We're having 2-3 teachers a day catching CV19 DFE You're not keeping us safe

[Anon12345678910]

Look at the image from www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3223
I've circled where we fall in classrooms. It's time for face coverings in classrooms. I don't want to loose any colleagues or my own life.

So, 2m isn’t enough. 4.6 metres may still be risky. Good to know

It's quite a lot more subtle than that. It's all about air flow. This is a good read: zeynep.substack.com/p/small-data-big-implications

First see:

If you just want the results: one person (Case B) infected two other people (case A and C) from a distance away of 6.5 meters (~21 feet) and 4.8m (~15 feet). Case B and case A overlapped for just five minutes at quite a distance away. These people were well beyond the current 6 feet / 2 meter guidelines of CDC and much further than the current 3 feet / one meter distance advocated by the WHO. And they still transmitted the virus.

and then:

On the other hand, notice the striking number of people not infected in the study, despite sometimes being seated next to the initial infection case. People sitting in the same table as A1 were not infected. People sitting the next table over who had their backs to the airflow were not infected, even though two others in the direction of the airflow were. In other words, not facing the infected person mattered greatly. People sitting the same distance away from the index case but on the other side of the airflow, tables E and F, were completely spared. They were spared despite three out of four people in table B, where the air flew back again at them, getting infected, even though, like the unaffected table, were just a single table over.

You really can't just guess when it comes to these things. This is why I say the important thing is to count how many teachers have in fact been infected and find a suitable group to compare it with.

You can see what countries are doing what in terms of opening/closing schools:

education.org/country-tracker

So whether or not you're facing the infected person is the most important thing not?

Reassuring when 6x 32 adult sized teenagers are all told to face towards me everyday an hour at a time?

As for comparable studies the ONS did that and if you ignore their fudging, teachers are higher than the other frontline keyworkers.

@TheSunIsStillShining

This is very cool. Thank you!

So whether or not you're facing the infected person is the most important thing not?

That was one factor. Others were air flow and talking (and mysteriously, the age of the children). But I assume by now you have had covid infected children in your class haven't you?

As for comparable studies the ONS did that and if you ignore their fudging, teachers are higher than the other frontline keyworkers.

Is that published anywhere and which frontline keyworkers are you comparing to?

As for comparable studies the ONS did that and if you ignore their fudging, teachers are higher than the other frontline keyworkers.

Sorry I meant is there an academic paper that talks about the fudging?

For the record, @Clavinova , we've not been allowed in our staffroom since August. I've been eating lunch on my own and having staff meetings via Teams. My TAs have all been in masks. Still got it.

I always tend to agree with @noblegiraffe

But this is also very true

unfortunately, many schools shot themselves in the foot by choosing not to support their students during lock down.

Our school seems out and out determined to shut down- and I can't take it's side as the provision during lockdown was abysmal. It just feels as though they are lazy and don't care about the children.

I can see the overall picture and know that cannot fundamentally be true. But the unbelievably dire provision during lockdown means they will never get my confidence back.

That's really interesting TheSunIsStillShining thanks for posting.

@Dustballs

I always tend to agree with *@noblegiraffe*

But this is also very true

unfortunately, many schools shot themselves in the foot by choosing not to support their students during lock down.

Our school seems out and out determined to shut down- and I can't take it's side as the provision during lockdown was abysmal. It just feels as though they are lazy and don't care about the children.

I can see the overall picture and know that cannot fundamentally be true. But the unbelievably dire provision during lockdown means they will never get my confidence back.

Then you need to blame the government for this, for originally providing guidance to schools that they were to suspend the curriculum and provide childcare for keyworker and vulnerable children only.

Our school seems out and out determined to shut down- and I can't take it's side as the provision during lockdown was abysmal. It just feels as though they are lazy and don't care about the children.

There are definitely a number of schools like this. DCs school was exactly the same. I blame the heads.

Then you need to blame the government for this, for originally providing guidance to schools that they were to suspend the curriculum and provide childcare for keyworker and vulnerable children only.

The phrase "suspend the curriculum" has never been clear to me. I read it to mean "don't teach any new topics from the curriculum". But some schools seem to have read it as "don't teach at all" which to me, as a non-teacher, seems perverse.

@Dustballs - my children’s secondary school made excellent provision available and I find it bizarre that anyone would choose to look for the lowest common denominator and then use that as an excuse to make the situation worse by ignoring the evidence that some schools needed more support and facilities to help them stop looking “lazy,” and instead just chucking them in at the deep end to sink because they “deserved it.”

I have to agree re what others have said. Friends state the school provision during lockdown was shocking in the state system.Teachers disappearing, VoiceMail full on the school contact number, Head nowhere to be seen, my colleague eventually tracked down a teacher who said she couldn’t do any work because she had to look after her own children. There is little risk of the teaching profession losing their jobs unlike for example the hospitality industry or aviation.

That is I suspect why there isn’t as much support as the teaching profession as they would like.

I suspect there isn’t as much support for the teaching profession as there should be because of my point above - it’s easier to look for the lowest common denominator and extrapolate from that if you want to justify treating others badly. And, of course, all non-teacher parents did an excellent job of working from home: the problems that everyone suffered trying to deal with pretty much any business during lockdown are all fantasies. It’s actually only teachers that were messing everything up.

@notevenat20

Then you need to blame the government for this, for originally providing guidance to schools that they were to suspend the curriculum and provide childcare for keyworker and vulnerable children only.

The phrase "suspend the curriculum" has never been clear to me. I read it to mean "don't teach any new topics from the curriculum". But some schools seem to have read it as "don't teach at all" which to me, as a non-teacher, seems perverse.

I don’t agree with you but it does show that again, the government is to blame for not being clearer in their guidance.

"My kid didn't get set enough work during lockdown and I'm worried about their education if schools close again" = fair enough

"My kid didn't get set enough work during lockdown therefore teachers should be denied basic safety measures in the classroom and be at an unnecessarily high risk for covid" = not fair enough.

Everyone deserves health and safety at work.

@Walkaround

I know we won't agree and I respect your personal experience and opinion. I have a different set of experiences and views however. I know most about primary schools so that is what I will comment on.

There are heads who are just plain lazy. DC's primary head has even explicitly said so to me. This doesn't of course tar all schools as there are terrible people in every profession. But it's important not to pretend these people and schools don't exist. This attitude then stretches down to the teaching staff, either through the mechanism of which teachers they can attract (or not repel) or the day to day guidance they give to the teachers.

Some primaries , through their leadership, take the view that the purpose of primary school is primarily to help children socialise. A secondary goal is to help the weakest to learn to read and possibly write and really little else. This was the view of DC's primary. Education just wasn't part of their motivation and in the last few years they just went round and round in circles as they had achieved the reading and writing goal for almost all the children. So when the school was shut down it was logical that they would provide nothing for the children as they couldn't provide what they regarded as the most important part, socialisation.

DC then moved to another local primary which is the diametric opposite of what I have described, so I am aware of the range of attitudes that a school can have towards education.

Surprised to see so many support the idea that health and safety is a reward for good performance.

I don’t agree with you

Sorry to be dim but which part don't you agree with?

@notevenat20

Our school seems out and out determined to shut down- and I can't take it's side as the provision during lockdown was abysmal. It just feels as though they are lazy and don't care about the children.

There are definitely a number of schools like this. DCs school was exactly the same. I blame the heads.

It’s funny how you have always said how wonderful your children’s private school was dealing with it all. How things change, eh!?

@notevenat20

I don’t agree with you

Sorry to be dim but which part don't you agree with?

I don’t agree with your interpretation of the guidance.

@notevenat20 - and that is extrapolating from the lowest common denominator again. Name a single organisation or profession in the world where nobody whatsoever does the bare minimum they can get away with, or just isn’t quite up to the job. Name a few professions where expectations of what should be achievable on such ridiculously low budgets are quite so astronomically high (and then see how much of their work is being shoved in the direction of schools, too - eg mental health services, safeguarding, immunisations, provision of free food, etc).

@embolass

mumsneedwine never heard of the NHS donating to schools?? We are short of certain items so don’t understand why it would be “given away” Look, I care passionately for all in and out of hospital. Want this over so we can all get back to some kind of normality, of which schools play a huge part.

In the first wave all our gloves and sanitiser etc from county stores were diverted to nhs.

So we went without and staff were sourcing their own because once our stock ran out......