The Department for Education says it is “working closely with a handful of schools” that are going against its guidance by admitting pupils on a rota basis.
However, Tes has spoken to a primary headteacher in East London who is one of small number of heads going against the guidance.
Coronavirus: Schools using pupil rotas against DfE guidance
Paul Jackson, of Manorfield Primary School, in Poplar, says he believes his rota system or “long stagger” - admitting half of pupils in the morning and the other half in the afternoon - may be the reason for his school’s “exceptionally high” attendance among both pupils and staff.
He admitted his approach was “quite radical”, but added: “[Pupils] still get four hours of teaching. They just don’t get the lunch break, which was one of our real pinch points. We were worried about lunch break, [and] we were worried about what morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up looked like, so just by cutting the numbers down by half we have reduced that pretty dramatically and that feels much, much safer.”
The DfE also said in May that rota systems created “more regular and burdensome cleaning”, as well as limiting staffing options because “staff will also need to stay on the same rota”.
A DfE spokesperson today told Tes: “The vast majority of schools are open, with more than 7.2 million pupils estimated to be attending schools last week, gaining all the benefits of being in the classroom.
“Our published guidance is clear that schools should not operate rotas. We are working closely with the handful of schools that need additional support to follow our guidance.”
The NAHT heads’ union said it was not aware of any schools using rotas. A policy expert there said: “Technically, no school should be using a rota system unless they are at a ‘Tier 2 situation’, and even then it should only be secondary schools that are using them. With that in mind, I don’t think we will find many primary schools that have moved over to using rotas at the moment.”
But Mr Jackson said his school, with a population of around 750 pupils, was the same size as a secondary school. He added: “The whole atmosphere of the school feels much much calmer. It’s quite a calm school anyway, but with having only half the children in, it’s definitely calmer and therefore the children are engaging in their learning in a richer way, so there are definite advantages. We’re a big school but we’re able now to create a smaller school feel within that big school
“The guidance says that we should maximise social distancing - and we should do everything we can to promote that - and we can alter the start and finish times of the day to allow that. And so we’ve been creative within those parameters.
“So we’ve done exactly what we need to. If we look at the teaching times of the [normal] day - if we take 9am until 3pm - that’s six hours - [then] take the lunch break out, that’s five hours, take out some assembles and break times, and we’re virtually down to four hours. And our children are getting four hours of really good quality teaching.
“So we’re making sure that we’re using those hours really, really well and I think from that the children are actually getting a better quality of teaching than they might have done spread across the whole day,” he added.
Another headteacher, from the North of England, who did not wish to be named, said: “I think rotas should be a last resort as they are very disruptive for children and parents.”
