How about instead of the pointless campaigning to close schools we actually try and get people to listen to ways that will make it safer.
This is what many teachers and their unions have wanted from the start.
I don't know any teaching staff who have wanted schools closed. Teaching remotely isn't what most staff want - it's hard work, it takes away almost all the nice bits of teaching, it's just not ideal at all, for anyone.
However the persistent message from the government is that schools are safe do get on with it isnt helping anyone either. Staff and children are being out at risk, and working conditions aren't great. Stress and anxiety is high at times and for many being at school right now, under the current systems, just isn't working properly either.
Schools are NOT Covid safe at any age right now. Nothing has been put in place to make them. Schools are trying their best but the reality is that what the government and DfE have allowed simply isn't enough.
I caught Covid almost certainly from school, an infant school. I most likely picked it up from a symptom free young child. They're the only people I have prolonged or close contact with throughout my school day. As I'm clinically vulnerable I was being super careful in what I did both in and out of school. I was cleaning constantly between classes, I have used so much anti bac my hands were sore. I wore a mask whenever I was outside of the classroom. I ate my lunch alone every day. I had every door and window open, to the extent I was able as not all open much. None made any different. I still got it. I still ended up in hospital with dangerously high blood pressure caused by Covid.
Staff are separated at school, in bubbles, with no close contact between adults. Yet Covid got ten of our staff within three weeks, plus we had parents in affected classes testing positive too. We have no close contact with parents. It can't be a coincidence and all isolated cases now cannot?
Only other person I have close contact with is Dh. He has had no symptoms, he hasn't been in contact with anyone who has had Covid. The likelihood of him passing it to be was even lower than the chance at school.
In a week or so I will return to work, all being well. I'll have been away a month but hopefully things will have settled down and stabilised, through permanent ongoing mediation for me now, enough for me to return to work. Now hopefully I will have some immunity, at least for a whole.'I hope so as I was already vulnerable and the new complications add to that.
I also have arthritis. When I get cold it is really painful at times. So perhaps my next issue is how to teach effectively in a cold classroom with all the windows open throughout the winter without having to resort to wearing gloves!
Schools need to be safer for everyone.
For staff, for children and for the children's families.
The government and the DfE need to accept that schools aren't right now - they won't, they can't accept they got it wrong. But they need to do that we can move forward and put things in place to protect everyone better.
And the idea that 'kids don't get it and can't spread it ' mantra we heard, and many people still want to believe, needs to be scrapped. Until that belief goes no one will care enough to do anything.
I want schools open. I love my job in normal situations.
However, schools remain not Covid secure and that should be acknowledged by everyone too.