I tried phoning the Department of Education but they're closed. Everyone is working from home.

[jomartin281271]

The Department of Education realise there is a pandemic sweeping the globe, so their staff are working from home. And before anyone says that's because of the nasty old unions, it's a bit more complicated than that. The government realise they have a duty of care to civil service workers, and if they force people to come into the office and they subsequently die or end up with long covid, the government could be sued. So why are our children being squashed into tiny classrooms?

It's because they can do their jobs from home .... anyone with half a brain cell can work that out 🙄

@Qasd

Because office workers can do there jobs from home, children cannot be educated from home as the period March to July shows (and even teachers accept this or they wouldn’t be calling for changes to the year 19 exam syllabus to take into account lost learning!). It’s about everyone who can work from home doing so to make it safer for those who cannot (not just teachers, doctors, factory workers, bin men are all not working from home!)

I understand many found it hard it mine were, honestly, happy and they are frustrated they have to go in to benefit others (they're older so have their own views).

I think it's not one size fits all.

But social distancing is the only way to limit spread and opening schools seems a big risk.

But why are they exempt from the Government drive to get people back in their offices?

Okay so Denmark told parents this summer that they could educate their kids at home if they wanted to.Without being fined or permanently losing their school place.

We are perfectly well able to home school, it has gone well for several months.

There are significant risks of DC going into school (especially as we've been shielding).

We can do just as good a job at home, I would say for most subjects, academically - maybe better. But we want school for socialisation really and there are a number of eventual advantages of being in the system.

There's a real advantage for us to not be flung into the poorly thought melee of the return to school. The Government has been determined not to put any resources or constructive planning into the return,compared with, say Italy, where they are changing the classrooms or using other buildings and teaching in much smaller class sizes.

So why not allow the shielders and other clinically vulnerable to keep their children at home if they can, just till we see how things go this winter? Rather than cling to an outdated model of how they want capitalism to work (which is what I think is the problem) with the workers heading off to the office/ factory/shop floor and the kids and teachers crammed into the schools to get infected, until the schools have no choice but to shut for a bit?

Why not do a Denmark or an Italy?

@latticechaos definitely not one size fits all but my DS has suffered during lockdown and needs to be back at school. They need to be open but parents should have the option as to whether they send their children or not.

@ineedaholidaynow

The civil service is not exempt from the drive to return to the office. As I said up thread the offices are being opened up and staff returning
I hope to be back in September

@Ted27 and will the offices have COVID secure measures in place?

Except home learning last term was in many cases not done well as teachers were either looking after their children at home and posting work online to be printed out and never marked, or using Oak Academy/Bitesize/White Rose maths - no marking. Or many were in school caring for keyworker so could do little for those at home.

If teachers did neither of those and did lessons online, marked online and had daily contact with pupils It might look very different for pupils, if Government sorts out IT resources for all instead of bike vouchers and reduced meals out. And non-teachers did childcare for accountants, supermarket workers, refuse collectors, social workers, medical workers, finance workers etc.

@ineedaholidaynow @latticechaos I hope you put as much effort in real life to campaign against schools opening as you do with the constant threads and comments about the same things on mumsnet.

Moaning on here does nothing go on strike, protest, chain yourself to downing Street or something. Make yourselves heard to the people who can actually change things......or was that what your call to the DofE was for?

If it's safer for people to work from home (I agree), then why are the government pushing other office workers to go back to work?

It's not the staff that are to blame here, it's the hypocrital government ministers.

[quote Uhoh2020]**@ineedaholidaynow* @latticechaos* I hope you put as much effort in real life to campaign against schools opening as you do with the constant threads and comments about the same things on mumsnet.

Moaning on here does nothing go on strike, protest, chain yourself to downing Street or something. Make yourselves heard to the people who can actually change things......or was that what your call to the DofE was for?[/quote]
I don't understand what you are saying that to me for, I've never said schools should be shut

All I have said is social distancing should be in place in secondary, to reduce transmission.

If I said no it won't be Covid secure would that make you feel better @ineedaholidaynow

@Uhoh2020

Because they can carry out their work at home to a same or better standard, children can not be educated at home to the same or better standard. Simple.

If more people are working from home they are not mixing with others transmitting the virus, surely that helps schools as children with parents wfh are less likely to bring it into schools.
The more everyone else can stay at home the safer it is for children in schools

This is very sensible.

I work in education, a non facing student role that I can completely do from home, and have been, far more effectively as there are no distractions and I don't have to dash off around school dropoffs.

In fact, before CV I wfh a couple of days anyway.

But, because academic staff are back, we all need to be in apparently as it wouldn't be fair. In a very small office where we can't SD.

non student facing

Sorry if it disappoints you @Uhoh2020 but I am not a teacher so going on strike might not be much use.

And funnily enough I am not saying schools shouldn't open, but I am in a position that I have to be concerned for staff and pupil welfare. The current measures in place in schools are not adequate in my opinion. So I do challenge what is in place as otherwise I would not be fulfilling my role. And I am in contact with people who will be challenging what the Government are proposing, so I am doing my bit to try and make schools safer for both pupils and staff. But I have never said schools should not open

Maybe loads of them have had to work from home because schools are closed and there’s not enough childcare

I still havent found out what all those DfE workers do. Total mystery to me.

Are you actually trying to get hold of someone at the DofE op, or are you just trying to make some kind of point?

If the former, I'm sure one of us civil servants can help you find them. All my civil service colleagues have their land lines transferred to their mobiles and can access emails etc from laptops at home. So no different getting hold of us than it was before Covid struck.

@StaffAssociationRepresentative sat on a queue for about an hour for their phone Helpdesk, when finally got through they were no help whatsoever, it was a bit computer says no!

But, because academic staff are back, we all need to be in apparently as it wouldn't be fair.

This is stupid, because any reduction in people in unnecessarily benefits everyone

@Cloudburstagain

Except home learning last term was in many cases not done well as teachers were either looking after their children at home and posting work online to be printed out and never marked, or using Oak Academy/Bitesize/White Rose maths - no marking. Or many were in school caring for keyworker so could do little for those at home.

If teachers did neither of those and did lessons online, marked online and had daily contact with pupils It might look very different for pupils, if Government sorts out IT resources for all instead of bike vouchers and reduced meals out. And non-teachers did childcare for accountants, supermarket workers, refuse collectors, social workers, medical workers, finance workers etc.

If schools are not open in this scenario who will be looking after the teacher's children? What about the working parents out there who will still need to supervise, support and care for primary aged children?

All I've said is social distancing should be in place in secondary schools to reduce transmission

We've done a thousand threads already why social distancing isnt in school which theres no point going over again. If the rest of the community can do some things at home though even if its a small percentage its still lowering the transmission which in turn mean a lower transmission going into schools.

Id be more than happy for other social things to be restricted so there's even less transmission going into schools, but i also realise that then has an adverse affect on the economy and people's livelihoods for those who work in that area.
In my opinion schools should be the first thing to get back as close to normal and all other things restricted or amended in whatever way possible to achieve that.

If they're working at home then they aren't closed surely? What message did you get when you called?

I didn't know there was a drive to get people back to the office. I thought it was more about people who had to go into their place of work to get things done.

"If schools are not open in this scenario who will be looking after the teacher's children? What about the working parents out there who will still need to supervise, support and care for primary aged children?"

I worry about this. We are quite a young teaching staff in my primary school - most in late 20s, 30s and one or two in 40s. We have one in 50s. I would say 70% of us have our own primary aged children. What would we do?

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@StaffAssociationRepresentative sat on a queue for about an hour for their phone Helpdesk, when finally got through they were no help whatsoever, it was a bit computer says no![/quote]
or trying to sort out mutant algorithms or, more likely, to be busy issuing the next coivd return guidance document which will be timed for release at 5pm Friday ready to panic school staff coming in on Tuesday. (that seems to be the usual modus operandi)