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.

It's quite staggering how people are quite happy to overlook the conflict of Vallance just because he sounds a bit clever and agrees with their views on lockdown. This guy should be absolutely nowhere near an advisory position at the current time. This is just further evidence the lunatics really have taken over the asylum.

@Chaotic45

Worth bearing in mind that supermarket workers didn't get paid if they don't work.

Neither do teachers?

And teachers can’t just quit either. We have to work till Christmas regardless of how we feel about safety.

The resignation deadline for teachers for leaving at Christmas is 31st October, before that we had to resign by 31st May.

If teachers are genuinely worried about going into work, why not retrain or get another job? The rest of us who face having to give up work due to school closures face this prospect. Why should teachers be such a special case?

I just don't understand why so many people say this?

(1) Why is it preferable to encourage teachers to leave (when there is already a shortage) than it have a sensible discussion about how to make schools safe?
(2) Why do people assume that when teachers talk about keeping schools safe, they mean just safe for themselves?

I could quit my job, sure, but that would only protect me. Just like I could stop going to the pub with my family, but if everyone else still goes and kisses fifty mates each, then me staying home has protected me but won't have any material effect on transmission rates in my community.

I don't know whether a two week closure would help the country, my area, my community (not me). If it would help, I would like to know by how much and I would like to have a sensible adult discussion about whether it is the right course of action to take. If it won't help, great, we can stop talking about it and let's look at the evidence for what will instead.

Stamping your foot and making petulant demands is no solution to the problem faced by schools.
But that's precisely what the teaching unions have been doing since day one of this crisis!!

If teachers are genuinely worried about going into work, why not retrain or get another job? The rest of us who face having to give up work due to school closures face this prospect. Why should teachers be such a special case?
I just don't understand why so many people say this?
Perhaps there is a good reason why so many people say this..

If schools only shut for 2 weeks what difference will it make? Surely we are back to square one when they reopen?

Agree. Which is why I would argue the two weeks should be used to beef up track and trace to get on top of infections, and to improve mitigation measures in schools.

Perhaps there is a good reason why so many people say this..

Please tell me the good reason. I am all ears.

Agree. Which is why I would argue the two weeks should be used to beef up track and trace to get on top of infections, and to improve mitigation measures in schools.
Honest question Noble. Do you think there is any chance at all that in two weeks, our hopeless leaders would get on top of track and trace and improve measures in school? They had all summer...and failed miserably.

But that's precisely what the teaching unions have been doing since day one of this crisis!!

How? By asking the Government to put safety measures in place in schools for the benefit of ALL those who use them (not just the staff)?
Why would you want your child to attend a school that is not Covid-secure?

It’s quite staggering how people are quite happy to overlook the conflict of Vallance just because he sounds a bit clever

Think you’re the first person to mention Vallance on this thread?

Most of us are capable of reading a graph for ourselves.

Stamping your foot and making petulant demands is no solution to the problem faced by schools.

But that's precisely what the teaching unions have been doing since day one of this crisis!!

Are you sure? I would not say my union (NEU) has been perfect but they provided quite a useful checklist about how to make reopening safe which I know the governors at many local schools used.

They also strongly encouraged us to volunteer over Easter.

All my union has said is pretty much "make sure you get a personal risk assessment if you are vulnerable".

Oooh, those unions!

Do you think there is any chance at all that in two weeks, our hopeless leaders would get on top of track and trace and improve measures in school?

Probably not but if we don’t have a circuit break then they definitely won’t. At least infections would be lower with a break.

I’m not sure we should use the incompetence of the government as a reason to give up even trying.

@middleager

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.

The lines appear to have been blurred during lockdown. For 2 days off I’ll, work didn’t need to have been provided unless asked for. If Secondary, did you children contact their teachers to ask for the work that they missed? If Primary, did you?

What do you want us to do, if we don't have a circuit break?

"Hey, we've got 30 kids in year 8 today who can come in and another 5 in year 10. Have we got enough teachers not isolating? Yes? Bring 'em in then. Heck yeah, we're still open!"

I have specifically said I’m pleased with the teachers at my child’s school.

*ill

@toxtethOgradyUSA

It's quite staggering how people are quite happy to overlook the conflict of Vallance just because he sounds a bit clever and agrees with their views on lockdown. This guy should be absolutely nowhere near an advisory position at the current time. This is just further evidence the lunatics really have taken over the asylum.

He has held the shares since well before his appointment to his current role in 2018. Should he have been forced to sell the shares on appointment despite the pandemic only starting in 2020? Did he have a crystal ball?

GSK may not yet develop the vaccine Astro Zeneca may be first past the post. Or it may be a foreign competitor.

If he had any sway over the commercial decisions of the government then you may have a point, however, employees get share bonuses and employees who are qualified to to do the job Vallance does inevitably have a pharma background so are likely to have pharma shares.

@toxtethOgradyUSA

Stamping your foot and making petulant demands is no solution to the problem faced by schools. But that's precisely what the teaching unions have been doing since day one of this crisis!!

Evidence? Another daft response.

Toxteth - I think many teachers were predicting this situation in summer and urged Investment in plan B - online/part-online schooling, smaller classes.

Govt built nightingales in 4-8 weeks. I thought it was remarkable and shows what can be done if they deem it a priority. If they wanted to expand testing, I think they could do better. They could also do better in assessing who should go for a test.

"If schools only shut for 2 weeks what difference will it make? Surely we are back to square one when they reopen?"

I posted earlier that the school im at with 850 pupils has had something like 10 cases in a week for pupils. In the same week we have hard a third of staff off after only 2 cases for staff in the first 6 weeks. In our case there are probably lots of asymptomatic cases and 2 weeks if pupils did actually isolate might give us a bit more stability.

In the meantime there should be a coherent strategy put in place for managing school outbreaks because PHE were quickly overwhelmed in the first few weeks and don't seem to be doing anything to keep on top of outbreaks. There was the special school in Scotland where they sent a mobile testing unit in and that kind of measure seems like it is just not happening anymore.

There's an argument to say that the circuit breaker is only needed in tier 2 and tier 3 areas because it doesn't seem like they would be needed in Cornwall for example. I'm not sure how this would work with no restrictions on leaving high infection areas for non essential reasons like there are in Wales.

@LastGoldenDaysOfSummer

Some very childish responses here.

Get another job - like that would help.

Don't pay them if they don't work - so no remote learning then, no places for key workers.

Schools must stay open - no they mustn't if the government decides to close them, they will.

Stamping your foot and making petulant demands is no solution to the problem faced by schools.

How about being supportive of those educating your children instead of slagging them off on an anonymous website?

The petulant behaviour of some posters is a good description. Same moaning and whinging on lots of school threads.

@WouldBeGood

I have specifically said I’m pleased with the teachers at my child’s school.

And there are too many on this thread who, by word of mouth, are claiming with absolute certainty, that schools they had nothing to do with, provided no work during the last lockdown yet protesting it as gospel. It then just propels the myth that this was prevalent across most schools without any evidence. There were a genuine few who had direct experience of no work provided, acknowledged by teachers, such as LaurieMarlow but because they posted on most threads repeatedly and a few others also repeatedly posted ‘about their schools down the road’, it made it seem more than there were. Mixed in with the other regular posters where, ‘if it wasn’t live, the teachers weren’t doing their job and therefore no work was being set’ brigade and you still have, months down the line, posters stating schools were rubbish at providing work (despite their own schools being, apparently, wonderful).

For those who still haven’t read the original OP properly and for those who don’t want to:

1. Not one teacher is asking for all schools to close indefinitely.
2. Not one teacher is talking about primary schools.
3. Not one teacher has stated they don’t like teaching or children.
4. Not one teacher has said they won’t support children if a 2 week circuit breaker happens
5. All teachers are asking for measures to keep themselves safer so that schools can stay open.
6. All teachers are asking for greater transparency on the government to provide and report more meaningful data so that more sensible decisions can be made
7. Most teachers on here are also parents of school children too and will struggle looking after their own children too-it’s not an easy way out for teachers by any means.

Good post @ChloeDecker - I'm still trying to find out about these schools who provided nothing last time, too. There are none here.

Yes good post @ChloeDecker. The two week circuit breaker is not a two week holiday if it happens. It may include half term week and then a week of online teaching.