Govt attempting to force schools to remain open with court order, against advice of PHE

[Bluegreen70]

Just that.

I've never hated any politicians so much

FuckOffDfE I think your name kind of gives you away to be honest.

Everyone knew from the beginning that kids spread bugs, it happens every winter. But everyone (including on MN) said initially, kids can't catch it, it's more important that they get an education and that parents can go back to work. What's changed?

They should never have gone back to school, or schools should have closed once infection rates started to rise again, with teaching taking place online and the government providing funding for parents who were unable to work in that scenario.

Just swat it away like a fly 🪰

marsha Here we go again, groundhog day.

It is obvious from reading posts on here that court action will be needed. Clearly the gov know where this is headed.

Christmas plans should be revised, we need mass testing in schools plus move teachers up vaccination priority list.
Plus funding for cleaning etc - it’s not that difficult, so angry with this government, I think unions have been pretty crap too - Not just teaching unions.

Yes agree mass testing is the answer , is it happening ?

@tootyfruitypickle

Yes agree mass testing is the answer , is it happening ?

It’s meant to be

I would be interested if what the head expected happened

He one Head talked about mobile units

Think most heads would only close when it enough staff , which is probably the way around going into a direct battle with no 10 rather than doing it borough wide- as I don’t think even in the badly affected boroughs it’s evenly spread across all areas.

But I also think taking a legal challenge against councils with 2 more days of school is insane.

Basically they’re all nuts IMO but I feel for individual heads .

Great so we all agree:

Mass testing in secondary schools - in areas of high infection
Consideration given to move teachers up the priority list for vaccination

That should fix the problem. I hope the gov will do just that, and disable this hideous campaign to harm our children.

I think it’s fairly obviously by now. They pop up sporadically and post in quick succession for hours. It tends to be when a call has gone out on UsForThem about threads etc. like this one.

Also it’s Christmas or schools open this week. Not both.

I would vote schools in a heartbeat , personally. But the govt needs to make up its mind what it’s doing .

The leader of Greenwich Council has said he has "no choice" but to ask schools to remain open following threats of legal action from the government.

Statement from the Leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, Cllr Danny Thorpe

"Yesterday the Council received a directive from the Government that schools in the borough must remain fully open until the end of term. With COVID-19 cases rising rapidly in the borough, I cannot agree that this is the correct choice for our schools. However, I also cannot justify the use of public funds to fight the decision in the courts. Consequently, I have no choice but to ask our schools to keep their doors open to all students rather than just continuing with online learning.

"From the start of this pandemic, both myself and the whole Council have worked tirelessly to support our whole school community. The action we took on Sunday was based solely on doing the right thing for our borough, not a protracted legal argument with the Government, which absolutely nobody needs at the end of an extremely difficult term.

"The Council has issued the following response to the Government, which outlines our serious concerns about forcing our students to attend school in person and our intention to reluctantly comply with the Secretary of State’s directive."

Letter to Secretary of State 15 December 2020

Our secondary built a case to shut the school until January few weeks ago. It is not great for my child but probably the right decision at time. Cases were very high in all year groups.

The primary has however joined the bun fight between Gov and labour councils. This I am very unhappy about. There is no place for politics in a school.

Plus seriously upset the kids by canceling all the childrens Christmas activities for the sake of three days.

If they made the decision last week or week before then fair enough. This was cruel though. In the morning the teacher was telling them about all the exciting things they had planned this week. Then about an hour before home time they were given a letter and told school was closing. (Not the poor teachers fault of course. She wasn't to know).

@houseinthesnow yes I agree with your solutions.
Not convinced the govt can do it .
I’d send dd in regardless of how high rates are locally. But I wouldn’t if I was high risk. So that’s another issue.

Has to be some leeway.

@houseinthesnow

Great so we all agree:

Mass testing in secondary schools - in areas of high infection
Consideration given to move teachers up the priority list for vaccination

That should fix the problem. I hope the gov will do just that, and disable this hideous campaign to harm our children.

We do all agree. But when a lot of cases are found in those tests then whole classes/bubbles need to close. Just sending home close contacts is pointless in a classroom as all the research shows and just allows the cases to snowball. And in some cases whole schools need to close to get cases down. This is what we should be campaigning for. Along with high quality online lessons when isolating and tech for ALL children.

Also think they should be vaccinating teachers now . To keep schools open as then you don’t end up with lack of staff.

@tootyfruitypickle

Think most heads would only close when it enough staff , which is probably the way around going into a direct battle with no 10 rather than doing it borough wide- as I don’t think even in the badly affected boroughs it’s evenly spread across all areas.

But I also think taking a legal challenge against councils with 2 more days of school is insane.

I think it’s insane if they take it up which I can see they are not.

But it was important for precedent not to be set. Otherwise we’d see others following suit and not just pre Christmas

I see this in the light of ongoing policy to strip councils of control over education. It started with the "academies" which are now a majority of secondary schools and about a quarter of primaries.

I don't know why there's this policy, but it's evident that it exists. Maybe it's just Westminster wanting more power for itself.

@FuckOffDfE

I think it’s fairly obviously by now. They pop up sporadically and post in quick succession for hours. It tends to be when a call has gone out on UsForThem about threads etc. like this one.

Was wondering if you included me. I’m not it’s not my scene.

My kids are home so I have to go, but someone should organise a petition to ask for the solutions, so we don't have this for another six months.

Vaccinate all teachers - education is far more important than anything else. Cancel christmas if you have to, but don't give the teaching unions a reason to try and keep the schools closed, they will use any flimsy reason they can given the absence of genuine reasons.

@houseinthesnow

FuckOffDfE I think your name kind of gives you away to be honest.

Not sure what there is to give away. I used to be a teacher, 10 years ago. Am not anymore thankfully but have a lot of teacher friends and have seen how they have all been fucked over during this pandemic. What the government is doing is wrong.

And having been a teacher I know the state a lot of our schools were in before they had to spend all their ‘money’ on hand sanitiser as the government wouldn’t even pay for that. Hence why mine go private.