European school Luxembourg 2 defined many rules that should be followed to protect school’s community against COVID-19. As usual they pushed responsibility for implementing those rules to teachers, students and parents. Students and parents were forced to sign Pupils contract. Teachers pay out of pockets for disinfecting classrooms.
Teachers pay out of pocket instead of administration
One of the rules is, teachers should disinfect their classrooms after each hour. For ICT teachers, the school administration even requested cleaning keyboards and mouses after each class. You would expect the administration will provide for the products needed to protect students and teachers. And you would be WRONG. One month into the school year, teachers are still paying from their own pockets to keep their classrooms clean of COVID-19.
Classroom Cleaning Tips for Teachers
Many schools around the words even provide classroom cleaning tips for teachers. There they give tips to ensure those efforts tackle dirt and germs safely and effectively.
Not gonna happen in Lux 2 school
Something like this will, of course, never happened in our school, European school Luxembourg 2. School administration is even trying to hide this information from the parents and students. Embarrassing for the director and deputy directors of this school and sad for school community. While administration is getting bigger and bigger, basic needs are not adequately addressed.
European school Mamer sent on 02.09.2020 another of many questionable documents. This one includes their opinion about hydro-alcoholic solutions.
Traditionally reserved for hospital environment, use of hydro-alcoholic solution is today strongly recommended to the general public for hand disinfection. It is one of the simple ways to protect oneself from COVID-19. Except in European school Luxembourg 2. Their document clearly states:
The pupils are not allowed and it is not even recommended to use the solution as this will not protect them from the virus.
Access to safe water for hand washing is the first line of defense to prevent infection against the new corona virus and any other disease-causing organisms.
European school Luxembourg 2 does not provide enough options for hand washing. They tested it on the first school day and there were 15 minutes queues and children started their classes late.
The most basic tool to ward off infections.
When it comes to preventing the spread of germs, nothing beats soap and water. But if hand washing isn’t an option, the next best thing is to use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.
European school Frankfurt was able to provide hand sanitizers in front of each and every classroom but our school failed to do that and even discourages children for disinfecting their hands. What does this say about the management?
Updated on 21.09.2020 at 10:55
European school Frankfurt was able to prepare and organise properly for the new school year. They prepared and distribute a clean and concise document about policies regarding COVID-19. This document summarise all possible scenarios that might happen and provide clear answers to the children and parents. You can read copy of this document here.
European school Luxembourg 2 has published Memorandum for Parents for the school year 2020-2021.
The Memorandum is a handbook for the parents of our students. In it can be found information, details, and explanations about a child’s schooling and about daily routines and procedures.
Students in the Nursery-Primary and Secondary School cycles will be expected to follow the internal school rules, or Rules of Procedure. These are a series of rights and obligations that are discussed within the Educational Council. They are designed to ensure mutual respect among all members of the school community and allow for the smooth functioning of daily school operations.
Emotional skills training is often relegated to after-school programs or elective subjects that lacked the importance given to math and science. This is slowly changing, which is a good sign. Today, we are seeing a drastic shift in education priorities all across various teaching disciplines and styles. Even schools that utilize traditional teaching methods are now putting a bigger emphasis on emotional, social, and interpersonal skills as a way to prepare students for a future where attitudes, communication, and problem-solving are crucial tools for personal and professional success.
Table of Contents
Emotional Skills: What are they?
Emotional and social skills are skills that help build a sense of conscious awareness and control over one’s emotions. Emotional skills apply to:
the ability to display self-control
the ability to communicate feelings with words
the ability to listen and pay attention
the ability to ask for help –the ability to show affection
the ability to empathize with the feelings of others.
These skills also cover being able to take pride in accomplishments, build a positive self-image, conduct self- introspection, and self-assessment. Good emotional and social skills include the ability to manage urges, control impulses, and place tempers under control, even under undesirable circumstances. Basic emotional and social skills are better ingrained when taught to children at a young age, using fun and familiar activities like play, talking about feelings, reflection, and the use of praise for good behavior and effort.
How Emotional Skills Training Can Be Applied in the Classroom
There are many ways through which emotional and social skills can be developed in the classroom. Teachers can use collaboration, activities that require teamwork and constant communication as well as group reflection and sharing. Teachers can also encourage active parent participation to ensure that parents are aware of their kids’ needs and can promote an environment of open communication. Parents can include after-school programs such as sports and music. Sports, especially team sports can hone communication and collaboration skills. Music can promote a child’s ability to express himself or herself and improve self-esteem.
Finally, teachers can foster emotional and social skills training by creating a safe space in the classroom where kids can go to calm down after a tantrum, seek someplace comfortable and safe when scared, and the like. The teacher can assist the learner by helping him or her calm down and walking him or her through the process of identifying feelings. Teachers can also assist learners in using techniques to handle feelings or emotions.
How Social and Emotional Skills Can Be Taught at Home
Children learn the basics of emotional skills at home. Aside from creating a place where children are allowed to freely express what they think and feel parents can also actively incorporate problem-solving in everyday life. Requiring kids to help out with the chores and to solve minor problems that can arise in the course of doing these chores is one example. Parents can also engage the kids in team or partner activities like doing the laundry, folding clothes, cleaning the backyard, or walking the dog. Activities that allow children to engage in situations that potentially can lead to frustration can help develop skills like independence, teamwork, resourcefulness, and confidence arising from being competent at certain tasks.
Why Focus on Emotional Skills?
Unlike traditional education settings which gave technical academic instruction higher importance, modern education now focuses on a holistic approach that aims to develop not only academic skills but emotional and social skills as well. This is because the development of these skills can help kids improve their overall school performance. Emotional and social skills training can help kids learn how to begin and nurture relationships, show empathy towards others, and become well-adjusted, likable human beings.
The development of prosocial skills help create kids and adults who are good at handling relationships and emotions, and this can influence how they work, how they form romantic and social relationships, how they learn, and how they contribute to the world around them.
Early training in early prosocial skills may even contribute to a decrease in problems related to education, employment, criminal activity, and substance abuse later on in life, as suggested by a 2015 study. Emotional development training as a priority for learning is long overdue. By teaching learners how to manage their emotions and how to interact with each other in respectful and empathetic ways, schools are shaping them to become sensitive, socially-conscious, and empathetic adults.
On 02. September, 20 hours before the school start, Secondary administration informed parents and pupils that they have to sign so-called pupil’s contract immediately and bring this document to the school. It shows again a mistrust in our school community which is so deep that Leene Soekov believes threats are the best way to ensure compliance.
That is why my wife and I sent complain.
Complain to Leene Soekov regarding Pupil’s contract
To expect children as young as 10 years old to sign a contract (even if together with their parents), as you say in “sharing the responsibility” on the pandemic measures is, to put it in a politer tone, inappropriate if not illegal. It is us – adults who set examples, and our duty to protect and educate the children on those security measures. Not to mention some children did not understand all that is expected of them since they will start their secondary year for the first time tomorrow.
We do not agree with the procedure of implementation of the newly founded safely and security rules. These special and extreme circumstances affect families too, not only the school.
School doesn’t promote washing hands
As parents we have for years asked teachers in our school to encourage the children to wash their hands, use indoor shoes, etc. and in general improve hygiene (not always with success). We can tell you that during the last 2 years children in our son’s class were not told to wash their hands, not even before lunch. The teacher ignored my email sent in February 2020 (with the same request) – at the start of the pandemic(!).
I myself have asked other directors in the past (during educational counsel’s or Health and Safety meetings) to have an annual “clean hands” campaign, only to be told it was ridiculous or unnecessarily. At one of the Health and safety meetings I have presented a pamphlet and asked the school to get in contact with the Luxembourgish authorities on the “Clean hands – Healthy hands” campaign. This was not so long ago. And all this was before the Covid 19 crisis.
Aggressive writing doesn’t help
So please rest assured our children will follow each and every rule on the Pupil’s contract list. What we do not appreciate is how the measures were presented and how parents and pupils were informed, too late and in our view in a legally questionable and aggressive manner.
In many member states, the school has already started, they follow the same set of rules, of which some are common sense to most of us (and many are legally binding by the Ministry’s of Health decree), and we have not heard of any kind of documents needed to be signed by parents and especially not by pupils about “sharing the responsibility”. We are fairly certain they also have prepared sanctions in case of noncompliance but have not greeted the pupils with those at the start of the school year.
School doesn’t trust parents
Surely it would have been enough to send safety instructions to the parents since the vast majority was anticipating their publication for some time? Or is your mistrust in our school community so deep you believe threats are the best way to ensure compliance? There will always be parents who will ignore safety rules but you shouldn’t treat us all as bad apples…
As you protect the interests of your staff we also are obliged to protect the interests of our children even if it means starting the school year with an argument like this.
We wish you a healthy and successful start of the year.
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