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.

Same as a few PPs, DC has mocks first week back.

MitziK

Absolutely they will happily throw the support staff under a bus but also the head teachers. NEU are the most spineless union in the world so they will not take on the govt. They will simply instruct their members not to do it and leave the problem to HT to solve by begging TAs. But no worries because the volunteers are coming. The lot that want schools open at all costs. It will be fine because they will be there in the thousands that we will need

humber

Fascinating I am called “goady” for respectfully pointing out the truth but many on this thread think it’s open season to insult, ridicule, gaslight and accuse me of being part of a cult

From my reading, you are very pissed off that Covid has affected your child’s education. For some reason you are mad at teachers for this. You seem to want more and more from teachers “be patriotic”

But you don’t seem to realise how overworked teachers are at the moment or how underfunded education is. There isn’t any more give in the system.

Teachers are trying to tell you the issues but you refuse to take it on board and keep repeating yourself. That’s why it seems a little goady

Sorry if I’ve missed this - but is it going to be lateral flow/spit test, or the regular up your nose one - that’s used in schools next term?

@Elephant4 up your nose

Humbersausage You've said teachers are undermining the process, that it's a lefty element stopping it, that they should be patriotic about it, implying they are not. All slurs* in my book. Everything you've spouted has been goady.

*A slur is an insulting insinuation, in case you weren't sure.

I just want to know WHEN we are going to find time to do this

If the aim is to actually improve covid security, then the pupils will need to have their test as they enter the premises, and not joining a group until their result is known.

Assuming (rashly) that there are no false results, a negative means that even if the person is incubating the virus, it is currently at such a low level that it is undetectable and so will not be shed in quantities likely to pose an infection risk. And that is likely to remain true for several hours.

So you need to know the person is negative before they start mixing in their classes, because a test taken eg the previous evening will be 12 hours out of date IYSWIM, and any taken during the previous school day even later again.

That doesn't matter if you're using this test to find out if there are asymptomatic cases (when you find something that you would not otherwise have detected, it's slightly less important when you find it). It matters considerably if you are seeking to replace proper SI

They should be banning Christmas get togethers before closing schools!!!

It should be mixing with one other household no more because of course there’s going to be a massive spike 🙄 but no no fill your boots mix with everyone, we’ll pull it back taking away the kids education 🥱

Disgusting

If anyone can be trained to do this, then someone who is not on my hourly rate should be doing it and I should be teaching kids and doing what I am trained to do. If not anyone can be trained to do it, then someone with relevant expertise should be doing it.

I’m going back quite a few pages but
I’m sure the DfE will reveal all in a timely manner
Yep, Gav has pencilled in an announcement for the 3rd January to move us all to online learning for the first two weeks in January. He could announce it now, but that would make everything to easy for Students, parents and teachers as they would all know what was going to happen. Much better to spring these things on us at the very last minute, sending everyone in to a mass panic as Parents have to go to work the next day and no one can get any childcare and Teachers are ready to do face to face teaching and then have to switch all their plans to online. Good work DfE.

@TableFlowerss please read the thread as it is a little more nuanced than that.

@SionnachRua

How are staff supposed to find the time to administer these tests? Are they going to reduce teacher workload perhaps, or are they just going to burden them with extra work?

I mean, I know the answer to that one already but couldn't let it go by without mentioning.

..and how are teachers going to be safe doing the tests. Are they going to vaccinate them first? Utterly shocking.

@Maryann1975

I’m going back quite a few pages but I’m sure the DfE will reveal all in a timely manner Yep, Gav has pencilled in an announcement for the 3rd January to move us all to online learning for the first two weeks in January. He could announce it now, but that would make everything to easy for Students, parents and teachers as they would all know what was going to happen. Much better to spring these things on us at the very last minute, sending everyone in to a mass panic as Parents have to go to work the next day and no one can get any childcare and Teachers are ready to do face to face teaching and then have to switch all their plans to online. Good work DfE.

This would be funny if it wasn't so bloody likely to happen!

I'm a nurse and will volunteer at my children's school if that's the way it goes. I'd rather people doing the tests had time to do them properly and carefully rather than poor bloody teaching staff who are run off their feet already!

I'm still waiting for my 13 year old dd to have the 2nd part of her HPV vaccination that should have happened at school during lockdown.
GP says only schools can give it.
How the heck are schools supposed to do this as well?
Ridiculous of the DfE, as per...

@FrippEnos

Yup, What ThelmaNotLouise posted.

@Humbersausage You have been weighed; you have been measured; and you have been found wanting, lets drop the pity party act.

Get over yourself. Humbersausage is entitled to make and debate any points they want without this sort of bollocks. Stick to the points raised rather than slagging off the poster.

@Humbersausage

Could existing testing staff not be redeployed to schools what about offering additional hours to test and trace staff to do this?

You do realise what's coming in January, don't you? I doubt you'll be able to find spare testing staff.

But that would be so many pupils it could reasonably be described as mass testing

Not really. Mass testing involves testing lots of people over a short period of time in addition to self-isolation of known high risk contacts. This plan could more charitably be described as a potential superspreading event.

Humbersausage
Many on this thread who just seem to yet again shying away from the challenge to really do something almost patriotic
Jesus wept. School nurses, patriotic duty, Pauline from the sixth form cafe stepping up to administer vaccines like the good old trooper she is,
Who are you? Peter Hitchens?

@Humbersausage

Would you test a probably covid positive person whilst not wearing any PPE?

Would you still be willing to do it having spent 8 hours a day, 5 days a week in a crowded, unventilated room with 30 people without PPE?

I'm angry too - 10% of my son's school is currently covid positive. Use your energy to blame the government not teachers.

The issue with schools is the problem is allowed to develop and then gets out of control in the same school.

Its not dealt with straight away.

You don't have to test in every school. You focus on schools where its become apparent there is an issue. So you need several teams to do that and go to the schools with an ongoing issue.

So for example about 6 weeks ago I think there were 40 odd schools that had postive cases recorded in my area (I believe its currently 20).

You target each one with a problem. You don't over stretch your resources. You don't create work in schools where there isn't an issue.

If you target, the theory is that you gradually get on top of the problem properly, rather than half arsed bubble closures. Nor testing kids who don't really need to be tested.

Blanket testing is just a dumb idea because of the resource and personel issue.

This is still whack a mole, but its fine tuning the whack a mole and improving it.

@Humbersausage

7.45 get to school, set up
8.30 kids in because staggered start
Lessons
Break duty every day
Lessons
Supervise children eating,
Half hour when they go out with TA to take mask off, eat, wipe tables, go to loo, clean loo, wash hands, mask back on. Check online classroom.
Kids back
Teach
Send home
Do extra catch up tuition
Marking
Go home and do all the other stuff for my job.
When shall I test the kids?

www.sodexojobs.co.uk/jobs/job/Test-Operative-COVID19-Rapid-Test-Centre/57311

You know that the people at drive through test centres that swab people aren't medically trained? They've had basic training to carry out swabbing, but they are not medical professionals. I think people may be under the impression they have more expertise than they do.

AND the testing is instead of isolation not mass testing so it makes the class less safe not more.
So what, really, is the point?

@FurForksSake but I already have a job. As a secondary school teacher.

Staff administering tests? No thanks. Do schools have to do everything?