ADs crave hotel breakfasts garnished with phallic strawberries

[BogRollBOGOF]

Oh for the good old days of a breakfast buffet.

Back when you could make plans and reasonably expect them to happen. When you could turn up spontaneously and browse or linger at your leisure. When you could meet whoever you like and give them a hug

But until those days return, here's some more AD chat about life, the universe and phallic fruits...

It's the school bags or lack of that are doing my head in.
Kids going in with armfuls of jumpers, coats, bottles, lunchboxes, reading records, scraps of paper...
Like a school bag to protect it all in the wind and rain is an issue.

DS1's computer bag has clearly not contaminated the class in the past month.

I put my foot down over the bags with dd2 - you have a child with massive organisation difficulties, poor motor control and a fractured wrist - she IS taking in her backpack!

I just don't get the bag issue in schools. I take two bags into work - usual bag plus extra for all the corona crap spare PPE. I had to put on PPE on patients' doorsteps in the wind & rain today. That will need a rethink over winter.

@Willow2017

If Trump really does have covid how the hell was he out in a car full of security men putting them at risk of catching it to wave to his supporters outside? He is looking remarkably healthy for someone needing private hospital care when standing doing talks to tv cameras from his presidential suite in the hospital! What a buffoon.

I'm afraid that this is very much a 'my hairdresser's aunt's cat's best friend's uncle said ...' type of post, but I remember being told once that Trump's car (limo surely?) has a hermatically sealed compartment in it for him as he doesn't deign to breath the same air as us ordinary mortals. (Actually I understood it was in case of a chemical attack of some sort.)

I was peering at the pictures but I couldn't tell. But it would make sense. In which case his security men wouldn't have been put at risk.

Did you know they don't seem to be sending whole classes home anymore just contacts for covid cases? For example:

Dear Parent/Carer,

We have been advised that there have been 2 confirmed cases of COVID-19 within our school community.

On receiving guidance from Public Health England we have identified a small number of individuals who have been in close contact with these confirmed cases who are to self-isolate with immediate effect.

These students and their parents have been individually notified when this period of self-isolation will end and on what date they can return to school.

The guidance from Public Health England is that all other students can continue to attend school as normal if they remain well.

We are grateful for the care our wider school community has shown since September in following guidance about when a child is not fit to be in school. Given the current national and local situation in relation to Covid-19 infection numbers, it is particularly important that we all maintain this cautious approach.

Yep, the president's limo is hermetically sealed to protect from chemical attack. There was a report on sky news this morning about US doctors (not Trump's, obviously) going a bit mental at him putting the secret service agents lives at risk by having them in the car with him. While yes, he's an attention seeking arse-badger, the fact that the risk of these fit and healthy secret service agents dying from Covid is miniscule and the fact that their lives are at risk in their job All The Time was somehow not considered.

@Orangeblossom7777

Did you know they don't seem to be sending whole classes home anymore just contacts for covid cases? For example:

Dear Parent/Carer,

We have been advised that there have been 2 confirmed cases of COVID-19 within our school community.

On receiving guidance from Public Health England we have identified a small number of individuals who have been in close contact with these confirmed cases who are to self-isolate with immediate effect.

These students and their parents have been individually notified when this period of self-isolation will end and on what date they can return to school.

The guidance from Public Health England is that all other students can continue to attend school as normal if they remain well.

We are grateful for the care our wider school community has shown since September in following guidance about when a child is not fit to be in school. Given the current national and local situation in relation to Covid-19 infection numbers, it is particularly important that we all maintain this cautious approach.

That, as I understand it, is what is supposed to happen. Sending whole classes and year groups home is a school decision.

Bearing in mind that one way or another, this is another virus and one that is far less dangerous to kids than flu (for example) just sending close contacts is the right way (if they have to send anyone home). I think it should just be 'your child may have been in close contact with Covid, if you wish you may keep them home or conversely just watch out for symptoms'. Your children will almost certainly get Covid sometime in the next few years, maybe even more than once. It is less likely than flu to cause them any real problems.

@SirSamuelVimes

Yep, the president's limo is hermetically sealed to protect from chemical attack. There was a report on sky news this morning about US doctors (not Trump's, obviously) going a bit mental at him putting the secret service agents lives at risk by having them in the car with him. While yes, he's an attention seeking arse-badger, the fact that the risk of these fit and healthy secret service agents dying from Covid is miniscule and the fact that their lives are at risk in their job All The Time was somehow not considered.

Tbh I meant at risk from his idiocy as they would have to escort him out and in hosp which was really not necessary. Not thier day job. But does that show him.as an idiot or was it a publicity stunt to show how well he was despite not having covid? Playing it down? Any way he is off home this pm so that was a load of publicity over nothing.

Oh my god the swimming lessons thread is killing me. (But not from covid, so it's not a sadly death). Apparently swimming isn't important and walking along the street is selfish.

Lovely to recognise two fellow ADs over on the school swimming thread.

Do you know why those bastards shut down my county, unfuckingbelievable but this is the reason.

"In north Wales, while infection rates were lower in places such as Conwy, a much higher number of elderly residents in the local populations meant a higher health risk, prompting action there."

I have never read such a pile of crap as what was spouted here by the welsh government.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54416536

@justasking111 that’s proper nuts

I seem to have gone into disengage mode. My moods fluctuate around, often with the effect of hormones (and I am in my best phase). Definitely more despondent or angry in PMT mode! Weather has an effect too, and while today has been wet, there have been drier and brighter patches which makes a big difference compared to days like Saturday that are relentlessly soggy and dark.
It's not that I cease to care about all the shit going on, more that it has less of an emotional hit, and is more factual.
I'm getting familiar with these different modes or gears as they cycle round and round.

Had quite a good "temporary normal" day. DS1 had lengths week and swam his first lengths since 16th March. That was a happy/ proud moment. I just wish I could get him up a level like he should have done back in January! Had to retreat to the car between lessons, but that wasn't too bad. I am glad I have a mum-bus though!

Changing is a PITA as DS1 often needs help by the end of the evening. I can't handle individual cubicals with the claustrophobia, and the two family size ones are often occupied. Normally we used to use the disabled but the key system doesn't work with all the one-ways entrances and exits as it has to be collected and dropped off at reception. I ended up having to deal with him in the open doorway of a cubical as there aren't really any other options. He did need dressing tonight as he was stressy, rather than just micro managing

@Reedwarbler Your point has been made by the legendary Prof John Ionnadis, in his June paper forecasters.org/blog/2020/06/14/forecasting-for-covid-19-has-failed/

'Let’s be clear: even if millions of deaths did not happen this season, they may happen in the next wave, next season, or with some new virus in the future. A doomsday forecast may come handy to protect civilization, when and if calamity hits. However, even then, we have little evidence that aggressive measures which focus only on few dimensions of impact actually reduce death toll and do more good than harm. We need models which incorporate multicriteria objective functions. Isolating infectious impact, from all other health, economy and social impacts is dangerously narrow-minded. More importantly, with epidemics becoming easier to detect, opportunities for declaring global emergencies will escalate. Erroneous models can become powerful, recurrent disruptors of life on this planet. Civilization is threatened from epidemic incidentalomas.'

The PCR test is a useful tool for tyrants.

@Ibake Snap! I just signed that petition this morning. I love Jay Bhattacharaya. Such a modest, thoughtful speaker.

Sorry to spam the thread. I'm terrible in this medium.

The problem is, as sane and sensible as the measures proposed in the Barrington Declaration may sound, this is no longer a health issue. If ever it was.

@DominaShantotto its fucking batshit. Last night one of the work sheets was quite clearly a photo out of a book so was quite heavily shaded. DS had to write over his writing in black pen FOUR times so it would show up on a photo.
Yet reading books and reading records go back and forth every day....

[quote skeptile]@Reedwarbler Your point has been made by the legendary Prof John Ionnadis, in his June paper forecasters.org/blog/2020/06/14/forecasting-for-covid-19-has-failed/

'Let’s be clear: even if millions of deaths did not happen this season, they may happen in the next wave, next season, or with some new virus in the future. A doomsday forecast may come handy to protect civilization, when and if calamity hits. However, even then, we have little evidence that aggressive measures which focus only on few dimensions of impact actually reduce death toll and do more good than harm. We need models which incorporate multicriteria objective functions. Isolating infectious impact, from all other health, economy and social impacts is dangerously narrow-minded. More importantly, with epidemics becoming easier to detect, opportunities for declaring global emergencies will escalate. Erroneous models can become powerful, recurrent disruptors of life on this planet. Civilization is threatened from epidemic incidentalomas.'[/quote]
Scary stuff. I hope that when the dust settles and the wider consequences become more clear, that all this is scrutinised and lessons genuinely are learned.

I think we do have a culture problem especially in the public sector of an inefficient relience of data for data's sake. It was a big driver in me leaving teaching. Those hours manipulating and analysing data into spreadsheets rarely ever told me things that I didn't instinctively know about my pupils, and were hours of time that I could never get back for my own children as they sat in childcare and I had to catch up on the actual core teaching admin at stupid o'clock in the evening or morning while my children slept.
There does need to be accountability in systems, but over the last 20 years and especially the past 10, we've gone too far. It's not just education, it cripples the NHS and just about every other sector.

Just because you can put it in a database, it doesn't mean that you're actually doing any good, and it all becomes less acountable as you can blame the "mutant algorithm" and "follow the science" and claim the lovely impartial nature of numbers and never get to the root of whose crap idea it was anyway!

Certainly for teaching, the cheapest way to improve retention of staff is to ditch much of the data and let people do their core job.

[quote LivinLaVidaLoki]@DominaShantotto its fucking batshit. Last night one of the work sheets was quite clearly a photo out of a book so was quite heavily shaded. DS had to write over his writing in black pen FOUR times so it would show up on a photo.
Yet reading books and reading records go back and forth every day....[/quote]
That was the calibre of home learning task sent for DS1 with SENs from March to May.
That's why we did Bitesize instead and focused on some of the core skills that he struggles with.

I was not burning through a printer cartridge every fortnight for pages and pages of low quality crap.

It's not just data, it's poorly understood data analysed by someone bent on producing policy driven evidence. Technocracy is one of those ideas that sounds great and is likely to lead to vast human misery. Because the problem is that technocrats are people too, with their own biases, issues and blind spots. And unlike politicians, they can't be voted out. The phrase, "evidence based policy" has terrified me (in a sort of Orwellian way) for years now.

Realised I could be misunderstood. I am in favour of evidence. But not of "following it" blindly, and a democratic society must be allowed to go against the evidence, otherwise there's no point to democracy.

I agree @BogRollBOGOF and we do it all the time with measures in place requiring vast amounts of time (which always equals money in the end) in order to try and make sure something doesn't happen but actually makes other things worse in a harder to quantify kind of way for a much larger number. So overall the outcomes are worse but not perhaps as immediately measurable.

Sorry, don't think I'm explaining myself well. My example of that is the measures that were put in place to ensure Shipman never happened again. My personal view is these measures were onerous and took money from the NHS that could have been spent elsewhere improving many more people's outcomes but the need to be seen to be doing something was greater.

Our society is now so risk averse, not least of all from a litigious point of view, that we take action to save a few that might indirectly harm many more. Current situation a bit of a prime example!

We don't even get reading books home at the moment @LivinLaVidaLoki . The (online) message from the teacher (Y6) says the children can bring in one book from home at a time to read at school. Great, of course I have an endless supply of books at home. Luckily we have a very good charity shop with a floor of just books in town so I went to restock but AIBU to expect the school to provide my child with a variety of books to choose from?

Which specific measures are you thinking of @Ibake ? I've just watched 'Shipman, a very British murder story' on iplayer and it was fascinating.