Exclusive: DfE considering delay to start of next term

[herecomestheSon]

www.tes.com/news/exclusive-dfe-considering-delay-start-next-term?fbclid=IwAR1QLOa7VrpJz2QeOpMo90R45SfwOfIPsr9pI_SMYEoClaJwJuAjbGB9cB8

According to the Times Educational Supplement.

Yesterday the NEU teaching union urged the government to move teaching online for the first week of next term to give schools enough time to train staff in administering Covid-19 tests.

The Department for Education is expected to make an announcement about the potential later start tomorrow, according to sources close to the DfE.

I thought it would interest you lot.

As a teacher I will point blank refuse to perform a test on a pupil. I am not trained and am not willing to put myself at risk of injuring a child in my care.

As a parent, there is no way I would consent to having briefly trained teachers performing invasive tests on my child.

There should be general mass testing, carried out by medical professionals, on a regular basis in schools and nothing less. Otherwise, all we can look forward to is more of the same.

@noelgiraffe

Is there any other workforce that is asked to test for 7 days instead of isolating when they’ve been in close contact with a positive?

I doubt it. Not in our hospital trust anyway. they work in addition to the PCR testing and isolating of high risk contacts of known cases or people sharing a household with symptoms waiting for a test result.

The LF testing is just routine to pick up the asymptomatic cases so we can catch as many cases as possible and slow the spread.

@CurlyhairedAssassin

There's a lot of drama on the thread. Here in Liverpool where a handful of military staff came into secondary schools and tested everyone in a couple of days and then again the following week, the pupils did the test on themselves, and simply handed over the swab for the soldiers to do the testing process and email/text the results. So there will be no manhandling of children by office staff etc.

There will be logistical and administrative considerations. I suspect all support staff will be doing the bulk of it, but then who will do their normal duties? Possibly they might decide to bring classes back to school one at a time after Christmas, so they can be tested by support staff first, while teachers carry on with online teaching.

But there must be around 100,000 secondary school students in Birmingham, God knows how many in London.

I predict there will be an announcement Friday evening. It's the perfect time.

I think some people are getting muddled that this is mass testing it isn’t, it is when a bubble bursts. So people will need to be ready as soon as there is a positive case in the school. So an administrative nightmare. If a positive test result comes out at 11pm the school will need to be ready to test all the contacts the next morning. Will the schools have these tests in stock, will they have the testers/organisers on standby assuming they are using volunteers?

One of my sons' schools informed parents that they have had over 1200 incidents of self-isolation to manage in the last 16 weeks.
That's a heck of a lot of burst bubbles.

School currently closed due to multiple cases.

Like fuck will I be administering tests to my 5 year old class. It's a stressful test for children.

I hope the guidance actually differentiates between primary and secondary as so far, everything has been a blanket over both. They are so different in practice.

Volunteers in school must be dbs checked for safeguarding. How is that possible in this time frame?

@FiveFootTwoEyesOfBlue

Teachers on MN: "School students are spreading Covid! Secondaries are all FUCKED! The evil Tories have thrown us under the bus!"
Govt and Public Health: We have a plan to test secondary school students who are close contacts of someone who has tested positive, thus reducing the likelihood of Covid spread and keeping students and staff safer. Plus staff can have weekly tests.
Teachers on MN: "Bastards!"

Close contacts should isolate for 10 days not be tested daily with quite inaccurate tests.

Mass testing in schools should be used to find out who is currently positive and thus should self isolate and then work out their contacts who should then also isolate.

I don’t know any other work place which are suggesting that people who sit right next to someone who then tests positive can return to work if tested daily by their line manager as such.

I wouldn’t want to sit by someone who last week sat by a confirmed positive. It’s a shambles.

Good luck with this in primaries, I think they will end up sending reluctant children home to isolate because who wants John from year 3’s PTA parent or one of the dinner ladies shoving a testing kit up their nose. And won’t it need to be done daily, as any child in the bubble could become asymptotically infective at any time?

@bojo7

Nowhere is there any suggestion that teachers or other testers are vaccinated before taking on this task. Of course there is a month between the first jab and immunity. Surely this massive effort would be better directed towards a vaccination programme.

That's a really good point - if they want teachers to administer these tests, they need to vaccinate them first and/or provide PPE. My OH teaches Y5 and they are told to stay 2m away to protect themselves – if they want them to get close enough to swab, they need to ensure their safety.

Surely alot of staff have their own children to care for if schools shut ?

I do wonder how many tests each school will actually get. Last time we had a kid test positive we identified 30 close contacts. Ten days of tests, minus 2 lots at the weekend - so 240 for one positive cases. Allow a few spares for breakages/swabs being dropped etc - say 250.

There are lots of schools with multiple people testing positive at once across different year groups etc. And of course these tests, even being low accuracy, will turn up more positives. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that schools might get through 1000 tests a week. 5-6000 in. Half term.

I wonder how many we will actually get.

Also, on a separate note, all the people making sly digs at teachers need to think about what they want to be left of the education system next year. I know I'm thinking long and hard about whether I want to stay, or teach abroad or do something else. I know colleagues are too. And you can say you only want the really committed teachers to stay - but there won't be enough of them...

paas-s3-broker-prod-lon-ae79ddf0-b8b2-4eb4-a891-fbd1df9e587d.s3.amazonaws.com/Schools-Colleges-Testing-Handbook-version-3.7.pdf

@RememberSelfCompassion

Im scared:(

Yes, I think this sums up how I feel too.

If someone found a top secret memo with plans to kill British people with covid, it wouldn't surprise me. I am trying very hard to think 'cock up not conspiracy' but I'm starting to wonder just wtf the government is playing at.

@DBML

As a teacher I will point blank refuse to perform a test on a pupil. I am not trained and am not willing to put myself at risk of injuring a child in my care.

As a parent, there is no way I would consent to having briefly trained teachers performing invasive tests on my child.

There should be general mass testing, carried out by medical professionals, on a regular basis in schools and nothing less. Otherwise, all we can look forward to is more of the same.

I agree with this. I am not having a random anybody do this to my child.

Just to go back to the original point there are actual BTEC exams starting on the 6th of January. As usual they have been forgotten in these plans. I have incredibly stressed students emailing me overnight. They have spent 3 hours prepping resources for this exam and now don't know if they will have it or not. Amazing way to improve their mental health

Has anyone had letters to say schools are doing testing at school? In our area we just had letters to say that schools are not administering any tests themselves but that it was advised that families with secondary school age children in our area all get a test done, even if no-one has symptoms - and what to put in to the national portal to get one.

If anyone does here of how you would volunteer to administer the tests in secondary schools then please let me know - I’m furloughed 2 days a week at the minute and would be more than happy to go and do it if any of my local secondary schools were after people.

@PeachiceT

Surely alot of staff have their own children to care for if schools shut ?

Schools won’t be shutting any more-that’s the plan. Let the covid run freely through them whilst teachers administer 50% accurate tests.

That’ll help attendance!

@IgnoranceIsStrength

Just to go back to the original point there are actual BTEC exams starting on the 6th of January. As usual they have been forgotten in these plans. I have incredibly stressed students emailing me overnight. They have spent 3 hours prepping resources for this exam and now don't know if they will have it or not. Amazing way to improve their mental health

Yeah, this is worrying me too. Maybe we could have keyworkers, vulnerables and BTEC students in... They haven't leaked anything about the exams so I'm assuming they are going ahead in January.

The attendance will look better on paper. No more whole year groups isolating... but a heck of a lot more cases?!

Its going to be a game of russian roulette. Will my child be one of the oenes that catches covid and potentially kills me. I dont want to play this game.

I think the plan could result in more isolations not less. Say on Monday you get told Billy in y9 has covid. You identify 15 close contacts and plan to test them each morning. On Wednesday Alex and Chloe test positive giving another 30 contacts to test each day - 43 in total. On Thursday Sam and Ellie get their positive result, you now need to do 71 tests each morning. Unfortunately the government didn't send enough tests and you don't have the space or volunteers to do this in a reasonable time each morning. So you reluctantly send the 71 students home to isolate. Annoyingly if you'd send home the original 15 the positives wouldn't have caused further isolations as they wouldn't have had close contacts in school in the infectious period.

I support mass testing for secondaries. I don't support using testing as a way to stop self isolation. How many of you in favour would be happy for this to be in place in your office along with no masks and no social distancing? Seems like another recipe for disaster. Also, it shouldn't be down to teachers to be the ones testing. I'm surprosed there hasn't been a surge leaving the profession..

The government have confirmed that Christmas get togethers can go ahead. I think schools will open as normal in January and they won't delay start times because it's too much common sense.

There is no 'exit' stategy. None of the vaccines have been tested on under 16s. Once we have vaccinated all ecv and over 50's what do people think is going to happen? There is going to have to be a shift towards risk managing covid, initially by this kind mass testing of contacts. Covid isn't going away, we are going to have to find ways to 'live' with it.

I do not however think that teachers should be responsible for any testing programme, that needs to be managed and funded differently. They have already been expected to shoulder a responsibility that goes way above what we should be asking of teachers - and I have nothing but respect and thanks for everything they have done.

MrsFrisby I realise under 18s won't be vaccinated.
I'd rather they didn't catch it until my parents have been vaccinated, if at all possible.
This testing scheme makes that more likely, not less.

There is no 'exit' stategy. None of the vaccines have been tested on under 16s. Once we have vaccinated all ecv and over 50's what do people think is going to happen?

It'll mean that the higher risk population will then have the same level of risk as young people in normal health, and significant relaxation in restrictions can take place. Especially for schools if the first u50 group is 'those in exposed occupations' (which would include teachers)