Secondary schools are stuffed, GOVERNMENT ADMITS

[noblegiraffe]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55265098

Mass testing for secondary school pupils in worst affected areas.

@noblegiraffe

I wonder how many parents will now be reconsidering whether to send their kids to school next week.

As many as possible, hopefully.

Wasn't the attendance rate the week before the March lockdown hideously low. If it goes down that low again, it would be better than nothing.

March was so different in feel. Here anyway.

@noblegiraffe I don't have anything to add but I just wanted to say THANK YOU for starting these threads, and raging on behalf of all of us that teach, or love a teacher, or just have a child at school and understand the reality of what is being allowed to occur. I personally feel totally defeated by the lies of the government and when I see you shouting from the rooftops and not letting them away with it, it gives me a flicker of hope. I genuinely believe you will save lives by not letting this issue be hidden away, and that the announcement tonight is the start of the admissions of what we all already know about schools. Thank you.

In other 'The DfE are fucking incompetent' news:

"The government is returning school laptop allocations to “original levels” less than two months after slashing them by around 80 per cent.

In October, the Department for Education told headteachers their laptop allocations for disadvantaged pupils had been reduced to ensure stocks last longer."

schoolsweek.co.uk/school-laptop-allocations-restored-to-original-levels-after-dfe-backtracks/

Do you know what would have helped stocks last longer? NOT LETTING COVID RUN RIOT THROUGH SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

Where were the mass tests for pupils in Hull when 50% were off self isolating?

I have friends working in Hull hospital A&E. They're not even on the list for getting the vaccine, never mind school testing. Fucking joke. They've thrown the North to the dogs.

Thank you, @Returnofthemaccys, genuinely. :)

They sent home some of my DD’s year group earlier this week. I’m CEV and asked the school if she could also study from home (because last time this happened there were a few new cases in the days after the first one, and I didn’t want her about potential incubators

Fortunately they said yes, which has been a huge relief

I would put all secondaries onto online working now, with premises only open for DC who have particular need to attend (inadequate home tech or whatever)

Keeping working until the very last day is important for those in years 10-13, but that’s also the age group who ought to be able to work effectively online without parental input

The Unions have let the staff, pupils and parents down. They have done precisely zero to challenge the Government’s strategy.They are not fit for purpose

The unions were fighting for the safety of the staff. They aren’t there for pupils and parents. Parents could have campaigned for safer schools.

Whilst some parents had concerns and wrote to MPs etc, many didn’t as felt the risks were low or they wanted the schools open for childcare.

@noblegiraffe

In other 'The DfE are fucking incompetent' news:

"The government is returning school laptop allocations to “original levels” less than two months after slashing them by around 80 per cent.

In October, the Department for Education told headteachers their laptop allocations for disadvantaged pupils had been reduced to ensure stocks last longer."

schoolsweek.co.uk/school-laptop-allocations-restored-to-original-levels-after-dfe-backtracks/

Do you know what would have helped stocks last longer? NOT LETTING COVID RUN RIOT THROUGH SECONDARY SCHOOLS.

You mean when London need ,laptops because they're all self isolating the allocations go back up?! I'm totally shocked...

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

The Unions have let the staff, pupils and parents down. They have done precisely zero to challenge the Government’s strategy.They are not fit for purpose

The unions were fighting for the safety of the staff. They aren’t there for pupils and parents. Parents could have campaigned for safer schools.

Whilst some parents had concerns and wrote to MPs etc, many didn’t as felt the risks were low or they wanted the schools open for childcare.

Not in secondary. This childcare line is so old!

It's catastrophic.

I don't have the answer.

Remote learning provision has been appalling from our secondary, and I have an only child so the effects of school closing was major. So I have been thankful that schools reopened but am increasingly uneasy about it now.

Would weekly tests for all secondary pupils be helpful?

So annoyed hearing this news. Covid has burned through schools here in the for weeks/ months to such an extent that the staff most likely have herd immunity by now. Action taken : none. In fact deceive, obfuscate and lie despite cases rising in secondary age kids for ages. If they published figures for it I bet you'd find that teachers and hospital workers are the most infected worker demographic throughout the lockdown.

Meanwhile we still have regular cases. Close contacts being sent home with dates closer and closer to Xmas and pupils getting upset because a classmate has got a cough but parents thought "let's see how you go".

There'll be worse reactions when it happens next week to families told to isolate over Christmas. What is the government doing about it. Nothing.

No sorry wrong about that. They are announcing changes to inset because " staff haven't had a break since the pandemic started " knowing full well it is far too late notice.

Bit if your school has been hit hard this won’t be new news? And if not then you’d just keep going as it’s not an issue in your school.

There seem to be quite a few parents who are genuinely unaware of what is going on even in local schools and the complete radio silence from the media hasn't helped.

Maybe this will put a bit of focus on schools that has been absent up till now.

True but even local schools being hit harder won’t change behaviour in the schools we use (for example). Parents are just not in the same mindset as March.

I do welcome more information for CEV students / parents though.

Would weekly tests for all secondary pupils be helpful?

Probably. I'm not too sure about these lateral tests although they would certainly flush out a few asymptomatic cases that would have otherwise gone undetected. @motherrunner was saying on another thread that this is now being requested on a voluntary basis in her area.

What would really help is binning the policy of only sending home close contacts and properly testing whole bubbles where there's a case.

Plus way better mitigation measures to slow transmission where there are cases.

Bunch of Londoncentric fucking arseholes. Fucking livid.
(Government, not Londoners just to be crystal clear)

If they published figures for it I bet you'd find that teachers and hospital workers are the most infected worker demographic throughout the lockdown.

They did. But they fiddled it to make it look like we weren't. www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-schools-urgent-warning-over-misleading-teacher-covid-data

They already did this mass testing in a town near me. 2 big secondary schools and a big college, all students and staff: all negative, not one single case. I do think it varies widely by region.

Obviously not London, but not tier 1 either. Tier 2. Near a town with rising cases and potential for Tier 3.

the nearby town with rising cases is like many areas in that the cases are very concentrated in certain lower income areas, so once again highly localised, so such an extent that a nearby town had not a single case in any secondary or the college.

@PassataQueenofBritain

Yes, but only when their own precious children are the ones being affected, eh?

No, not at all.

Private schools will have broken up before next week. They'll be off happily spreading it around in their second homes by tomorrow evening. Only the plebs' offspring in North/East London are going to have their Christmases ruined.

@fluffyboy

They already did this mass testing in a town near me. 2 big secondary schools and a big college, all students and staff: all negative, not one single case. I do think it varies widely by region.

Thing is, if there are no cases, then there won't be any cases. Obviously.

It's if there are cases, how many cases there are that's the issue. Because you can't catch covid if there's no covid to catch, but if there is covid to catch, how many people are catching it?

Obviously this town does have cases, as I said, it is in Tier 2, near a town that could potentially go into Tier 3.

I am West Mids, tier 2.

Our school has not been affected.

Doesn't mean I am not so angry for all the kids in Sandwell, Dudley, Birmingham etc.

They have really been hit hard.

But it's the West Midlands. Its always bottom of the pile and completely forgotten.

This doesn't surprise me, but incredibly unfair.

(I know Midlands are not only area suffering just now outside of London).

Plus - about this town where not a single case in the secondaries or college found in mass testing - there were some cases a few weeks ago. A few years sent home etc. But the testing showed that the measures taken had worked.