How one Yorkshire primary school is preparing to safely welcome students back into the classroom

Dobcroft Infant School, in Millhouses, has implemented staggered start and finish times for every year group and has introduced one-way systems as part of it looks to reopen in a safe manner on September 7.

Elsewhere, classrooms have been rearranged to ensure most desks now face forward and each child will have their own individual set of stationary to limit the potential spread of the virus.

Headteacher Cathy Rowland said these are just a number of measures introduced by the school as it adapts to a new way of working amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

She said: "We’ve had to think about physical things for instance, the water fountain, we're not using that. We’ve had to make one way systems through each class so we’re reducing the amount that parents and children are coming into contact with each other.

“For the older children – in our case the six and seven-year-olds – we’ve had to change the whole way the classroom is set out. Normally they would have been set up so children can work collaboratively with each other, now they’ll be sat in desks facing forwards.

Children will be placed into protective bubbles to help manage risk and will spend their day together – with the same small group of staff – having the same break and lunchtimes.

They will also be encouraged to wash their hands frequently, with teachers and teaching assistants wiping down surfaces regularly during the day and cleaners now working extra hours on a weekly basis.

Ms Rowland added: “Within the younger pupils you have to accept that you cannot totally socially distance and it wouldn’t be appropriate to do so because of how they learn, they have to be doing it in a play-based fashion.

"However, within that, we’ve assessed all the materials we’re using and have taken away some of the things that are harder to clean but have made sure we’ve still got some of the plastic things that are easier to wipe down.

"One of the main differences is that, whereas before we’d again be encouraging children to collaboratively using all their stationery together now we've got individual stationery for each child.”

In the summer term, Dobcroft Infants stopped children taking reading books home but from September this will be allowed again – with books being held in quarantine when they return to school before they are allowed to be handed out again.

"In order to do that we’ve had to do that, and make sure we had adequate book stock, we’ve had to increase the number of books that we've got,” Ms Rowland said. “In terms of our classes, we’ve also had to increase slightly our staff because a school like ours doesn’t have a teaching system per every class but I’ve had to put that in.

"They will very much work within their own bubble - there are a few people like myself and the deputy who will bring them, for instance, their grab bag lunch bags and we will go between but the rest of the staff will have their own areas.

"We're just trying to mitigate wherever we can the transmission so that should we, unfortunately, get a case that we haven’t actually contributed to it being spread.”

Understandably, some children will feel nervous about returning to school after nearly six months away from the classroom.

Ms Rowland said it is about introducing the new safety measures in an easy way for the children to understand.

She said: “We’ve got songs to sing for washing your hands and are just trying to make the changes as fun as possible for the pupils.

"We're well aware of how young children learn so have always done as a school a lot of outdoor learning so we’ll be doing that even more because there is less risk within that.

"We’ve had to explain to them but luckily there are a lot of materials out there, which I have to say the local authority have been very good at providing but also there's been a sharing of material between schools of nice fun stories to demonstrate the measures for our pupils.

"We also do have some pupils with additional needs and there are some good materials out there to explain why we’re doing things in a way that says why we have to do it, but not in a way that scares them.”

Sheffield Council is helping Dobcroft, and other schools across the city, to reopen in a covid-safe manner that allows them to still function as an educational setting.

Arrangements at each school will vary, as what is needed in a small primary will differ from a large secondary – but the key safety measures will remain the same.

Andrew Jones, director of education and skills at Sheffield Council, said: “Schools have done a great deal to try and make sure that they are prepared and safe and ready to receive children next week.

"We've been in regular contact and communication with them - sometimes on a daily basis – and schools have been absolutely fantastic.

"I want to pay a real testament to the hard work they've done in order to get their schools ready and prepared and to make sure the safety and wellbeing of children is paramount at all times.”

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James Mitchinson