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

I do know about the debate. I just don’t agree 🤷🏻‍♀️

@TheSunIsStillShining yes you are right, off to bed now!

@WouldBeGood

I do know about the debate. I just don’t agree 🤷🏻‍♀️

You don’t even know what is being argued for.

Teachers see year groups and bubbles and whole schools closing.
Which means vulnerable kids - the ones we want in school to help and monitor - are also out of school.
Teachers would like mitigations to reduce spread so we can keep vulnerable children in and have more chance of staying open.
Seriously - what's not to get?

Do you read? I've just posted that my school has had to close to 2 out of 7 year groups due to unsafe staffing levels after the latest outbreak. Years 8 and 9 because they're not too close to exams but also not so young as to need adult supervision.

Our school didn't want to do this and my sons year is one of those closed. What we've been wanting is better safety to avoid these closures. Do you really I want to be simultaneously teaching kids in school, teaching kids remotely and teaching my own son?

Try reading instead of just lying about what is being said.

Schools are closing whether we like it or not. Just before half term we had our first case now we're on our knees unable to be staff all year groups

@WouldBeGood what don't you agree with? Schools are already closing?

@OverTheRainbowLiesOz

It's tantamount to government manslaughter if a teacher dies. The lack of protection is terrible.

It is very telling that my daughter who is teaching in a mask has so far avoided having to self isolate.

Don’t be so ridiculous! Who’s to say if a teacher dies from Covid they caught it from being in a school setting! 🙄

Don’t be so ridiculous! Who’s to say if a teacher dies from Covid they caught it from being in a school setting! 🙄

By going through my T&T, which I did with my hospital consultant and my GP since, I can almost certainly point to my contact being school, probably a symptom free child.

I hadn't been anywhere else to pick it up.
Only other person I'd been in close contact with was Dh who hasn't had Covid, hasn't tested positive, has t had any symptoms.

And fwiw I was speaking to a hospital consultant as I was in hospital due to complications with Covid. Blue light ambulance was called due to the risk to my health at the time.

And yes - if the worse had happened the. It would have been due to a school transmission. The place I have to go to daily, whilst being clinically vulnerable, with very limited protection. I don't even get to socially distance. I can open some windows though, eh?!

@WouldBeGood

But there ha just not massive shreds in schools

There’s a massive amount of needless anxiety on this thread.

Are you not happy that schools are staying open?

And I haven't said I want schools closed. I don't. My job is easier to do in school after all.

I don't want to close schools.
I want schools to be safer for staff and children, especially those who are CEV and CV.

@Aragog

Don’t be so ridiculous! Who’s to say if a teacher dies from Covid they caught it from being in a school setting! 🙄

By going through my T&T, which I did with my hospital consultant and my GP since, I can almost certainly point to my contact being school, probably a symptom free child.

I hadn't been anywhere else to pick it up.
Only other person I'd been in close contact with was Dh who hasn't had Covid, hasn't tested positive, has t had any symptoms.

And fwiw I was speaking to a hospital consultant as I was in hospital due to complications with Covid. Blue light ambulance was called due to the risk to my health at the time.

And yes - if the worse had happened the. It would have been due to a school transmission. The place I have to go to daily, whilst being clinically vulnerable, with very limited protection. I don't even get to socially distance. I can open some windows though, eh?!

So can’t be from your symptom free husband but must be from a symptom free child! 🤔

Oh for fuck's sake.

So can’t be from your symptom free husband but must be from a symptom free child!

If @Aragog has contact with hundreds of husbands daily, possibly yes. Otherwise, this looks desperate I'm afraid!

He wasn't positive

It would be a bit tough to catch covid off someone who doesn’t have covid but of course that’s more likely than getting it at school

So when your child gets bits, threadworms, chicken pox, norovirus or that scabby infection that I can't quite remember... Who is to say they caught it at school?
There is a reason why things spread at schools....

Nits

Sorry, but he wasn't in contact with anyone positive. He hasn't been near anyone positive. He has no close contact in his work place at all - it truely is Covid secure. He has to wear a mask if even vaguely near anyone (and that's always more than 2m) plus has plastic screens in the rare times he was seeing clients. He hadn't been anywhere else.

The reality is that I teach 270 children weekly with no social distancing. They cough and sneeze all the time. They have 'colds' constantly.

So it's even more likely to be from them, especially if you then add in the 'coincidence' of further staff members and several parents from those classes testing positive, despite having no contact with one another. And since then the odd child who's managed to be tested (mainly due to t and t suggestion rather than symptoms) have also tested positive.

But hey yeah, I'm sure you're right - even though all the medics and t and t felt school was the most likely cause - bound to be Dh isn't it?

Couldn't possible be a school child at all?!

Don’t let them wind you up, Aragog, we all know that you caught it in unsafe work conditions.

That you were very ill makes it even worse that they are using you for Friday night entertainment.

Whyisitsodiffiicukt ...

Why is it so difficult for you to accept that actually it's far more likely that I caught Covid from a child at school?

Why is it so difficult to accept that maybe schools aren't actually that safe?

Why is it so difficult to understand why school staff might want to have some protection from Covid?

I know it probably doesn't fit nicely for your little agenda here, but I'd rather trust the idea that the doctors who work and deal with Covid daily probably have a little more of an idea than you do tbh.

@WouldBeGood

Some cheering data

Have a read at the NASUWT's response to this Wouldbegood

@noblegiraffe

Don’t let them wind you up, Aragog, we all know that you caught it in unsafe work conditions.

That you were very ill makes it even worse that they are using you for Friday night entertainment.

I know. I shouldn't let it bother me! I've been on Mn long enough. Especially when I'm supposed to stay relaxed and calm to keep my blood pressure stable (thanks for that Covid!!)

I'm fine though, honest. Just annoys me how much grief you and others get on here for just wanting safer schools for us all. It's so unfair. It's also one of the reasons why I keep posting what happened and how, I refuse to have it hidden away and pretend it doesn't happen, like for so many school staff.

Well, think I'll get back to my glass of wine. Least I didn't lose my sense of taste or smell, so can enjoy that!

Aragog imagine this username to be a 1 year old fingers in ears singing lalalala... that makes it at least slightly funny.
I really have a problem that people like these have a right to vote.

@WouldBeGood

Mm...I sense an agenda on this thread... are you all teachers?

We’re all BOFFINS, of a sort. HTH.

@TheSunIsStillShining

Aragog imagine this username to be a 1 year old fingers in ears singing lalalala... that makes it at least slightly funny. I really have a problem that people like these have a right to vote.

True!

Even the 5 and 6 year olds i teach seem to have a better concept of what's going on than some posters.

My contacts currently are work (short walk away and I start late so no one around at that time) and my 13yo son who attends the school I work at.

No doubt even then people would say you can't prove it was a school case if I get it.

Also morally bankrupt-it's like saying it's not murder if you kill someone but don't get caught. Or it's not drunk driving if you don't get breahalised