Given Iceland's data surely schools should go back.

[Floatyboat]

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2006100?query=featured_coronavirus

It appears that kids either don't get it much or their immune system stamps it out so quick the chance of transmission is very low. Iceland has been able to keep schools open and still gets these figures for under 10's.

Clearly some caution/graded opening may be sensible but to continue with the current status quo and all the associated harm is not justified.

Any other conclusions to be drawn from this data?

Perhaps this is an opportunity for the teachers too vulnerable to return to school teaching? an opportunity for the teachers too vulnerable to return to school teaching?

You have no clue about how teacher training works, clearly.

But what, realistically, is the alternative?

The alternative is absolutely not to get rid of teachers who are unable to work due to medical conditions affected by COVID-19.

I think to be fair teaching might not look quite as good as it has in the last few years for quite a while. Especially if we can't operate a play based or practical curriculum for the youngest children very well. A few dodgy grads might be the least of our worries.

The alternative is absolutely not to get rid of teachers who are unable to work due to medical conditions affected by COVID-19.

Then schools will have to be off until it's proven safe for these teachers to return?

If this is possible, then great!

Schools will need to operate with reduced numbers and large supply budgets. Nothing else for it.

The reality will be bullying vulnerable staff into returning and a corresponding death toll, I expect.

@PhoebesBirthMom
You are advocating replacing a larger than usual proportion of trained staff who have experience by people who may be chancing it to get just any job and find one teaching children. Those 'vulnerable' teachers by the way are not all of a sudden unfit to work- schools become unfit workplaces if (if, lol) there are no measures such as PPE etc. The government cant source them for NHS staff, they wont be able to find them for teaching and support staff. Not many other professions ask you to sit in an overcrowded room full of sweaty individuals who often do not (or cannot) use basic hygiene measures (imagine 1000 kids trying to wash their hands a couple of times a day, in schools often having one or two sets of toilets). Not many other professions rely heavily on using the same rooms and computer equipment. This is not down to teachers, but the workplace, which all of a sudden became unsuitable and unsafe for adults and students alike.

So the alternative is to change the working culture. Unless again, you want future generations be taught by a hoarde of blind leading the blind. A bad teacher can do more damage than you can imagine, and having a half a department of such in each school... What a treat that will be when those people will end up on a jobmaret!

And no, it's not the same as people who lost their jobs, as their jobs still exist, unlike people's whose companies folded. They would just be replaced by often incompetent people who need guidanc they would not get.

The reality will be bullying vulnerable staff into returning and a corresponding death toll

Well. This is where I thought the option of quitting and going on benefits to retrain/find something less dangerous would be better....

Those 'vulnerable' teachers by the way are not all of a sudden unfit to work- schools become unfit workplaces if (if, lol) there are no measures such as PPE etc.

Yes I agree - the world has changed, not the people. It's unfair. I get it.
But the fact remains that it's now higher risk for some people.

If everything is able to be changed to make it safe for all teachers to return - brilliant.
If there's the money to keep teachers who can't work on full pay - brilliant.

I just don't believe that it will be the case, sadly.

@phoebesbirthmom did you actually just suggest vunerable teachers should have their wagers reduced? Because they cannot
Be around the students. How utterly heartless and callous.

@PhoebesBirthMom and also suggested that any wally of the street becomes a teacher. You have no idea!!!!

I have no understanding how people can be so cavalier with other people health just because they WANT something that is NOT ESSENTIAL!!

Doctors, Nurses HCP other NHS staff and care home workers have to put themselves in harms way because if they don't - people will die. Many have and will.

School is not essential. If the children don't go to school no one will die by the very fact of them staying at home.

I am not a teacher - but if I were I wouldn't be going in to a school. neither would I be volunteering to risk someone's else's life to make my life easier .

It's just not necessary.

ChloeDecker sorry for the misunderstanding, was skim reading waiting for something and expecting to be interrupted!

German (at least Bavarian) schools have been setting masses of detailed work. My experience is secondaries have been marking it and giving individual feedback and primaries haven't been despite holding a hard line on children needing to keep up. I have primary and secondary children and the secondary has done far better. There is state school emergency childcare for under 12s if both/ single parents are key workers throughout Bavaria and I'm pretty sure all German states, though terms and conditions might be different.

I did GTTP 20 years ago - baptism of fire, sink or swim, other clichés... NQT year was a picnic though It was trying to combine a reflux baby in the days of 6 months maternity leave with a full time core essay subject marking load (under a headmaster who regarded a request to go part time as a betrayal of my classes and disloyal to the school) that drove me out of teaching five years later. Left the country soon after. My qualifications aren't recognised here so I've career changed again.

PhoebesBirthMom

I don't even know where to start with your helpful "solutions".

Meant to say - most schools couldn't support more than one career changing graduate on a graduate teacher training on the job programme, it requires a dedicated mentor. Most schools who tried it did it really badly.

I was left to teach a reduced timetable of my own classes for two weeks before my training started - luckily I'd spent two years teaching TEFL full time in Japanese high schools (Japanese grammar school students are well behaved - Japanese commercial highschool students are not, and they have classes of 40) so wasn't totally clueless about crowd control.

Throwing people without any teaching experience in to classrooms alone would not work.

Here we go .... teaching is easy ! A couple of weeks training and anyone can do it.

What would you like to do?

You are most welcome to the lower set year 9 classes in any subject

What you don't want to take the Year 10 Business class with 32 pupils and a very wide ability range?

How about a nice Year 7 RS class with 27 students and a TA as 4 students need support?

I know how about top set Year 10 maths who are all expected to get 8/9s?

Plus there is break and lunch etc? What you don't want to be called a wanker or to fuck up?

Never mind - teaching is not for you

I posted an article that suggests reassuring news at the end of the day. Surely further evidence children are not super spreaders is good? Why can't people just be pleased

For the love of little fish.

You hardly invented the wheel. - you started a thread. no medals left for that -sorry.

It's been talked about on loads of threads,the news,everywhere... the reason it's NOT 'evidence' that children aren't super spreaders is because in that environment the virus isn't spreading - we are NOT in that environment!

It's not complicated. Just stop trying to make it fit your argument.

Teachers are not sacrificial lambs FFS

A term learning athome is not going to damage the little darlings for life...losing their grandparents,aunts,uncles,parents or siblings will.

As for the utterly ridiculous comments that people with underlying conditions aren't fit to do their jobs - what revolting nonsense.

As for the utterly ridiculous comments that people with underlying conditions aren't fit to do their jobs - what revolting nonsense.

Quite..

Well. This is where I thought the option of quitting and going on benefits to retrain/find something less dangerous would be better....

PhoebesBirthMom, do you know that you can't claim benefits if you just quit your job. You get nothing for months. Also you cannot 'retrain' on benefits, you must find any work immediately or again you will get no meagre amount to live on. Also benefits don't cover mortgages which most teachers will have, they often don't even cover the cheapest 30% of rent rates in an area, so should vulnerable teachers just give up their homes and live on £70 odd a week because they are vulnerable?? Have you ever been on Universal Credit??

I think we should be expanding on online learning, virtual classrooms. Not the ideal, but these are different times.

I'm not a teacher

I am not certain that the demographics of infected people in a country that has not seen widespread community transmission necessarily carry to one which has.

From the report, you can see that they tested two groups. One group was high risk, and most of these had travelled abroad. That there may well limit the number of school aged children in that sample.

The other group was randomly selected. Of this second group, only 100 in total were infected.

100 people, from a different country, in a totally different stage of an outbreak, is not a good quantity of data to draw conclusions from for us in the UK.

In the early stages of the South Korean outbreak, infections were largely amongst a single church group. In Germany, the initial outbreak also had a very different age profile to other coutries.

I would be extremely cautious about drawing general conclusions from such a small study.

What we need to ask ourselves is:

Where is the equivalent data from the UK?