NEU calls for two week closure for secondaries and colleges following leap in infections

[noblegiraffe]

The NEU has called for a two week closure of secondary schools and colleges following a more than 9-fold increase in the infection rate in secondary school children in a month.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-teachers-demand-2-week-school-closures-after-cases-jump

The infection rate in Y7-11 was 0.5% last week, according to the ONS survey of random households, but this nearly doubled to 0.93% in the latest set of figures. This rise cannot be ignored or passed off as relating to university students as has happened so far.

In other, entirely unrelated news, 61% of teachers report that if a student doesn't wear a mask in a school where they are mandated in communal areas 'nothing happens'.

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-61-staff-say-nothing-done-if-pupils-wont-wear-masks

And Teacher Tapp data from yesterday had 26% of teachers reporting that their schools were partially closed to students.

In the meantime, the testing positivity rate in 10-19 year olds is 17%, which means that this group is severely under-tested and lots of cases will be missed. The rate should be below 5%.

Yet the insistence continues that in any lockdown scenario, schools will remain open. Idiocy.

SAGE seems to disagree with you and I know who I think is more qualified to comment. They say the two things to be done to have the biggest impact on the R number is switching to remote learning for universities and high schools.

I could of course be on SAGE, but I am not :)

Could you point me to somewhere that SAGE has put this in writing? That is specifically that schools are a major cause of the rise in infections and should be shut for some period? Was it in the SAGE notes that were released?

I am a little surprised though as I did hear one of the scientific advisors in a PM led briefing say the opposite in reply to a question from a journalist.

Teacher assessment. You absolutely know the level of every single student in your class instinctively. Every single one.

I could grade them all to the nth degree even if l’d ost all my marks

Well yes, that's a distinct advantage OP.

We've had 4 weeks out of school (some very good home learning and none extistent. Y10, but he does have one GCSE in this school year).

When that 4 weeks becomes 8, becomes 12, at what point will the DfE realise the divide?

Actually, don't answer that, as I already know

and some non existent

Middleager, l begged, stole, borrowed and bought some text books for my y10 Dd.

I didn’t know what else to do. I’m a teacher and l know education will be disrupted. They’ve been a godsend tbh, she sends photos of the relevant pages to her friends.

@BillywilliamV

I honestly dont care about anything apart from my DC being at school!

Having read a few of your "contributions" on MN, I'm not in the least surprised. Have a nice day.

Not my usual paper, and no paywall so must be important. Closing schools and universities may be unavoidable.

www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-news-manchester-tier-lockdown-cases-deaths/

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

“The rest are capable of being left. They should register online in school uniform and follow the normal timetable.”

My brother (a teacher) refused to teach online due to “safeguarding”. Has that issue gone away now?

This from SAGE is interesting.

Essentially, without continuous mass testing having all schools open really increases the R number.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/926953/S0743_SPI-M-O_Statement_on_population_case_detection.pdf

Yeah, it was due to leaks and issues with Zoom and other stuff.

But the government has decreed that all schools should be able to deliver online teaching. Training on Teams has been going on. My dd knows which online classes she will be in if required.

[quote BunsyGirl]@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince. It is a school in a city. And for your information, so you can bitch about me and whine some more, my DC’s have already had a superior education as they had full remote learning throughout lockdown and will do again should their school close. If you want to close the gap in the education system, you need to direct your anger at those schools that refused to undertake online lessons during lockdown due to “safeguarding”.[/quote]
My school didn’t do online live lessons during lockdown (parental survey requested not to do them) and my Year 11s, 12s and 13s are not behind. They are in fact, a little ahead. (A state school in London). This includes the fact my Year 13’s bubble that has closed due to multiple positive results.
Yet, there are still posts after post of those who say that by not doing those online lessons, this meant work etc was not being provided.
We have already been working very hard to enable blended learning at a days notice from the government, with no extra funding or equipment (whilst also doing the normal teaching job) as has all secondary schools.

@MarshaBradyo I’m a bit late to the thread so apologies if I’ve missed this being answered (tried to flick through the posts) but I think you were asking about blended learning via remote and those at home getting no input when at home.

Our borough has been looking at tier 2 and we are planning for two weeks in then two weeks off. With approx 50% in at any time. Our choices seem to be :

1. three whole year groups in and three at home. We teach those in school as normal and then teach remotely the year groups at home
2. to split down the middle (alphabetically?). We teach those in and at home simultaneously (at least Y10 upwards. We are starting to offer it at the moment - so I open up my lesson on Teams and students can listen in remotely. They don’t get quite the same level of support but they can see my slides and hear us. We put the bulk of the ‘teaching’ at the beginning of lesson and then once the kids are more working independently those at home so the work but don’t need to be listening in. It’s stil a massive learning curve but the benefits would be that when I have half in the room I can SD from them and support them individually much better than a whole class. Those at home ask questions in the chat and I get back to them later if needed. Sometimes other students will answer as they all have access to the chat before me.

Issues for us is that my school is fairly deprived and fuck all money been given for us to address this. Weve done/continue to do our best. We would ensure anyone who could not access at home could come in I think, along with anyone deemed at risk/vulnerable/that we are concerned about.

In my ideal world I’d have two week half term - one just off. One for teachers to plan for tier 2, with clear guidance as to what we’re planning did. Kids just have two week break.

Safeguarding is set by the government not the schools. So maybe direct your anger at them?

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince Oh, I see, they were waiting for the Government to tel then what to do. Well, at least my brother had to time to revamp his house in the meantime. Oh, and argue with members of the public on Facebook sites telling them why teachers couldn’t provide online lessons. Looks like he’ll have to do some “real” work if schools close again.

Not, it was in the sage documents released. Schools account for 0.35 of the r value, confidence interval was 0.15-0.5 I think. I don't have time to go back and check but they were pretty clear that school was a big contribution.

At my school, we've gone from a case a week to 1 or 2 a day. If whole year groups were sent home we'd have one year group in currently.

Everyone is stressed at school, I've never seen so many staff in tears or on the brink. Workload is massive.

And if your school was delivering lessons via Zoom believe me they were contravening safeguarding. But your kids got their lessons, so that doesn’t really matter does it? The fact that the school probably broke safeguarding guidelines?

However, this is really immaterial. Schools are now set up to deliver online teaching,

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince strange how some schools could do it, and not others. It’s always the Governments fault isn’t it!!!

Big deal for your brother. What do you want ? A medal?🎖

[quote BunsyGirl]@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

“The rest are capable of being left. They should register online in school uniform and follow the normal timetable.”

My brother (a teacher) refused to teach online due to “safeguarding”. Has that issue gone away now?[/quote]
I did wonder if you would mention your brother again! Didn’t you say he taught a subject that couldn’t easily be taught with an online live lesson? It may well be he has had some exam adjustments from Ofqual to allow for this since, and therefore be easier now.
Have you since asked him what his school has been working on to reduce the safeguarding risk?

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

Middleager, l begged, stole, borrowed and bought some text books for my y10 Dd.

I didn’t know what else to do. I’m a teacher and l know education will be disrupted. They’ve been a godsend tbh, she sends photos of the relevant pages to her friends.

That's a good idea - he can share withhis friends then, thanks.

@BunsyGirl

Do you have anything constructive to say.

I worked my arse off over lockdown by myself with a toddler and doing online lessons.

Why should I be punished because your brother’s school was disorganised?

That said, the official guidelines were to suspend the curriculum and some school leaders took that at face value. Perhaps direct your ire towards them.

And video call are a safeguarding issue. Luckily, Teams has been updated to take care of the problem on being able to see a student’s background. They’ve also stopped participants being able to take control of the lesson and mute the teacher. We should be fine for online now. Please pass that on to you ‘brother’.

The schools that did it, shoukd have done it through Teams. I had no training to do it, no one anticipated it. I learnt it myself and taught via it.

Why don’t you blame the government? They’re responsible for the mess that is schools atm.

If they close schools then teachers should face the same financial consequences as the hospitality workers.

Chloe

That's great, but we were without any work for 2 days last time at the start of September. Not one lesson, live or otherwise.

Touch wood, this isolation period is much better.

@ChloeDecker it’s not just about online lessons. There are schools near me that didn’t even set any work. It’s a pretty wealthy area so they weren’t spending all their time with vulnerable children.