A third of confirmed teacher cases of coronavirus were in north-west England at one point, according to data seen exclusively by the BBC”

[motherrunner]

I posted this in another thread but I actually think it deserves a thread of it’s own.

Worrying article on BBC this morning: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54695618

This is what we teachers are really concerned about - the disparity of continued education. I’m in a Tier 2 area and my school have had 4 year closures since Sept. We are not unique - I don’t know a school in my city that has gone untouched. One school closed completely as over 20 teachers tested positive. This is just the first half term and anyone who works in a school know the real illnesses haven’t started yet. Going to be a tough year.

Yes, we will miss a few cases by reducing the isolation period to 7 days, but we will halve the school time missed by pupils.

That’s making the big assumption that the missed cases that would have been caught with longer quarantine don’t then cause further quarantine.

"Given there are half a million teachers, that's a very small percentage"

That's one way to look at it. Another is to say that's an infection rate of 400 per 100k in a day or 2800 per 100k in a week since that is the measured quoted for the community.)

But how many pupils or teachers are actually getting long COVID?

The figure is 20%, so assuming teachers and pupils are ‘average’, 20% of them. I would hazard a guess as more than normal due to having to be in an i ventilated room for up to 6mhours a day with someone virus shedding - more likely to lead to a higher viral load?

So, if it runs rife round a school, that’s a significant number of staff who could be off for anything from a few days up to 6 months or more. Some schools will be able to fill teaching gaps with supply staff, others will re-jig timetables and put experienced staff into exam classes leaving KS3 with supply. Some will struggle to get supply staff, particularly specialist supply, more so when it becomes k own the vacancy is because covid has done a job on the staff team.

There is a massive issue of parity and fair playing field for the summer. It is normally uneven but this year we are looking at great mountains of disparity and that’s even assuming kids are able to sit their exams - what on Earth is going to happen to those who have to isolate and/or who are ill themselves?

More to the point, where the fuck is Gavin Williamson?

Yes, we will miss a few cases by reducing the isolation period to 7 days, but we will halve the school time missed by pupils. It depends whether that's a worthwhile trade off

No it’s not. I’m sure most would rather have a week extra at home learning than a teacher, family member or friend ill or worse.

Not to mention if people aren’t complying with fourteen days then they aren’t suddenly going to comply it’s changed.

@walksen

"Given there are half a million teachers, that's a very small percentage"

That's one way to look at it. Another is to say that's an infection rate of 400 per 100k in a day or 2800 per 100k in a week since that is the measured quoted for the community.)

So what's the rate for other jobs, trades and professions?

So what's the rate for other jobs, trades and professions?

It would be really good to know wouldn't it.

Given the average number of cases, counting everyone in the UK, per 100K is currently 132, 400 seems high.

So what's the rate for other jobs, trades and professions?

Hard to know since I'm not sure this is being published. Obviously some will be in excess of the community or national rate and others will be much lower, reflecting the risk of the covid secure arrangements. Earlier on bus drivers and taxi drivers were high risk.

It would be useful if this was still monitored and published

If the isolation period is reduced to 7 days because of non-compliance, this doesn't make sense in schools where compliance can be enforced (not allowing kids back in) and where there is a high risk of transmission.

The current tactic of only sending home the closest kids in the class should also be reviewed. Is it working? I'm not convinced.

I think reducing quarantine in schools has the potential to increase absence. For example:

Bob is at school on Monday he starts feeling unwell at tea time with a cough and temperature, his parents take him for a test and his results come back positive on Tuesday evening. School is informed and they tell all his close contacts to isolate for 7 days from last contact and return to school on Monday. Sally is a close contact so she dutifully stays at home and feels fine, she returns to school as instructed on Monday. Tuesday lunchtime she realises she can't taste her lunch so she tells a teacher and is sent home to be tested. She gets her positive result the following day and so the close contacts are again sent home - this time until the following Tuesday. Brian was identified as a close contact of Bob and sits next to Sally at school - he does his 2 stints of isolation and is back in school on the Tuesday. He feels a bit funny that evening, but has none of the main three symptoms so his parents send him in again on Wednesday. That afternoon he starts coughing, his positive test comes back Friday morning and the same group of children are sent home again.

Earlier on bus drivers and taxi drivers were high risk.

Yes and now you have to wear masks. We need the data to be able to see if better mitigation measures are needed.

I wonder why they aren't publishing this

Given the average number of cases, counting everyone in the UK, per 100K is currently 132, 400 seems high

The rate per 100k is for 7 days so the rate above is more like 2800.

What isolation periods do other countries have at the moment? I know France currently have 7 days but thats hardly a good advertisement for it.

The non compliance is mainly due to people having to take that amount of time off work unpaid or ssp, 7 days doesn't sound as bad but of course using @Flagsfiend analogy could end up being even longer or more frequent.
Also 14 days is hard going for anyone, especially children, its totally different to lockdown when you could go out and excercise. I kept my ds in for the 8 days he had to isolate im proud of how well he coped he didn't moan once but I know he was bored as hell it made me sad to hear his classmates had been allowed to play out

Given there are half a million teachers, that's a very small percentage.

That is such bad understanding of data , unless you think teachers all get tested everyday!!

@Piggywaspushed yup I snorted when I read that. I thought I was rubbish at data reading!

I’m not sure whether reducing the isolation period will help either, schools in high rate areas will still be suffering from closures albeit for less time. This still doesn’t address the issues of teachers testing positive. If I test positive the 150 students I taught will not have to isolate because of the ‘magic 2m’. Who will be available to teach then? We have cover supervisors and maybe could get supply, but this wouldn’t be an ideal for exam groups and again we come back to the disparity in education provision across the country.

Reducing the isolation period because of non compliance is such a shit reason for reducing it.

It’ll just make all those who don’t comply think “well if the government think 7 days, I can go out in 3”.

It’s 14 because of what epidemiologists have so far worked out about how this virus works - by completely randomly choosing 7 days it takes the decision making even further away from being science based.

That won’t help compliance.

FWIW doug I agree with you. It’s really not an ideal situation at all, but I think this happens on a smaller scale every single year.

From the CEO of The Ormiston Trust: "To be fair to young people the data needs to be transparent, then we can ensure that we put as much equity into the system, especially those sitting exams," he said.
"If we experience the same levels of staff absence as we have in the first half-term between now and the end of term, it would be very difficult to ensure consistent education for all of our pupils in all of our schools - that would mean looking at the possibility of rotas." www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54695618

What mother? Planned rotas? Where the staff can write sequences of work that take this into account?

Rather than totally unpredictable groups having to isolate?

But..but..

Really makes you about the lack of available data based on profession when it’s something they collect when requiring a test.

My children’s schools -secondary and primary - have 97% attendance this term. However, the schools do not count the self isolating children.

The government really need to pull their heads out of the sand and sort out the exams. If the exam years are having their education continually disrupted it’s completely unfair for these pupils to sit blanket exams.

But I imagine once the southern schools start shutting down and suffering then, Gavlar will do something. Like Rishi did like week.

My children’s schools -secondary and primary - have 97% attendance this term. However, the schools do not count the self isolating children

Kinsley08 is right - I thought it bears repeating for parents who aren’t aware.

DS1 had to self isolate so was off school for 3 days waiting for DS1’s test result. As soon as he was back in school, his attendance was returned to 100%.

Also happens where I teach. Students off self isolating, marked as X, still on 100% attendance. Which to be honest is the way it should be, but it doesn’t help parents find accurate information about the real rate of attendance in their child’s school.

I tweeted Gav to ask where the fuck he is. Turns out he’s swanning maskless around an FE college. He’s probably the most incompetent of the lot of them and that’s saying something. Utter tosser

@TaxTheRatFarms

My children’s schools -secondary and primary - have 97% attendance this term. However, the schools do not count the self isolating children

Kinsley08 is right - I thought it bears repeating for parents who aren’t aware.

DS1 had to self isolate so was off school for 3 days waiting for DS1’s test result. As soon as he was back in school, his attendance was returned to 100%.

Also happens where I teach. Students off self isolating, marked as X, still on 100% attendance. Which to be honest is the way it should be, but it doesn’t help parents find accurate information about the real rate of attendance in their child’s school.

it makes the attendance data useless and a false impression of the isolation situation.

Gav is currently having a row with Rishi about who is actually to blame for the free school meal debacle. Gav blamed Rishi for not giving the DfE money and it turned out the DfE had never asked for any money.

Who is surprised that the DfE haven't done something?

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/oct/26/treasury-rejects-claims-it-refused-extra-150m-for-free-school-meals