Just been told dd’s school is only opening for year six

[gingajewel]

Just having a rant! Just had communication from the school that only year six will be in on 1st June and it has really annoyed me! How can things ever go back to how they need to be when schools are ignoring government guidelines! And yes I’m prepared to be flamed but it has annoyed me that I now need to tell my place of work that I still can’t go back to work!

Don't think anyones said teachers and ta's lives don't count but.... Everyone else is expected to go back to work except apparently those two professions.

Except those two professions refusing to work stops many other people being able to work.

I don't understand why teachers and ta's are apparently doomed to certain death when your average healthy adult has a tiny tiny chance of dying from this

There isn't a solution, unfortunately, but we are not in a position right now where schools should be opening when the rate of infection is so high.

It's massively convenient how the government has now stopped talking about viral load now that they want to reopen schools.

The viral load a teacher is potentially exposed to is high. There have been at least 26 teachers who have died from Coronavirus, plus 10 TA's and other school staff (my data is out of date as that was a few week's ago)

This has very conveniently hardly been reported.

Then you need to actually look at actual data of deaths in the UK from the Office of National Statistics which puts cases at around the 50,000 mark and not at the considerable lowered massaged figures that the government are using.

It's highly highly concerning.

No-one I know who teaches wants to teach without PPE. It's scary.
We have families and we want to protect ourselves and them.

And what if the rate is so high (even though supposedly community transmission is low) in September and then Christmas?

Are you never going to re open schools?

There has to be a solution. We have to live with this.

Tell me. How many of your jobs involve having people coughing in your face/wiping their snot, shit or wee on you as they don't ever wash their hands?

Or how about licking you? Or just wiping their sneeze or snot-covered hands over EVERYTHING?

We deal with that level of contamination every day. Teaching is germ-ridden all the time.

If we were allowed PPE it would be better.

@morethanmeetstheeye Excellent post. Got it in a nutshell.

Mine doesn't but then I didn't choose to work in a role like that.

However I would happily go work in a school or nursery right now if I had the qualifications because realistically I've more chance of being hit by a bus on my way there than dying of covid.

You’ve read the guidance and interpreted it one way, the school another. Their’s based on the guidance and what they can do (safety), given their circumstances and situation, you on what you need/want. All of this is tough, on you and them. I’m sick of dealing with angry parents, I get it (I also feel it, this isn’t what I want), but can’t change it easily or quickly. We’ve never done this before, are under the microscope, really don’t want to get stuff wrong. A lot of people are ‘angry’ ‘wanting to rant’ - Dealing with coming out of lockdown was always going to be harder than just stopping, one big leap into lockdown, lots of small slow, labored and at times torturous steps out.

No teacher chose to go to work in an environment that could, right now, kill them.

This is a real concern. So much so that the British a Medical Association do not think school should reopen.

That's DOCTORS saying they shouldn't.
Not just any doctors but the leading ones in the UK

I respect their experience, professional status and sense.

@CallmeAngelina

Thank you.

I'm so so angry that people are actually swallowing the rhetoric that the government are pedalling.

This is NOT ok.
The fact that they're trying to guilt us into returning when it's not safe and refusing to allow us to wear PPE is disgraceful.
I will not be labelled a hero...
That kind of rhetoric then allows them to make teacher/nhs staff deaths more acceptable as we were 'heroic'

It's not a war.

@UniversallyUnchalleneged

don't forget those that are threatening to report us to Ofsted. Lol.

You could get killed at work at any time realistically! It's very unlikely but then so is dying of sodding Corona virus!!

There are lots of older teachers.
Lots of teachers with underlying health conditions.

This virus isn't picky and our viral load risk is high

realistically I've more chance of being hit by a bus on my way there than dying of covid.
I wonder how many of the 35,000 people (in this country alone) might also have said that. I mean, apart from the old and infirm ones who many people seem to think don't matter.

Not only are we being hung out to dry in our classrooms, but it appears that we are being tasked with sole responsibility of getting the country back to work and leading us out of this global pandemic.
Teachers are a tiny cog in the wheel. There are plenty of workers in this country who are not dependent on childcare. Schools re-opening should not be the focus that it has become. It is not our fault - or responsibility.

Just in case anyone starts trying to equate us to The Netherlands or Sweden where they've opened schools.

Bear in mind their death rates and rates of infection are substantially lower than ours.

We have the highest death rate in Europe and our daily death rates exceed the rate at the point at which they locked the country down.

Yet it's ok to open schools now? With no protection in place for the adults that work there? Children can carry and spread the disease. They also have a chance of catching it and can end up with a horrible Kawasaki type illness.

But don't worry.
We'll go back to a very unsafe workplace in order to protect all your jobs.
That's ok, isn't it.

Define very unsafe because in my opinion that's a gross over exaggeration.

Oh and it's not just about our jobs it's about keeping roofs over the heads of the kids you teach but I guess that's not important either eh

Also "a chance" of catching Kawasaki? Yep a teeny tiny chance. Doctors haven't advised keeping schools closed in account of Kawasaki.

And when will you deem it safe? September? Christmas? Next August? Never?

I'm going to not engage anymore with you and just put up this letter from the British Medical association.
Unless you are a doctor with higher credentials than them, I honestly don't think your opinion counts.

These highly eminent doctors DO NOT THINK SCHOOLS SHOULD REOPEN YET.

That speaks volumes and should be listened to.

The answer is.
When the Doctors say it's safe.

Do the doctors know more than the scientists then?

The scientists who keep changing the science they're following?

@TrustTheGeneGenie they will be separated in class, not working together. Separated in the playground and probably split playtimes. Lunch socially distanced in the classroom. None of this is conducive to age-appropriate socialising in the early years.

What do you mean keep changing the science they're following?