Despicable Anti Dementors

[Mascotte]

New thread

'I definitely think it's much easier to wail "I'm keeping my children home where it's safe" from the comfort of a spacious house & garden.'

And when your child has no mental health problems or unmet SEN.
My son is 13 and generally very happy at mainstream secondary. When he was 8-10 he used to self harm and try (in ways that were tragi-comically ineffective, like putting his head in an electric oven) to kill himself. It took a lot of work and external help to get him where he is now, and I am genuinely afraid as I see the old thought patterns creeping back that this time he will be more capable.
He is definitely far less safe now than he would be at school.

Alot of people were wanking to the R number yesterday. One person even said it was above 1 and when challenged that it actually wasnt said she saw it somewhere and then it disappeared.

Riiiight.

Thank you for this thread - I hope newbies are okay to post?

I'm ignoring the teacher threads tbh although I don't think the teaching unions are doing their members any long term favours.

I've made the mistake of getting involved in a 'Cornwall is closed' thread where visiting in August would be literally killing people and they don't need tourists anyway...

I get that it would not be okay for me to jump in the car and travel the 7 hours to Cornwall today. I find it slightly harder to believe that nothing at all will change in the next 6-8 weeks.

I agree about the silent majority. I’m out and about quite a lot (no doubt killing billions) and everywhere I go I see people getting on with life. These aren’t the same people as the ones sitting at home who haven’t been out in eight weeks, posting on Facebook about how we’re all going to die.

Someone said yesterday that a lot of people don’t get involved in debate because inevitably the “don’t you care about killing old and vulnerable people” line will be thrown out, it’s practically the new Godwin’s law. Most people can’t be bothered to argue with those whose minds are made up so they leave social media alone to become a howling echo chamber of dementors.

Stupid people do talk with very loud volume, don’t they?

@Campervan69 I did that on the second 'clap' whilst going out for a grumpy walk . Also did it on VE Day bank holiday - hadn't realised the time when I cycled along a road saying hello to all the people standing in their front gardens with their heads bowed. Once I did realise it was too late to rectify the damage so I just kept pedaling

So today we will be driving to visit a woodland and tomorrow we will be driving to visit the beach. We may also bump into some friends there (socially distanced) and have an ice cream. We will have taken out an entire hamlet.
Really reassuring and refreshing to hear Steve Chalke yesterday. Like a few of you academies don't normally sit well with me but this has really given me something to think about. I'm a school governor and have got the school opening planning meeting on Wednesday, lots of papers to were through before hand but so far no underlying directive of not opening.

Yes absolutely agree, I think the ones sitting at home watching Sky News all day everyday are the ones posting. Those of us at work/trying to educate our children and doing the best we can simply don’t have the time nor headspace to engage with the dementors. It really does say more about them than us.

I have no problem with people who believe that they are in danger and want to stay inside for ever more. its their choice. But DON'T expect me to do it too! I was a child of the 70s and 80s too and compared to todays poor restricted children, took some horrendous risks! I was also very ill with glandular fever aged 19 - doctor said 'no point in putting you in hospital as its a virus and you've just got to get through it' as I had a temp of well over 40. I was really ill for two weeks(and discovered the other day that my parents thought I might die!) , but recovered eventually. But too many people are too scared of any kind of illness these days.

SirSamuel, I would go beyond "missed opportunity" and call it a massive strategic error.

Watch the Tory response - they are not coming out and playing hardball with the unions at all. They are leaving them to screech about their members' safety while parents who want their children back at school watch nurses, cleaners, binmen, delivery drivers, shop assistants etc. go off and do their jobs.

They are leaving it to people like Steve Chalke and the Children's Commissioner (!!) to point out the harms to children. The Tories have read the room. This will be remembered the next time teachers have a pay or pensions dispute.

Teaching is s middle class profession with reasonable pay and a solid pension. And teachers are at home on full pay at no risk of redundancy. The optics of this are appalling.

I'm the daughter of a teacher and a former teacher. I have always supported teachers' industrial action and their unions' positions. But I am done with that now.

What I see is a profession entirely concerned with its own interests (chiefly being paid to do very little, in this case) and with no interest in the welfare of the children they are paid to care about.

I know too many teachers to imagine this is a majority view. I suspect we are back to silent majority territory. Only powerful heads can speak out on this publicly without fear of censure. But non-dementor teachers and heads are making quiet noises and just sorting out a safe return.

Joining. I had no idea this thread existed - my sanity may be saved!

I’m glad I found these threads. We are going to have to live with this thing at some point. I’m not even sure that a vaccine is going to be effective- coronaviruses mutate so quickly which is why we never get rid of the common cold.
I do worry about those children from disadvantaged homes. All the stuff we see on the media is lovely middle class families having a super family time and the reality for many is likely to be very different.

Morning all. Right now I should be having breakfast in a hotel near the Mersey Estuary preparing to get my dancing shoes ready for a one day open air gig...and here I am, sat at home eating cold toast in my pjs. Damn you to the pits of Hell covid..damn you!!!

In our email the MAT has been 'very proactive and supportive' in guiding all the schools within it, the Head said. It sounded like with relief. I suppose it must be harder doing this alone with not so much support

Morning, deplorables.
Made the decision that if we can't get DS back through legit channels in 1st June I'm going to pull the key worker card and send him in anyway. Last night was like living with Alan Rickman. "AND CANCEL CHRISTMAS!!!!"

The interviews with some parents about school return are telling.

Private schools will cope better. They have more space, more staff and fewer pupils per class.

Children from poorer backgrounds not returning to school will particularly suffer. Studies suggest that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are facing a six-month “learning slide” if they miss ten weeks of education. It is easier to catch up if parents can buy tutoring or have time to replicate the curriculum.

“It’s such a nightmare working from home with home schooling that if the private school reopens, I’ll take it,” a mother said said. “They have the flexibility and capacity and the staff.”

If her son was at state school?

“I don’t think so. I just think they’re all going to get ill and then pass it around and we’ll all have it. A lot of people are nervous about sending kids back into the state system because the transmission rate will shoot up. I feel sorry for the staff, there’s no clear science on it being safe. A lot of people think it’s bonkers to offer places to nursery and reception kids as they are the ones who need hugs and cuddles and will touch every single surface and bash each other.”

I had glandular fever three years ago, no idea how I caught it other than I’d recently come back from Las Vegas which is probably a bit of a germ hotspot. It took me about four months to completely recover, the first week I had it I could barely get out of bed. As a young teen I had meningitis, I was hospitalised and off school for a couple of months.

When people go on about how awful covid is and how you don’t want to get it I always think we’ll I didn’t want glandular fever, or meningitis or flu or noro virus or chicken pox but I want a life, and catching infectious diseases is a risk of life and always has been.

Just basic snobbery really

@Nihiloxica very well said 👏

It’s the first time in my life I wish my kids were at an academy.

Apparently from one of the kids teachers (they tend to be rather candid with me) the unions were on the email 15 minutes after the Boris statement screaming and raging.

I can’t tell school I’m personally struggling - they’d just grass to social services and I’m paranoid about them (have a relative who is a real arsehole of a social worker)

Yes my parents didn't vaccinate me as a child due to 'fears' so I got odd things like whooping cough and also have had sepsis twice...gets things into perspective doesn't it perhaps..

Morning everyone. We are planning on many murderings today. I am going for a murder run with murder breathing and DH will take DS for a murder bike ride with more murder breathing while I do that, then after lunch we’re going for a murder drive (will be the first time DS has been in the car since lockdown began, he will be so happy), perhaps getting a murder takeaway coffee and maybe even stopping somewhere for a murder walk if we can find somewhere quiet, without a playground as DS is too little to understand then being closed and will be upset not to be allowed a go. Then if we don’t stop one of us will take ddog for a murder walk this evening.

Murder, murder everywhere.

@Nihiloxica and yet there was all that positive "after two weeks homeschooling my kids I think teachers should be paid a million pounds a day" stuff at the start of all this. Teaching had never been held in higher regard! The unions should have been building on that support, demanding to work with the DfE from the first week to put in plans for effective reopening. They then could have had a whole load of public support (and quite possibly some backroom deals) when it came to renegotiation of teacher's pay and conditions. Idiots.

I had glandular fever really bad too. I was off work for a month. I have lasting liver damage from it too! I didn't bloody want that either but these things happen.

Murder, murder everywhere

Ever since someone mentioned they sing fuck off fuck off fuck off to the tune of blind date, thats what Ive been doing whilst reading those threads. I cant stop it now, its highly amusing!