No longer a national priority to keep schools open

[noelgiraffe]

The government has surreptitiously dropped its priority to keep schools open.

It has replaced it with a priority to “keep education open”.

Remote learning is now a viable alternative to keeping schools open (as opposed to last Monday when it was a matter for the high court).

In the DfE media blog, tweeted earlier today regarding the delayed start to term in January they say:

“ Is this an extension of the Christmas holiday?

No, this isn’t an extension of the holiday and we haven’t asked that the start of term is delayed.

All students will return to education from the first day of term. Secondary school and college students should learn remotely for one week except those in exam years, vulnerable young people and the children of critical workers. It remains our national priority to keep education open and we are not closing education for any period other than during the set holiday periods.”

Interesting development.

Yep - we do have oak academy which considerable public funds were sunk into yet we're not allowed to use it for remote education because we have to be seen to be doing it ourselves. Bizarre. I set a couple of really good looking lessons for isolating kids last from oak last term but felt weirdly guilty for doing it. We are our own worst enemies sometimes. We can't all be catholics!!?

It's either Catholic guilt or Protestant work ethic, Honey.

I think more hard work makes you virtuous.

@noelgiraffe

Here's Gav's wanky piece for the Telegraph, blaming teachers in advance for the failure of the mass testing initiative.

dfemedia.blog.gov.uk/2020/12/21/gavin-williamson-if-we-work-together-on-coronavirus-testing-we-can-keep-schools-open/

And here is a school leader's reply:

"F**k off Gav. Nobody trusts you. There is no ‘we’. The good will reserves are empty. Some schools are working today on track and trace from last week because you didn’t let them close; your cut ‘n’ paste guidance is unresourced crap. You’re a bad joke."

Gav has to resign, surely.

It’s his use of the word “we” that does it for me. He has done absolutely NOTHING of any use for schools. In fact, he’s made things actively harder at every turn. He’s lost all the key figures in edu-Twitter: Tom Sherrington, John Tomsett (both very much politically neutral in their postings normally) but even Katherine Birbilsingh who once spoke at the Conservative conference and actually has a photograph of BORIS JOHNSON hanging in the stairwell of her school!! And guess what, at the time of typing this, schools STILL don’t have the testing guidance that was promised today.

They’re never going to come back from this with schools, the DFE are, at best, a laughing stock within the education sector.

Covered either way then Noel.

I think good hard works gives you the outward appearance of being sanctified and saved but cannot save you in themselves if my memory of Calvinism from A' level Sociology serves me correctly. He who is saved is given the ability to do good hard works so he who is worried about whether it looks like he has been saved must do good hard works. Kind of the hall mark of presentee-ism.

I'm of Catholic stock so just have to hope a lifetime of guilt and a sincere sorry on my death bed covers it

Im not sure if this article has been discussed but it would appear Matt Hancock is also hanging on the goodwill of schools working over the Christmas break also.

schoolsweek.co.uk/hancock-on-further-school-delays-ive-learnt-not-to-rule-anything-out/

One minute gov are saying of course schools have enough to do and won't be required to give time to set this up and the next they are hinting about working through the holidays.

But @Misssugarplum12764 it will be there. After all, some DfE staff are being paid an extra £1,000 to sort out the problem. It will all be sorted by 4th Jan - oophs sorry as Gav says from 4th Jan 😂

Spot the important word - ‘from’

That and the fact he's miscalculated the number of weeks between now and January 4th. Useless.

He doesn't even know what day it is!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4112530-F-k-off-Gav-Nobody-trusts-you

Express your love and appreciation for Gav here.

I thought the school terms followed the university/legal terms, which would make sense because these institutions existed well before any sort of national education system. The feast of St Michael is 29th September which is pretty much the end of harvest season. It makes sense to be outdoors in the summer (possibly at your country home/estate) and indoors (at the university, in legal chambers) in winter with a nice warm fire.

Taken from Sky News:

New COVID strain has 'higher propensity to infect children', suggests government adviser

There is an indication that the new variant of coronavirus infected more children, according to a scientist on the government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG).

Speaking at a Q&A briefing on the new variant, hosted by the Science Media Centre, Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London says there is strong evidence the new mutant strain is 50% more transmissible than the previous virus.

"We will need to gather more data to see how it behaves going forward," he adds.

"There are other epidemiologically interesting trends with virus, there is a hint that it has a higher propensity to infect children... but we haven't established any sort of causality on that, but we can see that in the data."

Interesting development in terms of the new strain and children. I wonder what this will mean for schools from January and the impact this will have on both primary and secondary schools.

Clever virus...

This was lifted by Sky from the TES I think which ran that story this morning.

Rumour has it that the cluster they found in Kent centred around a school, hence the panic at the DfE.

I don’t think it has a greater propensity to infect children, just children have had much more opportunity to catch it what with spending each day in a covid free for all.

There must be a reason why it is now being spotted in children, though. The previous strain/ other one had the same breeding environment.

Edit : spotted more.

Lockdown? Schools were the main thing still open.

I am not an epidemiologist (had enough trouble spelling it) but wasn't there something about young people having less receptors for the virus so could this mean it has mutated to be better at attaching to young people's receptors and therefore massively increasing the viral load they'd be capable of taking on?

I think there relative mild reactions were due to this low viral load compared to adults?

Can we have a scientist please!?!?

@noelgiraffe

I don’t think it has a greater propensity to infect children, just children have had much more opportunity to catch it what with spending each day in a covid free for all.

This

Their! Sorry can't spell or anything today. Definitely not on the wine already, oh no.

And as to the above, it really is the elephant in the room. They literally can’t see what’s in front of their faces. Well they couldn’t if they stood outside a secondary school at home time.
I can’t work out if they are a) terminally stupid or b) wilfully terminally stupid.

@noelgiraffe

I don’t think it has a greater propensity to infect children, just children have had much more opportunity to catch it what with spending each day in a covid free for all.

Thats exactly what my first thought was too! is it just too obvious and simple for the scientists While a large portion of the adult population was locked down the virus found the younger people to infect?

Apparently being a very clever scientist doesn’t make one any more able to spot the elephant than anyone else.

The honey, re receptors I think that was true of dc under 12 ish? The older dc get the more normal the receptor thing is.

I’m so scared about sending my primary children back in January as a vulnerable household. Surely they can’t let primary schools go back as they were with all this new information coming to light. You only have to look at the ONS data to see cases shooting up in primary too

Re the scientists and schools I wonder if it's because they are just so incredibly removed from the reality, they hear the mitigation measures, eg the infamous side by side seating... And think perhaps of themselves, diligently and quietly working away in a lab... Yes.. Side by side will work, then the aerosols will propel forwards...yes. So no masks needed....