Let’s stick together to get through Term 3

Term 3 shapes as another big challenge for education staff, who have endured three of the toughest years imaginable. Listen to the mainstream media and it will be even tougher, but resourceful IEU members have proven their resilience during the pandemic, and if employers take safety and workload issues safety seriously, we will prevail again.

“‘It’s going to be worse’: schools brace for COVID spike and term 3 absences” is the headline from The Age.

IEU Victoria Tasmania Deputy General Secretary David Brear was quoted saying schools were hit hard in term 2 by student and staff absences, and he expects no less for term 3.

He said some schools would schedule home learning days to cope with teacher shortages.

“As a circuit breaker, some schools last term scheduled particular year levels for home learning and some have indicated that this will continue in Term 3,” he said.

Mr Brear said one inner-city girls’ secondary school was starting term 3 with three staff vacancies it couldn’t fill — a problem worse in some outer metropolitan and regional areas.

The Age also spoke to University of Melbourne professor Nancy Baxter, who expects the return to school to drive COVID transmissions as high as they went in January.

“I don’t think it’s going to be better (than term 2) in fact, I think it’s going to be worse,” Baxter said.

“I think people should prepare themselves for there being closures and (teacher) shortages.”

The Herald Sun reported: “A wave of Covid and flu is expected to keep students away when school returns… while principals are scrambling to find enough casual relief teachers to plug the staff shortfall.”

It said critical staff shortages, interstate holiday travel and a spike in Covid cases in schools at the start of the school holidays meant some children would return to school to “watch movies and spend time in the library”.

This is forcing principals to scramble for additional casual relief teachers (CRTs) “in case more existing temporary staff are struck off sick”.

“Up to a fifth of student cohorts in schools across Melbourne were reportedly kept at home simultaneously with Covid or the flu at the end of term two.

“It is understood one primary school in Melbourne’s southeast had up to 100 of its 600 students away from class just before school holidays started.”

Principal of Parkdale’s St John Vianney’s Primary School Michael Schink said at one point 25 of its 150 students were absent in a single day

“We are preparing to have another term probably similar to the last the first two terms where you expect the unexpected.

“There might be ebbs and flows. One week, you’ve got just about everyone here, and then the following week, we’ll have a number of kids that are sick.”

Education Minister Natalie Hutchins on Friday announced that the government would continue supplying state schools and childcare centres with additional free rapid tests. There will be up to three further deliveries of Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) in Term 3 and in Term 4 to schools.

The government has asked schools to remind staff, students, and families that its current advice is that it is recommended face masks are worn in indoor settings (except for close contacts, who must wear a mask indoors unless an exception applies).