The works to be studied will also undergo changes. “Instead of working on a Mozart symphony, we go first to an octet of Handel that only has eight musicians. If we are going to work in shifts, we have to work on specific things that make sense when we are just with a puff suit, for example ”, clarifies Lilian Kopke.
To guarantee this, the school principal did not have to hire more teachers. “The orchestra has four times, one of them for rehearsal of suit, and the teacher will have to divide these four times by the different students.”
In Faro, Francisco Soares guarantees that in the group of Schools Pinheiro and Rosa he has everything in sufficient number to restart the classes in safety and to comply “scrupulously” with the rules of the DGS: “Teachers, operational assistants and classrooms” and the promise of the city council of reinforce the number of employees.
“We have a contingency plan for everything we can expect to happen during the school year: one infected, several infected… And we have specific measures for each of the nine schools in the group ranging from preschool to secondary, from the urban school to the rural school “, says the director. Fundamental, he says, is to act promptly, since he believes that it was this same readiness that prevented him from having a generalized outbreak between hands when in June came the first case in the secondary, in one of the employees.
Were there no contagions in schools? Look what happened, Minister, look what happened
In the group he runs, he chose to create shifts and cut some educational offer to be able to have classes or only in the morning or only in the afternoon at schools. “The 2nd cycle comes in the morning, the 3rd cycle in the afternoon. The secondary school has classes in the morning and vocational education preferably in the afternoon. ” In order to be able to concentrate the timetable, the curriculum lost weight. “There is a school offer that we suppress. The educational service that is not central has disappeared ”, he explains.
For the 1st cycle, the decision made is similar to that of the other directors heard by the Observer. “In the 1st cycle there are no shifts because students have reduced autonomy and parents have nowhere to leave them when they go to work. We have to think of the school as being integrated into a society ”, he says, to justify the decision. In the Pinheiro and Rosa schools, for the youngest, the bet is on measures of distance in the classroom, in the delay of entry and exit times, breaks and in the cafeteria.
“Everything is done and ready to start the school year. I think the biggest gain for security is shifts. If we add masks and disinfectant, the school becomes the safest place for children. The greatest risk of contagion will be when they don’t wear the mask, which only happens in the canteen ”, defends Francisco Soares. For this problem too, shifts are a solution: most students either go to lunch at home or arrive at school already at lunch.
In the colleges of Park International School, cafeterias also gave Barbara Lancastre some headaches. “It is the most difficult place to avoid contagion, because it is where everyone takes off their mask. The solution we found, always discussed with the health delegate, allows us to be able to know, if there is an infected person, who was closest to whom. ” Like? With a closed circuit of numbered places.
The space is organized with a chair distance between each person. The seats are marked and there is a seating plan in which each chair corresponds to a number. “Each student and each adult always sit in the same place, that is, if my number is 5 it is always in this marked chair that I will sit”, explains Barbara Lancastre. The advantage is that it is easy to look at the map and see who is closest to whom in case of infection.
In Ramalhão, in Sintra, the terrace where high school students got used to having lunch when they resumed face-to-face classes was extended. It emerged as a solution at that time, which the college maintained. Now, the director intends to make the most of the farm space he has for outdoor activities.
“With the climate of Sintra, it will not be a definitive solution, but even on the coldest days, students preferred to be outside, having lunch in their coat. They just weren’t going to rain. Now, for the return, the terrace will be even bigger ”, explains Miguel Abranches Pinto. Another solution, to guarantee the distance between the two school cafeterias, was to extend lunch times even more. The approximately 600 students will have to have lunch in 20-minute shifts, divided by a total of two hours.
The headmaster of the college has little doubt that sooner or later, people at school will be infected with the Covid-19 virus. “Our main focus is to safeguard learning and do everything so that the school can function in person. We are organizing the operation of the school so that if there are – and there will certainly be – contagious situations, we do not have to close the whole school ”, he argues.
At a time when wearing masks on children under 10 is still under analysis, Abranches Pinto says he wants his students to use it. “In preschool, the mask is clearly not necessary, but from the 1st year onwards, even if no binding guidelines are given in this regard, we will suggest that students wear them.”
But, no matter how much he does, restricting spaces to certain groups of students, he knows that it is an almost impossible mission, since he can only control the movements in a limited way and space.
“I can have two groups of students, each with a limited space. But if there are two brothers, each in their own group, they don’t cross paths at school, but they cross paths at home ”, he argues, of little use in the distance at school. This equation also includes the closest friendships and dating between older students.
The bubble system, one of the solutions advocated for schools by the Minister of Education, is the one that will apply at Park International School. As an international school, all classes will be open until September 8.
“Until the 4th year, students will walk without a mask and each class will work as a bubble, not interacting with other bubbles. Everything will be identified on the floor, with different colors: the space in the playground, the circuits to go to the cafeteria, the bathrooms. And there will be a mismatch of entries so that they do not all arrive at the same time ”, explains Barbara Lancastre. What ceases to exist is an extension of time and schools close at 6 pm, as from that time onwards the school would not be able to guarantee that there would be no contamination between circuits.
For older students, who will have to wear masks, the system is already different. The bubble becomes the 5th year, the 6th year and so on, with each year of schooling working on a different floor. Teachers stay out of that circuit. As there is not only one teacher per class, as in the first years of teaching, teachers give classes to different groups of students. To avoid contagion, the red line was created.
“Teachers always wear a mask and are the last to enter the classroom. When they arrive at your place, there is a physical mark, red, that marks the 2 meters distance they have to keep from the students ”, he explains. The entire route of the teacher is also marked by this red line, to avoid any proximity to the students.
For the few classes you will have outside your usual classroom, there will be, in that space, 25 cleaning kits. The goal? Each student will have to clean their table and chair before leaving, the quickest solution to ensure that the space is disinfected. The teacher, the last to leave the space, will be responsible for disinfecting the door handle.
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