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.

@3littlewords we (teachers) are parents too. We are actually teachers cos we like kids. We have kids climbing over us whilst we are trying to have welfare checks chatting with parents on Teams or whilst trying to teach a lesson. We understand. Remote teaching is hard work with your own children about.

I am always talking about secondary provision as blended btw. Not primary.

from guidance for FE colleges etc.

Transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19) mainly occurs through respiratory droplets generated during breathing, talking, coughing and sneezing. These droplets can directly infect the respiratory tracts of other people if there is close contact. They also infect others indirectly. This happens when the droplets get onto and contaminate surfaces, which are then touched and introduced into the mouth or eyes of an uninfected person. Another route of transmission is through aerosols (extremely small droplets), but this is only relevant to medical procedures for a very small number of children in education and social care settings.

In all education, childcare and children’s social care settings, preventing the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) involves preventing:

direct transmission, for instance, when in close contact with those sneezing and coughing
indirect transmission, for instance, touching contaminated surfaces

^^ utterly disgraceful call there on how dangerous aerosol droplets are. It says it only matters when giving a medical procedure!

What planet are these people on !!

Is this the handy work of Jenny Harries - children do not have necks again!

[quote OverTheRainbow88]@noblegiraffe

What do you suggest then?

Blended learning isn’t feasible for most
Circuit breaker= back to square one 2 Weeks after reopening again
Closure isn’t feasible

So what?[/quote]
Get the infections down with a break, sort track and trace to a point where it’s useful, impose proper mitigation measures in schools (masks, space created for teachers to sd from classes, improved ventilation measures mandated, more money for cleaning etc, regular testing of school staff and a proper study of how covid spreads in schools with lessons learned and applied promptly).

Off the top of my head.

@Boxachocs

There is no scenario short of hospitals having to turn away healthy 70 year olds that would justify closing schools.

We should not sacrifice the life chances (and therefore life expectancy) of our DC in order to extend the lives of 85 year olds.

I think that it's only a matter of time before there's two weeks out for most classes if the rates continue to increase. The advantage of doing it at the same time is it lowers the R nationally and buys us time at a lower level of infection. That's the whole point of the circuit breaker.

@Barbie222

Most people had what could be deemed as a bad experience last time

I absolutely disagree. Most of the children I teach are currently on track as the learning provided was flexible enough to allow most parents to access it at a time convenient to them and as a result we had good take up. I'd go so far as to say I think that's the case in the vast majority of schools in real life.

Theres many many posters on here that have stated their children go no learning whatsoever during lockdown apart from a few links to some websites and and some worksheets. No one wants to go back to that even if this time its unlikely to be the case

@TrustTheGeneGenie

What do you think it will achieve *@noblegiraffe* considering schools closed for months and yet here were are again?

There’s always hope that the government won’t be completely incompetent bellends this time.

Maybe they’ll be so focused on Brexit they’ll let SAGE take over.

We do at least have proof that the current measures aren’t working and something needs to change in schools which we didn’t have over the summer when the govt was blithely asserting that kids don’t spread covid so it would all be fine.

Having schools closed for an extra is probably not going to have a huge impact on learning. A 2 week closure must be done now to bring these numbers down.

Schools ( in Scotland) all prepared a blended learning model in the summer and it was only a week before the start of term when they were told they had to return in full.
So that blended option is there if necessary along with a return to full time key worker childcare for families with no other choice or no access to digital.
It would be easy to put upper secondary into that model after our October break. There are online study support materials available and there aren't many 14 year olds who don't have at least a phone or tablet - schools can supply those vulnerable groups.
It's definitely do able and could cut transmission in that age group further.
Also remember that there are a lot of young teachers who do mix socially or even in their household with students... think brothers and sisters. So there is that.

*There is no scenario short of hospitals having to turn away healthy 70 year olds that would justify closing schools.

We should not sacrifice the life chances (and therefore life expectancy) of our DC in order to extend the lives of 85 year olds.*

So the doctor in my local hospital who said we are weeks away from stopping cancer treatments / icu being unable to accept patients / ambulances not being available as they can’t discharge patients. None of that would be acceptable no ?

We have 8 staff positive and 3 year groups at home. One year group is up to 8 students positive. It doesn’t matter whether you want schools open or not, many are already at home. We need a different strategy to ‘send them all in to school and try to socially distanced where possible’. That’s really just sticking your fingers in your ears and saying ‘la la la schools are safe, pupils don’t spread the virus, la la la’.

A circuit breaker of 2 weeks to reset the whole system is needed. Then we need to do school differently. I would suggest a rota of students having lessons in the morning and remote teaching in the afternoon.

@Ecosse did you hear Patrick Valance today talking about 40% of icu are under 60?! How many of them will be left with debilitating effects?! More transmission means more numbers in icu until we have to start selecting who gets to go into icu. Yes I know the average age is 82... but that means there are 40/50/60 year olds that are dying of this thing that didn't exist a year ago as well as people in their 90s and 100s dying too.

I really do not understand why people are so against blended learning at secondary level. Primary is different but secondary students can be left alone a few days a week to work remotely, especially if monitored by teachers.

We are looking at totally sacrificing the arts, hospitality and leisure industry to provide full time face to face. It is ludicrous.

I am ready to teach a blended timetable. We are all prepared. I would much rather do that than watch every area in the country go into local lockdown one by one.

We thought it might come down to this: full time schooling or house hold mixing. Pick one.

@Fossie absolutely agree.

Theres many many posters on here that have stated their children go no learning whatsoever during lockdown apart from a few links to some websites and and some worksheets.

Well, our worksheets and videos were carefully chosen, adapted to suit our curriculum and topics and kept the children who did them on track. Were you expecting Mary Poppins to appear?

When the threads were unpicked, what many of these posters wanted to happen was a sort of constant educational CBeebies which their children could be left to without guilt.

@BelleSausage

I really do not understand why people are so against blended learning at secondary level. Primary is different but secondary students can be left alone a few days a week to work remotely, especially if monitored by teachers.

We are looking at totally sacrificing the arts, hospitality and leisure industry to provide full time face to face. It is ludicrous.

I am ready to teach a blended timetable. We are all prepared. I would much rather do that than watch every area in the country go into local lockdown one by one.

We thought it might come down to this: full time schooling or house hold mixing. Pick one.

Yup, pick one. Agree.

I didn't see my disabled DC who lives in a care home for 11 weeks last time whilst remote teaching. That wasn't a barrel of laughs for me either.

I know 7 teachers who have tested positive at school I work in, but we have been told we arent to worry the kids fuck up attendance figures by telling anyone. We have been warned not to admit it to anyone. Nor discuss the fact no ones self isolated, and no cleaning (basic, not deep cleans) have been done following positive tests.

I wonder how many of those parents are on this thread claiming theres not one case in their schools?

@3littlewords

It’s all subjective. People have said they were displeased with what they got. A few got nothing. Others got weekly booklets. Some got a few online lessons a very few got a full timetable.

We had some parental complaints about lack of work. We were doing online lessons with weekly Talking Power Points and marking her son had been telling her he had no work so he wouldn’t get nagged.

A straw poll on Mumsnet is not an accurate picture!

Wow pheasant, that’s appalling negligence.

Vulnerable kids and kids with vulnerable family members need to know their exposure.

I’m so relieved this thread is about secondary only not primary, and the NEU request is secondary only.

But when people say blended do they mean half students at a time or just getting all students in for half the time and left alone other half?

Our experience has been excellent for remote - ie teacher just teaches as they would to full timetable. Compared with very part time access then other resources.

We just trialled school from home today and it far exceeded last term provision. But long term it’s not as good as in school as you get screen fatigue.

Anyway what do people mean by blended? Just remote but same as class or teacher busy elsewhere

There’s always hope that the government won’t be completely incompetent bellends this time

You think they'll sort in 2 weeks what they couldn't sort in 4 months? Nah.

Maybe they’ll be so focused on Brexit they’ll let SAGE take over
Doubt that too.

We do at least have proof that the current measures aren’t working and something needs to change in schools which we didn’t have over the summer when the govt was blithely asserting that kids don’t spread covid so it would all be fine
The thing is we don't know whether the school spread is actually hospitalising anyone or whether not very ill children are just making other children not very ill. The first would be a problem the second isn't really is it?

2 weeks even if the government set up a shit hot ttt system won't make a shite of difference though realistically. They've spent 6 month harping on about only 3 weeks and over having an affect.

Another scientist came out today and called for short lock downs around school holidays, I think that is the perfect solution, if they are planned we all know exactly where we are and it will ease pressure all round.

Schools have now been told to get their act together and get on line. teachers apparently do a minimum of 20 mins a day with primary school dc - and that needs to be upped to at least 4 hours. 1 hour, break - 1 hour break - lunch and a further two hours, otherwise other parents working - supporting other children because their setting went on line have to work twice and thats not fair.

If I picked one I’d choose school but I think secondary schools will still be impacted over time and I’d prefer maximum learning over teens stuck at home doing nothing.

@monkeytennis97

That would only happen if infections rate out of control again. Blended learning for all those who can (mainstream secondaries) would help keep your son’s school open on the long term.

I’m not taking about all school. Some schools need to be open full time because of the nature of their students. We will still be open to a specific set of vulnerable pupils.

Outbreaks are coming at our dc shool, one dc is si at present - its in all the local schools and a teacher has it - ( heard that via a supply grape vine)