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.

Have you troubled yourself to read any of the thread, Eng123?
Where people have explained numerous times how the fact that one particular school not registering any cases (which of course doesn't mean there aren't cases on site) does not change the need for action nationally or locally.

Well if you want schools to remain open, it would be helpful if you could start agitating for measures to protect the staff, as they will the ones who are least likely to be asymptomatic, and most likely to adverse effects.
Masks for all who can wear them, increased funding for all the cleaning and sanitiser, extra funding to provide more staff and facilities to alleviate some of the over crowding

[quote noblegiraffe]learn.desmos.com/create[/quote]
Thank you Noble, will definitely look at (and use!) it .

My sons school has had no cases.

That you or the school know of...

@CallmeAngelina
If you could interpret basic statistics this thread would be shorter!
Schools most stay open, if there have been undetected cases in my sons school then the teaching staff have escaped without issue. Ochams razor may suggest that actually we've not had any cases.
I have not heard of any widespread problem within schools so far. Attributing rises to schools seems rushed to me given that the economy really started to open up at the same time.
I think that we need to look at what we can do better in schools but let's not start closing them.

If you could interpret basic statistics this thread would be shorter!

Mathematician here. Are you suggesting that the doubling of infection rate in secondary school aged children in a week, a rate outstripping other age groups, isn’t a problem?

I'm suggesting it may not be as significant as it may appear given the population size and the confidence in the set.

Uhuh.

@WhyNotMe40

I think there is a case to be made for masks being worn in corridors and communal areas, but they are a serious impediment to communication and therefore a barrier to learning. I would strongly resist the wearing of masks in lessons.

In regards to hand sanitiser, where do you expect the government to find the money for litres of hand sanitiser and soap for every school? The funds are simply not there and it is perhaps time that teachers showed they are in tune with the public mood by putting their hands in their pockets and throwing a few bottles of sanitiser in with the weekly shop.

where do you expect the government to find the money for litres of hand sanitiser and soap for every school?

They could cancel the training bursary for Classics teachers who end up teaching in private schools.

@noblegiraffe

Classics is a valuable subject that absolutely should not be exclusive to private schools. If the government are planning to offer the subject more widely within state schools, good on them.

I’m just idly wondering why some people’s posts make me want to shout, ‘OH FUCK OFF, TWATFACE.’

Of course, I’m waaaay too polite to actual post that at someone directly, but it is very troubling to find some people clearly enjoying the situation that teachers are in to the extent that they are trying to wind teachers up on an internet forum for their own amusement. I imagine they wouldn’t do this to medical staff or bin collectors or anyone else who is also contributing at potentially great personal risk to the continued orderly running of society.

Makes you think really, doesn’t it? Some folk are just twats, poor things.

Classics is a valuable subject that absolutely should not be exclusive to private schools.

Yeah but the teachers we train at the taxpayers expense inevitably end up there.

Let’s spend that money on hand sanitiser instead this year.

@noblegiraffe is it your view that we should not teach classics in schools?

Oh there’s a whole thread for that discussion. Look forward to seeing you on it.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/4050084-Teacher-training-bursaries-slashed-axed-in-response-to-pandemic-but-Classics-still-qualifies

Here’s a maths problem to help lull Ecosse to sleep.

My (medium sized secondary) school has roughly 120 hand sanitizer dispensers. One for each classroom and extra in corridors, offices, reception, canteen.

Each dispenser takes one litre of hand sanitizer.

One litre of hand sanitizer costs around £10.

We have just under 100 teachers.

Well, so what? you might think. That’s £12 a teacher. How could they complain about that?

But sadly, that one litre appears not to be an infinite supply. 5 classes a day of 30 kids each using it means it needs replacing much more than once a week in every classroom and high traffic areas. (The one in front of the tills in the canteen runs out daily which is a testament to either our kids’ hygiene or the dinner ladies’ powers of persuasion!)

Let’s say 3 refills a week each then, averaged out.

That’s not “chucking a couple of bottles of hand sanitizer in your trolley”, that’s an outlay per teacher of over £100 per month. *
One would think that would be obvious, but these are indeed strange and unprecedented times.

*bulk price would hopefully work out cheaper, but as Ecosse suggested we just chuck them in our trolley/source them independently, I have worked it out based on that assumption.

@TaxTheRatFarms

From your calculations, your school is spending nearly £180,000 a year on hand sanitiser. Given that there are approximately 30,000 schools in the U.K., the government would need to spend £6 billion a year to stock each school adequately.

When you add in other cleaning products, the government would need to spend £10 billion a year on school cleaning if it went along with your plan.

The money is simply not there so it is incumbent on teachers so do their bit to keep schools open. Teachers are one of the few groups in society who have not only been on full pay throughout but will also be receiving a significant pay rise.

Is that the significant pay rise we didn’t get earlier this year?

I wonder if the MPs who got a pay rise would put their hands in their collective pockets to fund cleaning supplies for schools? After all their pay rise alone - each - is 1/4 of my annual teaching salary.

Or the government? You say they can’t afford it, yet they’re happy to spaff billions on failed PPE contracts. Maybe they should show some willing to protect the people they work for?

We’re all desperate for a solution to this that doesn’t involve schools closing. But putting the onus on teachers to do more while absolving the government of doing anything useful is honestly ridiculous.

My job is to educate childten, not make up for each and every one of the government’s shortcomings. God knows we do enough of that already.

The money is simply not there so it is incumbent on teachers so do their bit to keep schools open

Why teachers alone?

The money is simply not there so it is incumbent on teachers so do their bit to keep schools open

What would that "bit" be? Ecosse

Go on, let's have some "can do" proposals. :o

As I’ve said @echt, I think it would be a great gesture for teachers to throw a few bottles of hand sanitiser in with their weekly shops for their classrooms and communal spaces.

This would show that they are in tune with the public mood and really working hard for their wages to keep schools open.

The government simply cannot be expected to provide sufficient supplies of hand sanitiser for every school in the country.

As I’ve said @echt, I think it would be a great gesture for teachers to throw a few bottles of hand sanitiser in with their weekly shops for their classrooms and communal spaces

Why should they take food out their own children's mouths?

@Ecosse As I said on another thread weeks ago which I think you were on (although I may be wrong apologies if you weren't on that thread) I have been spending about £30 a week on hand sanitizer, gloves, wipes/spray and masks to wear in school (We share buying PPE as a department). On that thread I was accused of lying that I spent that much by a poster (My amazon account wishes that were true). I go around the school opening windows where I can every morning when I get in (not only in classrooms I will be teaching in). I get in earlier than ever at the moment to do this, to help out.

Schools most stay open, if there have been undetected cases in my sons school then the teaching staff have escaped without issue.
I work in a school where there have been no reported cases. Some pupils have had symptoms but no positive tests, same with staff. Cover has been no more than usual. Perhaps people have had it without knowing, but if do it is hardly the universal killer that has gained purchase.
We are on half term now and very much hoping that there is no ‘circuit breaker’ because although teaching online was a lot easier for me than going into school, children deserve real education and as others have said, a lot of those who appear to be present will actually be playing for its with the teacher minimised in one corner.

@Ecosse

Oh please! What a ridiculous comment, and I’m personally in favour of keeping all schools open!

Maybe we should do what dentists are doing and charge £30 per person for PPE per appointment 😱!!

Teachers being in school my everyday is enough proof, thank you. Saying that; yes I am supplying hand sanitiser but that’s out of choice for the kids I teach as they wouldn’t be able to afford it... but it doesn’t mean I care more about being in school than my colleague who has 5 kids of her own to provide for so isn’t buying it for school.