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.

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

I can tell you about one. DCs school didn't literally provide nothing. After a month or so of lockdown they printed out some sheets you could get from the internet once a week and left them outside the school. This was the status a few weeks before the end of the summer term.

until a few weeks...

I provided online learning.
I made sure those that couldn't access it had paper copies of the work posted to them. I made weekly telephone calls to follow up and contacted children regualrly to ask them if they needed help.
Over half my class did not complete any work over lockdown.
Therefore, by the logic on this thread I have to assume that the children in my class are just lazy little feckers.

Like a broken record.

This time round (if there is a next time) most schools are geared up so to speak

After a month or so of lockdown

Which included the Easter holidays

they printed out some sheets

Luxury. My kids’ school made us print off our own sheets.

It was fine. The provision was fine. People complaining should bear in mind that their view of the provision might not be universally held.

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.

Two weeks of totally closing schools isn’t going to make any difference at all. All it will do is get the kids even more behind with their learning, more social isolation, more parents unable to work and
More mental health issues.

@notevenat20

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

I can tell you about one. DCs school didn't literally provide nothing. After a month or so of lockdown they printed out some sheets you could get from the internet once a week and left them outside the school. This was the status a few weeks before the end of the summer term.

You’ve mentioned this before but it was the fact you didn’t like the work coming from Twinkl that seemed the issue. I remember many on that thread (including non teachers) stating that teachers couldn’t assume prior knowledge from parents to support, which seemed fair enough. Children should have been able to do that work unaided, to help working parents (as you too have advocated for working parents in the past). Very different from no work being provided at all during lockdown. Don’t you also have a child in private school too? (The Russian thread) What was their provision like?

@Myothercarisalsoshit

I provided online learning. I made sure those that couldn't access it had paper copies of the work posted to them. I made weekly telephone calls to follow up and contacted children regualrly to ask them if they needed help. Over half my class did not complete any work over lockdown. Therefore, by the logic on this thread I have to assume that the children in my class are just lazy little feckers.

Hmm, yes, but there are now a couple of posters on this thread who believe that you should have your pay docked if this situation recurs.

I think that there's perhaps a lot of misunderstanding about what constitutes "on-line learning."
It's not all all-singing,all-dancing live lessons on Zoom, by any means.
I think there is going to be some disappointment ahead, if schools do have to close again for a period of time.

Callme possibly for some schools maybe. But what we had was pretty good. Live lessons, usual school timetable just from home.

I don’t want live lessons to the usual timetable for my kids. I don’t think that’s healthy or particularly effective educationally.

It would also be very difficult logistically.

How do you do it instead?

Why is it bad?

Two weeks of totally closing schools isn’t going to make any difference at all.

It wouldn’t just be schools.

Two weeks is the quarantine period. If you’re suggesting that massively reducing people’s contacts for a period of quarantine would do nothing to reduce infection rates, then do you not think people who have been exposed should bother quarantining at all?

Surely if cases are as high as you suggest, it's all going to settle down soon as they'll all have had it/be naturally immune/ have had it back in March etc.

If you’re suggesting that massively reducing people’s contacts for a period of quarantine would do nothing to reduce infection rates, then do you not think people who have been exposed should bother quarantining at all?

There’s a big difference between someone gets a positive test they and their household stay home for 2 weeks and everyone doing it again who probably don’t have the virus.

Ok so schools shut for 2 weeks, then everyone back to School and we are back to square one, but with another 2 Weeks lost for all.

@MarshaBradyo

How do you do it instead?

Why is it bad?

I don’t want my kids sat in front of a screen all day. When I first started working from home I ended up with really bad backache. I managed to sort this by buying a riser, keyboard and mouse and lumbar support cushion. We can’t pretend that all kids will be sat perfectly postured with the right kit to not end up in pain.

I don’t think that amount of sitting in front of a screen is healthy anyway.

And having taught live lessons, they’re nothing like real lessons. Kids with cameras off, on mute, contributing nothing. I could have been shouting into a void half the time tbh. Yes there were ways of checking on kids but there were also many, many ways for kids to be ‘present’ in the lesson but actually doing nothing.

5 hours of screen lessons versus an hour doing a couple of worksheets with me - I think educationally the hour with me would win.

That’s primary, btw.

I work in an affluent area, and even so, our parents begged the Head (primary) not to implement live lessons, as they couldn't provide the technology for multiple children to access it. All the feedback we received was that the stuff we did send each week was great.

Of the 30 kids in my class last year, 29 completed most of what was sent.

This included a range of differentiated and varied activities for English, maths and topic, online links to demos/instructional videos, follow-up tasks, recorded messages from teachers, two-way email exchanges for questions and work to be sent/marked/returned. Weekly spellings were set as well as times table challenges. There were "fun" tasks and competitions as well, and extension challenges for anyone who wanted to try them. Welfare phone calls were made. The Senco liaised with and provided work, support and links for those children who required it, and set up virtual referral meetings. Parents were told to do as much or as little as they felt able to manage, as and when they could.

I completely agree for primary Callme and Noble what you did sounds good. I wouldn’t want live timetable either for that age.

For secondary obviously being in class is better. But live seemed ok. They built in time in each lesson to move away from screen. It just followed same schedule.

But live seemed ok.

Given the lack of feedback from the kids while I was doing the lessons, doing a loom recording that they could access at any time would probably have basically the same effect and fewer issues re access (kids dropping out of lessons due to rubbish WiFi, for example).

I think what made it a positive experience here is that it was more motivatIng overall.

But every child is different. I can’t really say for others as haven’t asked

My son does extra curric french lessons online once per week. I have done coursera/udemy courses. Husband has taught online tutorials. It can work for some people.

I personally think online can work (either recorded or live). It’s not for everyone, but neither is the current system - especially with increased staff absence due to corona. Having technology, exercises, answers to these and motivation are important though.

Locking down sooner is going to reduce transmission and reduce staff and pupil absence. If they manage it well, they might be able to get testing in a better place too.

Feedback from our higher set kids who had pre-recorded PowerPoints etc was that they really liked the ability to go at their own pace and not be constrained by the timetable and the pace of the rest of the class.

You’ve mentioned this before but it was the fact you didn’t like the work coming from Twinkl that seemed the issue. I remember many on that thread (including non teachers) stating that teachers couldn’t assume prior knowledge from parents to support, which seemed fair enough. Children should have been able to do that work unaided, to help working parents (as you too have advocated for working parents in the past).

No that's a misunderstanding. What I didn't like was that there was nothing for about a month then just print outs you had to pick up once a week that would take the average child about 20 minutes. So this was 20 minutes of revision exercises once a week as a substitute for full time education. No interaction with the teachers of any sort the entire time.

@notevenat20

You’ve mentioned this before but it was the fact you didn’t like the work coming from Twinkl that seemed the issue. I remember many on that thread (including non teachers) stating that teachers couldn’t assume prior knowledge from parents to support, which seemed fair enough. Children should have been able to do that work unaided, to help working parents (as you too have advocated for working parents in the past).

No that's a misunderstanding. What I didn't like was that there was nothing for about a month then just print outs you had to pick up once a week that would take the average child about 20 minutes. So this was 20 minutes of revision exercises once a week as a substitute for full time education. No interaction with the teachers of any sort the entire time.

Not a month. 2 weeks of a no notice, unprecedented lockdown then 2 weeks of the Easter holidays.

Not the same as no work set during the lockdown. It’s wrong to lump ‘I wasn’t happy with the work set’ with’ no work was set’.

Equally, my own primary aged child did equivalent of about an hour of one to one school work per day only. Perfectly normal for home educated children.
What extra work did you ask for, for your child?