I’m not a teacher but......

[Comefromaway]

I think it’s time you went on strike.

The government clearly don’t give a toss about you, our kids & subsequently our families.

My daughter is so stressed about the school/college environment. Everywhere she’s being told that she can’t do this that and the other because people are dying. But she’s expected to go into college and have her normal classes with overcrowding and no effective mitigation.

Medical officer woman has clearly not been into a school. The teachers & students are dropping like flies.

Two of my friends who are primary school teachers have tested positive in the last few days. Their Christmas is ruined for them and their families. Unfortunately one of them has passed it on to her elderly mum who lives next door. As a teacher I know there is NO provision to look after teacher in the classroom other than the usual hand washing routine. Children and adults are getting sick and nothing is being done! Striking is an expensive business. Teachers do not get paid for the days that they strike.

I've been scouring my union website for info about the basis of the "teachers aren't at higher risk" concept. Can't even find mention of it, let alone whether it's based on sound data

To be clear, a few weeks ago the government said (with 'low confidence') that there was no evidence of an increased infection rate of teachers when compared with 'other key workers'. They had to reword this after saying ;teachers are not more at risk'. All of this data has low confidence.

The new DfE guidelines now focus on fatalities. I am guessing they now have the evidence they didn't have before on infections.

Which occupations, Since September, do you know have highest infection rates? Clue : no one knows the answer to this.

Can you get on board with the scientists ASAP.... you seem very sure of who you caught it from! Spill the beans don’t keep us waiting.

Another one who caught covid from school. Three weeks and still recovering.

[quote SansaSnark]@Littleyell For most teachers, it is bloody obvious they have to have caught it in school- because a lot of us are not going anywhere except school, home, maybe to the shops.

If there are cases in your class and then you test positive, it is a bloody reasonable assumption that you caught it from the kids.

Lots of scientists think schools are unsafe, but the ones on the government payroll don't talk about it.[/quote]
Teachers perhaps should think on . Why are teachers taking the risk? I assume because they need money and possibly have kids to feed too...

So when parents are sending their kids to school it’s because we too have a job to maintain too! I’m not sure why it’s one rule for one....

We all need money! (Most of us anyway).

Unless your isolating you can catch Covid anyway it’s not just schools LOTS of people have caught it. I’ve caught it (hospital).

I think some teachers have an air of importance and it stinks @ChloeDeckTheHalls @Piggyinblankets

Right. Who’s going to teach my class if I refuse to do so?

Question should be - why is this data being withheld?

I agree.

Let's not mess about here. What's the point of a Union if it's not helping to protect you?

My neighbour is a teacher and my other neighbour's daughter. We're Tier 3 - windows all open in every classroom - one described it like trying to put out a series of small fires with the constant stream of self isolating cases and often the same children over and over again.
Do you think anyone senior in the department of education would do this?

You are all amazing - counsellors, social workers, baby sitters, educators.

I've also heard horror stories of weak management and some parents being very abusive or wanting to push their way into a classroom in a confrontational manner without a mask and leave their child to go to work, despite testing positive etc

I think it's about time the Unions came up with more rigid safeguarding here for you if after Boxing Day more areas go into tier 4.
You can't expect people to put themselves at risk with this new strain too when we don't know enough about it.

I am aghast! Surely they will have to have new H&S signed off? Does this not make the head teacher and CEO culpable for unsafe working conditions?

Toyally sympathise with the teachers. What we all really want is better funding and safer arrangements for schools. Hope you have a really good break xxx

#karmatothe bots
#may Us4Them burn their brussel sprouts and the dog get your turkeys

@MrsDanvers123

I am aghast! Surely they will have to have new H&S signed off? Does this not make the head teacher and CEO culpable for unsafe working conditions?

Sorry, that's to motherrunner

Page 17 of this is the closest you will get to occupational data at present :

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/945441/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_w51.pdf

The junior doctors certainly have a better union than teachers, all power to their elbow, and the Nursing reps were very vocal and helpful re PPE (rightly so), I thought? All unions have had their wings clipped since Maggie.

[quote Covidrelapse]@spanieleyes it’s the threats to strike that have been in the news frequently over the last 5/10 years. I think us NHS staff are just jealous your unions seem more effective than ours.[/quote]
And yet you've managed a strike more recently.

Ours our all talk.

I think it's shit on both sides, but we ought to have solidarity with each other, not jealousy.

The government have done well putting different sectors against each other and there are far more NHS staff falling down with Covid despite PPE and yet we are told it’s what we signed up for and here’s another pay freeze.

It’s shocking and I fully back NHS staff. I read that there are hordes of containers full of PPE paid for by the govt laying to waste in various ports (with rent still paid by the government)
What a waste.

Littleyel ok are you allowed or forbidden from wearing masks when in the hospital? Are there any ventilation systems? Are you expected to be shoulder to shoulder with 30 other people in a small room for an hour at a time with no masks, and then another 30 people - repeat 5 times per day?

Not sure why I got tagged there little ?

So when parents are sending their kids to school it’s because we too have a job to maintain too! I’m not sure why it’s one rule for one....

But why are you happy with this situation?

Why are you happy with sending your kid into an unsafe environment every day, in order to put food on the table?

Why should people be asked to risk their health in order to survive?

more NHS staff falling down with Covid. Absolutely and that's appalling. No one will doubt you when you say so either.

We've been in a local district with Tier 1 levels, while being Tier2 for the county (Tier 4 from Saturday!). DD1 has just started secondary and I have been impressed with the schools handling of the situation. There were no cases up until the last week when a student tested positive. But since then we've had daily emails reporting student and/or staff cases.

DD2's primary had also had a YR student test positive, and one of my friends was staff in the bubble and is now isolating.

The whole idea of mass testing students was ludicrous - from the government-'led' side. The logistics are crazy. And now with new strains with an unknown quality it is crazy to think that we can carry on mixing large numbers of people in schools, with only hand gel, masks and some distancing, when there is a virus that will spread and kill people. Some children have underlying conditions, some families will, and so do some teachers and other staff.

I'd like to see school staff have more of a say in this. I want my children to get an education, but not at the expense of physical or mental wellbeing of those who have to teach them.

I’m happy to send my child to school because they enjoy it and receive the best quality education in that environment. I also think the school they attend has excellent covid safeguarding in place. Also neither are vulnerable health wise.

@AaronPurr

What would really help is parents not arranging playdates, parties and sleepovers during lockdowns/Tier 3/4. This regularly happened at my DC's school last term. Parents justified it by saying it was absolutely fine as they were "in the same bubble" at school, but ignoring the fact they had siblings in other bubbles and classes.

I agree. It's soul destroying hearing about another sleepover or playdate with a friend.

This reminds me of the first weekend of lockdown 2. Ok, schools were open.

But I'm pretty sure the 5 separate groups of teens carrying bedding down the street for a sleepover - in fact should have been at home.

I’m not a teacher either and I don’t think you should strike, but I’m baffled by the ability of the government to shoot themselves in the foot. They’re running round like headless chickens because of the new variant while doing nothing to make schools safer (and by that I don’t mean closing them) and thus slowing down one of the main means of transmission. If I was a worker in one of the shut down industries I’d be absolutely raging at their inefficiency.

Not to mention the vociferous anti-teacher brigade who are so desperate that teachers aren’t given the least bit of what they consider to be preferential treatment that seemingly they’d prefer all the teachers to get sick (at which point they’ll realise that, er, teachers are actually needed to keep schools going). Unfortunately I feel the only way this mindset will change is if a variant occurs which actually makes children ill rather than adults, then all the entitled parents will soon be shouting that schools aren’t safe.

And Jenny Harries is an embarrassment.

hedgehogger it is based on ONS rushed research for SAGE based on tiny sample sizes and was reported to the statistics authorities (Royal Statistical Society?) for malpractice and misuse of data. the only outcome from that was a rewording of the 'evidence' sentence and an admission that they had not thought about what one of the categories meant and that separating primary and secondary teachers had skewed the data.

Ehen on reads actual SAGE minutes , one comes across the lines parroted out by MPs (and Harries and co) in the minutes followed by phrases like 'low confidence 'and sometimes even 'very low confidence'.

@GleamingBaubles

Littleyel ok are you allowed or forbidden from wearing masks when in the hospital? Are there any ventilation systems? Are you expected to be shoulder to shoulder with 30 other people in a small room for an hour at a time with no masks, and then another 30 people - repeat 5 times per day?

Risk wise. Hospitals are definitely more riskier than classrooms without a doubt. I can’t even be arsed to list the points. It’s not a competition I would assume anybody with common sense knows hospitals are breeding grounds at the best of times

AnotherOneBitesTheDust

Schools are not free childcare, its an education, and we pay taxes for the educational system? Bizarre thing to state. It is childcare only in the way that parents have arranged their working lives around the fact that children are at school from 4.
Lets everyone go on strike and lets see how long it takes for the country to end up in anarchy. If you are clinically vulnerable fair enough, but if you are in the low risk category ie under 50 , then really the chances of you developing major symptoms are statistically insignificant.