Schools in Poland were today allowed to reopen for the youngest pupils as well as those preparing for exams. Some local authorities are choosing not to reopen their schools, while many parents remain reluctant to allow children to return. There also remains confusion over how online teaching will continue.
Children from years 1 to 3 (aged between 7 and 10 years old) are now permitted to return to schools, a measure intended to help working parents whose children have been at home since mid-March.
Pupils in the final years of primary and high school will also be allowed to attend consultations with teachers in preparation for exams, which have been postponed from the scheduled dates in May until June, due to the pandemic.
From 1 June, the start of next week, “all students will have an opportunity to meet their teachers individually and work through some difficult material, ask for help or discuss their grades,” said Anna Ostrowska, spokeswoman for the education ministry.
The government has also issued a number of recommendations for schools to safely reopen, including:
- A maximum of 12 students per class, with a possibility to extend it to 14 under exceptional circumstances
- Each child sitting alone at a desk with at least 1.5 metres between desks
- Pupils are not required to wear protective face masks during classes, but will need to wear them on their way to and from school
- All items that cannot be easily disinfected (such as floor mats) are to be removed
- Pupils are not to borrow any objects (such as stationery) from one another
- Rooms are to be ventilated every hour
- Only two groups of pupils can be in sports facilities at the same time and all sports equipment and floors are to be washed after each class
- Some classes are to be conducted in the open air, keeping distance between the pupils
- Parents dropping off and picking up children are allowed to enter only a specially designated zone and are required to keep a distance from all the staff, pupils and other teachers. They are also required to wear face masks and single-use gloves or disinfect their hands before entering school premises.
One of the key challenges now is balancing the continued remote learning that is compulsory for children still at home while also teaching pupils who are now coming to school. The education minister says teachers and school directors have been discussing the best solutions and that individual decisions will be made on the basis of how many pupils come to school.
The head of the main teachers union has expressed concern at the arrangement. Speaking to TVN24, Sławomir Broniarz said that he fears “teaching in schools will be illusory”, and there may be a situation in which children spend their time at school without any teaching and then have to join online classes once they return home.
For now, it appears that numbers will be low. In Warsaw, only 11% of the parents declared that they are willing to send their kids to school on Monday, reports Gazeta Wyborcza. In Kraków the figure is 12%, informs Portaledukacyjny.pl, an education website.
In some localities, schools will not reopen at all. Marcin Krupa, the mayor of Katowice, announced last week that he was reversing an earlier decision to reopen nurseries, preschools and years 1-3 of primary school today. The province in which Katowice is located, Silesia, currently accounts for the majority of new coronavirus infections in Poland.
“Reopening will occur when the epidemic situation improves,” said Krupa, who has provisionally moved the date back to 1 June, reports Gazeta Wybocza. The neaby city of Ruda Śląska will only open facilities once all staff are screened for the virus.
A similar situation occurred with the reopening of nurseries and preschools, which the government permitted to take place from 6 May. However, with individual decisions delegated to local authorities, most did not reopen immediately and many still remain closed.
“So far 8,600 preschools and childcare institutions have been opened and almost 74,000 children are attending,” said Ostrowska on Friday, quoted by Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. This represents a small fraction of the 1.4 million children who would normally be attending Poland’s b 22,000 nurseries and preschoools, reports Bankier.pl.
Main image credit: @UD_PragaPonoc/Twitter
Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna
