AIBU in agreeing with the NASUWT that masks should be worn in schools by over 11s?

[DomDoesWotHeWants]

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/28/unions-call-for-teachers-in-england-to-be-able-to-wear-face-masks

Given that they have to be worn almost everywhere else indoors by over 11s it would be the right thing to do. Adults working in schools have as much right to be protected as bus drivers and shop workers.

So AIBU in agreeing with the NASUWT that masks should be worn in schools by over 11s?

Given your DH is apparently a head teacher, that's a bit rich!

I'm not part of useforthem sorry (in case PP's questions aimed at me) why don't you ask them?

[quote RainyWinter]@StaffAssociationRepresentative

To be frank, there would be more money for resources and more staff if unions did not wail about pay every year and demand huge rises.

The most recent pay agreement allows classroom teachers to earn over £50,000 a year- far beyond what most parents could ever expect in their roles.

Yet still the unions are demanding more money. It is time teaching as a profession was brought down a peg or two and started to show more concern for the parents and DC it exists to serve.[/quote]
exists to serve... my goodness, you really do have some anger, don't you?

Again, your statements are demonstratively untrue regarding the pay of teachers and also out of context. Someone in London could earn that after 'serving' for over 10 years and taking on leadership responsibility outside if the classroom for which they receive an additional stipend if they are top-tier. However, please compare this to the top-tier wages of others in professions that require post-graduate study after 10+ years.

To suggest that teachers and schools don't care about pupils and their families is, at best, deluded. Take the coloured lenses from your eyes and look at everything schools and their staff have been doing for children for years, let alone during the lockdown.

Over £50k you mean SLT and English/Maths/science HoDs? Those who have been teaching a while.

I think you will find plenty of teachers here who earn a lot less than 30k

You do sound very bitter and certainly not supportive if you feel we need to be brought down a peg or two.

I was an anthropologist originally and we would have top advertising and PR companies coming in to my uni trying to lure us, giving us recruitment talks and telling us how valuable our skills and knowledge were but how we notoriously didn’t sell ourselves well.

Not good at selling our souls more accurately. This is the kind of shit I’d be doing, understanding the culture of different sub groups of eg mothers and their motivating fears and values and prejudices so as to advise how best to steer and manipulate them.

God that’s depressing to think those people are the hands at the wheel.

As far as I know they have campaigned in Scotland to have the schools opened full time instead of blended learning and to get the social distancing tules changes in children as they think it is not good for them psychologically. and are a group of parents...but that is all I know really.

I found this which might be helpful..

www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/12/social-distancing-will-damage-our-children/

There has been no major outbreak in any school, anywhere

This isn’t true. What you should have said is ‘I’ve not heard of any major outbreaks in schools but I’ve not really looked into it so my opinion is uninformed’.

How about this one: “In the town of Skellefteå, a teacher died and 18 of 76 staff tested positive at a school with about 500 students in preschool through ninth grade“?

www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/how-sweden-wasted-rare-opportunity-study-coronavirus-schools

Or this one? “ On 13 March 2020, Israel’s government declared closure of all schools. Schools fully reopened on 17 May 2020. Ten days later, a major outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) occurred in a high school. The first case was registered on 26 May, the second on 27 May. They were not epidemiologically linked. Testing of the complete school community revealed 153 students (attack rate: 13.2%) and 25 staff members (attack rate: 16.6%) who were COVID-19 positive.”
www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.29.2001352

Now admit that you are wrong and that you may need to reconsider your position.

@spanieleyes

Given your DH is apparently a head teacher, that's a bit rich!

She means those OTHER teachers! Not the ones on the Leadership scale. Clearly they earn every penny ...

Well, I certainly do😆

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53578636?intlink_from_url=www.bbc.co.uk/news/education&link_location=live-reporting-story" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53578636?intlink_from_url=www.bbc.co.uk/news/education&link_location=live-reporting-story

This is from a NI headteacher but this is what we are trying to prevent by wanting masks worn. Hope parents have understanding employers.

@RainyWinter is your DH a head?

In that case you must have some understanding of how challenging it has been to keep up with the ever changing plans. You must have some idea of what a nightmare time tabling is at the moment for that just in case moment

It seems seems a bit futile putting masks on children if transmission is from adults
To a certain extent I agree re. primary schools. But children aged 11+ transmit the virus like adults, and “children” aged 18 definitely do!

Wearing a mask is uncomfortable enough for a few minutes in a shop- never mind for 6 hours a day in class
Not my problem. You want your free education (and free childcare), you wear a mask. Otherwise many teachers will simply refuse to teach.

Pft what horseshit. I qualified nearly 20 years ago and have never earnt 30k let alone 50. I may get a 2.5% pay rise this year but doubt it as it has to come out of school budgets. Even if I did it would be a joke given a decade of real terms pay cuts.

The most recent pay agreement allows classroom teachers to earn over £50,000 a year- far beyond what most parents could ever expect in their roles

Anyone can train as a teacher- teacher training runs all year round bar six weeks in summer, and can be accessed by those with a degree already or by those without a degree, via a number of different modes of study/training.
The bar to entry is not set at a particularly high level.

And plenty of parents I know earn in excess of £50k p.a.

@RainyWinter

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Where did you get 50,000 from? The new proposals are here:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/859208/STRB_Written_Evidence_2020.pdf

Highest classroom teacher is UPS3 so under the 'best' option for the most experienced teacher is £41,603.

2.75% pay rise considering it's been below inflation for several years isn't exactly an eye watering increase?

Interesting the attitude of the OP to a group who just wants children back in school...

A week ago, Jo Bisset set up a Facebook group. Dismayed and angry at Scottish Government plans for the part-time reopening of schools to children from mid-August, she wondered how many others shared her views.

By Wednesday, more than 4,000 people have joined UsForThem Scotland, an offshoot of a similar campaign in England that is calling for the resumption of full-time, face-to-face education.

Members use the forum to organise lobbying of councillors, ministers and MSPs. They share their responses from politicians, their fears of the mental and educational toll lockdown is taking on their children, and stories of their own struggles with home schooling.

It is just one of the grassroots campaign groups that have sprung up across the country, after letters from councils, in some cases informing parents that their children would be in school for just one full day a week, began to...

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/17/march-holyrood-get-kids-back-school/

Guess @RainyWinter is being deleted. It gives the opportunity to rewrite history I guess but saying there were no posts slating teachers and their unions.

I think she's referring to UPS3 pay in Inner London.
No point trying to explain that most teachers don't live or work in Inner London and that those who do have a much greater cost of living though is there?

@spanieleyes

Given your DH is apparently a head teacher, that's a bit rich!

Hahahahahahaha! I shall be keeping a close eye on the Relationships board re that one.

Does your dh actually know the utter contempt you hold his profession in?

Orangeblossom, everyone wants children back in school, we just want to be safe whilst doing so.

Interesting the attitude of the OP to a group who just wants children back in school...

They don’t just want kids back in a school. They want kids back in school without any protection for teachers from a global pandemic. And they are tag-teaming coming here and telling teachers that they are shit and overpaid.

And they keep repeating the same, disproved talking points.

It’s fucking tedious.

All parents want their kids back in school. Most want them back in safely. This bunch of dunderheads do not fall in that group.

Again who is this fucking “us” you’re referring to? Will you be working in an overcrowded and understaffed secondary comprehensive come September? If not you should call yourselves ‘ThemForUs”. Half of you are likely sahms or wfh anyway.

Parents can whinge all they want. If the staff refuse to go back without PPE and SD, what can they do? Teachers will only teach with measures in place, take it or leave it.

[quote Orangeblossom78]Interesting the attitude of the OP to a group who just wants children back in school...

A week ago, Jo Bisset set up a Facebook group. Dismayed and angry at Scottish Government plans for the part-time reopening of schools to children from mid-August, she wondered how many others shared her views.

By Wednesday, more than 4,000 people have joined UsForThem Scotland, an offshoot of a similar campaign in England that is calling for the resumption of full-time, face-to-face education.

Members use the forum to organise lobbying of councillors, ministers and MSPs. They share their responses from politicians, their fears of the mental and educational toll lockdown is taking on their children, and stories of their own struggles with home schooling.

It is just one of the grassroots campaign groups that have sprung up across the country, after letters from councils, in some cases informing parents that their children would be in school for just one full day a week, began to...

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/17/march-holyrood-get-kids-back-school/[/quote]
a group that just wants children back in school
Yes - at any cost.
A group that imagines that Covid has magically just gone away.
A group that thinks that teachers should just 'suck it up' and that any measures that could be put in place to mitigate the risk to adults in school are unreasonable and potentially damaging to children.
Aye right.
A group that reeks of entitlement and intractabilty and then has the brass neck to criticise teaching unions. That group?

You forgot:

A group who thinks Covid is a.huge conspiracy theory and calls the general public 'sheeple '.

Their FB page is absolutely nuts. Interestingly, the England one only had two and a half thousand members.