School return will fail

[covidteacherscotland]

Okay so we have been back to school for a week! Great? No. Definitely not. Some thoughts on why this will be a disaster:

16 and 17 year olds are not children.

Social distancing is impossible. Genuinely impossible. Children will not or cannot stay out your space.

There is no PPE in school at all and staff are not protected in any way.

Children don't give a shit about washing their hands.

We've been doing double periods instead of single to minimise movement. This means that we are stuck in a room with 30 17 year olds with few or no windows as the respiratory droplets add up.

Educating your child is impossible if you can't go near them.

Our time management and pupil progress relies on us being able to give feedback to children formatively as we teach. To mark jotters as we go. We can't do this now.

I think that because infection is so low we'll be okay for a while - a few weeks - then the shit will hit the fan.

@covidteacherscotland

I think you're being very dismissive of @10storeylovesong.

Both of you do seem to be aiming for a race to the bottom. Schools have significant dangers and teachers are right to be concerned, but other workplaces also have significant dangers and employees there are right to be concerned. Acknowledging each danger doesn't negate the other danger.

On a societal level, getting school opening right does seem crucial, however, as it involves a huge number of people (c.10 million). It is a shame that simple measures eg. masks, temp checks have been dismissed. My major disappointment is that they decided to send all of these 10 million people back to schools at the same time. Nowt I can do about it, but a staggered start (including some areas starting before the holidays) is something I think would have made much more sense.

Clearly I have come across as a ranty. Works by maniac, however, getting this right is actually the force that is driving me here.

I don't want stuck in an interminable cycle of localised lockdowns. I don't want the young people I teach to perform poorly in their exams.

The point of my post is that I don't believe they are getting it right. I'm youngish and healthyish and I'm worried. The vast majority of my colleagues are older and getting very frightened at what they perceive to be a lack of concern for staff.

It doesn't take much in terms of staff absence for the schools to cease operating.

That should be ranty work shy maniac

The attitude towards the OP and towards teachers in general on this thread is disgusting. They seem to get no respect whatsoever from parents. You honestly couldn't pay me enough to be in that profession right now.

They have a right to be anxious, a right to a safe working environment which seems to vary greatly between school and school age kids, even older secondary school won't adhere to social distancing. The parents wont go for kids wearing masks. Look at the griping from people who don't even want to wear them to the supermarket. Imagine they were told their kids had to wear them at school!

Maybe everything will be fine. Maybe kids dont spread it as much as adults but we just don't know this yet.

Personally don't think you've come across that way. Concerned and frustrated, yes. Ranty, maybe a little, but that's what MN is for, right? Not workshy or a maniac. I can imagine it's been a long and worrying week.

Dc don't need to wear masks, but they could everyone could simply be asked op wear a visor. I cannot fathom why visors are not being promoted. Not perfect but better than nothing.

@HateIsNotGood the answer to your goady question is no. Schools have just returned in Scotland and soon will in the rest of the UK so I'm sure their anxiety around the situation is at a peak just now. Lots of people have been furloughed. Not sure what that's got to do with anything. Your lack of respect towards the people taking care of the countries kids is disgusting.

Visors are pointless on their own.
I feel for OP. Having spent months socially distancing it's odd to spend hours in a room with unmasked people. I'm doing it now waitressing and it's impossible keep 1m distance, let alone 2m. I wear a mask at work and it affects my ability to be understood by customers, so teaching with a mask on and be heard could be tricky.
DD went back to school this week..I think it's a race to see whether the pubs and restaurants or the school's shut first. Early October is when I think staffing at the very least will be a problem. I see high schools as potential daily super s events.

I would have snapped someone's hand off for furlough, I bet more than 50% of teachers would say the same.

Stranglers Goady? Completely correct - were you even born then Grimble?

@HateIsNotGood have you read your own username?

I would have snapped someone's hand off for furlough, I bet more than 50% of teachers would say the same.

Presumably only if you knew you’d have a job to go back to. The majority of people put on furlough were not in that position.

@Nicknacky I haven’t RTFT because I suspect it’s just a rehash of the “teachers are lazy and don’t want to work” argument I’ve seen 50000 times on here since March.

However you say some classrooms don’t have windows and I wondered if you’ve seen the risk assessment for your schools full reopening? Because this should be addressed in it, and there should be something in there to mitigate that risk, they can’t just be like “the windows don’t open... next”.

Tagged completely the wrong person 🤦‍♀️ @covidteacherscotland I meant you! Sorry whoever I tagged.

@HateIsNotGood I love the irony of your username. Excellent.

Ok I will try one last time. What do you actually want?? I really wish a teacher on here would give an honest answer to this. If there was anything I could do personally to help teachers in my dc school feel safer, I would do it in a heartbeat!

Can you give a constructive solution to your concerns?

Read through the numerous past threads. I've lost count of how many suggestions have been made. To repeat them is pointless, as you didn't read them in the first place.

So many goady fuckers hating teachers. Full of bile and lies.

What sad little lives they must lead to be so devoured by bitterness and envy.

My impression from the schools reopening in Scotland, is:

• primary schools are good, schools well organised, kids happy, class bubbles and handwashing managed well

• secondary schools are carnage, teachers have some very valid concerns about hygiene and safety, kids unable to distance, no time to clean properly

If one night out in Aberdeen can cause 200 cases, then how can teenagers only a few years younger spend day after day in crowded corridors and classrooms without it spreading like wildfire as soon as a single case is introduced to the school?

I can't see how secondary can work without social distancing if cases in the community rise at all, which will mean blended learning.

To address the post title, does that mean schools reopening has failed? I would say not. If they can keep primary schools open, and get to October before introducing blended learning at 30% or 50% for secondary, with a roll out of kit for families that need it, then I'd call that a massive success.

[quote Uhoh2020]@itsgettingweird ill be the first parent there when school opens . I want school to open. But you have to admit that many threads on here think it will be schools that transmit the virus. Not the adults going about their business going the pub, getting eyelashes done, going the gym, no nearly every thread is about children going to school, getting the education they deserve, but transmitting the virus through society whilst adults can get back to what's pleasurable for them.[/quote]
Yes lots of threads on schools.

I don't believe they are higher risk than pubs etc with regards type of setting. Crowded into space.

Difference is and what teachers are trying to point out is pubs have covid measures they have to follow. Schools aren't required and won't be funded for these measures.

Problem is that the actual issue and concern of teachers at hand is being lost.

And those pubs who are closed are - anecdotally from what I've heard - the ones who aren't forcing so much SD and have been quite lax. Which may show that actually the measures work if in place. And if they aren't in place there's a high risk of closing.

Teachers want schools open - they want them open safely - they want them to stay open. They want a national back up plan so if 1/2/3 a whole area or nationally there becomes a necessity to close them again then every pupil still gets an education and there isn't inequality of education based on social economic status or school attended etc.

After all. You all take the same GCSEs.

I would not want temperature testing! no way. Teachers are not trained medical professionals! Where does this end??!!!!!