Asking too much of teachers?

[DomDoesWotHeWants]

It's looking like masks are going to be a requirement in shops and possibly other indoor venues.

Yet teachers are expected to teach - for hours at a time - in confined, poorly ventilated spaces, with no social distancing. They have been told they do not need PPE. If I was still teaching there is no way I'd go into a room crowded with teenagers and not wear a mask at the moment.

Teachers should be allowed as much protection as possible not thrown under a corona bus because Johnson wants them for child care so their parents can go back to work.

I really can't understand why it's going to be compulsory in shops where meetings are fleeting but not in schools which are crowded and have people crammed in for hours.

Does the right of children to go back to school over rule the rights of of school staff (teaching and ancillary) to be as protected as possible?

This means they should be allowed to wear PPE, if they choose, and secondary children should be wearing masks as happens in some other countries. In some countries younger children also have to wear masks in school.

The safety of teachers has been ignored by Johnson and his chums in their urge to get people back to work and the cry of "back to normal" is taken up by those ignorant of the facts about the virus.

Teachers have been made out to be the bad guys almost from the beginning - as can be seen from many bile infested threads on here. They deserve better.

Secondary teacher here with underlying issues.
I really do not understand why we have specifically been told no PPE. My classroom has no opening windows and I'm feeling really scared! Children do transmit this disease! Whilst I understand the needs for Schools to return we need to be kept safe.

I don't think I can teach YR and Y1 children early maths and literacy skills effectively in a whole class seated at desks. I'm interested to see how our slt suggest arranging the classroom as only 13 desks fit side by side, coming right up to front of room so no carpet space or 2m for me, so that will only be 26, plus nowhere to take a group. I won't leave teaching over wearing a mask but I will if I am given targets I can't meet with the teaching style I'm allowed. Nobody wants to stay somewhere where they can't win.

@DomDoesWotHeWants

It's looking like masks are going to be a requirement in shops and possibly other indoor venues.

Yet teachers are expected to teach - for hours at a time - in confined, poorly ventilated spaces, with no social distancing. They have been told they do not need PPE. If I was still teaching there is no way I'd go into a room crowded with teenagers and not wear a mask at the moment.

Teachers should be allowed as much protection as possible not thrown under a corona bus because Johnson wants them for child care so their parents can go back to work.

I really can't understand why it's going to be compulsory in shops where meetings are fleeting but not in schools which are crowded and have people crammed in for hours.

Does the right of children to go back to school over rule the rights of of school staff (teaching and ancillary) to be as protected as possible?

This means they should be allowed to wear PPE, if they choose, and secondary children should be wearing masks as happens in some other countries. In some countries younger children also have to wear masks in school.

The safety of teachers has been ignored by Johnson and his chums in their urge to get people back to work and the cry of "back to normal" is taken up by those ignorant of the facts about the virus.

Teachers have been made out to be the bad guys almost from the beginning - as can be seen from many bile infested threads on here. They deserve better.

It's just horrendous. Dreading September. Also impossible to teach without getting up close to children to see their work and to help them.

Secondary teacher here. Been in school throughout this pandemic and just got in with it and tried not to worry about it. However, as PPE becomes more and more common amongst other sectors, it has got me questioning this. I will be in my third trimester when we are back full time and have been told by health care professionals that if I catch COVID at this time, I will be induced. I will admit, this makes me feel sick to my stomach especially as wearing a visor or suchlike could drastically reduce this risk.
I'm also worried about workload...it's big enough at the best of times (anywhere between 50-70 hours a week) but I currently feel like I'm drowning and this is before all the new rules kick in. I've been teaching in school full time this past couple of weeks so the online work the other pupils have been doing is piling up...currently have around 200 pieces to mark (that's just from 2 weeks). Have been told this needs marking before we break up in two weeks but I'm teaching again this week and have also been told that as a head of department I need to ensure that on our online platform there is a complete online provision available including lessons, videos and pupil friendly versions of the schemes of work. I've also been told it's important that we all get a well deserved rest over the summer! I'm so worried about how I'm going to get all of this done! When the new GCSE specs came out a few years back, I spend 4 weeks in school over the six week holidays rewriting schemes of work over the space of two years and that was only for two year groups! I don't usually moan about these things and just do what is expected no matter how long it takes but I'm starting to worry about how all this extra work, pressure and most importantly no PPE will impact on my baby. Also , my teaching day is extending by an hour and a half in September...I'm usually in school 7.30-5.30 in 'normal times' so something I surely going to have to give.

*is surely

The ONLY reason I can think of that the government is so resistant to the idea of masks in schools is because they don’t want to have to pay for them.

Schools are also not getting any extra money for cleaning.

The government is very keen to get schooling back to normal on the cheap and fuck the consequences for staff and children.

My DS is currently in a bubble of 15 with an entirely separate area in the school and a single teacher and TA. In those circumstances I can understand no PPE.

When I go back I’ll be teaching hundreds of different kids over several different classrooms in classes of around 30. In those circumstances, PPE surely needs to be considered.

Appalling. Of course teachers should be given PPE. Visors/ clear masks for phonics for those teaching it. Don’t even get me started on the previous parents who say they don’t want their child subjected to the “ scary sight” of their teacher in PPE. Tough shit quite frankly and they need to dry their eyes and get their kids used to it, by showing them how people out and about are wearing masks.

This is so unfair on anyone working in schools.

Teachers should be allowed as much protection as possible not thrown under a corona bus because Johnson wants them for child care so their parents can go back to work.

This really jumped out at me OP, because I have no need of childcare, but I am desperate for my kids to go back to school. I am an ex teacher, so I coudl teach them myself, but I have kids in years 7, 10 and 12, and I am so worried about

1. exams
2. mental health.

My 17 year old was so low, and so depressed. we finally persuaded him to ask if he could go into school as one of the vulnerable children to work in school, and for the last 2 weeks he has been in to work from school for 2 days a week. the difference is huge, it is like the sun coming bakc out. he had no mental health issues before this started, but he cannot keep going without the structure of school and the interaction with friends and teachers.
My year 7 is in a bad place, she has struggled with the move to secondary, and they had just decided in March that she needed assessment for possible dyslexia, that has now been delayed until september at the earliest, so she will have lost at lea 6st months before help kicks on.

This is really not about childcare. Our kids need to be in school.
I have huge sympathy for teachers, but we do have to find a way.

I think PPE is a crazy idea for teachers. You cannot teach in a mask.

However I would expect children to be rigorously checked for fevers and not allowed to enter school with one or a bad cough (with a fever being greater than, say, 37.4, not the crazily high 37.8).

I think no PPE with asymptomatic children is less risky than PPE with clearly sick people carrying a large viral load.

I also think that all teachers over a certain age should be optionally furloughed until a vaccine is found.

However, school needs to take place and, for that to happen, there needs to be teachers.

and parents keeping children off with symptoms.

And here's where it all falls down! We've already had three instances of children being sent into school with symptoms (and that's just the ones we've identified) and we're not even fully open yet.
The first one was back in March, when the parent was very unwell with Covid symptoms (before testing was widespread) and the child was sent to school and told not to tell anyone!

However, school needs to take place and, for that to happen, there needs to be teachers.

Yeah, well give it until Christmas with the laughable (if it wasn't so serious) plans for "safety" in schools, and there won't be many left. Last date for handing notice in for Christmas is October 31st.

@CallmeAngelina

However, school needs to take place and, for that to happen, there needs to be teachers.

Yeah, well give it until Christmas with the laughable (if it wasn't so serious) plans for "safety" in schools, and there won't be many left. Last date for handing notice in for Christmas is October 31st.

I “jokingly” said to my friend earlier if Covid doesn’t get me, the physical and mental exhaustion of working 8-4 on a 20 minute break will.

I'm a primary teacher who had no intention of wearing PPE. However I teach a year group who is back in school and twice this week I have had to send children home because they are ill. In one case a child threw up, and then told us they had been sick the previous evening, parents reply to this was they thought it was something they had eaten. Other child was very pale, shivery (no fever) and complaining of headache, parents reply was they'd been complaining over the weekend but parent thought they were faking it because they didn't want to go for a walk.
It's really made me think twice about how to protect myself. I know it's only a minority of parents who act like this, but it is actions like this that could result in teachers getting ill and bubbles/ schools being shut down.

@pellesco Early this year I had a Yr 9 run out of the classroom and vomit in the toilet. She came back to class and said she would be okay as long as she could keep running out. Apparently her sister had had a sickness bug earlier in the week so her mum couldn’t take anymore days off work.

I think PPE is a crazy idea for teachers. You cannot teach in a mask.

Visor. Plastic screen. Other countries seem to manage.

Primary schools can manage bubbles so are far less at risk than secondaries where you are not teaching ‘children’ as defined by the ones in studies as not spreading it.

I know it's only a minority of parents who act like this, but it is actions like this that could result in teachers getting ill and bubbles/ schools being shut down.

The actions you describe are my biggest worry. I fear that with more pressure on those returning to work, and fines being reintroduced, the amount of parents and carers sending in unwell children will increase.

I’m going back in September and will be teaching year 1s who will struggle with social distancing. I’m asthmatic, my husband is diabetic and my elderly mum (who is in our bubble is shielding). I am hoping to wear a face visor in September for at least some protection. If that’s not ‘allowed’ then I think I will have to leave. I really think it is unfair that teachers aren’t afforded the same level of protection as other professions operating indoors. I understand why people might choose not to wear face coverings but to actively prevent people from wearing them when they are potentially at risk is just wrong.

face visors are really the way forward here, and I can't understand why they are not allowed. They aren't even scary, as you can see your face. Kids would get used to seeing teachers in them very quickly.

@thunderthighsohwoe

I teach in primary, and wouldn’t expect my children or I to wear masks, but I’m lucky as we’re in a rural area without the public transport issue (I’m choosing not to think about all the children whose parents commute to London daily!).

I absolutely get why secondary colleagues might be wary.

What worries me is the online provision for shielding children. I absolutely appreciate that we need to provide for them as best we can, but I’d hoped that could be done via Oak/zooming into our lessons in school. Our head is currently querying the guidance on this, as normal teaching involves working every evening to keep up, adding recording 20 lessons a week for shielding children is going to be tricky. They’re going to end up being very left behind.

Can I ask about this online provision? One of my children is shielded as as far as we have been told they just have to go back to school. I find it terrifying.

I really feel for all you teachers. I can't see any reason why you shouldn't be allowed to take precautions as you see fit.

@Cloudburstagain Am not looking forwards to toilets - as we share with the kids - oh joy of new buildings! And windows that hardly open and corridors with fire doors that cannot be kept open. And only one staircase.

Is it legal for teachers to have to share the same toilets as children? Surely that puts teachers and TAs at a huge risk.

Last date for handing notice in for Christmas is October 31st.
I predict a mass exodus. This last half term has been hell and if it wasn't already too late to hand in my notice for September I would. I don't know any teachers who feel safe or cared for at work.

but I’d hoped that could be done via Oak/zooming into our lessons in school.

Whaaaat???? No WAY would I consent to being filmed teaching in my classroom and beamed out via Zoom (or anything else, actually) to who knows who or where?

@Theimpossiblegirl

Last date for handing notice in for Christmas is October 31st. I predict a mass exodus. This last half term has been hell and if it wasn't already too late to hand in my notice for September I would. I don't know any teachers who feel safe or cared for at work.

I have no idea how many would have moved on anyway, but at my exes secondary school of around 800 pupils 15 teachers and two TAs have handed in their notice for xmas.

@SimonJT That is an unusually high amount of staff leaving, but sadly I understand why.