Should teachers be extra vigilant to infection in their every day lives to reduce school transmission?

[WhyNotMe40]

As the latest PHE report states that in June there were more staff than students affected by the covid19 coronavirus, there are suggestions that teachers should take measures to reduce bringing the virus into schools.

Voting: do you think teachers should change how they behave out of schools to protect the school?
YABU yes
YANBU no

Also - what activities or behaviours do you think teachers should avoid or do to further this aim?

I'm in a meeting helping to sign off risk assessments and return to school plans later this week, what is the betting the guidance changes 11pm that day.

@WhyNotMe40

Every time a teacher wears a mask, a fairy dies.....

I'm sorry but

LOL

@noblegiraffe

Schools are safe, schools are safe, schools are safe...

...Teachers need to become hermits else we are all doomed.

They’ve just realised that all the ‘mitigation measures’ that they are implementing in schools don’t apply to the teachers haven’t they? Like teachers being in every bubble, every kid facing the teacher, not able to social distance. Oh no, I’ve just thought, what if the teacher has it?

Still, a week to go, loads of time to sort that out.

Ha! Do you think they've had a "oh shit! The teachers!" moment?

Well I suppose it follows after their "oh shit! We can't magically double classrooms and teachers after all" back in May, and more recently the "oh shit, the A levels", "oh shit, the GCSEs", "oh shit, the btecs" and "oh shit! The buses!"

@ineedaholidaynow

I'm in a meeting helping to sign off risk assessments and return to school plans later this week, what is the betting the guidance changes 11pm that day.

Guaranteed. But you won't know about it because something will be dirty deleted with no tracking or notifications....

@FrippEnos

I think they have omitted the magic walls in the risk assessments though

Whynot I actually think it's possible our government are actually shitting themselves.

We've done blaming unions.
We've done blaming teachers
We've done kids don't need masks - except out of school
We've done kids don't spread it
We've done back to teachers for daring to move outside school.

Next - office staff, cleaning staff, the site manager and the bus driver.

And then the penny may drop.

Covid spreads in schools too. Just like it does outside. 🤦‍♀️

But are they shitting themselves enough to actually start listening to the people who understand schools AND do something competent about it?

@WhyNotMe40

But are they shitting themselves enough to actually start listening to the people who understand schools AND do something competent about it?

That'll depend on national backlash as with GCSEs etc

Part of me feels like I should put myself in a bubble. Avoid contact with the outside world. Refuse to be in the same room as another adult. So when I DO catch it from one of the 240 teenagers I'll be in direct contact with, or the hundreds of others I'll be in corridors with, I can say "I told you so". Except I'll prob be told I got it off some post or something, as that's clearly a more obvious source than the 17/18 year olds I'll be in an enclosed, poorly ventilated room for hours at a time.

I'm a TA in a special school. Back next week and as yet we have been told nothing... how the 'bubbles' will work, playtimes etc. The majority of our pupils come via minibus taxis.. but from all over the county so not from the same class, so already mixing the bubbles. Many of our children are both doubly incontinent and need personal care, and also mobile, aggressive, and unhygenic.. the class I'm with this year have several pupils who like to spit in your face.
I've seen my Mum at a distance once since February..I worked through lockdown and basically marinated myself in hand sanitiser, but my household contains a nurse, a care worker, a supermarket worker and myself... all keyworkers in contact with the public every day.

I think I'd happily sleep in our classroom cupboard I'm pretty sure I'm safe from popping to Pret at lunchtime... cos lucnh break doesn't exist!!!

But yes, we will be blamed regardless....

I work as a TA in a primary. All staff have been extremely cautious since March - about a third have been on the shielding list and are considered high risk of death if they contract covid (but apparently it's safe for them to return to work...)

No one is taking any chances, all are following the government guidance- better that some cabinet ministers - and more strictly!

Now, if we could ensure that the families of the 90 children I will come into contact with over the course of a week can do the same...
And the same of the 360 children my eldest will come into contact with... It'll all be rosy...

Yes, OP I entirely agree the government are preparing the ground to throw the blame squarely onto teachers and schools for whatever spike is to come.

The same lying, incompetent, bastarding shiesters who threw the elderly in care homes under a bus, they won't hesitate to do so to schools.
We won't forget it this house, Covid killed MIL.

We are definitely being set up to take the blame for school closures. And so easy to do this with woolly guidance which schools are interpreting differently. Pitting parents against schools just takes focus off the government when instead we should have been shouting loudly about blended learning and flexible employers tbh.

I'd have far more respect if they just said- schools are risky if community cases are high. It's important for kids to be in so we are opening unless cases locally are too high.

I do however think it's inexcusable that they haven't waived the usual notice period for shielding staff who may want to leave. Schools are not covid secure and they should have the option of leaving before term if they wish imo.

I find this a rather rude suggestion. As a teacher in a secondary school I consider it everyone's responsibility to follow the guidelines. That means the students and their families just as much as the teachers and support staff. I find it concerning that the current reports are claiming that all school students pose a lower risk than the adults. Whilst this might be true for primary school children and perhaps the younger secondary years, I don't believe this can be true for the exam years. Yes, 15 - 18 year olds are students, but their build is that of a young adult/adult and therefore surely they pose more of a risk of catching and transmitting the virus than the younger students.

Teachers are concerned about the safety measures in place because in your average secondary school it's very hard to trust that the (roughly) 1000 students are all coming from homes that are following the guidelines sensibly. Yes, the staff have a duty to be sensible and protect themselves and their students. Being educated adults who have chosen to work in a caring profession I would hope that they would be as cautious as I'm being with hygiene, socialising and maintaining distances with others.

Again, the responsibility lies equally with everyone who is involved in the school, which includes the students and their families just as much as the staff.

Thry should just behave the same as anyone else. I am sure most do but they will/are still being blamed.

Did anyone notice this?

*Of the 67 single confirmed cases, 30 were in children and 37 were in staff.

Of the 121 people affected by outbreaks, 30 were children and 91 were staff.

Although PHE did not collect information on the source of infection for single cases, it has published what it believes was the “probable transmission direction” for the 30 confirmed outbreaks.

This states that the virus was probably transmitted from staff to staff in 15 outbreaks, staff-to-student in seven outbreaks, student-to-staff in six outbreaks and student to student in two.*

So they basically guessed.

I imagine they are being cautious.

Just as health care workers are. Everyone I know is being more careful than the rules require, and we have been told very clearly by hospital management not to travel to certain parts of the country (I’m overseas). We’re all conscious that if we get infected we could inadvertently infect a vulnerable patient before we realise, and that there are significant reprecussions for staffing if we get sick.

Teachers as a whole will be similarly interested in the well being of the people they’re looking after.

Policing teachers private lives isn’t the solution. Smaller bubbles created by hiring more staff enabled by the government funding education better rather than funding meals out is the answer.

From what I could see of parents coming out of school in July many really couldn't be bothered to stick to SD guidelines so why pretend like teachers are the only adult influence in school 'bubbles'?

Hopefully most teachers are being responsible like everybody else is but at least two that I know have been abroad until a couple of days ago and won't be quarantined for two weeks

@ktp100

From what I could see of parents coming out of school in July many really couldn't be bothered to stick to SD guidelines so why pretend like teachers are the only adult influence in school 'bubbles'?

This is very true! By mid-July, most of the parents weren't socially distancing when picking their kids up from my class.

In fact, on the last day, they forced all of the children, from two bubbles, up close together and they did the same themselves in order to take pictures. I had to actively stop several of them from coming up to hug me and to tactfully explain when I wasn't going to join in where over a hundred people weren't distancing at all so I could be in the photo too.

DH will be close contact with a minimum 250 or so students every day, each of those 250 has a family all of which are in contact with god knows how many people. He is stuck in a room with 25 of them which changes every hour. After that there will be staff meetings where all of the staff congregate together after mixing with all of these children. No masks or PPE.

I think our weekly trip to asda is the least of our worries

Damn it! I knew I had missed something. Probably because as a teacher I can’t get everything right every single second and someone will always be happy to point out my immense failings.

"Hopefully most teachers are being responsible like everybody else is but at least two that I know have been abroad until a couple of days ago and won't be quarantined for two weeks"

Maybe they are in the lockdown area where rates here are higher than 20/100000 quarantine kicks in.
Maybe they figure well if we're going to get the blame anyway.
Maybe they are under 40...
Or have bought in to

Life is full of risk anyway
You don't stop driving because you might get an accident
You can also die from chickenpox as well
It's just another virus
People need to get a grip
But hospitalisation and deaths are down so it's an over reaction

But lots of people are ignoring quarantine with no consequence from all kinds of professions I'm not surprised there's a few teachers too.

Teachers are definitely being set up.

The government knows it will go tits up very soon in schools so have the fall guy in position.