Taking a stand here for special schools for a number of reasons, all necessary and all for long term gain.

1. Our staff and children are as likely to catch Covid as anyone else.
Because newsflash: being in a special school building does not an immunity shield to you grant!

2. We are COMMITTED to our children, but it’s very very difficult with small staff teams, anxiety and unwellness.
The bulk of our work is relationships-based, and each staff member is valuable. Which means every single absence has a huge impact.

3. There are a number of worries we have as SEND educators re: testing;
That getting our pupils to self-administer May be hard
That if staff do the tests, we’re pre-empting distress and anger

And there is potential here for long term damage to stability.

Fine, you say testing is optional. But of course, that also risks us being exposed all day every day to the unknown.
I know, it’s Catch-22; which is why leaving us to fend for ourselves makes even less sense than you think.

4. We don’t just support our children, we support the community that comes with them. When we lose staff to illness (which we already have), we lose people who are currently also holding families with emotional tethers.
Our keyworkers sometimes make calls every single day.

5. As @meicllundain said, by insisting that all our pupils attend as much as possible, by 11 January, we put our families in a bind. Where they may want to keep their children safe but equally may feel the need to do the right thing, I.e. send their kids to school.

I understand agency, I do. And we will talk to our families and truly ask. But having to tear ourselves in two to then provide in school but simultaneously online - well, hello there. That’s... hard.

Fine, let’s assume we find our way and make something of it...

6. SEMH schools can sometimes have ways of being notoriously provision-strapped for the breadth and depth of need.
If I turn our Sports Hall into our test centre, I lose the one thing that keeps 2/3 of our population anchored day to day.

7. The effect that all of this is having/will have on our longer term finances is frightening.
Supply alone is making a big dent in our school pocket, and the more we lose now, the less we have with which to fund afternoon sport, equipment and mental health provision. Fact.

I know of special schools that spent the last lockdown delivering food parcels, contacting food banks and diverting all available resources to truly assisting with keeping families contained - because we understand exactly what it takes to keep things just ticking along.

We’re facing some grave long term problems.
Staffing, mental health and the ACTUAL level of provision needed is going to remain at crisis level, more than you’d know.

So I’m saying - consider us at a strategic, systemic level. Consider us, so we can actually do our best.