Secondary schools are totally stuffed, WELL-RESPECTED SCIENTISTS ADMIT

[noblegiraffe]

I don't normally get asked for an encore, more usually 'urgh, not another bloody thread', but per a request we have a follow-up to the resoundingly popular:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4078722-Secondary-schools-are-fucked-BOFFINS-ADMIT

Feedback has been received and acted upon re the title so hopefully that will temper the urge to complain.

Quick round-up of where we were at:

1. the infection rate is now highest in secondary school pupils in Y7-11, higher than uni students and sixth formers. They're not catching it at the pub...

2. The government/ONS put out misleading figures to suggest that teachers weren't at higher risk than NHS frontline workers, where actually looking at the data, they may well be. They fudged this by calling the largest group of teachers, who are at higher risk than frontline NHS staff 'teachers of an unknown type' and pretended they were irrelevant.

3. The DfE have changed the format of their attendance statistics report to remove the reference to how many hundreds of thousands of kids are currently isolating due to exposure to covid at school.

4. Boffins are cool

New info: The Guardian reports that teachers are being instructed to ignore app notifications to self-isolate by the school helpline and this might be a bad thing. They can't help themselves though, and have a lovely photo of a socially distanced classroom of lies at the top of the story.

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/16/union-says-teachers-in-england-being-told-to-pause-covid-app-in-school

The rates are normally per 100 000 population over a 7 day period and I'm assuming this is what's been calculated for teachers.

According to covid messenger the highest rate in any council in England is 754.5 over the latest 7 day period available (Hull).
www.covidmessenger.com/coronavirusliveupdate/

So that means that being a teacher IN SCOTLAND, where rates much lower (highest 269.3 in Glasgow according to this article www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-53511877 ) exposes you to more risk than living in the council with the highest rates in England (my god what the rates must actually be in Hull schools - not surprising their local media reporting the schools are on the brink of collapse).

I think the principle is this, schools staff have the same rights to safe working conditions as any other workers. Different measures need to be taken in different settings, but measures need to be taken to minimise risk. All other employers have a legal duty to implement safe working conditions, and practices. At no other time would risk to life be overlooked, it would be considered illegal.

Agreed. And if the scottish figures hold up - that means teachers (in scotland) are being exposed to somewhere between 2.5-3x the risk of the general population of catching covid. That surely must be unacceptable. Especially when easy to implement safety measures are not being used (masks, sending whole bubbles home when there's a positive test, testing contacts). Though I don't know if any of this might be happening in Scotland, I know in general they're handling things a bit better (happy to be corrected).

I saw on the below thread that the Scottish government are doing antibody tests for educators. Sorry if already been mentioned.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4084420-Has-anyone-done-an-antibody-test

Sorry, I got that wrong, it's 2.5-3x the risk in Glasgow.

As stated in the union letter the average for teachers is more like 7x the rate in the general population on average. (758 per 100k vs 95 per 100k)

I.e. If these figures are correct, teachers in Scotland are at least 7x more likely to catch coronavirus than the average person in Scotland.

My God.

It really makes you wonder about the equivalent figures for England (where in general things seem to be worse).

*If 1 in 80 people are infected, wouldn't you expect 800 out of 10,000 people in the general population to be infected?

(Not wanting to downplay the problem, of course, but I think that's the maths?)*

But we're talking about rates per 100,000 here, not 10,000

I.e. If these figures are correct, teachers in Scotland are at least 7x more likely to catch coronavirus than the average person in Scotland
I wish I hadn't read that

The secondary school graph is beautiful really. If you were a research scientist conducting an experiment to confirm that current school conditions are ripe for the spread of covid, this would make your day.

Indeed, herecomes. I wonder how those who were insisting the issue was eat out to help out or people on summer holiday are going to explain it?

It’s also going to be hard to insist that it simply reflects community transmission when infection rates are dropping for other age groups and we’re in a lockdown.

It really does like transmission in schools is a thing, doesn’t it?

apologies, if 1in 80 people are infected then that's 1,250 per 100k. But yes, your mileage might very depending on area,

Have they been talking to Ecosse?

They really are the ultimate fuckwits aren’t they?

I find it weird/appaling that

1. another set of tiers
2. in none of them are masks mandatory.

Even if there's a rota and smaller number of kids it's an extra layer of protection.

With figures like those, I just don't see how they can justify teachers in schools without masks for them and children AT THE VERY LEAST (ideally funding for other measures too - like smaller class sizes, testing of whole schools ideally and at least everyone in a class with a positive, and also some kind of circuit break to bring figures down).

Why should teachers accept a risk 7x that of everyone else?

The only circumstance where that would potentially be acceptable is where every single option for reducing risk had been implemented and there was nothing else to do. And they were paid hazard money to compensate. That is NOT true in schools.

It is also different to inherently risky professions - teachers did not sign up to a 7x higher risk of catching a new disease during a pandemic. I bet if that had been in the small print of the contracts an awful lot more would have chosen alternative careers.

Instead, they've signed up for a pay freeze?

Yay.

I’ll be writing to my MP again then...

@noblegiraffe

They really are the ultimate fuckwits aren’t they?

Arseholes Assemble. Their superpowers are Getting It Wrong and/or Doing It Late.

I have been composing another letter to my MP in my head for 2 days now.

I think these figures merit another never-to-receive-a-reply missive to my MP. I've been toying with writing to the local newspaper explaining how I've been writing asking for better measures in schools since the summer and he's just stopped replying to me at all (I have the evidence).

Should be newsworthy, but is outing and that's why I've been reluctant (work related). It just seems being a whistleblower is universally frowned on - most parents seem to just be ignoring the obvious.

Is this a UK cultural thing? Why is everyone putting up with something so horrendous? They didn't over the healthcare workers and PPE - and the consequences in terms of education for our kids (which everyone supposedly cares about) will be dire if we lose a lot of experienced teachers to long covid.

.....and I mean obviously also just generally awful and a terrible thing to do to teachers if you consider yourself a civilised country - but even from a purely self-interested point of view (if you care about education) it just is the stupidest possible thing to do.

My school is now closed to two year groups as of Monday due to pastoral and academic staffing issues.

We didn't have a single case until just before half term. We've now had outbreaks in 5 different year groups.

All those saying my school is fine need to take heed. We had no clue yesterday that this was on the cards and it only took another year group having cases as of this morning to push us over the edge.

It appears also that in this scenario we cannot have key worker or vulnerable kids in like we could before or would have with a planned rota system. Now I understand why hull is so desperate to go to rota system.

So what are NHS staff going to do? They'll have to stay off work, right? Just at the time when they're needed more urgently.

@IloveJKRowling

So what are NHS staff going to do? They'll have to stay off work, right? Just at the time when they're needed more urgently.

If the kids can't stay home alone, yes.

All because schools must stay open. When actually increasingly they can't but aren't allowed a rota system or any means of prioritising kw or vulnerable kids.

It's beyond an own goal and all for political grandstanding.

It's years 8 and 9 so most will be able to stay at home alone but not all due to additional needs. I can think of 3 off the top of my head that I teach who need a ta with them most or all of the time and will definitely not be safe without an adult.

It is getting ridiculous around here at the moment - bubbles and schools closing constantly.
I'm writing the my MP and all media I can!

A secondary school local to me is actually starting a rota system. Isn't it up to each school to decide?

No, Randomlola, they are not allowed to.

From the article linked above "Gavin Williamson and Matt Hancock have told local public health directors to back the government's plans not to close schools or move them on to rotas, as Covid cases rise.

A letter from the secretaries of state for education and health says the government expects local health officials to support it in not moving to rotas in secondary schools or to increased online learning in colleges in their local areas during the national lockdown."