Schools MUST stay open.

[motherrunner]

I hear this a lot on MN.

Schools maybe ‘open’ but they’re not really depending on where you live.

I’m in Tier 2, due to go into Tier 3 next week prior to the lockdown rules.

Since Sept Yr 10 have isolated twice (4 weeks out of a 8 week half term), Yr 12 and 13 three times (6 weeks of a 8 week half term). My own DS is isolating due to being in contact with a positive until next week and I am isolating until next week as one of my pupils tested positive (and before anyone asks why I wasn’t 2m away well let’s just say, that’s school life).

Before lockdown in March my school had to close just to the numbers of staff off, at one point admin staff were supervising classes.

This morning I read a comment from a poster on the ‘lockdown my thread that teachers just have to ‘hope’ they get a mild viral load. Have we become so disillusioned with this virus that because “schools must stay open” then we minimise they health of school staff?

I am happy to be back teaching my pupils, I’m not happy that I feel unsafe. I am not happy that other workplaces have ‘Covid secure’ measures but I have sanitiser and a ‘hope for the best’ attitude.

So, if you really want schools to stay open then please email your MP and voice concerns about safety and hopefully we can stay open in a meaningful way because there’s a difference between ‘schools open’ with us delivering a quality education and ‘schools open’ with a body providing childcare.

The vast majority of people do not have school aged children. It's a lot of sacrifice for everyone else, isn't it, objectively?

An educated society that can work and pay future taxes is hopefully in everyone's interest.

Personally I think health and education are the most important things worth protecting.

Tbh if they offered teachers furlough

There's no money left for that, sadly.

There’s not even enough money for extra soap or cleaners.....

In Ireland there is a lot of ‘massaging’ of the figures. We are continuously being told schools are staying open because school children aren’t super spreaders.

The daily figures show the rate of infection has dropped. However, the schools are closed for midterm.

Parents have set up a Facebook page called Alerting parents of outbreaks in schools Ireland and the numbers being given on this page are multiples of the official figures being given by the Gov.

It is very much present in primary schools.

Schools remain open so parents can work. Who knows how long for if their children carry the virus home.

In Ireland there is a lot of ‘massaging’ of the figures.

No real idea what you mean by this, but the case numbers are down hugely from a few weeks ago, which demonstrates the efficacy of the new measures (level 3++ as well as level 5) even while schools are open.

Half term was last week, so far too early to impact case numbers.

Case numbers will reduce when the HSE change their requirements of what constitutes a close contact. If people are not being tested, the numbers will reduce.

@Parker231

From Sky News. Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove tells Sophy Ridge on Sunday the government could extend the national lockdown if data shows the infection rate has not fallen enough

This is why everyone has to follow the rules and not make up their own bloody version each time it doesn’t suit them!

Ireland have invested an extra 100 million Euros into schools. Pro rata, that would be equivalent to our g overnment spending a billion to make things safer.

Ireland: 100 million Euros + masks
UK: 0 + 0

I wonder why their schools are doing better?

@LastGoldenDaysOfSummer

I'm disgusted by the "schools open at all costs" people.

The health of the staff matters more than your child going to school. If you want your child in school lobby for safer conditions for teachers.

Too late for the Welsh one who died last week.

To demand that your child is in school at the expense of the health of others is disgusting.

Here you are again pushing the death of a teacher last week - that didn't die of Covid to further your agenda to close schools.

You are retired - you care not for the children that need education and keep spouting about 'a teacher that died' - it wasn't a friend of yours - t here is no way a decent person would comment on the death of a friend as 'The Welsh one that died last week'.

The teacher that sadly died last week didn't die of Covid - stop using her death - it's appalling that you have done so several times now.

@TiersTiersTiers

Why is it appalling that people mention teachers who have died? Appalling to keep ignoring of teachers and their families right to worry for their safety and lives for the sake of keeping schools open at their cost.

People minimise the risk to school staff because they want childcare

No. People want their children to get an education, which is a basic human right.

The teacher that sadly died last week didn't die of Covid - stop using her death - it's appalling that you have done so several times now.

You know this how?

@Noideawottodo

Oh and children’s right to an education is above the rights, health and lives of the adults that provide said education in a pandemic?

[quote CallmeFP]@Noideawottodo

Oh and children’s right to an education is above the rights, health and lives of the adults that provide said education in a pandemic?[/quote]
If children are infectious, then parents are taking a risk sending them to and from school everyday. Parents are absorbing that risk for their children's wellbeing, so yes, absolutely so should teachers, and the majority want to.

[quote CallmeFP]@Noideawottodo

Oh and children’s right to an education is above the rights, health and lives of the adults that provide said education in a pandemic?[/quote]
It’s not a yes/no thing though is it? It’s not like the country has to choose between “teachers in mortal peril” and “teachers 100% safe from even the fractional chance of anything bad.” The government can make schools safer for teachers without closing them.

"If children are infectious, then parents are taking a risk sending them to and from school everyday"

It is sadly true that parents are indeed sending symptomatic students in their infectious kids to school.

Teachers are exposed to risk for over a 100 kids a day. This is not the same as indirect contact parents might be exposed to via their child. Prevalence amongst staff at some schools is up to 20 to 30%.

If it was anywhere near that for parents at that school then it would be half empty as at least that many kids would have to self isolate when their parents tested positive

Teachers are exposed to risk for over a 100 kids a day. This is not the same as indirect contact parents might be exposed to via their child.

Sorry that was meant to say

Teachers are exposed to risk for over a 100 kids a day. This is not the same as indirect contact parents might be exposed to via their child

The household is where most spreading takes place. Teachers are socially distanced at school, not hugging or close to children.

I just don't see the figures for hundreds of teachers catching coivd from pupils. I know a lot of you think they are being suppressed, but even anecdotally there aren't any?

The vast majority of people do not have school aged children. Its a lot of sacrifice for everybody else, isn't it, objectively?

The vast majority of people were also quite happy for school aged children to sacrifice their education and freedom though for next to no benefit to them collectively. Children are the very least effected by covid yet we were all happy for them to go without to benefit everybody else.

"The household is where most spreading takes place. Teachers are socially distanced at school, not hugging or close to children."

But they are in a room with them breathing the same air for an hour at a time

There was a thread the other day which suggested that the Infection rate amongst teachers in the nw has been as high as 2800 per 100,000.

And again, just empirically if more parents were catching covid from their own children in their own homes than the teachers are in school then attendance at school would be a lot lower than it is.

I don't doubt that indoor gatherings are a major source of infection overall. I am sceptical that a parent wfh with school age kids is as likely to be infected as school staff other things being equal.

The main issue I have is that so many schools in high infection rate areas have had classes shut down. Some children have only been in school half the time that other children have. Both my secondary school kids have been in school 100% of the time so far, but some kids same age will have received less than 50% of their education in a classroom.

Yet they will all have to sit the same exams at the end. The same GCSEs, the same A levels. How unfair is that? If there was a reasonable and centralised platform for online learning, and a good provision of IT support for families that need it, I think it would be much more fair to have a reduced classroom schedule, or learning alternate weeks.

On top of that, the areas affected the most are generally poorer areas. SO the gap between good education for the wealthier and a poorer education for the less wealthy is going to grow even bigger.

If there was a reasonable and centralised platform for online learning, and a good provision of IT support for families that need it, I think it would be much more fair to have a reduced classroom schedule

But there isn’t and the quality of remote teaching varied wildly last time.

The IT support didn’t materialise and many problems couldn’t have been overcome anyway (poor broadband in some areas, parents unable/unwilling to facilitate).

It may be different children disadvantaged, but certainly not a fairer option.

If there was a reasonable and centralised platform for online learning, and a good provision of IT support for families that need it, I think it would be much more fair to have a reduced classroom schedule, or learning alternate weeks

No.

That's fantasy anyway, because there isn't, and also we are very rural and our broadband can barely cope with one person using it, let alone 2 teens trying to use it for Zoom/videos etc

So what, we should just accept that a significant portion of pupils in poorer areas will be at a very high disadvantage for their education and exam results, access to higher education? Yes ok, I'll settle for that...

Remote learning won’t get rid of disadvantage, just shift it to a slightly different cohort.