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.

@Sunflowers246

With GCSEs and A levels going ahead, years 11-13 absolutely meet to be in school.

It would not be a fair otherwise as many kids don't have access to laptops or have space at home.

And if exams were cancelled again, you'd have another chaotic situation about grading and many kids giving up learning/revising.

Kids aren't much affected by the virus anyway.

Your last sentence. When I hear that I hear "and I could give a fuck about the staff" silently added to it.

Interesting that someone thought the data for secondary schools was the data for universities.

If nothing else, this pandemic has clearly demonstrated that many people simply see what they want to see, and just ignore any facts that don't support their point of view.

So, if you really want schools to stay open then please email your MP and voice concerns about safety

I wrote to my Tory MP prior to schools going back in Sept asking him what his Govt was doing to ensure the safety of pupils and teachers and if he personally had been in touch with schools in his constituency to check staff were satisfied with arrangements. From his vague reply, I doubt he had been but it's important we keep the pressure on our MPs so they know that we are watching how they are treating our children and their teachers during a pandemic FFS. I'll drop him a line again this weekend.

OP - I have DC in Yr 11&13 so (other than a circuit breaker) I want them to remain in school. What steps could be taken that would make you and your colleagues feel safe? I'm not a teacher, but would you prefer blended learning, teaching behind a perspex screen, pupils wearing masks, teachers in visors?

I'll be honest, from what I've seen, your unions have badly let you down over this. I'm not absolving the Govt in any way but the unions don't appear to have done their job and protect their members.

I propose investing in schools to make them safer with some of the huge sums of money being handed out on our works beating test and trace! Simple measures such as extra TAs (teachers if possible) for smaller classes/allowing children to do on line learning if they can especially vulnerable children or thise with vulnerable family members/temporary outdoor classrooms/forest school investments. This should continue until we actually have a decent test and trace.

@Nellle

Shutting down the economy + not shutting schools = no change to the infection rate and everyone loses.

That’s not true, other countries are getting the infection rate flattening or down with schools still open.

It seems so essential to talk about how to make schools safer rather than round 800 of “they should shut!” “no they shouldn’t!”. Especially when we’re coming up to winter and worse weather.

Obviously one of the best ways to make them safer is by reducing cases everywhere else so it’s a lot less likely cases will be brought into school. And masks - we’ve just had the guidance changed in Scotland so it’s masks in communal areas for all secondary students + staff, and in classes too for older secondary, but not for younger secondary and no primary.

Ventilation seems really important, how much of this can be retrofitted within existing buildings if there’s money to do it? Can schools use community halls and churches and so on? What actually is possible with partial online learning for older students?

When I hear that I hear "and I could give a fuck about the staff" silently added to it.

Yep. I have a dd in year 11, and of course I want her in school, but not at any cost. It's shocking how teachers have been thrown under the bus.

How can you use an example of one school. My daughters secondary school has had three cases since mid August when they went back.

You do realise it's not just teachers at risk due to their career. Tradesmen still need to go in houses. Retail and supermarket staff work. Carers work. NHS staff work. The police work. There is LOTS of careers people are still working and exposed because they are required. Education is required. Not just for education but for the mental health of our children.

Both teachers here and vote schools should stay open. We also have young children so in the ‘selfish’ category - we need to send our children to school so we can both work teaching others.

One issue that deaths are obvious but lost life chances are not. And lost life chances also equate to lost years of life.

I work in a school in an area in Tier 2, brinking on Tier 3, and I'm with multiple DC at close quarters every day I'm in. The children who have fallen behind the most are the ones already at the bottom of the pile. For the sake of their futures, schools need to stay open. If they do close, it needs to be short and sharp.

The staff I deal with feel the same, some very vocally so.

Someone said earlier in the thread that teachers in Scotland are planning to strike - if true this is madness as cases in Scotland have plateaued over past month.
Teachers need to socially distanced at work like in every other workplace. We all face a certain amount of risk by being at work, some greater than others (eg I’m NHS and have to see patients with covid wearing crappy PPE)
I genuinely don’t think teachers are at greater risk than other workers eg supermarket workers who have lots of exposure to general public and we know the impact of closing schools is horrendous for kids but also that society can’t function if schools are shut.
Schools need to remain open

And every time you read "schools need to stay open for year 11 and 13; their exams are too important" needs "and screw the kids who have barely been in school this term; all the more 9s/A stars for my kid" adding on the end.

@avenueq

https://twitter.com/daisychristo/status/1322130232833396736?s=21

Interesting thread on how current year 7's are behind

Behind what? A made up governmental measure. We are in a once in a century pandemic.

And I do not feel 'thrown under the bus'. We're in am unprecedented situation and I'm just doing my job as best I can under the circumstances.

If schools are open and we're doing what we can to minimise it there, can parents do the following:
Stop kids mixing OUTSIDE school
Tell their kids to wear a mask when asked, nicely, by a teacher
Stop telling kids that cv isn't real/ doesn't exist
Make their kids actually do some work when they're at home isolating?

Tia.

Yes, please, please, please stop mixing outside of school. It's so unfair not to do your bit.

@Perfect28

It's so sad to read how many people seem to simply not care about school staff. Apparently we are expendable in order to 'save the children'. Two things here. 1. We work in schools because we care about children, don't paint us out like we don't have their best interests at heart. 2. It's the same language we used first time round for those in the NHS. 'angels', 'sacrificing' etc. No, we are workers and we deserve (legally and morally) to be safe at work.

THIS!!!!

"I'm not absolving the Govt in any way but the unions don't appear to have done their job and protect their members."

Hmm, I wonder if @Ecosse has an opinion to offer on this? S/he seems to believe that the unions were responsible for "keeping schools closed" back in June, and are all set to "pull their members out" imminently.
When in reality (and she has been told this countless times), they have no such mandate and this is not their role.

Behind what? A made up governmental measure.

monkey it’s Daisy Christodoulou comparing writing data for Y7 now to the same kids when they were in Y6 before lockdown collected through her comparative judgement company. It’s actually worth a look.

The issue is that they don’t know how much backslide would be normally expected in the transition to Y7.

I'm an ECV teacher in a secondary. I do not feel safe at work. There are realistically no measures to keep us safe except a bit of hand sanitiser (until it runs out). The only way I can see this working is:

• primaries open but in maximum bubbles of a class, so 30ish not 90!
• secondaries on a two week on, two week off rota so only half the pupils are in, excepting vulnerable pupils who need to be at school, and possibly key workers' children in year 7 or 8 if they need to be supervised. Good investment in getting every pupil online for effective online learning.
• Good ventilation, funding for extra cleaning, masks worn in classrooms. Funding for staff cover because even if death is unlikely, 1 in 10 adults get long covid which lasts months and that is a lot of absence to cover.

If schools stay open then doing this lockdown is ridiculous.
It won't work.

People keep banging on about supermarket workers and NHS workers having to work, forgetting that they have protections in place that schools don’t.

Why didn't they do as SAGE suggested and make this half-term 2 weeks ? Late to act again.

Home learning provision is massively varied and unequal. Y9-13 will be home learning next week (Wales), and some schools have NO virtual (video) lessons in place, and some have a full timetable of virtual lessons. Some schools are setting all work on Monday morning to be in by the following Monday, others are insisting pupils attend video lessons all day in full school uniform.

Add to that the inequality caused by lack of space to study, IT equipment, broadband, etc. Plus the fact that some pupils have had a fortnight self isolating more than once since term started, and you have a wholly unequal and unfair experience.

No prizes for guessing it is the schools who are lower in league tables who have insufficient bandwidth and IT equipment to carry out the volume of virtual lessons needed to create equality of learning experience.

Schools need to stay open to balance this inequality out. Otherwise the children attending schools in high covid prevalence areas and those attending schools with limited IT resources will be at a massive disadvantage (and in many cases this will be on top of the disadvantage they already experience).

@TicTacTwo

Why didn't they do as SAGE suggested and make this half-term 2 weeks ? Late to act again.

Because they are fucking useless in every aspect, except giving money to their mates to do a shit job. They excel in that area.

"Teachers need to socially distanced at work like in every other workplace. We all face a certain amount of risk by being at work, some greater than others (eg I’m NHS and have to see patients with covid wearing crappy PPE)" Lucky you! You have at least some PPE.
"I genuinely don’t think teachers are at greater risk than other workers eg supermarket workers who have lots of exposure to general public" for short amounts of time, wearing masks and behind perspex screens.
"and we know the impact of closing schools is horrendous for kids but also that society can’t function if schools are shut." Yes it can, and it did back in the Spring. I will quote once again that it is around 8% of the adult working population who have children of primary school age.
"Schools need to remain open" Even when it is becoming apparent that lockdown is futile if so?