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

What was the point of even stating his occupation, if he's retired?

Surely a retired teacher is at home, drinking gin, so at no risk at all.

That chart with the risks and colour levels on BBC report - according to those criteria all students, and teachers, are at high risk level all day, surely?

Sometimes riks just have to be run. Because schools are open, parents can work and thus pay tax that pays the wages of teachers and nurses. It is not an easy compromise but seems to be the best was can do in the circumstances. Also forcing children into masks is not the way to go as more harm is done to them wearing them all day every day in school for hours and hours and hours. It is unfair on them.

Exactly! 🤷‍♀️

Surely a retired teacher is at home, drinking gin, so at no risk at all.

Exactly! 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Also forcing children into masks is not the way to go as more harm is done to them wearing them all day every day in school for hours and hours and hours. It is unfair on them.

Evidence? What the f. harm are they doing????

It's unfair that anyone who is ECV is being thrown under the bus. But yeah, let's not wear masks because they are cheap, effective but wow they look bad....

Also forcing children into masks is not the way to go as more harm is done to them wearing them all day every day in school for hours and hours and hours. It is unfair on them

Then how do the students in some East Asian countries cope with wearing masks all day at school? (From personal experience, as I taught hundreds of students there who had no problems - health or otherwise - from wearing a mask at school. And now, where my in-laws live students are wearing masks all day at school as usual with no complaints and no health issues. They don’t live in a controlling dictatorship - far from it, the Liberal Democrat party are currently in power. It’s also a country that’s only had under 3000 covid deaths.)

Do you think British children are just somehow weaker? Less resilient? I’m a teacher here too and I can assure you they are not.

The countries that did better have universal mask wearing, including for children in schools. Death rates hundreds of times lower.

There is no evidence - none - that wearing masks harms children.

In S Korea there are still under 600 deaths and their economy is far closer to normal than ours.

So their kids will have happier parents, less likely to have parents who've lost a job or facing a job loss, tens of thousands fewer bereaved children.

People making this argument obviously don't care if some children have their lives torn apart by losing a parent, or by the economic consequences of having covid out of control.

The argument is so nonsensical. How can you think wearing a mask is damaging but losing a parent or grandparent unnecessarily and in the worst way imaginable is fine?

@Xenia

Sometimes riks just have to be run. Because schools are open, parents can work and thus pay tax that pays the wages of teachers and nurses. It is not an easy compromise but seems to be the best was can do in the circumstances. Also forcing children into masks is not the way to go as more harm is done to them wearing them all day every day in school for hours and hours and hours. It is unfair on them.

“more harm is done...hours and hours” Opinion not fact. But thanks for the reminder that teachers and nurses are funded from the public purse. We’d all forgotten. And of course, teachers and nurses - anyone paid from the public purse - pays taxes too.

@EndoplasmicReticulum

That chart with the risks and colour levels on BBC report - according to those criteria all students, and teachers, are at high risk level all day, surely?

You're right, how (or more likely why!) are people in the media not connecting the dots and seeing this scandal for what it is.

The differences between wearing a mask and not were interesting, it also reminded me of a new rule at DD's school. They want the kids to wear masks during break/lunch (unless they are eating obviously) but won't allow them to wear them during lessons.

I've questioned the logic behind that one because surely if they are concerned about transmission outside so much so they want masks worn then they should be extremely concerned about transmission in the tiny classrooms. The massive risk it poses to teachers who have 30+ kids facing them for an hour (and the front rows are not 2m away in all of the classrooms) and then a fresh batch of 30+ kids each lesson, times that by 5 lessons per day and you have 150+ kids facing each teacher each day. If a mask is a necessary item during break/lunch (when staff can actually distance themselves plus it's outside) then why can't they be worn indoors during lessons when they are needed more.

I feel so sorry for all the teachers (and other school staff) who are being treated so appallingly because the government doesn't seem to realise(or more likely care) that not all schools have huge classrooms with a dozen or so students like the private schools they all went to.

pay taxes.

@Xenia, 8% of working adults have children of primary school age. They're not the only ones paying into the tax system - there is a further 92% to take up any slack.

Also, Xenia, are you able to confirm that you work from home? If so, I would suggest that it's quite easy for you to allege that it's a risk that needs to be run by other people.

I wonder what percentage of that 8% work in hospitality, leisure, non essential retail etc? Given a lot of that is done by part timers on the cheap aka Mum's trying to fit around school hours or partners work I would imagine quite a lot.

The balance is approximately
Full time working mum's of primary aged children: ~1,5m
Part time working mum's of primary aged children: ~ 2m

That is a very small % of working adults.

Full time working mum's of primary aged children: ~1,5m; Part time working mum's of primary aged children: ~ 2m. That is a very small % of working adults.

Given this, I'm very perplexed about why more business owners are not up in arms that they're losing money and forced to shut - even though they've spent time and effort operating in a covid secure way (masks, social distancing, limiting duration of contact etc)- while schools are open with crowded, often unventilated classrooms with no social distancing, no masks etc.

I suppose they're so busy trying to sort things out and have just believed the images in the press. Unless you have first hand experience of the lack of space in classrooms, there is no real counter-narrative to the 'schools are covid secure' lie.

So, if those are the figures for working parents with primary-aged children, I wonder what the figures are for people who are currently not working due to this half-hearted lockdown?

I'm pretty sure the tax I pay only makes up a tiny percent of the costs of educating my two dc throughout their school careee.

@EndoplasmicReticulum

That chart with the risks and colour levels on BBC report - according to those criteria all students, and teachers, are at high risk level all day, surely?

Exactly.

And the retired teacher comment was a fucking snub.

@NeurotrashWarrior

The only teacher is a retired teacher.

Probably took the advice that’s sometimes handed out on these threads.

I've found this random article.

No main newspapers were interested in her story.

www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/28/ukpr-o28.html

That's a good article - covers everything. I don't think the educators rank and file safety committee are helping their cause by calling for school closures though.

Of course ideally we'd close for a bit, get rates down, stop the random isolation and closures affecting the most vulnerable far more than everyone else, and then make schools safer.

But I think badging it as 'close schools' implies they want this longer term - which if you read the article is not true at all - they just want schools to be safer.

Sorry - I must be obtuse, but what do the photos tell?

They show how lax the kids are in clubs, societies and that there is not a person in a mask. I think it shows how basic common sense things are not being done. Also the 6 kids/class photo is only true for specialized subjects at A level.

(isn't obtuse and angle type? I've only seen it in my son's math book so far.)

From the same school....
I have encountered my favourite -so far- covid safety measure in our school.
I asked my son's friend who attends school in corporeal form about mask usage. Here is what he said:

"You have to wear a mask in community spaces and when there is no teacher supervision. But when you have a teacher in the room you take it off."

Who would have thought that teachers have the magic presence that scares the virus away. smile