Almost a fifth of students and more than one in 10 teachers at public schools in NSW were not at school on Monday, according to the NSW Department of Education, as COVID, flu and other respiratory illnesses continue to rage among young kids.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In the Illawarra, some classes had more than half the kids missing and students sometimes have four or five different teachers a week, as schools are forced to combine year groups to cover classes.
The teacher's union has warned this is creating the "work health safety issue of the decade" for kids, parents and teachers.
According to NSW Health data, children aged between five and nine, and 10 to 14 are the hardest hit age groups in this year's influenza outbreak, with almost 6000 cases recorded so far in the 5-9 age group.
At one southern Wollongong school, the Mercury has been told that almost a third of students were absent for several days last week, with some classes reporting 60 per cent of the students away.
This has also resulted in a high level of illness in the school's teachers, which means classes across multiple year groups are being combined and teachers are missing out on weeks worth of relief from face-to-face teaching time which would allow them to prepare their lessons.
In school newsletters from principals across the region, there has been a focus on absences related to both COVID and the flu.
"COVID and the arrival of the flu season is having an impact on the attendance of our students (and staff)," Waniora Public School principal Gavin Hoy said last week in the student newsletter.
Likewise, Kanahooka's Hayes Park Public School - which was particularly hard hit with COVID last term - recently reported to parents that there were still "several staff" and students away with the virus.
A Wollongong mother said she was concerned about the continued disruption to her kids' learning after two years of learning from home and other COVID measures.
"With unavoidable sickness causing time off, plus professional learning and other opportunities all having to be caught up on - after two years of not being able to do them because of COVID - our kids are having sometimes four or five different teachers in a week," she said.
"They can barely keep track of what's happening and what these teachers names are.
"I truly believe our school is doing the best they can in really trying circumstances but it's hard to believe that this won't impact on the consistency of education our kids are ultimately being offered."
The 'work health safety issue of the decade'
NSW Teachers Federation Senior Vice President Amber Flohm described the current combination of COVID and the flu in schools as the "work health safety issue of the decade".
She said the federation had urged the government not to remove all the COVID-related health measures, like rapid antigen testing, masks, and separating cohorts, at once and instead asked them to assess the risks by removing them one by one.
"There's no doubt that from a health perspective our schools are seeing what we would describe as the work health safety issue of the decade," she said.
"That has undoubtedly contributed to the situation we find ourselves in and we warned the government that this would occur at the beginning of this year.
"There are no measures in schools - particularly in primaries - which protect teachers and students.
"Teachers cannot turn up to school sick - but it's very hard for them to stay away in the current context because they know what the result of that is for their schools. We have high schools who can't offer particular subject areas because they can't get the qualified specialists to run them."
A Department of Education spokesperson said large numbers of staff calling in sick at the same time due to a local outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic was "a challenge currently facing all employers" and that there was "a strong plan in place for managing COVID and other respiratory illnesses in schools during winter".
"On 6 June 2022, 81% of students and 88% of teachers were learning on site at public schools across NSW," the spokesperson said.
"For students who are isolating at home the department has a full suite of learning resources developed by curriculum experts that can be easily accessed via the department's website and can be used on all devices including mobile phones."
There is also a COVID Intensive Learning Support Program for schools delivering targeted, intensive small-group tuition for students with the greatest learning needs following the disruptions caused by COVID-19, they said.
Ms Flohm said the widespread illness-related absences were exacerbating an already unsustainable staffing shortage, which existed in schools well before COVID.
"The backdrop of this there is the staffing shortage, where before COVID, and before this shocking flu season, we have had significant numbers of unfilled vacancies within our schools," she said.
She said before COVID, there was already clear evidence that on average teachers were working 60 hours a week, with many leaving the profession early due to the extreme pressure to meet the demands of their job.
"Now every day we are seeing classes going uncovered, or in groups of 60 with minimal supervision - that is highly disruptive and impacting on our students' future," she said.
"The current situation is pushing our teachers beyond breaking point."
Ms Flohm said the government's refusal to give teachers a pay rise that matched inflation would make it harder to attract and retain people to the profession in the long term.
The Department of Education spokesperson said there were guidelines for the back-filling of staff to support schools across NSW who are managing staffing impacts related to increased cases of COVID-19.
"This is to ensure that schools can continue teaching and learning during the pandemic, while maintaining their duty of care to students," they said.
"COVID-19 contingency arrangements include use of the casual teaching workforce, teachers from nearby schools, accredited teachers working for the Department in non-teaching roles, recently retired teachers and conditionally accredited final year university students, where required."
Tell us what you think by writing a letter to the editor here.
Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
