacted]
106 Appendix 18: 8th June 2020 – ‘A Word from Will’ Bulletin from Mr Will Greenhow, Chief Secretary – Education and Other Topics
107 108 ------Forwarded message ------From: "IoM Government Bulletin" Date: Mon, Jun 8, 2020 at 6:17 PM +0100 Subject: Internal Mail - Statement to Tynwald | Education update | Travel on compassionate grounds | Emergency powers | Places of worship | The curve
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8 June 2020
A word from Will
Hello,
There are a few updates to share with you since my last blog.
Firstly, the Chief Minister gave his regular coronavirus update to Tynwald at its extraordinary sitting last Friday. The Chief Minister took members through recent changes to our coronavirus measures, as well as setting out what is likely to change in the weeks ahead. As I mentioned last week, the 15 June will be a key date. You can read the Chief Minister's statement to Tynwald here.
The Chief Minister led today's coronavirus briefing. Education was the key theme, with the Chief Minister joined by Minister for Education, Sport and Culture Dr Alex Allinson MHK and Schools Improvement Officer Chrissy Callaghan.
The statements are available to read from the Chief Minister, Minister Allinson and
109 Chrissy Callaghan.
Some key dates in terms of children returning to nursery, childcare, and school: Monday 15 June - all school sites reopen to finalise preparations for pupils and students to return
Monday 15 June - all children can return to childcare and nursery, however this is likely to be phased by providers to ensure that it is sustainable and safe
Wednesday 17 June - students and pupils attending hub schools return to their normal school
Monday 22 June - all year 2 and 6 pupils and years 10 and 11 students return to their own schools, full time. Further updates will follow on the return of other year groups, but the intention is for reception and year 9 children to be the next to return, followed by years 1, 4 and 8 and shortly afterwards years 3, 5 and 7.
Attendance at school is optional until the start of the next school year in September.
The Chief Minister outlined three other developments following today's meeting of the Council of Ministers:
Travel on compassionate grounds From 11 June, the grounds on which Manx residents will be allowed to travel and return to the Island for compassionate reasons will be broadened. Such as for child visitation, support for an unwell parent etc.
Applications will also be considered from non-Manx residents to travel to the Island on compassionate grounds. Such as providing support for vulnerable residents, or dealing with the estates of deceased Manx family members.
110 Both situations will require prior clearance from the Cabinet Office repatriation team, and the fourteen day quarantine period will be in place.
Emergency powers Work is well underway to invite the Lieutenant Governor to lift the state of emergency, however some regulations currently in place under the Emergency Powers Act will need to remain - such as border restrictions.
The Council of Ministers will be working with all members of Tynwald on the options for this, ahead of a debate in Tynwald.
Places of worship A clarification was made that the Government is not dictating whether churches and places of worship can open. This is now for each religious institution to decide for themselves.
Will Greenhow Chief Secretary
Monitoring the curve
111
The graphs above are correct as at 4pm on Monday 8 June. Click them to view the full size versions which are available on the Latest Updates page at gov.im/coronavirus.
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113 Statement of the Chief Minister
Good afternoon
I wanted to give the Health & Social Care Minister a break from today’s briefing. He is doing the rest of the briefings this week with either me or other colleagues. I am sure he will be watching and checking how we do.
I am however delighted to have the Dr Alex Allinson, Minister of Education, Sport & Culture, and Mrs Chrissy Callaghan who is a Schools Improvement Officer who will update us about nurseries and childminders.
First of all today’s numbers:
The total number of tests undertaken is 5,282 We have had 5,252 tests returned Which means there are 30 outstanding There have been 336 confirmed cases There are no new cases today. Meaning that we are now on day nineteen of no new cases We have no active cases
We continue to have excellent results. And I am grateful to you all for this. It has been a team effort. Please take a moment to realise the significance of what we have achieved as an Island.
The Council of Ministers met this morning. I have three issues that arose from that meeting to update you on. And I will like to look ahead briefly to the Council of Ministers meeting on Thursday.
Before I do so, I would like to hand over to the Minister of Education, Sports & Culture for an update.
Thank you Alex. As I said in Tynwald last week, there is a tough balance to get right here. I know that some parents are frustrated that their children may not be able to go back full time and straight away after half term. I understand that. The Department and our head teachers are working hard to provide as much as possible as soon as possible.
Equally, there are parents who are not ready to send their children back. I understand that also. This is why we have made attendance optional until the next school year.
Turning to other issues, there were two decisions at this morning’s Council of Ministers that I would like to share with you.
First, regarding compassionate travel. While the border remains closed, as you will know we have sought to help those people with genuine and urgent compassionate cases make the journeys they need.
Today, we agreed that we would broaden the guidance on the types of compassionate reasons that we can consider. The period of fourteen days quarantine will remain in place. And prior permission will have to be obtained.
114 People have of course never been prevented from leaving the Island. It has been the return that we have had to regulate in order to prevent anyone unwillingly bringing the virus back with them.
From 11 June, we will slightly change the categories to allow Manx residents to travel and return for overriding personal, family or health requirements. This could now for example include child visitation, support for an unwell parent etc.
We will also consider applications from non-Manx residents to travel to the Island in order to provide support for elderly, frail or otherwise vulnerable residents. This would also cover anyone who needs to travel to the Island to deal with the estates of deceased Manx family members.
Please let me repeat, exemptions in any of these categories will require prior clearance from the Cabinet Office repatriation team. And the fourteen day quarantine period will remain on return.
The second thing from the Council of Ministers meeting about which I would like to brief you is the discussion we had about our plan to bring an end to the Emergency Period.
In Tynwald on Friday, I told members that as we emerge out of the health emergency, we also need to emerge out of the emergency powers we currently have in place.
The powers were brought in for a reason. As government, we needed the ability to move quickly and decisively to deal with the threat of the virus.
But like so much relating to COVID, exiting from the emergency is far more complex that getting into it.
We want to get to a place as soon as possible where we can ask the Lieutenant Governor to lift the emergency. But when he does, all the powers in place will fall. While we are ready for some to fall, others remain important to keep our people safe. If the emergency period ended tomorrow, we would for example lose the ability to maintain our borders closed and to require people to quarantine when they return.
We have come up with a way to put some of the powers we need to maintain into existing legislation. Others we will put into temporary regulations that will allow those powers we do need for a little longer but should not need in the long term.
We will be working with all members of Tynwald on this plan ahead of a proper debate next week. If members agree, we will be able to invite the Lieutenant Governor to lift the emergency. He may need to extend the state of emergency a little longer while we put this important plan in place.
Exiting the emergency period as soon as possible is the right thing to do. But we need to make sure we retain the ability to continue to protect our Island and if necessary to deal with any future outbreaks.
And thirdly, a point of clarification on churches and other places of worship. The Council of Ministers has agreed some time ago that we would no longer dictate how they went about their business. It is for each religious institution to decide for themselves when and how they open.
115 Just before I take questions, I would like to take a quick look at the week ahead. This is all of course subject to change.
The next briefing will be on Wednesday where the Minister of Health & Social Care will take questions directly from the public. These are proving to be very popular. The Education Minister did one last week. If you are interested in taking part in this, please email [email protected].
I will be back on Thursday with the Health & Social Care Minister to brief you on the outcome of the Council of Ministers meeting. I hope to be able to bring you an update on the changes that will happen on 15th June – including the reset of our social distancing guidance.
Friday will see the Health Minister back in the hot seat supported by Kathryn Magson, the Chief Executive of the Department of Health & Social Care.
I will now take questions.
Thank you. Two shout outs today.
First, following national volunteering week, this weekend saw National Specials Weekend marked by Police forces across the UK, paying tribute to the Special Constables who give up their own free time to volunteer as police officers.
The Isle of Man is lucky to have a dedicated team of Special Constables who I know give huge amounts of their time each year helping our Constabulary and keeping our community safe. Their contribution has been particularly valued over the past few months. Thank you.
The second is for the Big Manx Community Project who have put together a wonderful tribute to the amazing strength of our Island community during COVID-19. It is called 'Howard's Heroes' and is set to the tune of the Laxey Wheel song, Well done to everyone involved in producing this and for the money raised for worthy causes. We will play the video at the end of this briefing, so do stick around and watch it.
So thanks to the Big Manx Community Project. And thanks to all of you for getting us to where we are. You are amazing.
Keep on making the right decisions for you and your loved ones. It is not over yet. But we are getting there.
Have a great week. And please stay safe.
116 Statement of Minister Allinson
Thank you Chief Minister.
The Department for Education, Sport and Culture have been working closely with teachers and other key staff to allow the island’s children to return to their schools.
On Monday 15 all our schools will re-open and those currently in the hubs will return to their local school on the 17.
From Monday 22 June all year 2 and 6 pupils and year 10 and 12 students will be able to return to their own school full time.
I have been contacted by many parents anxious about whether their children will be able to go back to school before the end of this term.
I would like to apologise for any uncertainty and recognise that parents want to have definite dates to plan around.
A large amount of work has been done preparing schools.
Classrooms have been altered, extra hand washing facilities installed and enhanced cleaning regimes devised to ensure our schools are safe places for all pupils and staff.
I would like to thank Mrs Fiona Fitzpatrick for a letter she sent today which included a range of questions from many parents who have been discussing their children’s education online.
She asked us to publish a clear plan to enable all children to return to their schools by the end of July. Next week we will be in a much better position to make sure our schools have the capacity to do this. Classes will be smaller and more self-contained. Staff have been redeployed and lunch times staggered. Whilst I know New Zealand has abandoned the need for social distancing, on the Isle of Man we need to keep our guard up at this time and make sure that we are prepared for any recurrence of the virus. But we will be reviewing the guidance to schools with Public Health and if the health situation remains stable will accelerate the intention to allow reception and year 9 children to return, followed by years 1,4 and 8 and shortly afterwards years 3,5 and 7.
Another question was about developing a plan to manage remote learning. The current health emergency has amplified existing differences between schools use of online educational resources. A lot of development has been done in a short period of time and I would like to thanks teachers for all the work they have put towards supporting parents during this difficult period. We need to share this best practice and introduce a more coherent approach so every parent knows what they can expect from their school.
One of the most important questions was about the effect the closure of schools not only had on a child’s education, but also potentially on their social development and mental health. Children will need to be reassured when they come back to their classroom and teachers will need to spend time exploring their experiences and getting them used to being able to mix again with their friends. The Safer Schools app has been updated to help with this transition and psychological support is available if needed.
117 At the start of the pandemic there was no question that schools needed to close, but now as they reopen there are many more questions about how pupils will be kept safe and their educational needs met. I will be working with teachers to ensure they have the necessary guidance and support they need to teach and support the children of our island.
From today nurseries and child-minders will start welcoming more young children back to their care. I would now like to introduce Chrissy Callaghan from the department to outline the plans already in place to re-start these services.
Thank you Chrissy. Today sees the opening of applications for pre-school credits which is another way this Government is supporting working families. Parents can apply online at the government website or submit a written application at either the Welcome Centre or the department headquarters in Douglas.
I would now like to hand you back to the Chief Minister.
118 Statement of Chrissy Callaghan
Thank you Minister and good afternoon everyone,
We have over 50 Registered Nurseries and Playgroups and 75 Registered Childminders on the island at present and I would like to start by offering a huge thank you to all of those practitioners who work within the Childcare Sector on our island. Within our nurseries, playgroups and childminder settings we have a wonderful group of dedicated, caring and enthusiastic practitioners
As I’m sure you will appreciate with the advent of the Covid 19 Pandemic this has been an extremely challenging, emotional and worrying time for all childcare providers as well as for families and their children. We were all plunged into a new world without much warning and have had to adapt quickly and continue to adapt to an ever changing normal. A ‘new‘ normal!
Some providers have remained open throughout this time to care for the children of other key workers and are to be commended for being so flexible, resourceful and resilient in continually adapting the practice within their settings in order to ensure the safety and well- being of the children in their care.
Other providers have remained closed during this time for a variety of reasons. However, many of these settings have continued to keep in contact and maintain a relationship with the children and their families during this time through the power of technology.
For those pre-school children due to transition into school in September this would be the term for visits into school and for the staff of Nurseries, Playgroups and Childminders to meet up with teachers to carefully prepare for this transition. Many providers and schools have already started to do this remotely in a range of creative ways and this will continue over the summer term in order to continue to prepare your child for school.
At present we have 15 nurseries and one before and after school provider open and 35 childminders.
These providers have been supported during this time by the Early Years Advisory Team at the Department of Education, Sport and Culture and the Inspection Team from the Department of Health and Social Care’s Registration and Inspection Unit. This has included the development of a comprehensive guidance document to support those providers who are beginning to re-open and those who have remained open to gradually expand their provision. This is being followed up by a Webinar for the Childcare Sector hosted by the Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday evening.
As you will have heard during the Chief Minister’s Press Conference last Thursday, childcare has opened up to the children of those parents working within the retail sector from today and will open to all children on Monday 15.
However, this does not mean that all children will be able to return on the 15 June. This would not be practical, safe or in the best interests of the staff or children in their care.
As we know all children are different and you may find that some children make the transition back into their setting more easily leaving their parents with a quick hug and a kiss whilst others may need more support. For some children being at home for such an extended
119 period of time without their normal routines may mean they experience some anxiety on separating from their parents or indeed socialising with other adults or children.
We would like to ask parents to acknowledge and understand that this may mean that some children will be phased back into their childcare setting over a longer period of time but that this is with the best interests of their child and the staff in mind. Please work with your nursery, playgroup or childminder in order to ensure this process is as smooth and as seamless as possible.
The early years sector identifies that young children cannot be expected to physically distance from each other, and much of their early years development relies on the interactions and close connections with both adults and other children which is essential for their well- being and development. The emphasis for this age group is the grouping of children into smaller groups and a focus on enhanced hygiene routines and cleaning.
This meant a lot of planning and preparation behind the scenes by providers in order to ensure these protocols are in place.
I would also like to ask parents to support providers by keeping your children at home if they have a temperature or Covid like symptoms or to collect you child from their nursery, playgroup or childminder if they develop a temperature or fall ill when asked to do so by staff. If in doubt keep your child at home and call 111 if you need further help and support. This way we will ensure the safety of everyone and continue to make the remarkable progress we have on our island.
In conclusion, I would like to give a big shout out to all of those people working in our Nursery, Playgroups and Childminders, our Early Years Support heroes. We have an early year’s sector to be proud of. Thank you for everything you do for the children and families on our island.
120 Appendix 19: 8th June 2020 – Email Submission
121 122 Archived: 09 June 2020 11:11:32 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 08 June 2020 23:56:05 To: [Committees] Cc: [Contact details redacted] Subject: Education Provision Submission - Public Accounts Committee 12th June Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal
Dear Sir/Madam,
I would be grateful for the following thoughts and questions to be considered by the Education Provision Public Accounts Committee on Friday 12th June please.
A. DISPARITY OF EDUCATION PROVISION DURING LOCKDOWN
As a parent of two children at[School redacted] , I would like the Committee to note that I have been extremely concerned by the limited provision of quality, structured, teacher-led lessons and assignments and lack of contact with class teachers for the majority of lockdown. I would also like the Committee to note my concerns regarding the disparity between the provision of education at[School redacted] and that at other island and UK schools.
Specifically, I would be grateful if the Minister could please answer the questions below.
Firstly, I have provided some context. I hope this is useful.
Background context
My children attend [School redacted]
Education Provision received to date:
• We have had no teacher-led classes or online sessions with the Children’s’ teacher for the whole duration of lockdown.
• We received no structured, planned, curriculum-based, daily or weekly lessons until the last few weeks.
• We had no direct access or contact details for our children’s teacher so could not contact them directly with regards to our children’s learning until the past few weeks.
• We did receive a couple of pages of activity ideas with some (minimal) supporting resources at the start of lockdown, a couple more at Easter and a couple more in May. There was no specific plan or instructions for specific lessons or curriculum links and no follow up or marking.
• More recently,[School redacted] has introduced an online platform that provides a daily video lesson and quiz in key subjects for each year group. They have also provided contact details for class teachers to Parents and have arranged for teachers to call parents & students occasionally to check in. This is welcome progress. However, it does not address why more wasn’t done earlier to ensure [School redacted] children were not left behind.
123 • Last week, we had our first and only online meeting with[School redacted] in the form of a virtual Zoom assembly. This was another step in the right direction but was also not reassuring when the Executive Head said he was proud of what the teachers had delivered so far and that (depending on the success of the Zoom Assembly), they ‘might trickle in’ the introduction of ‘occasional’ small group sessions with teachers. If our children do not return to school in the next few weeks, this does not inspire confidence that they will be receiving a marked improvement in education provision by class teachers.
Impact for[School redacted] parents and children
• Parents with no knowledge of education, curriculum, learning styles or their child’s current progress levels have had to try to plan, deliver and mark appropriately challenging learning activities for their children. This is difficult even for those with a certain level of education and plenty of free time. For those who are also juggling to work a full time job or for those whose forte might not be academic, this is nigh on impossible.
• Many[School redacted] children have had very little structured education provision for a large part of lockdown.
• It is likely that[School redacted] children will be significantly behind their island and UK peers who have continued regular daily and weekly, structured remote learning.
Why education provision was limited for [School redacted]
• I contacted the school early on raising my concerns about the lack of academic support.
• I was told that teachers had been redeployed so they did not have the capacity to do more to support the children.
• I therefore contacted my MHKs and Manx Radio to ask for my concerns to be considered and addressed by the Minister and Department. His response to my MHK[Name redacted] and in his radio interview was that it was the responsibility of individual schools and their HeadTeachers to plan and deliver education. They were not in a position to get involved or tell them what to do.
• However, given that Headteachers and class teachers were carrying out alternative responsibilities as requested by the Government, surely that makes the Government responsible for plugging the gap and addressing the growing disparity that this caused? The usual premise of Headteacher’s being responsible and accountable for their own school surely cannot fairly be applied when they have been deployed elsewhere.
Questions for the Minister and PAC to consider
1. The Minister has acknowledged the disparity between schools who were struggling and schools that have risen to the challenge of successfully delivering remote education during lockdown. Given that this disparity was apparent, why did the Department of Education not do more, sooner, to support the schools who were struggling (e.g. providing guidance or technology support and training, ensure redeployed staff were allowed to return to their class teaching responsibilities etc.) ? Doesn’t the Department of Education play some part and share some responsibility with schools for ensuring that there is fair and equal access to good quality education for all children on the island?
124 2. What support will the Department offer going forward for schools, children and parents to help address this disparity and plug the potential learning deficit for those children who have received less structured, teacher-led education and contact with their teachers and classmates during lockdown than others?
3. If the Government was responsible for redeploying teachers from their roles as teachers, should it not also be responsible for addressing the education deficit that this has potentially caused?
4. How were some schools able to adapt and deliver remote learning effectively and promptly while others, such as[School redacted] struggled to do this?
5. Was[School redacted] impacted more significantly than other schools in terms of a greater percentage of teaching staff being redeployed? Does[School redacted] have more limited access to or training in the use of technology?
6. Why have some schools been using It’s Learning and/or other online tools since lockdown began and others, such as[School redacted] have not? Should this not have been made available to ALL students and their teachers?
B. RETURN TO SCHOOL
We are wholeheartedly supportive of the return to school for children, providing that appropriate hygiene, cleaning and social distancing rules are applied.
Playtime and P.E. might be the greatest risks so I would like to ask the Committee how these will be managed.
7. Will there be guidance provided to schools or additional support staff hired to run organised games or activities to help young children maintain their distance at playtime?
Final Note One final note, I think very highly of the Head of[School redacted] I work closely with him in the [School redacted] equivalent of a PTA[Redacted] and have worked closely with him settling my sons and helping one with a SEN issue. I do not intend this to be a slur on the commitment and ability of the Head of School to deliver excellent levels of quality education and social emotional support to[School redacted] children. Both my sons, prior to lockdown, have progressed enormously at[School redacted] academically and social emotionally. They have attended 4 Primary schools prior[School redacted] (two excellent schools in[Redacted] , [Redacted] and two in[Redacted] ) so we are well versed, firsthand, in different educational approaches, education leadership and teaching styles. The boys have thrived more at[School redacted] than any of their previous schools and the Head of School at[School redacted] is a significant reason for their progress. He is an asset to the school and[School redacted] .
What I do want to understand, is how lockdown could limit and, for a long time, almost completely stop the provision of regular, structured, teacher-led education for[School redacted] students when other schools have managed to continue to deliver remote offerings from early on.
I would like to understand why the Department of Education did not do more to address this disparity and support the school and families within in.
125 I also raise these questions and concerns because, until a vaccine is found and distributed, we are not yet fully out of the Covid cloud. I am seeking reassurance that any gaps or obstacles to the effective, consistent, delivery of good quality, remote education for ALL students can be identified and addressed soon.
Thank you for your time and consideration of my questions. I am happy to be contacted if you have further queries or require clarification of any points or questions above.
Kind regards, [Name redacted]
126 Appendix 20: 8th June 2020 – Email from David Peach
127 128 Archived: 09 June 2020 11:18:02 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 08:38:42 To: [Committees] Subject: Public Accounts Committee - Education Response requested: Yes Importance: Normal
Dear Sir/Madam
In advance of the meeting on Friday, I have a number of points that I would like to raise:
1) Up until now the key question has been “ how can we ensure it is safe for any return to school?”. Given the current good position in the Isle of Man, the key question for consideration should now be “why is is NOT safe for a much more normal return to school?”. I remain unconvinced that the damage to children ( social and emotional as well as educational) from this enforced break is being given the weight it deserves in public debate.
2) My personal experience of remote primary learning ([School redacted] year 6) has been positive with daily and active engagement from teachers, recorded lessons, guided reading etc. From speaking to friends and family members, this kind of good provision does not appear to be present in all schools, with some schools only providing worksheets. Regardless, virtual learning is a poor substitute for real school in the medium term.
3) Again from personal experience,[School redacted] Year 12 leadership have been excellent - showing real drive to move as quickly as possible. Indeed, year 12 were ready to go back with a normal timetable after TT. This date was sadly pushed back to the following week.
Yours faithfully
David Peach
129 130 Appendix 21: 9th June 2020 – Email from Susan Page
131 132 From: [Contract details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 09:38 To: committees Subject: Home schooling
Hi,
I would like to say that I think the teachers have worked so hard throughout this pandemic. I have three children. My youngest is in [School redacted] and the school have set work and have kept in touch with the children. We have had video messages and an online chat with the teachers to see what the children are up to and if they are happy and healthy in isolation.
My older two children are at [School redacted] and the teachers have worked so hard setting work for them and chasing them up if they are not up to date with their work.
We have had lots of emails from both schools keeping us up to day with what is happening.
Thank you very much.
Kind regards
Susan Page
133 134 Appendix 22: 9th June 2020 – Email from Chez
135 136 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 11:00 To: committees Subject: Education during lockdown
Good morning,
I'd like to start by saying that we are normally very supportive of teachers and understand that they have a demanding job. However, during this period we feel let down.
We have received lots of generic emails with links to different sites, a couple of videos saying that the teachers are missing the children and there has been two Microsoft meetings arranged, both of which had very little structure.
I don't understand how almost every other profession has had to struggle to find an alternative way of working yet some schools/teachers haven't! We feel fortunate that our child doesn't struggle academically, so we've managed to keep things ticking over. Although we have definitely not done as much as I feel we should.
We will be letting our child return to school on 22nd June but had there been suitable online lessons we would be happy to keep them at home
We are so disappointed.
Kind regards
137 138 Appendix 23: 9th June 2020 – Email from Kate Lord-Brennan MLC
139 140 From: Lord-Brennan, Kate (MLC) Sent: 09 June 2020 12:34 To: Emergency Scrutiny Cc: Joann Corkish Subject: PAC re education - submission
Dear Jo – I have some Q’s attached and also here is a collation of views from parents, paraphrased or summarised. Whilst I am happt for the committee to receive, I would ask that they are not published. I am happy for the below to be included in any report. My view and concern is below. Aside from access to education, the schools being closed to most pupils, is, as I see it, an extension of the childcare issue and the disparity associated with that - many families will be worried in ordinarily about summer holiday care – so many families now see a long stretch of uncertainty until September. What people are feeling is frustration and the weight of multiple demands. After so many weeks, it is now very hard going for many families to manage children, homeschooling and working from home, running their businesses etc that is if they are lucky to be able to work at all. As more businesses and employers call their staff back to work, some difficult conversations will be going on for those who are bearing the childcare responsibilities – and it is not as clear cut now as we are all in this together, all in the house together. Whilst government, teachers, schools and parents are all in a hugely difficult situation , I think this is and will drive inequalities, I fear it is harming economic freedoms and choices for people, and in the overall balance of harm and fear, given the island has achieved greatly with 19 days without COVID and zero active cases, we have to ask, can in be justified? What are we waiting for? We are not the same as UK. I just wonder if we can make things easier and leverage the very fortunate position we are in, that includes an ability to manage borders, and get back, to normal, as soon as we can? Because what has it all been for? Public Health takes account of the whole of society – working and schooling is part of that, schools are a critical pillar in that. Kind wishes,
Mrs Kate Lord-Brennan MLC Member of the Legislative Council and Tynwald, Parliament of the Isle of Man
[Contact details redacted]
Tynwald – The World’s Oldest Continuous Parliament Our Nation Island is a UNESCO World Biosphere Region
Privacy / Data Notice
[Collation of parents views redacted]
141 142 Appendix 24: 9th June 2020 – Email Submission
143 144 Mrs Joann Corkish Clerk to the Committee Legislative Buildings Finch Road Douglas Isle of Man IM1 3PW
6th June 2020
Dear Mrs Corkish
Please find below my comments and questions for the Public Accounts Committee regarding the education during lock down.
1. Why did the Department of Education not issue any criteria for what was expected from the Schools after they closed. 2. Why have the schools all offered different levels of education and communication? Would it not have made more sense for all the schools to do the same thing? Why did the the Department not take the lead along with the headteachers of the primary and secondary schools to decide together the best way forward? 3. There has been major disparity between primary schools some children have had a phone call from their teacher or a post card, some have been having regular zoom “chats” with their teacher and peers. Even if this tool hasn’t been used for teaching it has been used by some schools to keep in touch with their pupils. Some children have had nothing. 4. There is major disparity between schools and even year groups within school regarding the learning platforms that are being used. We have not been offered “its learning” or “google classroom”. 5. Some teachers have gone above and beyond during this pandemic and worked incredibly hard. Some teachers at some schools have been expected to be online and available to their pupils throughout their “timetabled” day where as others have not. 6. We are a small Island with 32 Primary schools and 5 Secondary schools why has it been so difficult to ensure every pupil had a similar experience as their peers during lockdown?
Thank you.
145 146 Appendix 25: 9th June 2020 – Email Submission
147 148 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 13:09 To: committees Subject: CoronaVirus: Home Schooling
To whom it may concern,
Let me start off by saying it has not been easy at all. I have two sons that have special needs both of which are in secondary school.
My eldest son has been diagnosed with [Redacted] and thus spends the majority of his day in the special needs unit, where he is ultimately given specialized attention in order for him to progress with his schooling. My youngest has a learning disability known as [Redacted] which means he has a problem [Redacted] and thus as a result has a assistant tutor which accompanies him to his classes to help with his learning.
Now that I have painted you the picture of my situation, I hope you understand the difficulty of having to do work with both of them, both online and through paper course ware and having the pressure of not meeting deadlines with no real understanding and support from some of the teachers. The amount and level of the work expected to be completed by my son was ridiculous and quite frankly was, in my opinion, unfair, when you hear stories from other parents who basically have not been interested and the kids taking this period as a early holiday. Also as a result of the difficulty I could not even leave my youngest son to carry on the work on his own, so this resulted in me having to sit through and complete all the work with him and this was made even more difficult as my eldest son, who as mentioned is [Redacted] requires constant attention. My husband has tried to assist but ultimately could only help so much as he is the only one working at the moment.
Trying to balance all this whilst still being a mother and a housewife again was difficult as the house has to be kept clean and as dust free as possible due to my youngest son having [Redacted] .
This whole experience has left me having severe anxiety attacks and almost put me into severe depression. I personally feel the school work could and should have been adjusted with this understanding.
Thank you for your time.
149 150 Appendix 26: 9th June 2020 – Email from Karen Davies
151 152 Archived: 09 June 2020 13:29:34 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 13:27:47 To: [Committees] Subject: Year 13 Importance: Normal
Good Afternoon
Whilst I fully appreciate that your focus is on children returning to education on the Isle of Man could I please ask if there has been any consideration of what is to happen with our current Year 13 pupils and their future?
They have missed out on finishing 7 years of education at school, their prom, the chance to take their A Levels to show their ability and level of learning and they are now currently up in the air about their progress to university. If they are to take up their university place in the current climate has any thought been given to travel to get there? Are parents to be allowed to leave the island to take them and to return afterwards? My son and many of his friends who are in this position feel confused and uncertain about their future with little information given about their particular situation. I realise that things could look quite different by then but it would be helpful to know that a plan is being considered. Armed with the right information an informed decision can be made about whether deferral is the best option at this point.
Many thanks
Karen Davies
153 154 Appendix 27: 9th June 2020 – Email from Leslie Foster
155 156 Archived: 09 June 2020 12:06:33 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 12:01:02 To: [Committees] Subject: PAC: Friday 12 June - Education Importance: Normal
Please see the views and questions for the PAC Committee on Education During Lockdown:
Opinion – I am of the opinion that the provision of education during the lockdown has been very poor with a total lack of “can do” attitude. I would go as far as say a complete dereliction of duty by senior education officials and teachers.
I have 2 children at[School redacted] (1 x Year 5 and 1 x Reception). During the period since school closure they have each had one 5 minute call with their teacher. My eldest has had 1x text only chat session with other members of the class and the teacher. The chat used an old flash based application. Adobe Flash is end of life and not recommended for security reasons, yet is was deemed appropriate to use it. This contrasts with the use of Zoom, which teachers refuse to use because it is “unsafe” for security reasons.
Private Schools
Private schools on the Island have maintained live lessons using conference call technology without problems. I believe they are having almost a full working day using these techniques.
Question – Why cannot our schools follow the model of King Williams / Buchan?
Complete Lack of Co-ordination
It seems that each school has had a different approach. This suggests a complete lack of overall project management at the senior management level to be able to deliver appropriate systems. Some schools using the in-house its-learning and others Google Classrooms. As an education professional, its-learning seem very much out of date !!
Question – Is there any central management of education? What have the senior management been doing to co-ordinate and lead ?
Use of Free Technology
I was previously a parent governor at[School redacted] on their IT Committee. In that environment, Microsoft offers free account for Office 365 / Microsoft 365 (including Teams) to all pupils at the school. I believe Google offer the same. The IOM has not grasped this and I would like to understand why such services have not been rolled out to all pupils (primary and secondary).
Question – Why has free technology not been rolled out to all pupils Island wide? Does the DESC have any IT Professionals as opposed to Education Professionals that can lead, advise and manage the provision of such modern services?
Free Offer
My business provides elearning services. There are very few elearning providers on the Island. On the 15 March 2020, I emailed the Governors of[School redacted] with an offer to setup a dedicated elearning platform for the school and train the teachers. My offer was to dedicate my time running the platform and all services free of charge. The offer was declined. On 30 March 2020, I repeated the offer by email to the Education Minister. The offer was declined.
Question – I’m not concerned whether my offer was accepted or not. I am concerned with the very poor elearning services we have seen from Government. Can we see a radical overhaul of elearning services in the immediate future lead by elearning professionals?
Provision of Live Online Classes
157 The technology is free or low cost provided by commercial operators (Microsoft Teams / Zoom). If there are any security concerns, then open source versions such as BigBlueButton can be installed on Government owned servers. This is very quick to do. I have implemented in less than an hour on my own servers.
I understand the point that some less well off children may not have access to an internet connection, although if you did a survey, I think you would find that all parents have a phone capable of running video conferencing. Regardless, it would be cheaper for the Government to pay for internet connections and have full time education for all children than have children and parents at home and the economy paralysed. As for the smaller classroom occupancy, I see no reason why those without internet could not attend the physical classroom and have teachers on live conferencing for all of the other members of class at the same time.
Question – Please list the reason as to why such a model cannot be implemented immediately? Please backup any reason with some facts.
Priorities
The photo above is taken from[School redacted] website. It shows the true priority, when the largest room in the school (school hall) has been converted to a staff room. Surely this is the best room to accommodate children! Staff have access to extensive school playing fields and can chat and drink coffee in the open air during the summer term!
Question – Do you think this is appropriate? If yes, please provide your reasoning.
I would be delighted to attend the PAC on Friday and provide some additional questioning !
Regards
158 Les
Leslie Foster Managing Director
[Contact details redacted]
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system.
159 160 Appendix 28: 9th June 2020 – Email from Andi and Steve Humphries
161 162 Archived: 09 June 2020 16:02:42 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 12:49:24 To: [Committees] Subject: Education provided to Manx Students Response requested: No Importance: Normal ______
Dear Sirs
We would like to know why there was no structure online with teachers present and a classroom environment with pupils for[School redacted] High School and [School redacted]
We appreciate that work was posted on google classroom and It’s Learning but we have experienced that this did not engage the child.
A structured day would’ve been very beneficial rather than just being told “it doesn’t really matter what they do, just do something” was not very helpful. Even a phone to call from their tutor / teacher to the students would’ve been very beneficial.
We just don’t understand why normal daily lessons could not have been continued to be held via an online platform.
As we are both key workers, we have worked through the lockdown whilst also trying to find lesson material and encourage continued learning for our children.
Our year 13 daughter feels that she has just been abandoned, after she left school on the 23rd March she has received hardly any communication from the school.
We hope this is something being worked on and prepared for future waves for all schools.
Kind regards Andie & Steve
163 164 Appendix 29: 9th June 2020 – Email from Max Kelly, President, IOM Branch National Association of Head Teachers
165 166
Tuesday 9th June 2020
Submission for Public Accounts Committee – Public Emergency Scrutiny Session (Education)
NAHT welcomes the Public Accounts Committee public emergency scrutiny session on the subject of education provision during the emergency period. We note that the Committee wishes to consider themes including the immediate response to the emergency and planning for, and factors affecting, a return to normal.
NAHT is pleased to make this written submission on this topic and hope that it provides the Committee with an oversight of the perspective of school leaders during this period, and offers some possible lines of enquiry for the Committee during the public session.
DESC interface / interaction with school leaders and schools NAHT have been concerned throughout the pandemic with the interaction and communication from DESC to the school leaders and schools.
It became evident early on that the Education Improvement Service (EIS) at DESC had been caught off-guard with the speed and severity of the coronavirus pandemic and struggled to get clear advice and guidance out to schools around school closures and the shift to delivering education remotely. Five days before school closures were announced, DESC released a ten-page document called “Providing Education Remotely In The Event of School Closures During Term Time” [Appendix Item 15]. It is our view that this document was entirely inadequate in supporting schools to prepare to deliver online learning and included vagueness such as:
- Make sure that you have the enthusiasm and sign-off from staff making sure that they are aware of the role that they would play and what would be expected of them. - Try and engage the children as you would in any other lesson. - Create a clear procedural plan for when e-learning is required/desirable.
This was hardly a detailed set of guidance, and referenced none of the Business Impact Assessments, data-protection issues, staff training needs and practical points needed for schools to put an infrastructure in place. In a news release by DESC on 21.05.2020 [Appendix Item 1], the Department described this as “substantial support and guidance” from EIS to schools. NAHT strongly refutes that and considers the guidance document to consist of little more than a message to schools to “create a clear procedural plan for when e-learning is required/ desirable” with none of the substance required to help schools to do that. We attach this guidance document to our evidence submission and will leave it to the Public Accounts Committee to determine how useful and substantial the guidance amounts to [Appendix Item 15].
Whilst NAHT acknowledges the fluidity, uncertainty and speed of the changes in the initial phases of the pandemic, we are concerned that this guidance document was not updated or augmented with anything more substantial.
Instead, the Director of Education took to issuing daily email “updates” to schools which contained a mix of messages from central Government and occasional pointers to articles, documents and links
1 167 which schools may have found of use/interest. NAHT assert that these emails did not amount to a substantial support package, and indeed many of the emails generated a significant amount of additional questions from school leaders, the answers to which appeared not to have been anticipated by DESC or EIS.
School leaders also reported to us that they were dismayed with DESC’s news release on 21.05.2020 which concluded – in emboldened text:
“If parents are experiencing difficulty in supporting their children whilst at home, or feel dissatisfied with either the volume or quality of remote learning, they are advised to seek guidance from their school’s leaders and teachers…”
This particular statement appears to NAHT to be a deliberate move on the part of the Department to distance themselves from any criticism around home-learning packages and to emphasise that school leaders are expected to pick up any complaints. This hardly seems in the spirit of “substantial support” and underlines our view that DESC have not offered strong central leadership and direction on this matter – in fact it is so weak they are not prepared to deal with questions from the public on their strategy, rather leaving schools to face the queries and comments alone.
Finally in this section, NAHT would draw the Committee’s attention to the central EIS team. By this divisions’ own admission, as made clear on the Isle of Man Government website, EIS “quality assure schools” through a team of “link advisors” who “shape thinking, generate ideas and coordinate the Island’s learning…” [Appendix Item 2]
We would ask the Committee to consider a line of questioning around the role, and impact, of the EIS team during the pandemic. School leaders were not asked at any stage to report in, or offer for quality assurance, their home-learning package and EIS link advisors seldom – if ever – appeared in person at hub schools to offer support or guidance or QA on the ground. One link advisor did visit schools latterly as part of the health and safety offer, but their presence – or lack of it – physically and remotely has been noticeable throughout. NAHT makes clear that this is not a personal slight on these officers – it has not been communicated to us or to school leaders how EIS roles and jobs have been directed by the Director of Education during the pandemic, but it is our view that whatever role they have been fulfilling has not amounted to a visible or significant offer of support, guidance or direction to school leaders and schools, and certainly did not amount to anything which could be described as quality assurance or ensuring consistency across the island’s schools regarding remote learning.
NAHT acknowledge that EIS officers have posted links to external sites relating to possible CPD courses or resources to use in planning that they have “approved for quality”. This has been largely achieved via the itslearning platform.
NAHT are similarly unaware as to the role of advisory teachers – again, none were seen in the Island’s hub schools during the pandemic and none issued any advice or instructions about how their areas of advisory teaching should be covered by schools in their remote learning offers, save for some links to VE day activities towards the end of April. (The areas currently covered by advisory teacher roles include ICT, Manx Curriculum, and Physical and Emotional Health.)
DESC messaging and announcements NAHT consider that a lot of the messaging that has come centrally from DESC has been ill-timed, poorly delivered and on occasion, confusing. Despite requests from NAHT for key announcements to be shared with school leaders prior to public statements being made, DESC have not always agreed
2 168 to this, and have chosen to release information publicly that has caught school leaders off-guard. In our view, this is blatantly unfair and unprofessional. To cite specific examples:
A public announcement was made by DESC on 21.4.2020 that construction, horticulture and trade sectors would become unlocked [Appendix Item 3]. There was zero consultation or briefing with school leaders prior to this announcement, and it caused huge problems at the time because parents immediately began contacting schools who were completely unprepared to deal with the queries. It was a public relations fiasco, at which schools were the interface with the public and yet had not had the courtesy extended to them by DESC of furnishing them in advance with all the information relating to the decision to unlock certain sectors and how this would affect the schools.
A public announcement was made on Saturday 02.05.2020 by DESC to state that all schools would be closed over the TT period but would remain open over the two May bank holidays [Appendix Item 4]. This information was put into the public domain without prior notification with schools and school leaders (furthermore, NAHT would like to make clear that schools and school leaders were not given a choice about keeping schools open during Easter and Bank Holidays, so the wording in the statement in Appendix Item 4 around “volunteering” is not accurate.) Teachers were reliant on having to listen to a Government media briefing at a weekend to glean this vital information. Unfortunately, DESC deliberately missed a very clear opportunity to resolve this question by informing the education unions of the decision on the Friday immediately prior to the announcement. At a JNC meeting, DESC were repeatedly asked of its intentions regarding the TT period and May bank holidays, but refused to disclose. NAHT remain unaware as to why DESC would not share this information and submitted a private complaint about the way DESC officers conducted themselves at that JNC (addressed separately, below.) Correspondence exchanged between NAHT and DESC is attached to this submission. [Appendix Item 5] This particular incident triggered a later Joint Union statement, issued 11.05.2020, the contents of which are self- explanatory and are attached to this submission [Appendix Item 6].
A press release from DESC was sent on 21.05.2020 [Appendix Item 1] regarding home-learning. The intent to issue such a statement, and the contents of said statement, were not discussed with schools, school leaders or education unions. The contents of the press statement are disputed by NAHT, and we contacted DESC as soon as we became aware of it. Despite apologies that it had been released without seeking agreement with all stakeholders, and assurances that we could alter the messaging retrospectively, nothing happened and the statement stood. NAHT seriously considered putting a counter statement out into the public domain, but ultimately decided that at this time of national crisis, to place its efforts elsewhere. That is not to say that NAHT decided the issue unimportant – quite the contrary. It further demonstrated to us that DESC were not prepared to engage in meaningful dialogue and collaborative working with education unions and school leaders. For clarity, the messaging in the statement which NAHT dispute includes:
- DESC did not make a clear and consistent recommendation to schools to focus on the use of itlslearning. - Teachers were not “encouraged” to use Microsoft Teams to deliver online lessons and record instructional clips. NAHT can find no evidence in any of the disparate communications from DESC that amounts to an “encouragement” to do this. - The suggestion to use Microsoft Teams came in fact from GTS, following the refusal of one Headteacher to attend a face to face meeting with the Director and other DESC members and school leader colleagues at the height of the pandemic on island. (On a related, but different matter, NAHT voiced serious concerns at the time about the Director’s insistence on a face to face meeting at this time [Appendix Item 13])
3 169 - NAHT does not consider the support offered by EIS around home-learning to amount to something which can be called “substantial” and argues that EIS did not achieve a “greater degree of consistency” in how schools managed this.
There was also some very unclear messaging from DESC to schools regarding the return of Years 2, 6, 10 and 12 to schools. On Friday 15th May, without any prior consultation with school leaders or education unions, the DESC CEO emailed all headteachers to announce that all school sites would open with effect from 15th June with all children from the hubs back to their own schools with effect from Wednesday 17th June. The same email then suggests that Years 2, 6, 10 and 12 will also be eligible for return. The email does not indicate that there is a different date in mind for these year groups, nor does it attach any confidentiality clauses. A second email, this time from the Director of Education, was sent on Saturday 16th May (although titled “Update 15.5.20) which confirms that school sites will reopen on 15th June.
Based on this information, school leaders began initial preparations to reopen their sites and communicate with parents about the timelines and eligible children and year groups.
After close of business on Monday 18th May, at 17.10, a third email was sent to headteachers from the Director of Education stating that he “can’t emphasise enough that the date for reopening to pupils has not been decided.” This was, in fact, the first such time anyone at DESC had sought to emphasise that the date had not been decided, and appeared in direct contradiction to the information in the previous two emails. This whole matter led to considerable frustration and confusion, and contributed to confusing messages that had been put into the public domain prior to the third email. This email chain is included as part of this submission. [Appendix Item 7].
NAHT holds the belief that had DESC initiated in an ongoing dialogue with school leaders and education unions, such confusing messaging could (and should) have been avoided. NAHT advocated a COVID19 Forum for this very purpose and elaborates further on this below.
DESC interface / interaction with NAHT and education trade unions NAHT would like to draw to the attention of the Public Accounts Committee to DESC’s continued reluctance to engage in a regular forum [COVID19 Forum] to discuss the ongoing response of the Department and its educational institutions during the pandemic. In the light of some of the communication issues already highlighted in this submission, NAHT joined with other teaching trade unions, and other key unions, such as UCU, Prospect and Unite, in order to share key information and discuss important issues so that a clarity and strategy could be sought and agreed upon. Proposed issues included risk-assessing, latest medical advice, PPE, the DESC “roadmap” and it was the intent of the forum to include as wide a representation as possible, to cover all employment groups within education, such as school leaders, teachers, lecturers, support staff, admin, caretakers, cleaners and catering. Despite repeated invitations– the Committee will note such invitations appear in the attached correspondence – DESC would not agree to participate. Instead they insisted on separate JNCs with different groups (even though we were not proposing to meet on JNC terms and did not wish to talk about Terms and Conditions, rather the operational response across DESC) and failed to attend any of the forum meetings. DESC also insisted that a reinstated Industrial Relations Forum would serve the purpose of cross-government working. Sadly, this group still has not been convened and has not met – and in any event, the moment has somewhat passed. The COVID19 forum met without DESC and achieved much with participation from the likes of Dr Henrietta Ewart, the Health and Safety Inspectorate and Jon Callister, Executive Director of HR.
NAHT has remained committed to open dialogue and constructive collaboration with Isle of Man Government and DESC throughout the crisis, first writing to the Chief Minister on this matter on 27.03.2020, a copy of that letter is included with this submission [Appendix Item 8]. NAHT is
4 170 saddened that DESC did little to take us up on this offer, and actively declined repeated invitations to join the COVID19 Forum.
Choosing the pandemic to focus on controversial issues NAHT notes that DESC appear to have chosen to look at controversial issues during this pandemic – issues which could have been “parked” until all stakeholders were able to consult and discuss. NAHT is concerned that DESC may have used the cover of the pandemic to drive through controversial decisions at a time when usual negotiations with education unions were more difficult to arrange, such as school holiday dates which have now been set without the customary Union agreement.
Chief amongst these concerns is DESC’s continuation with a redundancy and redeployment programme for teachers, at a time when physical distancing and increased staff absences through COVID19 and/or shielding, probably means we need teachers now more than ever. After extensive email discussion with DESC officers which repeatedly failed to prevent education chiefs with their plan to reduce staffing levels in schools during this period of national crisis, the Minister intervened and has put on hold redundancy and redeployment until around the time of the new national budget. This whole episode has increased stress and anxiety within the teaching profession and unnecessarily distracted school leaders form their important work in responding to the COVID19 crisis.
Following the Minister’s appointment to the Education brief in March 2020, a meeting was held with all headteachers on 18.03.2020. This was a positive meeting, held just prior to the escalation of the COVID19 crisis, in which the new Minister announced that controversial issues such as the SSRE process and the progression of the draft Education Bill were being halted. In fact, the Minister is quoted in that meeting as saying:
“External Validations are not only being paused due to the current situation with COVID19 but they are being completely halted until such a time that all stakeholders have been able to properly discuss and agree a new process for going forward.”
Following this meeting, the President of the Isle of Man branch of NAHT wrote to the Minister to welcome his announcements, and the reply received did not indicate in any way that we had misinterpreted that message. Copies are attached to this submission [Appendix Item 9].
It is therefore of great concern to NAHT that under the cover of COVID19, the Director of Education has sought to reverse these announcements in an “email update” of the 27.04.2020. The subsequent exchange of correspondence is included for the consideration of this Committee in this submission [Appendix Item 10].
Home-learning NAHT has made much comment on home-learning throughout this submission, so will only add at this point that school leaders, teachers and schools have been very inventive and should be congratulated for doing their best in a situation that none of us had planned for, to provide appropriate learning materials for children.
The situation has thrown up many examples of creative, inspirational teaching online, in school hubs and in more traditional paper-based packages.
Online learning Several school leaders have experienced considerable difficulties in getting vital online learning programmes up and running because there is no clear delineation of responsibility between DESC
5 171 and GTS for sourcing universally applicable online learning tools and providing the data protection support and training to use these safely. This has led to anguish and frustration amongst school leaders, who have found themselves exposed to criticism from parents and politicians making unfair comparisons with regards to online provision during lockdown between schools who were essentially left to their own devices to source and operationalise online learning tools.
Appendix Item 12 constitutes the email trail of the situation referred to in the above paragraph over responsibility for providing GDPR support to allow teachers to use MS Teams, which DESC claims to have facilitated in its press release [Appendix Item 1]. Similar frustrations have been experienced by school leaders in seeking to use Zoom and the Google Domain. The latter is the mainstay of online education provision for many schools during this crisis, yet is again the subject of an unhelpful lack of clarity between DESC and GTS [see Appendix Item 12] over who should be providing support for the online learning tool of choice for the DESC, according to their own online learning guidance (previously cited).
Joint Negotiating Committee Meeting – 1st May 2020 The JNC meeting with DESC on 01.05.2020 was, in our view, nothing short of appalling. These concerns are shared by our sister union NASUWT, and following the meeting, a private letter was submitted to the DESC Chief Executive Officer and Minister to outline matters. A copy of this letter, the contents of which are self-evident, is included within this submission [Appendix Item 11]. We include this in our submission to highlight our view of the working practices of DESC during this emergency period.
Risk assessment Risk assessing is another area that school leaders and schools have had to push very hard for advice and guidance. Because of DESC’s insistence on not meeting with all stakeholders, but instead in a series of small “JNC” style meetings with various stakeholders, the messaging on many matters became piecemeal, and this was the case with the significant matter of risk assessments. DESC had opportunity to join the COVID19 Forum to discuss this openly with all employment groups and sectors within schools and educational institutions, but as previously cited in this submission, they never took that opportunity. This led, at one point, to a non-education union raising concerns with DESC and the Health, Safety and Welfare Advisory Service. An email trail is included in this submission [Appendix Item 14] which gives a flavour of some of those concerns. Significantly, you will see that the Health, Safety and Welfare Advisory Service were working on the assumption that
“As far as I am aware the majority of Headteachers have undertaken Management of Health and Safety in an Educational Environment training which includes risk assessment.” [Appendix Item 14]
As far as NAHT Isle of Man can evidence, most headteachers have not received this training - as titled above. NAHT are also aware that in recent years there has been a steady influx of new, younger headteachers to school positions, and we are not aware that they have been offered such training. Finally, NAHT are of the view that nobody in DESC or in the Health, Safety and Welfare branch of Cabinet Office has ever asked headteachers to provide details of their training with regards to risk assessment. NAHT felt this was a bold statement about headteacher’s training records, and hope that it was not made to exonerate the H&S Advisory Service and the Department from potential litigation.
NAHT Isle of Man Branch For and on behalf of its members
6 172 Appendices
Item 1 – DESC News release 21.5.202
Remote learning plans accelerated to support home schooling Thursday, 21 May 2020
The Isle of Man Government is working closely with schools to help teachers use technology to offer the best possible education whilst children are unable to attend face-to-face classes.
The Department of Education, Sport and Culture acknowledges concerns from parents and is accelerating new ways to deliver online teaching and remote learning.
The Department’s recommended IT platform is Itslearning which allows teachers to engage with pupils and provide feedback on work submitted from home. It also enables learning and support to be targeted where most needed. Schools have been developing more ‘interactive’ platforms, whilst also using their websites to keep parents up to date of developments with exams, information regarding transition points, and posting activities and projects that, where possible, closely mirror the planned curriculum.
Teachers have been encouraged to use apps such as Microsoft Teams to deliver online lessons and record instructional clips for pupils, which hopefully go some way to alleviating concerns of parents and bridge gaps alluded to with regards face-to-face teaching.
Schools have also been encouraged to loan devices such as iPads to households who may be struggling to access the teaching and resources being made available. This is alongside exploring how we can enable greater broadband coverage for disadvantaged families, or families who may have to retain their children at home for longer periods due to continued shielding from the virus.
Dr Alex Allinson MHK, Minister for Education, Sport and Culture, said:
‘It has to be acknowledged that schools closed unexpectedly and that they have had to adapt as quickly. The long-term plans of head teachers to develop more opportunities for remote learning have had to be accelerated and new ways of teaching and supporting pupils developed and shared. Schools have developed online solutions at the same time as delivering a front-facing service for vulnerable pupils and those of key workers – in essence creating two formats for the delivery of lessons.’
The Department’s Education Improvement Service (EIS) is aware that there are varying types, styles and amounts of remote/online learning being provided by schools, and has offered substantial support and guidance to ensure a greater degree of consistency over the past eight weeks.
Dr Allinson, continued:
‘I hope this offers some reassurance to parents who have signed the recent petition. Teachers are having to formulate responses very dynamically to an ever-evolving situation. The department hopes that attendance at school can be expanded as soon as is safe to do so and that as many pupils as possible will be able to re-gain access to ‘face-to-face’ lessons.'
If parents are experiencing difficulty in supporting their children whilst at home, or feel dissatisfied with either the volume or quality of remote learning provided, they are advised to
7 173 seek guidance from their school’s leaders and teachers who are either active in hubs, or developing remote provision whilst working remotely.
Issued By
Education, Sport and Culture
Item 2 – Role of EIS, taken from Isle of Man Government Website
EIS School Improvement Advisers
The EIS team consists of 5 full-time advisers and 4 advisory teachers deployed in areas such as ICT, the Manx Curriculum and Physical and emotional well-being.
Primary and Secondary Advisers quality assure schools and other education providers through a half termly link process. Link visits are conducted focussing on a particular part of a school’s School Self Review and Evaluation (SSRE).
They also ensure the Department fulfils its responsibilities in relation to Section 50 of the Education Act 2001, which describes the arrangements for the inspection of schools. Along with the Director, advisers will support external validations of schools and establishments in concordance with the requirements set down by the 2001 act.
A key strand to the work of EIS is one of innovation in learning. Advisers shape thinking, generate ideas and coordinate the Island’s learning research groups which consist of staff from across all phases and departments.
In addition, advisers undertake a wide range of day-to-day tasks that ensure the smooth running of the Island’s education system including support for the appointment, training and professional development of staff, whilst ensuring newly qualified teachers are appropriately supported through the NQT induction process.
Finally, they are often the Department's link with parents, other members of the public and other government departments, especially those dedicated to children's services.
Item 3 – Construction and trade announcement
I am pleased to tell you that from the morning of 24 April there will be two broad areas of change.
Firstly, on construction and related trades.
Many countries around us chose not to stop construction work. It has continued for example in the United Kingdom. We made a different decision at the time. We chose to bring in tougher measures in order to supress the virus as much as possible - and as quickly as possible.
From this Friday, builders, construction workers, tradesmen, window cleaners and gardeners may return to work providing that they do so safely and within social distancing guidelines.
Businesses that support this activity - such as hardware stores and builders merchants - can also operate providing again that they do so safely, respecting social distancing and other guidelines.
8 174 Supporting services such as waste and recycling points will also be able to operate - once again providing that they can do so safely respecting social distancing and other guidelines.
I have to be very clear that we will be approaching this change with our eyes open. While we have offered this flexibility to the construction sector, we will not hesitate to close down construction sites, retail premises, industrial units or any other premises where there is disregard for public or workforce safety.
We will publish full details of the sectors and trades covered by this change tomorrow.
Item 4 – TT and May Bank Holidays announcement
Over Easter, teachers volunteered to keep the schools open for vulnerable children and those of key workers. They have volunteered again over the two May Bank Holidays. After listening to the professional associations, senior leaders and officers, the Department has decided to close our schools as previously planned for the full TT fortnight. This recognises the need of teachers, support and administrative staff for a decent break after a period of intense and demanding work. It also allows our children to try and get back to a more normal routine.
Item 5 – Letter from NAHT to Director of Education 02.05.2020
[Signature: M Kelly] 9 175 Item 6 – Joint Unions Public Statement – 11.05.2020
10 176
Item 7 – Email chain of communication from DESC re school re-openings
11 177
Item 8 – Letter from NAHT to Chief Minister 20.03.2020
[Signature: Max Kelly] [Signature: Carol Walsh] [Signature: Rob Kelsall]
12 178 Item 9– Letter from NAHT to Education Minister 19.03.2020
Dear Minister
I just wanted to take the opportunity to reiterate what I stated publicly towards the end of your meeting with headteachers and school leaders yesterday.
I welcomed your comments around External Validations, and the confirmation that not only are they being paused due to the current situation with COVID19 but they are being completely halted until such a time that all stakeholders have been able to properly discuss and agree a new process for going forward.
New inspection arrangements may now link into any future refresh of the Education legislation in the Isle of Man, and again, I welcomed your public commitment to stop progression of the Education Bill after a second reading in the Keys.
It was also warmly welcomed that you announced new legislation would now likely dovetail into any recommendations or outcomes from an independent review into the DESC, and NAHT looks forward to receiving details of the terms of reference and scope of that review ahead of any public public release in order that we can constructively work with you and the independent reviewer as key stakeholders within the sector.
Finally, it was met with real positivity that you sought to engage headteachers and school leaders in updating them on Government's response to COVID19 and talking about working collegiately with colleagues in schools to develop guidance in conjunction with NAHT advice too.
As I said yesterday, although there remain some issues to iron out further, the tone and commitment was genuinely reassuring and I look forward to engaging positively with you in progressing all of the above.
You talked about your desire to rebuild trust and a strong working relationship across the various levels of DESC and amongst the different stakeholders. Your introductory meeting with headteachers yesterday was a clear step towards this goal.
Kind regards Max Kelly (President, NAHT IOM) cc NAHT IOM Members, NAHT Edge IOM Members
Dear Max, Thank you very much for your email. I wanted to talk to all head teachers and their staff about my vision for the education system on our island but the very unfortunate circumstances we find ourselves in bought these plans forward. I am committed to communication and cooperation with all education staff and see this as essential as we deal with the real threat of a viral pandemic. Yours truly, Alex
13 179 Item 10 – Suggestion from Director of Education that SSRE would pick up again despite assurances from Minister to the contrary, and subsequent exchange of correspondence between NAHT and DESC
Extract from Geoff Moorcroft, Director of Education, Email Update 27.04.2020 EIS will not hold schools/colleges to account on the basis of exams and assessment data from summer 2020. This will, of course, have an impact on the use of the SSRE Toolkit which we are still hoping to develop by the end of the current academic year. Schools will have this available to them and could – should they wish to – evaluate what performance data they do have against it but it will not be considered during Link Visits. Instead, visits will be planned which focus on other parts of the SSRE framework. This will mean, however, that the first time schools will be officially asked to use the new Toolkit will be in Sept 2021 at the same time as the next round of External Validations begins.
[Signature: Max Kelly]
14 180 Dear Max
Thanks for your letter, on behalf of NAHT.
In sending out the update, my intention was to reassure colleagues that school performance data would not be expected to be submitted to EIS this academic year. Given my belief that colleagues would then reasonably have questions about how Quality Assurance would subsequently be undertaken, without this data, I felt it worthwhile to pre- empt this by explaining some of the detail. It wasn’t intended to supersede any wider discussions.
For clarity, my understanding of the situation with regard to the Minister’s comments at SNHS Lower School with regard to External Validation is that it has been suspended during the current health emergency – not suspended indefinitely. I realise a large number of senior leaders are in NAHT and that many of these may well continue to participate in the action short of strike, once schools are fully operational. However, I’m also aware that there are some headteachers who continued to undertake Link Visits and also wanted to offer clarity to these colleagues. Like you, I look forward to the External Review of the Department but understand that this too cannot be carried out during a period of Emergency.
Please accept my apologies if there has been any misunderstanding of the above.
Regards
Geoff Moorcroft Director of Education 27.04.2020 ______
Dear Geoff
Thank you for your responses to our queries around the Daily Update 27.4.2020.
I write on behalf of NAHT Isle of Man.
NAHT have now re-checked our recording of the meeting and for clarity, our understanding remains such that the Minister clearly stated that SSRE and External Validation is "not only paused due to COVID19 but completely halted until such a time that all stakeholders can agree on a way forward."
In relation to your information that a working party has been continuing to meet to review the SSRE Framework and such meetings have been well attended, perhaps in the interests of transparency you would be able to forward the dates of these meetings together with a list of everyone in attendance at them.
As Carol said in her previous email, NAHT would not be in a position to endorse any revised framework and remains committed to the Minister's assurances that all stakeholders should convene to agree on a way forward. We would suggest that that discussion should look at the fundamentals of inspection and would likely have a wider
15 181 remit than simply a revision of the existing framework. We accept that this piece of work should not be prioritised during the current crisis.
Regards
Max
(Branch President, Isle of Man) 27.04.2020 ______
Dear Max
Having checked with the Minister, I’m happy to confirm that his view is that External Validation has been suspended during the current health emergency – not suspended indefinitely.
With regards the SSRE working party, I’m happy to provide you with the dates of the meetings and the reassurance that over half of the colleagues who had originally signed up to attend did in fact participate. As the group was quite large originally, I think, from memory, this group included 8-9 colleagues. As you know, all such colleagues are senior leaders in schools on the Isle of Man or officers from EIS. I feel it would be somewhat unfair to the individuals concerned (and unnecessary) to personally identify those headteachers who attended the meeting – suffice it to say that a majority of original invitees did attend. Meetings took place on;-
15 November 2020 from 9-12. 22 January 2020 from 1-4 pm. 4 March 2020 9.15- 12.15
In addition, there is a draft framework held on Google Docs and the working party has been invited to comment on it.
In developing any Quality Assurance framework for schools, the Island is very unusual in working with representatives of the profession to the extent that it does to develop something that has their input. We would never be able to consult with all stakeholders in doing this, of course, but would hope that the process undertaken ensures the legitimacy of the final document by having sought consensus around the best and most important features of education on the Island. However, as you may recall, we planned the programme of review to enable a draft document to be ready for September 2020 allowing schools a year, without External Validation, when their commentaries could be written against it and when minor changes to the framework could be made if necessary. It is intended that the working party would continue to be invited to meet during the 20-21 academic year to consider how well the new document serves the purposes intended.
I hope the above answers some of your questions.
Regards
Geoff Moorcroft 27.4.2020
16 182 ______
Dear Geoff
I write on behalf of NAHT Isle of Man.
Thank you for your reply. NAHT’s understanding regarding SSRE and External Validation remains the same as outlined in our original email. NAHT will also approach the Minister under separate cover on this matter as his words at the meeting were extremely clear.
Having spoken to my colleagues, we are surprised that DESC’s view is that the attendees of the working party meetings should be kept a secret. NAHT note your desire to build a consensus in producing a final document - but at the same time decline to tell us whose consensus it is.
NAHT call, again, for the attendees of the working party to be made public. We can see no reason whatsoever why membership of a working party should not be made available, nor why DESC would decline to inform us of who actually attended these meetings.
NAHT do not accept the view that DESC “would never be able to consult with all stakeholders” in developing a system of quality assurance for the Isle of Man. It is the opinion of NAHT that that is exactly what DESC should so.
You will recall, I’m sure, that DESC have heard NAHT’s views on the need for a fundamental discussion around inspection and the process for the Isle of Man - this has come via discussions arising out of the Education Bill (which is now not going to progress through the Branches) and earlier talks around the dispute. At one point, DESC agreed to a forum to prioritise talks around inspection / SSRE and this was included in the ten-point plan, and though DESC didn’t ever initiate this, it does demonstrate that there has previously been an acceptance that this needs to happen, and is possible.
Regards
Max
(Branch President, Isle of Man) 27.04.2020
Item 11 – Joint letter re JNC of 01.05.2020
Dear [Prof. Barr and Minister]
I have spent the last 4 days reflecting on the appalling Teachers JNC of 1st May and have also spoken to Geraldine O'Neill who has asked to be included jointly on the concerns below.
In our opinion the meeting achieved very little and mainly served to heighten the distrust between the teaching unions and DESC, putting in further jeopardy any hope of repairing the fractured relationship for the following reasons-
1. Prior to the meeting agenda items were not sought from Union representatives and no amendments were made to the previous weeks minutes, despite both being requested. 2. DESC refused to amend the minutes in the meeting, and argued with union officials about the proposed amendments to the minutes, and the purpose of minutes. 3. DESC disputed the comments made by the Minister the previous week about the holidays dates being made provisional and discussion to take place about them later in the summer term. This was despite three of the four unions asserting they had the same recollections as NAHT, the fourth union was unable to comment as that official was not in attendance the previous week.
17 183 4. Views were only sought on the May bank holidays and TT fortnight when the issue was forced by the unions, and even then, DESC refused to reveal the decisions made about these holidays, telling us to listen to the news conference the following morning. Geoff then sent an email on the Saturday morning to headteachers, within which he informed them of the decisions made. 5. The unilateral reversal by DESC of a JNC decision made the previous week, i.e. that we would have weekly meetings, without any discussion with the Unions. 6. The initial refusal by DESC to allow agenda items from the employee side, and then grudgingly only two items were allowed to be aired after the unions expressed their displeasure. 7. There was absolutely no mention of the 'road map’, despite an agenda item being 'Future and next steps for Education re COVID19' and also despite repeated assurances by the Minister both publicly in news conferences and privately in emails and meetings that all future plans would be in consultation and discussion with unions and all stakeholders. The 'road map' was intrusively emailed to headteacher’s on a Sunday morning, when most people were trying to get some well-earned 'down time'.
8. DESC officials were observed blatantly making remarks to each other off microphone, some comments were heard by union officials. This was also observed during the meeting on 24th April. 9. There was a lack of any meaningful negotiation, and a return of tactics and behaviour by DESC officials that at best were condescending and at worst bullying. 10. There was an unwillingness to listen to genuine concerns from members. 11. There were expressions of disbelief in the concerns from members.
Therefore NAHT and NASUWT are only prepared to attend future meetings if the following conditions are agreed at the beginning of the next JNC by all members.
1.The meeting is recorded.
2. All comments either written or spoken are to be made to all members of the committee. 3. All members of the JNC treat each other with respect and courtesy. 4. Any proposed amendments to JNC decisions to be discussed and majority agreement sought. 5. All members of the JNC are entitled to add agenda items at all meetings. 6. The minutes correctly reflect the meetings. 7. An acknowledgement that union officials have the right to question and challenge decisions made by DESC, and discussions following this should be courteous and respectful of that right.
We await your comments before confirming attendance at the JNC on 15th May, and also therefore request that the deadline for agenda items to be extended.
Regards
Carol Walsh NAHT Branch Secretary Geraldine O'Neill NASUWT Branch Secretary
cc ASCL, NEU, Rob Kelsall NAHT. 06.05.2020
18 184 ______
Dear Carol Thank you for your email of 6th May and I am saddened by your comments regarding the JNC held with members of the teacher unions. I completely agree with you that everyone attending such a meeting should treat each other with respect and courtesy. At this time of a national health emergency, when we need to all pull together. I was disappointed that you felt your genuine concerns were not listened to. The repair of any relationship requires willingness and support of those involved and has never been more important as we learn to live and work alongside COVID-19. We are fortunate to have very few cases now on our island due to the efforts of our community in stopping the spread. There is a growing need that we must soon restore educational opportunities to children and young people safely and simultaneously work towards a more positive industrial relations climate. I have noted your comments and as I understand that the meeting on 1 May was not a normal JNC and therefore didn’t observe the usual agenda protocols, as it was specifically regarding COVID-19. However, I suggest that the proposals you make for future meetings are best addressed by finalising a constitution for the JNC which encapsulates the protocols and arrangements to be adhered to. I am aware that a draft constitution (together with the TURA) has been agreed between DESC and NASUWT with the help of the Manx Industrial Relations Service and it is welcomed that the NASUWT has shared this with all teaching unions. It would be very helpful if an agreed union version could now be shared with DESC so that it can be finalised and adopted. I am also concerned regarding any suggestion of bullying and I would be grateful if you could provide me with specific details to support this allegation so that they can be fully investigated. I am taking advice on the proposal that future meetings are recorded as there are data protection requirements to satisfy in this regard. All participants would need to consent to this but I am aware that MS Teams does have such a facility which can be easily enabled. If you feel that this would assist with the accuracy of the minutes the Department are happy to look into this issue and will respond to your request. Kind regards Alex
Dr Alex Allinson Minister for Education, Sport and Culture 11.05.2020
Cc Geraldine O Neill Ronald Barr Geoff Moorcroft Yvette Mellor Mary Slater
19 185 Item 12 – Email chains re online learning and responsibility of GTS / DESC
From: Baker, Annette Sent: 01 May 2020 14:09 To: [Redacted] Moorcroft, Geoff Subject: Teams
Hi Andrew and Geoff
Is there a DESC risk assessment/privacy notice for using MS Teams that you could share with me please? I would like to expand its use with teachers and students in school as soon as possible.
Thanks
Annette
Annette Baker M Ed NPQH Headteacher ______
On Fri, May 1, 2020 at 5:53 PM +0100, "Moorcroft, Geoff" wrote:
Hi Annette I would anticipate that the RA sits with GTS who have recommended the platform and rolled it out. I’ve copied Jamie and Joel into this reply as they may know more.
Regards
Geoff Moorcroft Director of Education
______
From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 01 May 2020 10:34 To: Baker, Annette Cc: [Contact details redacted] Subject: RE: Microsoft Teams & Students
Morning Annette
That would be something DESC would need to assist with. GTS can’t, sorry!
Kind Regards
[Redacted]
20 186
______
From: Baker, Annette Sent: 01 May 2020 18:24 To: [Redacted] Moorcroft, Geoff Cc: [Contact details redacted] Subject: Re: Teams
Dear Geoff
[Redacted] told me to contact DESC about this when I asked him prior to my email to Andrew.
[Redacted]has been in touch with [Redacted] I believe, I understand he will be getting back to me/us re the RA.
Annette
______
From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 28 May 2020 14:56 To: Burnett, Adrienne; Winstanley, Keith; Moore, Sue (QE2); Baker, Annette; Coole, Chris; Pretty, Jo Cc: [Contact details redacted] Subject: Google Domain
Good Afternoon
In the course of resolving a request last week, I was once again added as an Admin to the Google Domain.
As GTS currently support DESC in the admin of this domain we are data processors. As such, I am writing to inform you, as the data controllers, of some issues I am duty bound to bring to your attention.
1 It would appear that all secondary school students, year 7 and above, have a Google email address that can send and receive from the internet. There are numerous alerts within the console (470 this year) about misuse of multiple email addresses, scam emails, phishing, Google suspending accounts for inappropriate activity etc. This raises a number of serious questions:- a. Are parents aware? b. Has consent been sought? c. Who is monitoring use? d. Does DPIA cover this? e. Have students used this account to sign up to other services without the knowledge of their parents? 2 There are large numbers of students still within School student groups who have been many years out of school.
21 187 Clearly the provision of an external facing email address to students below the age of 13 would require parental consent, where as individual consent would be required above 13.
As I stated at the start of this email. It is incumbent upon me to make you all aware. We make no changes unless specifically instructed by yourselves. Therefore, if you wish to take any action in light of the above please raise a ticket with the service desk with any specific actions required.
Kind Regards
[Redacted]
______From: Baker, Annette Sent: 28 May 2020 15:29 To: [Redacted] Burnett, Adrienne; Winstanley, Keith; Moore, Sue (QE2); Coole, Chris; Pretty, Jo Cc: [Redacted] ICT Helpdesk Subject: RE: Google Domain
Dear [Redacted]
I recall you and [Redacted] coming to BHS to introduce us all to Google and eulogising about its potential, so I am surprised by the implication in your first bullet point that large scale student gmail engagement in what has evolved into the lifeline learning platform in the current crisis was news to you.
Since our IT technician staff were taken back to GTS most of us are struggling for IT support. This combined with GDPR and Covid-19 have created somewhat of a perfect storm for us, and when we ask for help from GTS or the Department it seems we are greeted more often than not with a flurry of suggestions as to what we should be doing, rather than with offers of practical solutions.
I am relieved that your latest email has at last offered us help. I am raising a ticket, therefore, to request that GTS delete the “large numbers” of ex-student accounts which are still live, and to provide us with the report of misuse that we used to receive so that we can apply appropriate sanctions to the perpetrators. I take my responsibilities as data controller extremely seriously, I know it is beyond the remit of the helpdesk ticket, but I suggest that government will need to take action to provide for increasing support for schools with the technical , administrative and legal aspects of online learning as our dependence on it looks unlikely to diminish.
Hope you are well,
Annette
Annette Baker M Ed NPQH Headteacher Ramsey Grammar School
22 188 ______From: Baker, Annette Sent: 08 June 2020 12:54 To: [Redacted] Burnett, Adrienne; Winstanley, Keith; Moore, Sue (QE2); Coole, Chris; Pretty, Jo Cc: [Redacted] ICT Helpdesk Subject: RE: Google Domain
Dear [Redacted]
I have still not received a reply to the ticket I raised requesting help with specific issues relating to the google domain, the use of which you can see from the enclosed guidance(issued 17th March) is supported and encouraged by the DESC. The google platform has been and will continue to be the mainstay of our online provision during time of school closure, as you can see it is entirely endorsed by the Department.
I look forward to receiving the response of GTS to my specific enquiries.
Kind regards Annette
Item 13 – NAHT raises concerns about Director of Education’s insistence on a face to face meeting with headteachers during the pandemic
23 189 Item 14 – Email chains re concerns over risk assessments
From: Mick Hewer Sent: 13 May 2020 18:17
Good evening
I am copying you all into this email by way of information – please see my email sent to [Redacted] and his subsequent response.
I must admit to being a little surprised to find that two members from the Health and Safety Advisory Service (both chartered safety and health practitioners) are today, tomorrow and Friday accompanying senior DESC staff to be part of a series of Risk Assessment review visits for each hub school but I believe this was communicated at a late stage this morning and probably during our discussions – the fact remains that Prospect didn’t receive any communication from DESC that this was happening.
Notwithstanding any of the above it remains my view that the proposals regarding Mondays assertion from DESC that additional pupils will be allowed the opportunity to return to the school environment is unacceptable.
Given that we have still not had the opportunity to fully participate in the completion of Risk Assessments and any subsequent requirement to put in place identified measures to mitigate against any identified risks I will forward my concerns onto the Inspectorate as suggested by [Redacted]
Regards
Mick ______From: Mick Hewer Sent: 13 May 2020 17:04 To: '[Redacted] (OHR)' Subject: RE: Prospect Trade Union - Risk Assessment Concerns
Hi [Redacted]
Thank you for your prompt response, the content of which is useful as we were not aware from any communication with DESC that anyone from the H&S Advisory Service has been involved in any process to date.
I will discuss with my colleagues your response and may contact the Inspectorate separately, however, your clarification and comments are both useful and welcome.
Regards
Mick
24 190 ______From: [Redacted] (OHR) Sent: 13 May 2020 16:26 To: Mick Hewer Subject: RE: Prospect Trade Union - Risk Assessment Concerns
Good afternoon Mick,
As the health and safety advisory service within cabinet office we are as the name suggests, advisory rather than enforcement which is the Inspectorate which you refer to in your email.
As part of our support across DESC, two members of my team (both chartered safety and health practitioners) are today, tomorrow and Friday accompanying senior DESC staff to be part of a series risk assessment review visits for each hub school.
And to address the questions I can answer. Whilst I note the raft of information and guidance produced and provided by DESC there appears to be little by way of an agreed corporate Risk Assessment nor, and more importantly, any training for those persons being asked to carry out such assessment As far as I am aware the majority of Headteachers have undertaken Management of Health and Safety in an Educational Environment training which includes risk assessment.
I am not aware of any specific involvement from the Health and Safety Inspectorate here on the Island with regards to agreeing either a template risk assessment document or attending individual schools and educational establishments to ensure that a) appropriate assessments have been undertaken and b) any actions required as a result of those assessments are put in place, adhered to and monitored.
As mentioned earlier, I am part of the advisory service. Members of my team have been in contact with hub schools throughout the Covid-19 period. Also as stated earlier there is currently a series of risk assessment reviews underway. This looks at the risk assessments and adherence to the control measures identified in those risk assessments in action.
Therefore, given all of the above I would request that as a matter of urgency that this email is taken as notification of our concerns on behalf of Prospect members and that the Inspectorate become formally involved in assessing, planning, implementing and evaluating all steps being taken and instructions being issued to schools and our members PRIOR to any agreement and expansion of the present number of pupils being allowed to return to schools.
If you wish to contact the inspectorate (rather than my team in the H&S advisory service) on this matter they are headed up by Rob Greaves or they can be contacted at [Redacted]
Kind regards,
[Redacted],
[Redacted] Head of Health, Safety and Welfare
25 191 ______
From: Mick Hewer Sent: 13 May 2020 14:52 To: [Redacted] (OHR) Subject: Prospect Trade Union - Risk Assessment Concerns
Caution: This email is from an external sender. Please take care before opening any attachments or following any links.
Urgent
Good afternoon
I am contacting you to highlight concerns we (Prospect Trade Union IOM) have regarding the Department of Education, Sport and Culture and, specifically, their intentions with regards expanding pupil attendance at various schools across the Island with effect from Monday 18th May 2020.
I raise these concerns in the belief that they (the Department of Education, Sport and Culture (DESC)) are not discharging their duties under ‘The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974’ and ‘The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 2003’.
There have been ongoing discussions with DESC and various Trade Unions, including Prospect, through a number of individual and jointly agreed communications with DESC. All of the Trade Unions involved have expressed their concerns regarding the opening to a wider audience (Pupils) of schools and the risks that may pose.
Today, a number of Trade Unions have met and discussed their concerns with the Island Public Health Director – That meeting was extremely useful and clarified a number of points regarding cross Infection, sources of possible contamination, social distancing, cleaning protocols and, importantly ‘Risk Assessments’.
Whilst I note the raft of information and guidance produced and provided by DESC there appears to be little by way of an agreed corporate Risk Assessment nor, and more importantly, any training for those persons being asked to carry out such assessment.
Whilst it is clear that the employer has ultimate responsibility for carrying out such assessments I am concerned that some individuals are being placed into a position whereby they are agreeing to pupils returning to their establishments without necessarily understanding the wider implications of doing so.
I am not aware of any specific involvement from the Health and Safety Inspectorate here on the Island with regards to agreeing either a template risk assessment document or attending individual schools and educational establishments to ensure that a) appropriate assessments have been undertaken and b) any actions required as a result of those assessments are put in place, adhered to and monitored.
Therefore, given all of the above I would request that as a matter of urgency that this email is taken as notification of our concerns on behalf of Prospect members and that the Inspectorate become
26 192 formally involved in assessing, planning, implementing and evaluating all steps being taken and instructions being issued to schools and our members PRIOR to any agreement and expansion of the present number of pupils being allowed to return to schools.
You will appreciate that this is an urgent matter as numbers attending schools is due to increase (by as yet an unclear number) as of Monday 18th May 2020.
You will appreciate that I am extremely concerned at the apparent ‘rush’ to allow an increased number of pupils to return to school for what amounts to a 10 day period prior to schools and associated Hubs closing completely for what would have been the TT fortnight.
Surely it would be better to allow sufficient time for adequate Risk Assessments to be carried out and action plans agreed and put in place by appropriately experienced and trained individuals (as I believe is required under the relevant legislation) rather than allow inadequate time for such assessments and plans to be agreed and put into place.
I look forward to your comments.
Regards
Mick
27 193 Item 15 – Providing Education Remotely In The Event of School Closures During Term Time
28 194
29 195
30 196
31 197
32 198
33 199
[Redacted]
34 200
35 201
36 202
37 203 Online Support / Resources
ItsLearning ‘Be Prepared’ section for teachers https://itslearning.com/global/be-prepared-teachers/
ItsLearning ‘Be Prepared’ section for School Leaders and Administrators https://itslearning.com/global/be-prepared/
Video Tutorials on getting the most from ItsLearning https://www.youtube.com/user/itslearning
ItsLearning Help Section https://support.itslearning.com/en/support/solutions/7000000470
Video on how to set up google assignments to work offline. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48NnlPf-rog
Google Classroom - The Basics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6L-nZGIUTE
38 204 Appendix 30: 9th June 2020 – Email Submission
205 206 Archived: 10 June 2020 08:31:55 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 16:08:00 To: [Committees] Subject: PAC Friday 12/06/20 Meeting - Education Provision During Lockdown Importance: Normal Attachments: PAC submission Homeschooling Cripps.pdf ; ______
Dear Sir/Madam,
Please find attached and below my submission for the Public Accounts Committee's meeting to discuss education provision during lockdown that is to be held this friday. As stated in the paper, it has been submitted before the deadline of close of business today.
If you have any questions regarding it please feel free to contact me any time.
Kind regards,
[Name and contact details redacted]
Submission for Tynwald's Public Accounts Committee Friday 12/06/20 meeting, to discuss education provision during the lockdown. From [Name and contact details redacted]
The educational provision for our child during lockdown has been poor at best. In the last 3 months: - we have had 1 five minute phone call from my son's teacher. More were promised but never materialised. - we have had no face-to-face online contact. -we have had no pre-recorded lessons from his staff. -we have had no live online lessons from his staff. - we have had no paperwork sent to us to help with educating our son.
The school's own website posted a few documents and a list of weblinks on the 6th of April but nothing since. It is now the 9th of June. We have also been provided with a mish-mash of 'lessons' through the 'it's learning' portal.
The majority of the details posted on the school's website in April were weblinks to external websites i.e. not prepared by staff at[School redacted] . As well as the weblinks, parents of my son's school year were given 8 documents to cover all school subjects. These may have been prepared by school staff but, given my experience of his school and their use of downloaded documents from external websites, I have my doubts about this.
The 'it's learning' educational provision for our child has been split between two teachers. Children no longer get a class teacher that teaches them full-time during primary school, as you will know, so we've been able to see how much effort each member of staff puts into our child's education. It has been enlightening.
His maths/numeracy teacher provided weblinks for a variety of websites instead of actual prepared lessons. The main things we received were a weblink to pre-recorded lessons from White Rose Maths, downloaded worksheets from an external website, a weblink to Topmarks for other maths exercises, Login details for TTRockstars to help the kids learn their times tables and Login details for Numbots to help kids with basic maths. She has written no maths lessons herself during lockdown.
We've had no direct enquiries from this teacher as to how the numeracy work is going, whether my son's enjoying it
207 or if he's actually doing it at all. Looking at the work provided for us I would estimate that it took a maximum of half an hour each week to provide.
His English/literacy teacher has put in more effort and provided a variety of exercises to do but some were not suitable for the homeschool environment. Terminology was occasionally used that, although common place today in the classroom, was not common place a few years ago when parents went to school (connectives, text map) meaning some parents may have struggled to understand what is actually being referred to.
We've had no direct enquiries from this teacher as to how the literacy work is going, whether my son's enjoying it or if he's actually doing it at all. This teacher clearly put in some effort but I would estimate no more than half a day a week.
Ironically, the work from the maths teacher, which took us to someone else's online lessons as well as educational websites was actually the most useful.
Most of the work for the other subjects has been downloads from external websites or weblinks to external websites. There has been very little original content written by my son's teachers.
In order to keep our son moving forward, and learning at a rate that he didn't get bored at, we found it necessary to buy Carol Vorderman maths books. They use the UK National Curriculum and teach children in a simple, yet understandable way that is also easy for parents to follow and support. We have found these much more useful than the work provided by my son's school. Scarily, the work from school is of a noticeably lower standard than the equivalent age group in the UK National Curriculum. A separate issue but an important point to make I feel.
My son is lucky, I have been able to spend time every week day teaching him to some extent. We know many families who have not had that opportunity and the lack of direct online learning has meant their children are now massively behind many of their peers.
The disparity between learning levels for the children in my son's class is now vast. There are those whose parents have just read with them every day, there are those whose parents have tried to teach the uploaded work, there are those who attended school (although we have heard from a parent that their child was mainly just babysat rather than taught for the last 3 months) and there are all levels in between.
The lack of a comprehensive plan or any real effort to teach online has left our childrens' education in tatters. The only real way for them to catch up would be for teachers to re-teach all of the work that should have been done from the day lockdown began. The problem with this is that some children will be repeating sections of the work and others won't. In the mean time they will become months behind where they need to be.
With the right organisation and commitment it would have been possible for my son and his classmates to have received a proper education during lockdown. My son's cousin goes to[School redacted] and within a few weeks they had half a day online learning every day with their teacher and class and an afternoon of work to do online or on paper every day, to follow on from the morning's learning. They may have more money but that doesn't mean that their teachers are any more capable than the staff in state schools.
As the Department is responsible for many schools it would have been possible for all children from each year, across the island, to receive the same lessons each day, there was no need for each school to do different lessons. The department had economy of scale on its side but didn't take advantage of it and split into fragments with each school going it alone. The Department had the skills, abilities, staff and resources to provide a comprehensive education to nearly all kids during lockdown but somehow failed to get organised and do this. It was a wonderful opportunity that was sadly missed.
Going forward…..
When we get to the Autumn term the children will get half a term of education then the Christmas season will kick in. In[School redacted] they spend time every day for a month practising for the school play. Some days it's half a day, other days its quarter of a day. Then you get really close to Christmas and not a lot gets done with nothing educational getting done in the last week at all.
There is no way on earth kids and teachers will be able to catch up to where they should be unless things dramatically
208 change. This will mean that the second half of the Autumn term will need to be much less Christmas-centric than usual and will need to actually focus on education.
The current situation also means that the few weeks kids are at school in June/July they will need to be taught lessons rather than the usual wind-down that happens after TT week. Every year so far, our son's class has received meaningful lessons for only half to two-thirds of the summer half-term. This must change this year.
The children must also receive summer classes during what would normally be the summer holidays. I have spoken to a local teacher and they want to teach for half of the summer holidays, for no extra pay, just to get their class up to date with their lessons. Our kids need more teachers like this or their education may never recover.
If there are complaints from teachers about "losing their summer holidays" may I refer you to my previous comments on the time spent by them actually preparing lessons for our children during lockdown.
Whether teachers like it or not, it is their responsibility to educate our children. They've pretty much been given an easy ride by the public during lockdown. Hub school staff have been in school 1 week in every 3, they've done online learning at home for 1 week in 3 and 'lesson planning' at home for 1 week in 3. They now need to ramp it up a gear.
Health workers, chemists, supermarket staff, delivery drivers, other public servants and many, many more have had to step up to the mark and do what was required, regardless as to whether it was in their contracted hours or not. They all had a social responsibility and they met it without complaints. It is an unprecedented time, the country needs teachers to do what they do best, teach our children. The country needs teachers to show us how much they care about their pupils and help the children recover from the lack of education they've suffered over the last 3 months. The future of our children sits in the hands of our teachers more than ever before. They need to step up and do their civic duties like all the other professions have done, and continue to do, or they will lose any respect parents ever had for them and our children will pay the price for the rest of their lives.
As an aside, I would like to point out that as a parent of a child with[Redacted] we have had no support from school on this front during lockdown. The class teacher prepared all of the day-to-day equipment that he uses for us to collect when school finished but that's as far as it went. We have also been told that there will not be any support for him when he initially returns to school, hopefully on the 22nd of June.
END
209 210 Appendix 31: 9th June 2020 – Email from Sarah Harper
211 212 Archived: 10 June 2020 08:37:34 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 16:18:40 To: [Committees] Subject: Education during pandemic comments Importance: Normal ______
Hi. I would like to submit some comments please for the committee (mentioned above)
I have had 2 children aged 5 and 10, so school years reception and Year 5 not attending school while it has been closed. Both my husband and myself have had to carry on both working full time from home during this period and ongoing situation. The support we have received from our school has not been minimal - we get an email each Monday which contains a full lesson plan and some ideas or worksheets for printing out. I am appreciative of these but unfortunately we have just not had the capacity to do these alongside full time work too. There has been no video calls or virtual lessons arranged to support or facilitate any learning. We have also not even received a telephone call from either teacher or headteacher thought out whereas from speaking with friends (in other schools), they have had telephone calls and/or video calls arranged. The inconsistency across different schools is disappointing. All children should have had similar experience and support. More should have been done to make a mandatory level of online/virtual support for all schools to provide as a minimum.
It has been disheartening to hear on the daily updates it has been mentioned that online support has been funded and technology is available but it does not appear it has been utilized across all (most) schools (especially primary).
Please give consideration to ensuring schools give priority to some form of online and virtual lessons for those children still not able to go to school. Schools are open, this education should now be available to all.
Can any consideration be given to providing some form of catch up during what would be the summer holiday period for children, especially the year groups that are due to return to the classroom last (just before school breaks up for summer!)
Lastly the other area that I think children have been let down is support for their mental health - No check in call(s) from the school? No ongoing support for this area. No resources I am aware of that we can utilize as parents to support our children throughout. The isolation from friends has been tough. Is anything being considered for this as children return also?
Hoping my comments help. I understand the need for the schools to close to deal with the virus, and this is a first in this situation so none previous replicate etc but hopefully some insight from a parent perspective is useful.
Many thanks Sarah
213 214 Appendix 32: 9th June 2020 – Email from Linda Green
215 216 Archived: 10 June 2020 08:42:30 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 17:10:57 To: [Committees] Subject: Public Accounts Committee Meeting Friday 12 June - Education Importance: Normal
Dear Sir/Madam
I am writing following reading the announcement on the 3FM website about the scrutiny session about Education and specifically the ability to comment on the topic.
Firstly, I would like to applaud Dr Allinson MHK and everyone working in and with our schools to support children though this unprecedented time - it can't have been easy and I am sure that many teachers are, like myself, juggling working from home and supporting their own children.
The purpose of this mail is to raise questions around 4 key areas:
1. The consideration given to achieving consistency of support provided by schools during the pandemic. It is clear to me that some schools have prepared much better than others and that teachers in some schools have provided online support and being visible and available more than others. My eldest is a year 9 at[School redacted] and within 1 week she was working online to her usual timetable. The ability to access her teachers and work, whilst not feeling under pressure was excellent.
My youngest daughter attends[School redacted] and has special needs (she is [Redacted] The school placed information on their website with ideas about things we could do with our children; however there has been little in the way of structured material or regular contact. I am not necessarily critical of[School redacted] staff, however, I am aware that other schools have provided more structured learning and online sessions with teachers.
I'm not sure these would have worked for our daughter; however, it highlights the inconsistency across schools.
2. SENCO children - Being out of routine is not good for a child[Redacted] and whilst we have managed and adapted to a new routine, I am very concerned that having been behind in her learning, she will now be even further behind. This coupled with moving to year 7 and a new school[School redacted] is going to present major challenges for her, us as parents and the teachers who will be working with her. I have to be honest and say that I feel there has been very little to no consideration of SENCO children in all of this and other than our daughter's teacher and the school SENCO checking in with us a few times, we have had no real communication to provide us with any comfort that her needs are being considered both in relation to returning to school or with her transition to high school. There needs to be more communication about this.
3. Transition - what is the Education Minister going to do about children transitioning to different schools. Our youngest is transitioning from[School redacted] to[School redacted] and at the moment I feel as if the teachers are simply expecting her to turn up in September ready to go. Similarly my eldest is moving to[School redacted] and is already getting nervous about starting without any form of transition support. This is a critical time for children in transition years and we need clarity about how this is going to be managed and children supported.
217 4. Children returning to school. I have heard on the grapevine (sorry I have to raise this as I have not received any official communication to contradict it) that when children return this term they will not be receiving formal education, but simply doing the type of exercises or online work that they have either been doing at home or when attending a Hub school (for those that have been). Parents need to know this. It is very important as if some parents are nervous about exposing their children to risk, it may give them comfort to know that other than socialising with other children and being in a routine, they will not be missing out on education if they don't return until September.
I personally would like both my children to return to school as I think it is important for their mental well being - they are happy at home, but becoming isolated which is not healthy. My husband, however, is very nervous as he is not convinced the virus is totally gone from the Island and is worried about exposing the girls to any unnecessary risk. More detail about the measures being put in place within schools would help alleviate this concern. Any reference to this by Dr Allinson has been general - we need to receive something from head teachers.
Thank you for reading this and I hope that these issues are raised during the review on Friday.
Kind regards
Linda Green
218 Appendix 33: 9th June 2020 – Email from Geraldine O’Neill, Local Negotiating Secretary, NASUWT
219 220 Archived: 10 June 2020 08:46:06 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 09 June 2020 17:12:06 To: [Committees] Subject: Public Scrutiny Committee 12th July session Importance: Normal
To whom it may concern, the NASUWT Teachers' Union would like to endorse their full support of the NAHT submitted document on the recent handling by the DESC of the COVID-19 crisis. Yours sincerely, Geraldine O'Neill Local Negotiating Secretary for the NASUWT
221 222 Appendix 34: 10th June 2020 – Email from Hazel Jordan
223 224 Archived: 10 June 2020 09:57:55 From: [Contact details redacted] Sent: 10 June 2020 09:52:17 To: [Committees] Subject: Submission for committee re. Education in view of the pandemic Importance: Normal
Dear all
Having seen yesterday that you are interested in hearing from people re. the above, I would like to give my thoughts on the above. I am a parent of a 15 year old boy who attends a local secondary school.
Firstly, I would ask if a risk based approach being taken with the schools? Having been into his school days before the lockdown, there was no sanitiser, social distancing etc. and yet there was transmission of Covid-19 in the community and concerns at the time that the hospital would not be able to cope with this on the island. Now that there have been 18 consecutive days without any new cases, most children are not going to be able to go back to school until September and I would question whether school attendance is currently commensurate with the risk to children and teachers health?
Secondly, I would like to draw the committee’s attention to the provision of education currently being given to children. I understand that the children of key workers and vulnerable children have been able to attend school during the lockdown and all other children have some provision for on line learning, but what I would say is that the on-line learning that is set varies significantly from teacher to teacher and subject to subject. Going forward it would be beneficial if all teachers and schools could share best practice and resources, so that all children on the island have access to the best of resources available and there is some uniformity.
In view of the likelihood that we will have a 2nd or 3rd wave of the pandemic within the next 12 months, it is also vital that our children have access to a full on line education service with full lessons. Although some teachers have been able to find some good on line teaching resources and all have done what they can to provide some sort of learning in the pandemic, one of the best ways for teachers to teach and replicate the classroom experience is by using a platform such a Zoom or MicrosoftTeams and yet this doesn’t appear to happening. For us personally, my son missed a lot of schooling over the last couple of years due to ill health and he has been particularly struggling to keep up in the Maths and Science work that was set. As his teachers are unable to use a platform, they were unable to help him with learning difficulties in particular subjects and in the end, we felt that we had no choice but to get private tutors for him (who are able to do lessons virtually and they use Skype or Zoom).
This has worked well as they can share learning materials and discuss subject matter directly and I do wonder why this cant be used in schools over here because as far as I am aware, Zoom is being used in England by the Houses of Parliament and most of us are using our own personal electronic devices when working from home and this is certainly fine in the financial services sector where security issues are considered carefully. My thoughts are that if we embrace the use of this technology, not only would this allow teachers to continue to fully teach classes in the pandemic, but this could also allow some teachers to do 1-1 lessons with children who have special needs and this could actually have a positive impact on their education. For those who do not have access to the equipment, separate provision can be made for them (with either equipment, or they can be taught with the vulnerable children and children of key workers).
I appreciate that a lot of teachers have put a lot of time and effort into doing what they can in the current circumstances , but with the likelihood of a 2nd or 3rd wave of this pandemic and a need for further
225 lockdowns, we need to ensure that we have plans in place to ensure that all children receive a full education during these periods.
Thanking you all.
Hazel Jordan
226 Appendix 35: 12th June 2020 – Email from Sue Moore, Head Teacher, QEII High School
227 228 From: Susan Moore Sent: Friday, June 12, 2020 1:35 pm To: Edge, Julie (MHK) Subject: Fw: IOM Government news release
Caution: This email is from an external sender. Please take care before opening any attachments or following any links. Dear Julie
I listened to the streaming of the Public Accounts committee and was appalled by the way in which Ronald Barr attempted to blame union action for various aspects of DESC management of the crisis. I sent this email to the Minister at the start of May. Although it was from my ASCL account, it was very definitely a personal view rather than an official one, as is this message to you. ASCL formally suspended the action to work with DESC through the crisis. Thank you for asking the question which forced Ronald to acknowledge this. Both NAHT and NASUWT were in regular correspondence with DESC to try to work together on managing schools safely.
At no point did the union dispute ever stop any of us working with DESC on managing the covid response. The secondary heads repeatedly asked to have meetings with DESC to discuss how we manage and these were turned down.
I am not sure how we go about correcting the record which will now be on Hansard.
Please feel free to share this email with other committee members.
Kind regards Sue Moore
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From: Susan Moore Sent: 11 May 2020 10:59 To: Allinson, Alex (MHK); 'Carol Walsh' Subject: Re: IOM Government news release
Dear Alex
The roadmap is flawed. As I informed you on Friday, we were not given an opportunity to look at it or check it for accuracy. As a head teacher, I have now had 2 meetings with DESC officials during this lockdown period. The second was on Thursday. I do not regard that as 'regular meetings'.
229 At that second meeting, I asked where the numbers for the alleged capacity of each school came from. Ronald informed me that they are 'highly speculative' and unlikely ever to be used. They are based on the number of classrooms in each school x 25 pupils per room and then divided by half 'to give class size of 10-12'. According to my maths, half of 25 is 12.5. So the numbers are wrong. They bear no relation to the actual size of room and take no account of whether there are enough teachers to supervise each room. Yet these numbers are the basis of the plan to bring children back to school.
[Redacted]
We have not even yet had a proper proforma for risk assessment - anything we have has been provided by unions not by our employer.
I am reaching the end of my ability to cope with the lack of honest support and clear information. When I asked about additional hand washing facilities, I was told I could source my own and then when I politely suggested that the DESC might do this for all hubs, the information came back that we could use hand sanitiser instead. Yet all the advice specifically refers to frequent hand washing. Even if we use hand sanitiser, we have not been given any information as to where supplies of this will come from.
There appears to be no planning and certainly none including the people in schools who are having to manage this on the ground and to whom parents and staff look for advice and to place their trust. At the moment, I cannot tell them we have plans in place to keep children or staff safe. It is simply not true. We have a list of questions. We have a list of some things which need to be done. We have no answers or help in getting things done.
Sorry but the stress of this is finally getting to me. Kind regards Sue
Sue Moore
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From: Allinson, Alex (MHK) Sent: 11 May 2020 08:35 To: 'Carol Walsh' Cc: Susan Moore ; ALAN CREBBIN ; O'Neill, Geraldine ; Keith Winstanley ; Chris Coole ; Robert Kelsall ; Max Kelly ; Isle of Man Treasurer ; Willoughby ; Adrian Shorthouse ; Rachel Ashley ; Martin Jackson ; Baker Subject: RE: IOM Government news release Dear carol,
230 Thank you for your email overnight.
I am sorry about your reaction to a press release detailing the “roadmap” document sent to all unions and all teachers a week ago.
This document was drawn up based on discussions with teachers at cluster meetings and with input from Public Health.
It was also discussed at the joint union meeting convened last Wednesday.
Following our conversation on Friday I put off any DESC emails until today on your advice. As Geraldine O’Neill has stated it is fundamentally important that we build up a level of trust with parents that it is safe for them to send their children to school and the document gives a structure to how we may achieve this.
Best wishes
Alex
Dr Alex Allinson MHK for Ramsey Legislative Buildings Finch Road Douglas Isle of Man IM1 3PW British Isles [Contact details redacted]
From: Carol Walsh Sent: 10 May 2020 22:01 To: Allinson, Alex (MHK) Cc: Susan Moore; ALAN CREBBIN; O'Neill, Geraldine; Keith Winstanley; Chris Coole; Robert Kelsall; Max Kelly; Isle of Man Treasurer; Willoughby; Adrian Shorthouse; Rachel Ashley; Martin Jackson; Baker Subject: IOM Government news release
Caution: This email is from an external sender. Please take care before opening any attachments or following any links. Dear Alex
I am absolutely appalled, that once again a press release about Education has been released on a Sunday, without prior warning to Headteachers or teaching staff.
In our conversation on Friday I explained to you the stress this is causing the Education community and asked you not to do this. My phone has not stopped ringing since 7.30pm this evening, taking calls and texts from distressed Heads or teachers.
231 Additionally there are untruths within the press release. The framework has NEVER been shared with the unions.
This has further heightened the distrust in DESC. This roadmap was produced unilaterally by DESC without input or consultation from Unions or Headteachers. It shows the lack of respect DESC obviously has for Headteachers, the profession and the unions involved in Education. Rather than working with us, DESC is working against us. This news release is being seen as a cynical way to force the hands of teaching staff to increase the intake of pupils before it is safe to do so.
I feel lip service is being given to 'consultation' with unions and Headteachers, therefore I must stress that you must not include any references to NAHT in any further press releases unless you have express agreement with an NAHT officer, and I am confident my feelings will be shared by the other unions.
Regards
Carol Walsh NAHT Branch Secretary
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232 Appendix 36: 12th June 2020 – Email from Annette Baker, National Association of Head Teachers
233 234 From: Annette Baker Sent: 12 June 2020 To: Carol Walsh; Max Kelly; Emergency Scrutiny Subject: Urgent: Corrected statement: Response to Ronald Barr’s statements to the Public Accounts Committee session at 11.00am Friday 12 June
On Fri, 12 Jun 2020 at 13:13, Annette Baker wrote:
It is the view of the NAHT and NAS/UWT that Ronald Barr has just mislead the Public Accounts Committee, and has repeatedly made grievously inaccurate statements to committee members about the unions’ response to the crisis. Far from refusing to work with the Department, each union committed to working closely with them for the duration, even inviting them to further meetings which Department members refused to attend. The unions have categorically never refused to cooperate over any aspect of the response to this crisis due their individual and collective disputes, including online learning. The DESC made no attempt whatsoever to try to monitor online learning during this crisis. We refer you to the NAHT submission to the committee, which includes a letter from 20th March specifically stating NAHT’s express commitment to cooperating with government over every aspect of this crisis. Other unions could produce similar statements. We ask the committee to challenge Ronald Barr to produce evidence to support his assertions.
On behalf of NAHT
235 236 GOVERNMENT RESPONSE TO REPORT
29th June 2020 – Letter from Hon Alex Allinson MHK, Minister for Education, Sport and Culture
237 238
Department of Education, Sport and Culture
Chief Executive Officer Rheynn Ynsee, Spoyrt as Cultoor Prof Ronald Barr
From the Minister Hamilton House Peel Road, Douglas Shirveishagh Isle of Man IM1 5EZ
Hon Dr A Allinson MHK [Contact details redacted]
Website: www.gov.im
29th June 2020
The Hon Juan Watterson SHK Chair of the Public accounts Committee Legislative Buildings Douglas, IM1 3PW
Dear Mr Speaker,
Thank you for your letter dated 22nd June and the opportunity to respond to the Public Accounts Committee report “Emergency Scrutiny – Education” which was laid before Tynwald on Tuesday 16th June 2020.
Firstly I would like to thank the committee for their time on Friday 12th June in taking evidence from myself and officers from the Department for Education, Sport and Culture. In paragraph 13 you accepted the limitations of the report which focused on four rather narrow aspects of what has been the most extensive and serious disruptions to education the island has ever experienced. I was therefore disappointed in your comments in paragraph 4 that “effective leadership has seemingly evaporated during the crisis” and “best practice has not been disseminated” and would appreciate if you could share the evidence behind these rather judgemental assertions.
In paragraph 5 you criticised the plan to return to normal education provision as lacking “forward thinking” or “the ability to adapt quickly enough to changing circumstances”. The published “roadmap” of the return of pupils to school was devised at the start of the health emergency and recognised the limitations imposed by complying with strict social distancing guidelines within an educational environment. The announcement that social distancing restrictions would be lifted made by the Chief Minister on Thursday 11th June enabled the department to communicate effectively with all schools and teachers to reopen all schools on Monday 15th June and enable all pupils to return to full time education by Monday 22nd. This acceleration of the return to school programme was organised in a controlled manner and has been very successful.
I am slightly confused by your comment in paragraph 7 that the department was “waiting for UK guidance”. At all times DESC was responsive to advice and guidance from a range of sources, primarily DHSC and the island’s Public Health Department but also was mindful of developments in England, Wales and Scotland as the four teacher unions were receiving guidance from their UK based national officers.
Can I make clear, in reference to comments made in paragraph 20 that the primary concern of me as Minister and the department has always been the health and safety of pupils and staff and the education service.
239
Comments were made in paragraph 21 about teaching staff being redeployed. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all members of staff for their dedication and flexibility during the health emergency. Several UCM lecturers were pivotal in the establishment and operation of the drive- through testing centre at the Grandstand which was so important to supress the spread of the virus on our island.
In paragraph 28 there are comments that the department was “caught off guard” by changes in restrictions on employment sectors returning to work. During the evidence session I made it clear that I was present when all decisions were made by the Council of Ministers. Whilst opening up the economy was essential when it was safe to do so all the measures taken by the department were made with education being the priority and the health and wellbeing of pupils and staff the deciding factor for the timing of any changes.
In paragraph 29 you make reference to the Director of Education’s daily emails which disseminated best practice and seem critical of this. This attitude seems at odds with your own statement in paragraph 4.
In paragraph 32 you make reference again to guidance from the UK and I would like to draw the committee’s attention to documents issued by two of the teacher unions which were sent to the department at the start of the health emergency. 1. NAHT Distance Learning strategy: Advice to Headteachers on the Isle of Man 16th March 2020 2. NASUWT Arrangements for Remote teaching, Learning and Support https://www.nasuwt.org.uk/advice/health-safety/coronavirus-guidance/arrangements-for- remote-teaching-learning-support.html
In paragraph 43 and 48 there is reference to the department providing a centralised on-line educational service rather than this being provided by individual schools for their pupils. Whilst comparisons are made with DHSC the committee does seem to appreciate the fundamental difference in the way education services are provided on the island and the level of autonomy given to head teachers. To have abruptly and unilaterally changed this at a time when teachers were also expected to provide face to face teaching in the hub schools without adequate consultation would have been destabilising for the whole service.
It was only after the evidence session that I was provided with the submission from NAHT dated 9th June 2020 and I feel obliged to comment on some of the comments made in this document which may have influenced members of the committee in their questioning.
The guidance for remote learning referenced in the NAHT submission was issued on 16 March 2020, and was focused on providing education remotely in the event of school closure. It was further supplemented and augmented with numerous pieces of advice and guidance for schools and settings (see appendix).
Criticism is made on page two of the submission to a press release from DESC regarding distance learning. The Department’s complaints policy requires that parents address any concerns about provision in the first instance to the Headteacher of their child’s school. Responsibility for ensuring the best quality of educational provision sits with Headteachers, and in reinforcing this point the department was simply trying to establish direct communication between parents and schools.
Prior to schools closing on the 24 March 2020, three of the four teaching unions, the NAHT, ASCL and NASUWT had trade disputes, resulting in Action Short of Strike (ASOS) with the Department. The ASOS included engagement with the Department’s inspection process meaning that even before schools closed the Department was unable to carry out inspection of provision in schools.
240
Clearly during a period of social distancing EIS link advisers sought to keep their physical contact with schools and settings to a minimum. However numerous visits to schools were undertaken by link advisers. Contact was maintained with each hub on at least a weekly basis by the Director of Education, and other contacts such as regular emails and Microsoft Teams calls were offered to Headteachers and Heads of Service. Regular cluster meetings took place with all primary and secondary Headteachers, using Microsoft Teams, to provide updates on recent developments and answer concerns and questions. A daily ‘update’ was also sent to all Headteachers. Such communications covered a vast range of topics relating to how schools could respond to the pandemic including staffing, staff rotas, social distancing, PPE, school meals, eligibility for school places, remote working, training for staff, arrangements for newly qualified teachers, off-Island travel for staff, annual school reports, impact of closure on socially disadvantaged students, arrangements for contact tracing etc.,
During the ‘lock-down’ the Education Improvement Service led a number of work streams. For example they liaised closely with schools and exam boards about arrangements for assessments during the pandemic, supported schools’ risk assessments for a return to school, led (with DHSC) on the management of the pandemic with regards to Early Years settings, offered advice on a ‘recovery curriculum’ for a return to school, helped manage the creation of one of the hubs in the absence of a Headteacher and offered considerable support to staff and senior leaders for their personal well-being. Headteachers were aware of this ongoing work as it was referenced frequently in the daily updates sent. This was in addition to creating and signposting a vast array of high quality resources to support home learning and dynamic responses such as advising Government on policy positions. (E.g. producing papers for COMIN, providing data etc.,). Such responsibilities were on top of advisers’ ongoing development activities.
EIS advisory teachers visited schools, and in some cases taught where there were staff shortages. There was a wide range of guidance and advice issued to schools and settings regarding the areas covered by the advisory teacher roles.
With regard to the unlocking of the construction, trades and horticulture the COMIN decision referenced was for such sectors to return to work. It would be highly unusual and inappropriate for school leaders to be consulted about the return of a sector to work. School provision was not offered to such sectors until almost a month later - several weeks after the publication of the Road Map document, which of course included planned provision for this sector.
Prior to the public announcement made about TT week and holidays it is not correct to say that officers refused to disclose this decision at the JNC on 1 May. Rather the views of the Trades Unions on working such periods was sought by the Chief Executive and a decision made on the basis of this consultation.
Because of some security concerns with several online communication platforms the Department has recommended use of a specific platform during the pandemic. In conjunction with GTS, a recommendation was made, and supporting guidance issued on 1 May for schools to use Microsoft Teams for video conferencing pupils. However, on the advice of a member of the NAHT Executive, schools were permitted to continue to use whatever platform for remote learning they were familiar with as long as school leaders were satisfied that such platforms complied with legal requirements.
The proposal to expand school provision for years 2, 6, 10 and 12 was contained in the Road Map document published and shared with Headteachers on 1 May. It was also discussed during the round of cluster meetings with primary and secondary Headteachers on 13 May when it was also made clear that there was no confirmed date for this to happen.
241
As Minister for Education, Sport and Culture I was part of the decision taken centrally to reconvene an industrial relations forum involving all unions and associations on the Isle of Man to consider Government policies in relation to COVID-19. As such, it would have been a duplication of effort during an exceptionally busy time for DESC officers to also attend an education COVID-19 forum along with the JNC meetings for teachers, lecturers and support staff. As Minister I facilitated both the Director for Public Health and The Executive Director, Officer of Human Resources attending this union forum to provide the necessary practical advice and guidance which was requested.
There has been no attempt by DESC to look at controversial issues using the cover of the pandemic. For example, holiday dates for 2022/23 had already been discussed with primary Headteachers and secondary Headteachers and had been emailed to all of the unions for their views on 21 February. Indeed, replies had been received from three of the four unions expressing preferences. At the request of the fourth union the timescale for consultation was extended and my final decision not announced until well after the deadline.
At a meeting on 18 March I made clear, and have subsequently confirmed, that the Department's requirement to inspect schools was put on hold only for the period of the health emergency, not indefinitely. I appreciate that the current inspection framework is under review and offered this to be an open process with adequate consultation with all stakeholders.
Several references have been made about health and safety responsibilities. It is clear within Headteachers’ job descriptions that they are responsible for safeguarding within their school, including health and safety. If Headteachers feel that they are insufficiently trained in this area they should highlight their training needs during the appraisal process and should seek further support from the Health and Safety Adviser. Such training is available and routinely provided to newly qualified teachers. This is an area which the Department will be concentrating on if further guidance and support is requested.
I acknowledge that the Public Accounts Committee was trying to scrutinise government policies and operational delivery during a very dynamic period of change and response to a health emergency. I hope that this submission following the publication of your initial report which was produced very quickly can help clarify some of the important issues which raised concern from the teaching profession and members of the public.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Alex Allinson MHK
242
Appendix - Guidance provided to schools by DESC to support the development of Remote Learning, prior to, during, and after the period of school closures.
The DESC Guidance ‘Providing education remotely in the event of school closures during term time’ on 16th March was comprehensive, based on experiences of remote learning from around the world, and contrary to the NAHT submission, contained useful support regarding: - How to establish E- Learning platforms - Steps to success with E-learning - Possible challenges - Developing an effective e-learning lesson format - Checklists for set up and maintenance of logins to remote learning platforms - Instructions on how to access google suite and Itslearning - Links to further resources With regards guidance and support for schools for remote learning in particular throughout the lockdown period, the initial 16th March guidance was augmented with the following timeline of support, included below: 16th March - DESC Guidance on providing education remotely in the event of school closure – This included, checks on logins for pupils and staff, setting up online learning days, an overview of the platforms available to schools, online lesson formats, and a checklist prior to closure
23/24 March – ‘How to’ guides for all staff on remote learning platforms Itslearning, Google suite, and Google Classroom
30th March GTS make MS Teams available for all RAN users and email all head teachers with details of how to enable this.
6th April – Guidance document on delivering remote learning sent through an update and used by schools in their own staff meetings. This included key tips and potential pitfalls when providing work, and establishing feedback channels with pupils.
7th April – Worked up and distributed a process by which schools could loan devices to support the completion of remote learning provided. w/b 20th April – Schools supported to trial the use of Microsoft Teams with pupils. Several schools sought support from GTS and EIS to start video conferencing pupil groups and using the platform to teach online. Peripatetic support for trialling the platform was provided by the EIS ICT Advisory Teacher and a member of the GTS training team.
30th April – Beginning of showcasing excellent online learning practice by schools across the Island. This was through collecting teacher accounts of what they have put in place and the feedback they’ve had from parents. This section grew daily. This has led to schools seeing what’s been highlighted and then contacting EIS for support in replicating good practice.
1st May – Comprehensive guide on how to use Microsoft Teams with pupils provided to schools. Schools were encouraged to use online lesson delivery as part of a wide range of learning mediums available. w/b 4th May and ongoing – Inclusion and Safeguarding guidance website worked up by the Inclusion and Safeguarding team. This site was devoted to helping schools support pupils, staff, parents and vulnerable groups with well-being, bereavement, social and emotional learning and a host of other areas relating to universal and additional pupil needs.
243 w/b 1st June to help schools prepare for when they gradually re-open to more children - Support guidance on making up for lost teaching time, plus links and support for ensuring a ‘recovery curriculum’ is established if required.
Lockdown – Present
-Peripatetic support for setting up and delivering remote teaching and learning provided by EIS ICT Advisory Teacher. This member of staff has visited schools and also provided training, guidance and support remotely during the entire period.
-Support and CPD provided by a team of Remote Learning ‘Advocates’ to their own school colleagues and to teachers in other schools.
-Guidance shared with regards effective online learning provision given through daily updates and the ‘Remote Learning Ideas’ course, available to all school leaders and teachers.
244 RESPONSE RECEIVED AFTER REPORT PUBLISHED
4th August 2020 – Letter from Isle of Man NAHT
245 246
Mr Juan Watterson SHK Chair of the PUBLIC ACCOUNTS COMMITTEE A Standing Committee of Tynwald Court Tynwald c/o Clerk of Tynwald's Office, Legislative Buildings Finch Road Douglas Isle of Man IM1 3PW
Tuesday 4th August 2020 (by email)
Dear Mr Watterson
NAHT isle of Man has studied the Hansard from the Public Accounts Committee Emergency Scrutiny (Education) 12th June 2020. We believe that a significant amount of oral evidence received by the Committee at the hearing was inaccurate, and we set out the following observations.
NAHT has comment for you in respect of the answer that Mr Barr gave to the Committee in response to Ms Edge’s question
Q15. Ms Edge: For the Minister: in a media briefing on 2nd May, you stated that schools volunteered to remain open during bank holidays. It has been suggested to us that in fact schools were not asked – that information from the Department was received by email on 2nd May, an hour before the briefing. Does that surprise you, as Minister, that the schools only received that an hour before the briefing?
Mr Barr replied
Prof. Barr: Yes, we had a meeting and we actually discussed this with regard to, as I recall both the Good Friday and the Easter Monday and indeed the May Day bank holidays, and those were referenced in the meetings that Geoff Moorcroft and I had with the head teachers. We said very clearly in those meetings that we were expecting, because of the state of emergency and because at that point we only had about 3% or 4% of children in school, that we would keep that going through the Easter holidays and the May Day bank holidays
NAHT would respectfully point out to the Committee that Mr Barr’s answer cannot possibly be accurate. The first meeting convened by Mr Barr and Mr Moorcroft with the headteachers was 27th April 2020, which was seven days after the Easter Holidays had concluded. It would not have been possible for Mr Barr to have stated anything “very clearly” at those meetings in respect of the Department’s plans for the Easter Holidays and bank holidays since they had already occurred. Additionally, the first JNC for teaching unions
247 during the emergency period was not held until 24th April, again, after the conclusion of the Easter holidays.
Whether Mr Barr misspoke or made a genuine mistake is for the Committee to decide, but at best it demonstrates that Mr Barr was not fully briefed or prepared for the Committee since he provided inaccurate information; at worst it could show that he had presented misinformation to a Tynwald Committee.
There are other examples within Hansard from the Public Accounts Committee Emergency Scrutiny (Education) 12th June 2020 in which NAHT can demonstrate that Mr Barr presented inaccurate information in his oral evidence.
With regards to industrial action of NAHT, in response to Ms Edge’s question
Q16. Ms Edge: Okay, and just with regard to co-operation and obviously communication during this. Did the unions not suspend their action during the crisis? Are you stating that they continued their action during the crisis?
Mr Barr replied
Prof. Barr: Yes. Not all the unions: ASCL, which represents primarily senior leaders in high schools, suspended everything except one element of their action. So they suspended the bulk of their work to rule, but other unions did not do so.
NEU, of course, has not been in dispute with us but NAHT and NAS/UWT continued with their work to rule.
This is demonstrably untrue in respect of NAHT, and although we do not speak for NAS/UWT, we believe it is untrue for them too.
In respect of NAHT, whether or not there is some technicality of precise words that the Department claim to have needed to have seen in order to “believe” the suspension of the action, and did not see, we draw attention to our letter dated 20th March 2020 to the Chief Minister which promised
“as a profession, we will do all we can to support the national effort”
“we stand ready to work with you as this emergency continues to unfold. It will not be easy, but the scale of the crisis means that many solutions will have to be tried even though they are less than perfect.”
“Now is the time to pull together and demonstrate the Manx spirit of cooperation and resilience – as echoed in our national motto “Quocunque Jeceris Stabit” (whichever way you throw me, I will stand) – and NAHT IOM commits to helping make this happen”
NAHT National Secretary, Rob Kelsall, wrote again to the Chief Minister on 24th March and in that letter reiterated the spirit of cooperation from NAHT.
248 Isle of Man Branch Secretary Carol Walsh also wrote to the Director of Education, Mr Moorcroft, on 23rd March and said
“I am available to do anything I can to help – my mobile is ------and obviously I am on email.”
She reiterated this offer of help on 31st March to both Mr Barr and Mr Moorcroft via email saying
“I would also be extremely pleased to help out in any way I can for the Department, so please don’t hesitate to send anything my way if you feel appropriate”
Furthermore, in his evidence to the Committee, Mr Barr refers to meetings that he had convened with the head teachers during the emergency period. Non-attendance at meetings with Department Officers was one of NAHT’s actions under the industrial action, and clearly our position is that we were attending such meetings because we had paused our industrial action – and Mr Barr appears to confirm this which is in contradiction to his later assertion that we were continuing with industrial action.
NAHT can provide countless examples of work that our members undertook during the emergency period that had we been engaged in industrial action, our members would have refused to do. NAHT feel it is absolutely essential that the Committee ask Mr Barr to substantiate his claims that our members continued with a work to rule by providing cast iron evidence and examples of (a) requests and instructions given by the Department to schools and headteachers; and (b) the refusals received by the Department to comply with said requests and instructions by members of NAHT.
NAHT are firmly of the belief that no such evidence can be provided by Mr Barr and we would then expect him to withdraw his remarks. That he said such remarks to a Committee of Tynwald is unfortunate and we will leave it to the Committee to decide whether he misspoke due to not being fully briefed or prepared or if he has presented misinformation.
NAHT would also like to draw the Committee’s attention to the answers received in respect of Mrs Poole-Wilson’s question
Q10. Mrs Poole-Wilson: Thank you. Just one more question for me. I understand that schools do usually work autonomously with central Department support but, given the schools seem to have co-operated and collaborated around staffing the hub schools, was this not a situation where it would have worked for the Department to co-ordinate a central response co-opting teachers to work centrally to deliver both online learning and perhaps specified guidance for year groups?
In his response, Mr Barr states
Prof. Barr: The specified guidance for year groups and other things were actually pushed out to schools, and there has been a group that was led by Joel Smith in terms of IT and learning that has been in place for some time and so we also capitalised on that work and sent that out to schools. The issue we have had is that in asking schools to do things ... On a number of occasions they would say, ‘Well, we’re not prepared to do that because it is part of the ongoing industrial dispute that we have with you’.
249 NAHT are unaware of any “specified guidance for year groups” ever having been issued. We call on the Committee to ask Mr Barr to substantiate his claim that such guidance was “pushed out to schools.” Specified guidance for years groups, by this very definition, would reference the year group which the guidance relates e.g. Year 4 and would include specific information in respect of that particular year group, rather than anything more general. NAHT would ask the Committee to seek sight of such guidance, together with evidence to support that it had been distributed to schools.
If it is found, as NAHT believe, that no such “specified guidance for year groups” was “pushed out to schools” then we would expect Mr Barr to withdraw his remarks. That he said such remarks to a Committee of Tynwald is unfortunate and we will leave it to the Committee to decide whether he misspoke due to not being fully briefed or prepared or if he has presented misinformation.
Furthermore, NAHT would ask the Committee to ask Mr Barr to substantiate his comments that “on a number of occasions they would say ‘Well, we’re not prepared to do that because it is part of the ongoing dispute that we have with you” by providing cast iron evidence and examples of (a) requests and instructions given by the Department to schools and headteachers in relation to the line of questioning pursued by Mrs Poole-Wilson i.e. could the Department co-ordinate a central response co-opting teachers to work centrally to deliver online learning and specified guidance for year groups; and (b) the refusals received by the Department from members of NAHT to enage in such work.
We attest that we were never asked, and therefore had no opportunity to refuse or otherwise. NAHT are firmly of the belief that no such evidence can be provided by Mr Barr and we would then expect him to withdraw his remarks. That he said such remarks to a Committee of Tynwald is unfortunate and we will leave it to the Committee to decide whether he misspoke due to a not being fully briefed or prepared or if he has presented misinformation.
On a related point, with regards to Mrs Poole-Wilson’s question
Q9. Mrs Poole-Wilson: Thank you. If I could move on, we have had a lot of feedback about the apparent disparity of provision between different schools and teachers. One comment being that education provision on a small island should be equitable, not a postcode lottery.
So can I ask Prof. Barr: what guidance has been issued by the Department to schools about appropriate learning support for different year groups?
Mr Barr states
The issue we have had around all of this, which perhaps the Committee may have realised is that we are still dealing with a work-to-rule across all of Education in terms of teaching and some of the teaching unions. And so they have not been willing to engage with us in terms of setting up potentially new QA systems and other systems to monitor what would be online delivery; and certainly I am not going to tell you that, as Chief Executive, I am satisfied with the quality of online delivery.
250 NAHT would ask the Committee to ask Mr Barr to substantiate his comments that unions were not willing to engage with the Department in terms of setting up potentially new QA systems and other systems to monitor what would be online delivery. We would expect Mr Barr to be able to evidence (a) the occasion(s) he or the Department asked unions to engage in setting up a potentially new QA system to monitor online delivery; and (b) the refusals received by the Department from unions who were unwilling to engage.
We attest that unions were never asked, and therefore had no opportunity to refuse or otherwise. NAHT are firmly of the belief that no such evidence can be provided by Mr Barr and we would then expect him to withdraw his remarks. Furthermore, the Minister of Education, Sport and Culture personally suspended other QA systems, namely the SSRE process, at the beginning of the emergency period on the 18th March. The Minister confirmed this in a House of Keys sitting on 30th June, and it is a matter of record in Hansard that he said
The Minister: He makes a comment about the suspended quality assurance work and certainly during a time when all schools were closed he is quite right, that was suspended.
Hansard lines 669 – 670 House of Keys Tuesday 30th June 2020
Therefore it is clear that the lack of QA work during the emergency period was a decision made by the Department and was not related to the actions of NAHT or the teacher unions.
NAHT are now several pages into a letter, and for the sake of brevity, we will end it at this point. But given the high number of occasions in which we believe the Committee was provided with inaccurate information in oral evidence from the Chief Executive Officer, we must ask how much confidence you can take from the oral evidence provided, and we must ask why was so much inaccurate evidence presented? Was it a lack of preparation on the part of the Chief Executive or was it an attempt to deflect blame away from the Department and onto Unions at a time when the response from education has received criticism from parents and the public?
NAHT felt obliged to bring these inaccuracies to your attention as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee. We have also submitted a formal complaint about the conduct of the Chief Executive Officer to the Chief Secretary as his comments have brought the good name of NAHT into disrepute.
We look forward to a response in due course
Yours sincerely
NAHT EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE ISLE OF MAN
251 Parliamentary Copyright available from:
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