Headteacher has posted this to facebook

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The headteacher at my DCs school has posted this to Facebook. He says that social distancing is impossible and unless we would be happy to let our DC play in a supermarket for hours to 'not even think about' bringing them to school. I have 2 expected back on June 1st. AIBU to keep them off after this?

m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10222994594279008&id=1403891361

I agree this is entirely unprofessional, however teachers now seem to have the status the police used to 30-40 years ago, where they can behave as they please, are not held to account and you're not allowed to criticise them.

What's clear is that most teachers (and I include this head, and the unions) don't have any concept of risk or any grasp of the reasons for lockdown (to protect the NHS and slow the spread, which we have done) nor the fact this isn't going to go away anytime soon, or even at all.

Earlier this week I found myself engaged in discussion with a teacher who believed that it would be safe to go back by September, because the virus 'would have died out by then'. Now this isn't exclusively a teacher problem, half the population don't understand the reason for lockdown or the risks, and are bleaching their shopping etc, but it's worrying because teachers are responsible for educating our children.

And they have influence - some parents, especially if not particularly well educated, will defer to a teacher's view. So if head says 'its not safe for us to be at work' then those parents may well a) agree and b) be scared out of returning to work themselves.

If teachers get their way on this, schools go back in September or later. But the later this date is, the more risk there is that the next peak is in winter and the chance of the NHS becoming overwhelmed becomes more likely.

The real risk is very low to any healthy person. Some people will die, but people die every day anyway. Everything we do involves a similar amount of risk, a number of deaths occur every year from falling downstairs, yet we do that every day. No one's telling us all to move to bungalows!

Maybe parent volunteers to help oversee activities, distancing and handwashing? Plus parents have a key role in helping their dc to understand about physical distancing, it's not just the responsibility of the school. agree with that.

Sadie789
Back to school for you!

Hmm that's a bold statement from.you.
On this thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3907207-Official-death-toll-in-UK-now-over-40-000?msgid=96475828#96475828

You struggled to comprehend the ONS comparing week ending figures. You thought they were comparing one week of this year with the entire 52 weeks of previous years.

So we’re taking figures from 7 weeks out of 52, while comparing them with 52 weeks from 5 previous years? Makes no sense.

Well, I haven't read all the comments on here, because the first few made me so bloody angry. How is this unprofessional? This man makes perfect sense. What part of this situation do you people not understand? This is a virus that can kill you...Yes, even your children, even if they are less likely to contract it. It's not impossible. In a supermarket they are taking all possible precautions. He's saying that you could still pick up the virus there, so if you wouldn't take your children there, why would you take them to an environment where, with the best will in the world, the people running it would not be able to enforce safe distancing? If I had school aged children I would be keeping them at home.

I think what most children - particularly younger ones - need now is to play with their friends To run around with them. To get together in groups.

But if the schools are involved, as they have to be, in safeguarding - they become involved in enforcing social distancing on quite small children, in a way that is likely to increase children's unhappiness.

I am honestly not sure how well small children can learn when they are unhappy.

Or how well even the most professional teachers can teach if the role of policing an unnatural social/physical distance is added to their already very considerable duties.

Many parents have found it hard safely looking after two or three children at home, with trips to garden/park/local streets. Trying to look after fifteen in a classroom/narrow corridors/playground/loos that aren't going to be cleaned after every use is going to be pretty hard - even before any actual education takes place.

@MonkeyToesOfDoom no, I didn’t struggle to comprehend the ONS figures. I struggled to accept the FT’s hysterical projections (designed for clicks and shares).

Two quite different things. But like statistics it seems people’s interpretation of others’ posts can be easily skewed to support their own agenda.

And it’s not an oxymoron.

His main point seems to be that the government's plan for returning to school is ill-thought-out and impractical. I think it's a valid point and once again it is kids at poorer inner city schools who will be most at risk because they won't have the finances or resources to implement these measures.

Gwynfluff
I didn't mean you. I meant the sheer number of complaining threads that seem to be people complaining that school a hasn't done what they want, or school a is different to school B, along with the usual goady claims about teachers being lazy, not wanting to work. Most of them won't have taken a minute to consider that it's not possible to open 5 days a week and socially distance 1500 teenagers in buildings with 2m corridors, small toilets and half a dozen school busses.

Managing expectations is reasonable in my opinion, even if he has done it the wrong way.

This is all a bit despairing. As far as is being reported all schools are different and operate in very different communities. The government guidelines cannot be directive or prescriptive. Solutions need to be bottom up and leaders need to engage. Refusing to do so is childish.

It is up to local leaders, that includes Headteachers, to look at their circumstances and to try to respond appropriately. This man is not even trying. He is neither management or leadership material. Is this how he would want one of his team to respond to a decision he made. To leap onto Facebook.

Some sort of planning must have happened already. That’s what the rest of the world has been doing. For those who worked through we have adapted more than once to the the differing phases. And if plan A didn’t work, we all looked for a plan B.

There is a difference between a profession and a job. From what I can see people with jobs are behaving a lot more professionally than this man.

It's linked to a Government strategy - the same one that was there all along to do with 'herd immunity' to get people back to work. So getting children back to school is part of that larger agenda. While the Michael Gove disdain for 'experts' or Boris's appeal to 'British(?) common sense is all round us, I think this guy is more likely to be along the right lines...

I looked at the ONS website. It had deaths in yearly quarters . The quarterly figure for March - June last year was 118,000. Apparently that’s down a bit on previous years.

Unfortunately when people in highly paid roles, who are clearly well outside the low socio-economic groups most vulnerable to the virus, take such a dogmatic stance of refusing to even try and work with the elected government (which all other industries and organisations have thus far managed to do), they just propagate the old saying of 'those who can do, those who can't...'

There are appropriate ways to voice disatisfaction when you are in a position of authority in the school system. Facebook posts to parents are not that appropriate method. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of school return or the HTs view, going on Facebook like this is totally unprofessional and a disciplinary offence if it posted about a particular school, to a group of parents, from a particular HT.

We are going to have to live with covid 19 for a very long time.

There’s more risk to children getting to school than from covid.

Yes this @MH1111

I’m shocked a headteacher can post something like that.
In my previous profession talking like that about by company and governing body like that on social media would have been a sackable offence.

But aside from that. We’ll be living with this for a long time so I think we need to think about what to do over the years ahead of us (and risks for children are practically zero). Practical changes I guess will include (or should include!) getting rid of attendance awards, expecting children to be off 15+% of the year with colds, not taking children to see anyone over 70 if they’ve had any cough within the last two weeks .. that sort of thing.

There are times when it is our duty not to work with the Government, because the Government is not doing its job properly. While it's a new situation and mistakes will be made in any new situations, they have forfeited many people's trust. We will be safer if there is widespread principled opposition.

His main point seems to be that the government's plan for returning to school is ill-thought-out and impractical. I think it's a valid point and once again it is kids at poorer inner city schools who will be most at risk because they won't have the finances or resources to implement these measures

I agree ^^

Parents should be able to have the choice of keeping their children home until they feel satisfied they are safe to go or take a risk with their child’s life.

The Headteacher is simply pointing out that schools will not be able to adhere to social distancing measures, regardless of BJ assuming all will be well.

Children do not transmit corona virus like older people do.

Your HT is unprofessional.

Have a read for some actual scientific data instead of anxiety driven hysteria fuelled by the media.

adc.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/05/archdischild-2020-319474?fbclid=IwAR0ZXT8wduqdDXtP4rouvE5WrmyMHxtxFdLmy3aLVoX-I9Mhs-nGBB9XuNY

On TV the other morning they had a UK primary headteacher who basically looked terrified and seemed to be only able to think about why it wouldn't work and a Danish teacher who explained what they were doing to work around the issues having reopened their schools a few weeks ago - solutions like primary and secondary schools swapping teachers so primary teachers who were vulnerable switch to teaching secondary students online and lower risk secondary school teachers teaching in primary schools in person.

Of course, in the UK, with the negativity and "can't do" attitude common sense changes like that won't happen.

UK teachers seem to think that if they wait long enough, we can get back to how things were 6 months ago, and seem utterly incapable of imagining that things are going to have to change.

@Jojobar - I totally agree. All this is doing is fueling fear, based around the group that this impacts the most.

It is fine for the teachers on their 100% pay. If we stay locked down until September there will nothing to go back to. Small businesses decimated, tax rises and austerity that will make the last 10 years look like a picnic.

The sensible option, allow people to go about their work, if you are vulnerable, then self isolate. Do not restrict the actions of the rest of the population (who by many reports have already had it in Dec/Jan and Feb!)

@Kazzyhoward the splitting of teachers over Secondary and Primary probably works as they will be on the same site as their schools tend to be from 6 -16. The Secondary age pupils haven't gone back yet, which has also helped with the splitting of classes as there will be many empty classrooms they can use. Not sure what will happen when their Secondary school children go back.

I think it would be a lot more sensible to wait till the autumn. It allows time to look at the countries that were ahead of us in terms of infection and which are starting to reopen educational settings. It allows schools to do much more detailed planning, rather than having just a couple of weeks in which to reconfigure how teaching is delivered at a time when information is incomplete.

We still don't know a lot about the way in which the young spread infection. But it's also true that schools aren't just about the young. There are the gathering of playgrounds around the school gates, there are (normally) crowded staff rooms etc. So schools going back does mean more adult-to-adult transmission, with consequences for everyone who is in poor health or more at risk. Those who are overweight, with asthma/diabetes/heart condition. People from BAME communities. It's unknown territory and you can't solve the problems without analysing what they are. We expect the schools to do risk assessment if they take a class of kids on a ten minute walk to the local park. So, it seems only right that a much more thorough assessment should be done in a pandemic.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland we are letting our lives become ruled by a small number of journalists who are experts in nothing with opinions on everything. Articles like this one should be the ones going viral and being picked up by the MSM, but it’s more sensational, divisive and profitable to peddle fear.

UK teachers seem to think that if they wait long enough, we can get back to how things were 6 months ago, and seem utterly incapable of imagining that things are going to have to change.
Based on my friends and colleagues I don't think that's the case.

To be honest the only places I see sweeping generalisations about teachers not wanting to work, thinking they're special etc is on Mumsnet. Even on this page there's stupid digs about 'those who can do and those who can't, teach'.

I can put money on what will appear on here from 1st June if schools open. Some are valid, others will be variations on the same old whine about schools and teachers:

• what am I meant to do? Work want me back but I have children in y3 and y6 and the school is running a rota system with different home year groups on different days
• tell the school you will be sending your children in because you have to work, and they have to make it happen (to anyone saying they have the situation above without considering that 1/2 the school will have siblings in different years)
• wrap around care isn't running so school can be deep cleaned each night, but work won't let me leave early and social distancing means we can't get help from friends and family
• My DC school is doing X and the school down the road is doing Y. Ignoring the fact the schools are in totally different sites with different building constraints, AIBU to think they should do Y because I like Y better.
• My school is doing Y but my friend's school is doing X, AIBU to think Y is stupid because I personally would rather X?
• If schools are only partially open, what exactly are teachers doing?
• My child's teacher has refused to come in AIBU to complain to the head and demand an explanation? (Lots of replies will say yes because clearly the teacher has to justify their health conditions to the whole school community to appease the gossips and witch hunters)

Schools need to come up with plans to phase back in a way that's reasonably safe for all involved. That will look different in different schools. Challenging the government's handling of education in this crisis is totally reasonable, just like challenging their decision to promote mass events is reasonable, just like challenging Boris Johnson missing COBRA meetings is reasonable, just like challenging their bloody awful track record on PPE for health and care staff is reasonable, just like challenging their confusing messages and delayed action is reasonable.

The only consensus on the extent to which children spread coronavirus is that there is no consensus, and there is limited scientific evidence to draw any real conclusions. There is certainly not enough evidence to risk thousands of lives. Children can and do transmit coronavirus, but whether this is at a lower rate than adults or not is still uncertain.