Headteacher has posted this to facebook

[NameChangeAgain111]

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 think there is so much hysteria, it’s becoming farcical. The fear of covid is almost as much of an issue as the virus itself. It’s causing irrational behaviour and we need to find ways to allow people to have clarity without excessive fear. This virus is going to be with us for the long haul, most probably like seasonal influenza, so we are going to need to be able to have a sensible plan going forward.

There are some things that have become very clear about this virus, and lots of things that we still don’t know. But so many people seem to be unable to grasp the risks that we do know/the evidence we do have in any meaningful way. It seems some head teachers are amongst that group. There will be risks in schools returning- but lower risk than most seek to think- and there will need to be steps taken to mitigate them. The exact nature of those steps will probably vary from school to school.

I work with covid patients and, should schools return I would be happy to send my children back. I have yet to find a colleague who has a different view.

Why? Because most children have mild illness (if at all) and are very low risk for spreading the disease- unless they children have underlying health conditions or are very young (neonates, for example).

Most studies and the information we have from countries who have contact traced quite aggressively (and so have very good idea of the pattern of spread/have identified the index case)- all suggested really very low transmission rates from children to other children and from children to adults (one suggested as low as 1 transmission after contact with 173 people, and that was to an older family member who they had been in prolonged, close daily contact with for some time). These detailed studies are, as yet, fairly low in number but so far seem to be very consistent.

Furthermore, countries whose children have gone back are not, as yet, reporting large spikes driven by child-child or child-adult transmission.

I think there is a very real possibility here that policy will be made to fit with public perception and not evidence. To the detriment of children and their education. Just as the initial response in relation to testing seems to have been driven by capacity rather than best evidence.

venusandmars

Innovative solutions? To make 5 year olds social distance. Unless teachers can perform magic, no amount of innovative thinking will help. Many schools seemed to have planned for everything they can, staffing etc, but once you throw the kids into the mix, it all becomes a bit pointless.

If parents accept this, then fine. But some parents are not happy and are glad that Headteachers like this are telling us how it’s really going to be.

Shocking behaviour. A whole generation of children are being denied education because of a slightly more virulent strain of flu which statistically barely affects young people. Teachers (and the Government) need to get their act together, and reopen all the schools.

I think it's all in the details. Lots of details. The drop off. Do parents queue at 2 metre intervals by the gates. With or without children. Does someone stand being like the security guard at the supermarket. Is there sanitiser available to wipe surfaces at the gate regularly?

Or homework. This is something parents assist with. So are parents how may transmit the virus more readily than children handle bookbags and homework materials. Should teachers take work home to mark? Do items from school have to be quarantined, in the same way that some people have opted to quarantine shopping/deliveries etc? What about school uniforms which parents regularly touch as most children don't do their own laundry?

It would be useful to know the varying degrees of risk for such activities...

thetoddleratemyhomework
I don't think he went about it in the right way and well intended concern raising has backfired because of how he's done it.

There's going to be no satisfying the people who love an excuse to complain about schools and find any opportunity to suggest teachers are lazy, incompetent, hate their job (as this thread shows with the huge generalisations about teachers not wanting to go to work, being lazy, those who can do and those who can't teach).

Personally, I think some of what Denmark has done looks good. Other examples, I think France, doesn't look that good (photos of young children having playtime in chalked squares on the playground alone).

Heads and unions would be better off having a discussion with government about what is reasonable, and practical in different schools. Crucially, this has to come with an understanding that each school plan will look different. Then the usual moaners who want an excuse to have a go at teachers need to shut the hell up about how unfair it is that they want their child's school to operate in a way that suits them whilst forgetting that the plan will have been made with hundreds or thousands of families in mind.

I am sure teachers in England would be quite happy to have groups of 3 pre-school children rather than 15. Teachers would be happy like Danish ones if we were following their guidelines rather than ours

I'm not on Facebook, so it doesn't seem to allow me to view the link, but if the head teacher has announced what the OP states, then I think they are probably saying what many may be thinking.

If my son was of school age, I would not be sending him back to school in June and that's is a parents choice. I simply can't see how they think social distancing could even slightly be adhered to nor do I agree with the the thinking that they are unlikely to get it so let them get back to normal.

It is not really what you would expect a head to post, it's obviously his personal option which he is quite entitled to.
Is it posted on his personal Facebook page or the schools page..???. sorry if that's been covered and I've missed it)

Interesting article in the Guardian, Rees Mogg saying MPs should set an example and go back to work ie go back to the HOC, they have been working online.

Currently only 50 or so MPs are allowed to be in the commons chamber at any one time, out of the cohort of 600 ++

So ok for 15 five year olds to be put in a room a great deal smaller than the HOC , but not for the same ratio of MPs to be together.

I don't like Rees Mogg, but he has a point . [unless of course he is just desperate to be out of earshot of his 8 children]

You have left the head teachers name in the link ...that not very fair of you

It was a public post. With the little globe next to it saying that it was set to the world and his wife to see. He put it out there in the public domain knowing he had set it as viewable globally to everyone.

Not really OP's issue.

What will happen come September and no vaccine or next September come no vaccine.

Nothing changes come September.

@LolaSmiles

Absolutely agreed.

I think it should be a dialogue. And what works in some schools doesn't work in others. Everyone needs to roll their sleeves up and do their best. I totally get that teachers often get a bum deal and that there are a lot of unrealistic expectations and precious parenting.

I do think that the teachers unions think that it is in the best interests of their members to oppose everything - that is often how it looks from the outside and if that is not what they are actually doing then they need to communicate a bit more effectively.

I think that SOME teachers are not being very helpful- my key worker friends have their daughter in full time so they can work. They are in very important roles for the crisis. There are about 6 kids in the school, 3-4 adults around the whole time. And not one of them will help their daughter with the allocated work so they have to try to squeeze it in between 5.30 and 7 (with the teacher, who is present all day in the classroom, calling them during the week to ask why they haven't uploaded it quickly enough and berating them for not being engaged enough parents).

Honestly, everyone is having a shit time of it. There is no excuse for berating teachers who are trying to do the best they can. But there is also no excuse for not trying to do the best you can in your circumstances.

He has taken it down I see. Maybe it proved to be a bad idea after all.

Maybe like Baker Small the SEN lawyer he was pissed up at the time and feeling the fall out today.

smiling happybeaver don't know if you have spotted this but apparently a lot of people who think like you are planning countrywide mass rallies at the weekend, you know, just to make a point and express their human rights , show their opposition to the enforced vaccination the government is apparently planning to spring on us etc etc etc. I'm sure the police are looking forward to the overtime because they haven't had much to do recently.

Do go along, have fun, make your point and above all avoid people with coughs and do try not to hug too many non symptomatic carriers .

these are in case it all goes pear shaped and you catch this mild dose of flu.

But they can’t can they because they are the ones telling schools they will have to reopen.

viques
I've seen those posts. You can't reason with stupid.

Someone I know has been posted absolute garbage for weeks about how Coronavirus is a deliberate scam by Bill Gates and big pharma. Vaccines are designed to enslave us and the only reason schools are opening to the youngest children is to indoctrinate them so they don't know what freedom is.
Anyone who points out that regardless of whether we agree or disagree with the plan,schools opening is linked to the economy apparently needs to wake up and realise we are all being lied to.

I think he worded it very badly, but, even if social distancing could be maintained in school between pupils, they still need to be dropped off and picked up by adults or family members.

Taking his supermarket analogy, which he used badly - we still have to queue up and maintain social distancing when going to the supermarket. Unless it goes back to the norm of waiting in the playground milling around together until the bell goes it becomes a queue system, at worst in a two form entry primary school which is quite common that is max 180 families, even 90 families just for half the year on a part time schedule.

As a poster said upthread, the exaggerated fear of coronavirus is going to end up a much bigger problem than the virus itself. We have to go forward, we can't stay in lockdown forever (and some of us have been going to work/school throughout).

Coronavirus doesn't pose a significant risk to children, or to most adults. It poses a very small risk, much smaller than stuff you and your DC do every day without turning a hair. More children die in this country every week in traffic accidents than have died from coronavirus during this pandemic. So are you going to keep your kids out of cars and not allowed to walk near a road until that's made 'safe'? And if not, how do you square that with not sending them to school until it's 'safe ' from coronavirus? I just don't get it

I agree Mrs.
One solution to that giant queue would be to stagger start and end times, but then what happens to the parent collecting two or more children in different years? Where to they wait? What do the children released first do?

Some schools have an outside door off multiple classrooms so they could have adjusted pick ups from fire exists rather than main playgrounds, but that doesn't solve the multiple children issue.

There's lots to consider and whilst the head put it badly, it's very easy for people not working in schools to tell school staff to get on with it knowing fine well they'll be the first to start a thread complaining of it isn't don't to their preferences.

The fear of covid is almost as much of an issue as the virus itself. It’s causing irrational behaviour and we need to find ways to allow people to have clarity without excessive fear.

This is so true. And based on logic and direct experience. I wish voices like this could be heard more amongst all the noise.

There could be an argument for different regional/local responses. I live in a city where there's a very high incidence of Covid-19 and there are also many people from BAME communities who have been disproportionately affected. There are streets and families in which there have been several deaths. Other areas - around Barrow in Furness for example, have strong clusters of infection too. So there are arguments for a very localised response.

I think traffic accidents are in a sense one-off, though they too require community responses - eg speed cameras and speed bumps.

What is distinct about coronavirus is how successful it is at transmitting itself and the severity of its effects on particular groups within the population. There's also worrying evidence that even after people feel better, that there may be lasting respiratory damage.

The fear of covid is almost as much of an issue as the virus itself. It’s causing irrational behaviour and we need to find ways to allow people to have clarity without excessive fear.

They are saying today that there may have been as many as 50,000 deaths in the UK related to covid-19. 50,000 people dead in less than 3 months and you think it's just fear-mongering?

In comparison, in 2019, there were 1,870 road accident deaths in the whole year.

IMMEDIATE: JOINT EDUCATION UNION STATEMENT

Wednesday 13 May 2020: for immediate release TUC press office: 020 7467 1248

Education unions’ statement on the safe reopening of schools

Unions with members in the education sector are today (Wednesday) publishing a joint statement on the safe reopening of schools.

Today’s statement follows a longer statement to the Secretary of State on Friday (8 May), which set out in full detail the principles and tests necessary for the safe reopening of schools. It is signed by AEP, GMB, NAHT, NASUWT, NEU, NSEAD, Prospect, UNISON and Unite.

Full text of today’s statement:

“We all want schools to re-open, but that should only happen when it is safe to do so. The government is showing a lack of understanding about the dangers of the spread of coronavirus within schools, and outwards from schools to parents, sibling and relatives, and to the wider community.

“Uniquely, it appears, school staff will not be protected by social distancing rules. 15 children in a class, combined with their very young age, means that classrooms of 4 and 5-year olds could become sources of Covid-19 transmission and spread. While we know that children generally have mild symptoms, we do not know enough about whether they can transmit the disease to adults. We do not think that the government should be posing this level of risk to our society.

“We call on the government to step back from the 1st June and work with us to create the conditions for a safe return to schools based on the principles and tests we have set out.”

The principles and tests include (see full statement from Friday 8 May, linked to below):

· Safety and welfare of pupils and staff as the paramount principle

· No increase in pupil numbers until full rollout of a national test and trace scheme

· A national Covid-19 education taskforce with government, unions and education stakeholders to agree statutory guidance for safe reopening of schools

· Consideration of the specific needs of vulnerable students and families facing economic disadvantage

· Additional resources for enhanced school cleaning, PPE and risk assessments

· Local autonomy to close schools where testing indicates clusters of new covid-19 cases

ENDS

He’ll be disciplined for that. It will be in his employers handbook that posts like that are misconduct. He must be near retirement?

It's almost like instead of the Mumsnet claims that school staff hate their job and don't want to work, actually school staff would like to get back to work and do so in a way that is safe for everyone.

What 'they' are saying 50000 deaths due to coronavirus, I haven't seen that one yet? I have been at work though so not glued to the news. And even if that does turn out to be correct, as far as I can see there have been 7 deaths of children related to coronavirus. That's tiny, and includes some children who sadly had medical conditions which made them vulnerable. Given that the risk to children themselves is tiny, and what data there is supports the thesis that they do not easily transmit the virus either to each other or to adults, I'm still not seeing how keeping schools closed is a proportional response to the level of risk.

bubble solutions to social distancing are already being used in work environments where there is no ability to obey the 2m guidance. The police still go out in pairs without PPE. They work in fixed teams and operate a containment principle. Eventually we have to accept some level of risk to have a life. It’s what they are doing in Denmark.

If new models aren’t tried now, a hard September opening will be a disaster. The teachers will be less prepared. If I’m not mistaken they aren’t paid to work in the summer holidays. So when are they going to find a new operating model? Does the government just keep suggesting stuff they reject.