Angry teachers why aren't your leadership team doing more?

[Blanketyblankblankety]

If there's 2-3 teachers catching Corona daily in one school (15 a week) as stated on another thread why on earth has your leadership team not shut the school? Another school with 66 cases in pupils in one week, why is the school still open?
Before you say the government won't support it, that's rubbish. My DCs school has recently shut for 2 weeks at least to all but year 11 and 13. And they had much fewer cases than above and none in staff.
You should be lobbying your leadership team as they sound useless.

If social workers are a priority for vaccination, teachers should be also.

Completely agree.

The government are at pains to repeatedly express how ‘vital’ they consider schools to be, but they are not actually apparently vital enough to warrant putting a single penny into making them safer, or to consider putting school staff on a priority list for the vaccination program!

If you think this is because teachers haven't done enough lobbying, then I honestly despair.

I just got an email from my MP. I said the Christmas bubble plans were batshit given the infection rates in schools, and the reply was talking about how Christmas bubbles were an excellent way to balance safety with the desire to see your relatives.

So yeah.

@IHeartKingThistle I'm glad your school closed. I misunderstood your post and thought you were having 3 teachers testing positive daily and nothing was being done about it.

In the school I work in, not one member of staff has tested positive yet!!!

@Blanketyblankblankety through lengthy negotiations the school is now closed. It's not the leadership team but the DFE and PHE that pull the puppet strings.

Is anyone from SLT on here? Schools can’t stop Covid spreading.

Are you being forced to wrongly describe your school as Covid safe to parents and staff? If you are, what do your superiors say if you point this out?

It goes without saying the schools are not being supported by the government.

The superiors are the government?

Headteachers have their own union so I guess they're working with them too.

The problem that heads have is that they're not allowed to be political. Some got in trouble for raising issues with school funding, so they have to be careful.

It's pretty clear our head think that the government are an incompetent shower of shit but of course they are professional with the parents. Behind the scenes who knows what they are doing.

I'm interested in the extent to which schools can make their own decisions.

I've seen a letter today from a secondary school to parents saying that everyone in years 11-13 (except vulnerable students) will have to work at home in the final week of this term. They are at school this week.

The reason given is that if anyone tested positive next week, they and their close contacts would have to isolate over Christmas and they are trying to protect against that so that everyone can have the holiday they want.

Based on what people have said so far, that doesn't sound to me like the sort of approach that DfE/PHE would agree or allow.

Our school took part in a rapid test trial for years 11-13. They found NINE asymptomatic cases inyear 12 and have closed that year.

It must be clear from these trials that this is commonplace (and who is doingnthese trials? Is there any write up somewhere?)

Of course SLT could lobbying, writing to MPs, Contacting the LEA etc if they feel unsafe. Oh wait, many don’t have time to do so as they are busy actually dealing with the situation day and night, weekday and weekend. Talking to and reassuring parents and staff, worrying about their colleagues and friends. My friend who is a HT has been in school on weekends, evenings and early mornings having to contact DFE and parents to close classes down. She can’t enjoy a glass of wine with dinner on a weekend in case she needs to go into school if a positive case is confirmed. And those HT who do have time aren’t listened to because their situation isn’t bad enough, children don’t spread covid, teaching is a low risk profession and if they don’t do as told they face losing their jobs so are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Added to this the financial worries about managing a budget that was barely large enough in the first place to include ridiculous amounts of spending on cleaning and hygiene products, who would want their job right now?

The DfE have explicitly told schools they aren’t allowed to take matters into their own hands

No, but they can speak to PHE as DD1's school did, and close until Christmas for all but two year groups.

My issue as a parent is that it's quite clear that the way in which schools just reopened after months and months was this was inevitable. Just as inevitable as when Boris stood about doing nothing in February.
At my DC's School, we got to half term with 2 cases. In a school of 1300 pupils, I felt that was impressive.
But inevitably, complacency outside of school sets in- telling kids they can sit in mixed groups with 30 different kids in 5 lessons per day then telling them "but you can only walk home with 5 others" was never going to help. Then certainly in our area there was one pupil whose parents allowed a party to happen that several went to
After half term it's been constant cases.

In our area they don't send the whole year group home, no one would be left there if they did by now. It's based on seating plan and friendship group if it's a pupil.
Our school has had to switch to rota though with at least 1 year group home learning a week.

I personally look at the vaccine schedule and think, they've said teachers are not priority so will have to wait, and under 18s, even vulnerable ones, aren't on the list at all. So is it out of the realms of possibilities that herd immunity in schools is exactly what the government have hoped to cause all along since September? Has the vaccine even been tested on children?

Oh and January is going to be chaos.

Only over 18s will be offered the vaccine initially.

@cantkeepawayforever

Head teachers are reliant - on their local public health telling them what to do, in terms of isolations and closures.

This is completely logical, because heads are not public health experts, and you do not want the risk aversion or otherwise of a specific head to be the driving factor in their Covid response.

On the other hand, the lines of command and quality of advice within the tangle that is PHE, DfE and local public health authorities means that advice given to these heads can be inconsistent and illogical - especially since there is a political and PR motivation behind some of it ('schools are safe / there is space for teachers to be 2m away at all times / schools which send few pupils home are 'better / doing well').

So while it is right that head teachers, unqualified in public health, are required to rely on the experts for advice, it is not right that the so-called 'experts' are not giving - in some cases - consistent / correct / decent information.

I think PHE has had to employ people that are basically just trained to read from a script. I think headteachers would be way better placed to make the decisions. It’s herd immunity and protecting the economy and no doubt their investments over health. There can be no other explanation.

@MillieVanilla

My issue as a parent is that it's quite clear that the way in which schools just reopened after months and months was this was inevitable. Just as inevitable as when Boris stood about doing nothing in February. At my DC's School, we got to half term with 2 cases. In a school of 1300 pupils, I felt that was impressive. But inevitably, complacency outside of school sets in- telling kids they can sit in mixed groups with 30 different kids in 5 lessons per day then telling them "but you can only walk home with 5 others" was never going to help. Then certainly in our area there was one pupil whose parents allowed a party to happen that several went to After half term it's been constant cases.

In our area they don't send the whole year group home, no one would be left there if they did by now. It's based on seating plan and friendship group if it's a pupil.
Our school has had to switch to rota though with at least 1 year group home learning a week.

I personally look at the vaccine schedule and think, they've said teachers are not priority so will have to wait, and under 18s, even vulnerable ones, aren't on the list at all. So is it out of the realms of possibilities that herd immunity in schools is exactly what the government have hoped to cause all along since September? Has the vaccine even been tested on children?

Sadly I think you’re right 😢 If they don’t close the schools after Christmas and change the narrative re possibly vaccinating children in the summer I really hope people vote with their feet to protect their families. Lives are just numbers and costs to be offset to this government.

@wondersun I speak for many fellow parents when I say that we feel teachers and other School staff should strike. They're safety seems to count for nothing to the government.

Education is vitally important of course, I for one was and I'm still concerned at the effect this will have on my DC's. For starters DD has been an utter PITA about home learning and after having to isolate for the last two weeks, and having had a week off on rota due to a lack of staff the week before she has done very little work for 3 weeks now. She went to one online drama lesson. I do tell her off but unless I sit next to her all day there's not much I can do. She is year 9 now and started on her GCSE stuff so it's even worse. She's not just sitting gaming either, she is in bed, depressed and bored and unsettled and I don't blame her for feeling that way.
But frankly, a 15 year old boy with no known illnesses died last week of Covid, and that hits home how dangerous the game the government is playing.

I've seen a local teacher with a petition that has grown huge asking that the kids break up on 11th, and don't go back until the 18th January to allow for the after effects of the frankly moronic and irresponsible 5 day free for all to weaken.
Then there is the suggestion that after allowing people 5 days off from rules set all year to protect us and the NHS people will refuse to go back to the restrictions and it will come crashing down again.

I speak for many fellow parents when I say that we feel teachers and other School staff should strike.

And it really says a lot about the dedication of teachers that we haven’t. Despite the constant moaning from certain quarters on here that teachers are lazy, want to close schools because we can’t be arsed to teach, don’t deserve any respect etc etc, the unions are reporting that despite the government refusing to implement in schools even the basic safety measures required in other workplaces including their own, and their complete disregard for our well-being, there is very little appetite for strike action.

No, but they can speak to PHE as DD1's school did, and close until Christmas for all but two year groups.

Do you think that’s the full story? That the school just phoned PHE and said ‘ we want to close’ ?

One of my children's secondaries is effectively 'closed until Christmas for all but two year groups' as they have so many positive cases amongst staff and pupils and so many teachers isolating. I'm expecting to receive letter closing my child's year group by the end of the week tbh.

Our local secondary is closed to all but Yr 11 this week due to staff shortages, but I can't imagine that they just phoned PHE and announced that they were going to do this.

Why aren’t leaders taking matters into their own hands?

Because this happens: schoolsweek.co.uk/school-forced-into-remote-learning-u-turn-after-ministers-issue-minded-to-direct-legal-letter

Head teachers can do some things. I believe they can require masks for children in secondary and they can put in temperature checks too. Maybe they can do other things too?

The head may also get to decide the size of bubbles. This affects who gets sent home if there is a case. In DSs secondary they bubble by year which means the whole year gets sent home for every single case. If the head really wants the school to be more empty they can also make sure teachers teach across years so if any teacher gets infected huge numbers of children will be sent home.

[quote noblegiraffe]Why aren’t leaders taking matters into their own hands?

Because this happens: schoolsweek.co.uk/school-forced-into-remote-learning-u-turn-after-ministers-issue-minded-to-direct-legal-letter[/quote]
Disgusted after what this school has been through and trying to take a logical approach, that they are being threatened in this way.

And after all we now know about the way children can be asymptomatic some people think taking temperatures is a solution.