School re-opening under threat

[jomartin281271]

Headline in the London Evening Standard today that this new surge could threaten re-opening of schools. I'm not surprised. The government know that it's not safe to open schools under their current guidance. Cramming children, teachers and admin staff into those tiny spaces could cause a catastrophe. I feel sorry for teachers. Most of them are really committed to the job and their lives are being put at risk. Scary times.
www.standard.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-second-wave-schools-september-a4511516.html

Latest:

"Whitty says there are clearly big disadvantages to opening things up in the winter months."

'The idea that we can open up everything and keep the virus under control is clearly wrong,' says Whitty

Good to hear some sensible statements for a change.

I am definetely postponing new uniform buying, it is not looking like it will happen, which is sad. But better than opening, just for opening sake, and paying a huge price later.

Unfortunately all the emerging data re aerosols transmission/kids as vectors is ruining them winging it, hoping kids were some how magically immune from transmitting etc. I honestly think there’s so much fire fighting going on behind the scenes they don’t really have a clue and as you say are being reactionary rather than having a proper data driven plan for the next six months.

Anyone could see this shit show coming from miles away no despair.

Everyone apart from the Government.

But hey if we just wash our hands a bit more...

Yes you’re right the whole 1billion was going to their mates who would charge £50 per hour per pupil and schools would have to stump up £12.50 per pupil per hour.

It was farcical

I think that 1billion (like the amazing summer catch up scheme) will quietly disappear. Iirc it wasn’t new money anyway but dodgy shifting around of existing funding.

If it wasn’t new money then probably best thing for it.

I really think they will plough on with opening schools regardless of transmission rates

£50 ph per pupil to be taught online by an unqualified tutor. Only an etonite could think that value for money.

@Lua

Latest:

"Whitty says there are clearly big disadvantages to opening things up in the winter months."

'The idea that we can open up everything and keep the virus under control is clearly wrong,' says Whitty

Good to hear some sensible statements for a change.

I am definetely postponing new uniform buying, it is not looking like it will happen, which is sad. But better than opening, just for opening sake, and paying a huge price later.

I am liking him even more as time goes on.

It was very clear opening up everything as winter hits was going to be a recipe for disaster.

Ok, I can't believe I'll give the government a pass.... but I must say that at my work we are trying to plan for what to do next, and no matter where we look, we find holes. Then, there is the issue of keeping "customers" happy, not loose money so we have to let people go, and keep up with government rules. And to top it off there are us workers, asking what are we supposed to do then? You can just see the managers saying whatever to make us go away.... I am glad I am not in charge!

@Beebityboo

I really think they will plough on with opening schools regardless of transmission rates

Same here. They need schools to open so they can blame schools for not doing enough / following the guidance leading to their closure.

If the Government decide schools can't open, then the public will blame them and not the teaching staff.

I'm terrified of my kids Y10 & Y13 going back. DS has asthma and I've had an Organ Transplant so whilst sheilding is being 'paused' from tomorrow we still won't be mixing.

The thought of them being with 300+ bubbles scares me.

@Beebityboo - Instruct your children to cough really loudly as they are going into school. That should give them a pass for 10 days away. That should be sufficient for the house of cards to go down, and online teaching to restart (without all the planning it could have had, if government not spineless).

I dunno. They’re tories. Neither them nor their mates make any money out of schools being open and they’re all dying to make mass redundancies once furlough stops.

If schools opening threatens businesses they won’t open.

And I think it’s a relatively small percentage of households with primary age children.

English schools to get £1bn to help pupils catch up after lockdown
Schools will get £650m plus £350m to be spent on tutoring the children who most need it

And that amount works out at something like £95.00 per pupil ....

So what's that...on average...3 hours of tutoring? Big deal.

Joanne Harris (Chocolat author) sums it up perfectly:

twitter.com/Joannechocolat/status/1289160003375398912

n which the Prime Minister assures us that we're going to have rainbows and unicorns as long as we all do our part; spending money, going to work, sending kids to school, avoiding our loved ones and ignoring the fact that he and his friends are doing whatever the hell they like.

Bluewave - I'm exactly the same, though it's 9 classes at my infant school. Qualified teacher working as a hlta covering PPA and staff absence. No bubble; apparently gone to work across all classes under the government guidance, with no SD or protection in place.

Oh and I'm also clinically vulnerable too.

Sage had a meeting months and regarded children as vectors in a meeting. How some posters on MN howled! Now it is okay to talk about everyone as a vector. How times have changed

Any of the more bullish parents had their confidence that everything is going swimmingly dented by this morning’s announcement?

I’m pleased to see that at least the government appears to have looked at the graph that is going in the wrong direction. And that's with schools in England having been on holiday for two weeks.

@TheHoneyBadger

Thanks thesun. Our school has mandated google classroom and I think it’s a great a good call actually as it works great even on a phone and has lots of useful features. I’ll check it out though.

It's an additional whiteboard solutions for collab work. Can I ask how you are using GclassR?

1. do you assign tasks and is it mandatory for kids to set them to Done?

In our school some teacher are quite lax=kids not doing it=long and unuseful todo list

1. Is your GCR communicating with your LMS in terms of automatically putting grades into it from quizzes, copying (automatically) feedback... ?

The 'good news' thread is still going so the cognitive dissonance is strong in some quarters.

Let’s see. Maybe they’ll do masks and stick to their announcement.

Send everyone in.

I couldn't bear trying to teach from home again. I'd be very happy with half classes, week on, week off with me repeating the week, and wearing masks. Balance of virus control and reasonable education.
Primary different.

Some of that has gone over my head thesun.

I set up a classroom for each class and can then set an assignment and if they are doing it on that platform (rather than in word and uploading as an attachment) I can even go in and check their progress despite them not having submitted it.

I also have a message board within that classroom where I can send encouragement or just nice messages.

Assignments have deadlines and reminders etc and I can set it so every message, assignment, reminder and where is your work I put on there is also emailed automatically to the pupils and to their parents email address.

I haven’t fiddled around much with quizzes but they can be done in such a way that they’re auto marked and the results given immediately.

I hope that answers some of what you asked? Sorry I am not very savvy and very much a newbie to the platform.

I think it's becoming clear schools cannot open with normal class sizes and no masks.