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.

Apparently their Facebook page is riddled with antivaxxers, so probably.

See who panics at SAGE’s suggestion of vaccinating secondary kids.

@Jellycatspyjamas

They want to live their lives as normal and the existence of people who get covid badly get in the way of that. So those people should become hermits or they only have themselves to blame if they catch it.

So it’s not ok to suggest that those who are particularly vulnerable should limit their lives, but it is ok to say the whole population should limit theirs?

Once the majority have there education protected you try and do what is needed for the rest.

And it’s also ok to compromise the education of those children who arguably need to most support to learn, because the majority will be ok?

I guess it’s about who we’re happy to leave behind.

Trust me I want nobody left behind and schools open fully. However what choice is there currently.

I worry less about the educational side and more about the abusive situations we will be leaving some kids to deal with too. If up to me I would probably have schools staying open because of that alone. However we are in a position in London at least were that isn't an option and after Christmas that will be mirrored else where.

@EndoplasmicReticulum

Are Us4Them to blame for the totally batshit test instead of isolate plan then? Surely that has to go, with the new extra-spready virus it would be even more irresponsible than it was to start with.

Actually yes in someway as they have relentlessly campaigned against sending children home to isolate. Look at their website. They are scathing that so many children have isolated compared to the number of confirmed positives. They don't see the point in isolating after being in the same room as a confirmed person for hours at a time.

Once again, I am staggered by the weird attitude that some UK people have towards masks. In Japan all kids over 6 wear masks in school all the time except when actually playing outdoors in the playground. And as far as possible, the 3-6yos wear them as well, although of course usage is far from perfect. It works fine.

The schools have been open full time since June with no mass closures and there have been few deaths here.

Even the staff in my toddler's daycare nursery wear masks, though not the toddlers. Mask wearing by daycare workers hasn't stopped my toddler progressing with language development in leaps and bounds (and daycare is the only place she hears Japanese so her Japanese language skills are dependent on how good the language exposure at daycare is).

Surely it's better than closing schools?

@Kokeshi123
I've read that Japan is not as good from the inside as from the outside, many cases marked as pneumonia, etc.
BUT
every single person agrees that the society and every individual in it is about social responsibility. It's a baked in feature that the phrase greater good means something there.

Western civilizations are lost in childish selfishness disguised ad democracy.

(and yes, I agree, everyone rover 6 should always wear a mask in a pandemic of an airborne virus. It's not rocket science)

@Kokeshi123

Once again, I am staggered by the weird attitude that some UK people have towards masks. In Japan all kids over 6 wear masks in school all the time except when actually playing outdoors in the playground. And as far as possible, the 3-6yos wear them as well, although of course usage is far from perfect. It works fine.

The schools have been open full time since June with no mass closures and there have been few deaths here.

Even the staff in my toddler's daycare nursery wear masks, though not the toddlers. Mask wearing by daycare workers hasn't stopped my toddler progressing with language development in leaps and bounds (and daycare is the only place she hears Japanese so her Japanese language skills are dependent on how good the language exposure at daycare is).

Surely it's better than closing schools?

Japan isn't testing its people!!

[quote TheSunIsStillShining]@Kokeshi123
I've read that Japan is not as good from the inside as from the outside, many cases marked as pneumonia, etc.
BUT
every single person agrees that the society and every individual in it is about social responsibility. It's a baked in feature that the phrase greater good means something there.

Western civilizations are lost in childish selfishness disguised ad democracy.

(and yes, I agree, everyone rover 6 should always wear a mask in a pandemic of an airborne virus. It's not rocket science)[/quote]
Yes Japan isn't testing tis population,, it's misattributing Covid to something else; its people are more socially minded rather than individualistic, the people don't hug/kiss in greeting like we do. There's so much more to it...

Total excess mortality has been close to zero or negative each month since this shitstorm started, so I don't think COVID is being misattributed to anything else. We pretty much shut down flu season in Jan-March.There is a theory that masking, by massively reducing the dose of virus that is transmitted, results in mild/asymptomatic cases. Personally I'm not bothered whether there are a lot of unverified cases as long as people rarely seem to be getting worryingly ill.

I agree it's not just masks, there are several factors involved, some unclear. I think they help a lot though.

The primary school I work in has hardly had any cases despite being in tier 4 area. Pretty disappointing lots of staff are planning Christmas get togethers way above the limits. Kids losing out on in-school education just as some staff take extra risks. It's very frustrating.

Oophs

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/22/plans-for-30-minute-covid-lateral-flow-tests-in-england-halted-over-accuracy-fears

A circuit breaker of closure for a month could really help the spread of Covid in areas where it rife. Did you know that school age children currently have the highest rates of positive tests in the country - and that's with half of them not even knowing they've had it as they are often asymptomatic.

My daughter caught it recently and we only knew because we got 'fit to fly' tests for Christmas in the Caribbean - bye bye holiday. Worse than losing our holiday was the fact that I could not be in the same room as my distraught daughter as I an CEV. As she wailed in tears, I face-timed her, it was wholly inadequate. A few weeks of home learning is far preferable to this.

[quote SantaAssociationRepresentitve]Oophs

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/22/plans-for-30-minute-covid-lateral-flow-tests-in-england-halted-over-accuracy-fears[/quote]
Are these the very same tests we are expecting schools to be rolling out from Tuesday 5th? So do we take it that this idea has been scrapped?

@mrshoho yes they are the same ones.

I think they suddenly had a lot of sub standard tests and nowhere to decently show them off.

@Sarcobaleno

The primary school I work in has hardly had any cases despite being in tier 4 area. Pretty disappointing lots of staff are planning Christmas get togethers way above the limits. Kids losing out on in-school education just as some staff take extra risks. It's very frustrating.

A strange first post...

@lonelyplanet why?

Oh dear! will be interesting to read the next dfe instalment.

I'd like to know where they are going for their Christmas get togethers. We're in tier 4 and the only place to go is the supermarket or church!

@mrshoho

Oh dear! will be interesting to read the next dfe instalment.

I'd like to know where they are going for their Christmas get togethers. We're in tier 4 and the only place to go is the supermarket or church!

If that last bit was directed at me, houses.

So they are broadcasting these illegal meetups to parents @Sarcobaleno ?

I wouldn't have thought so. I'm not a parent. I'm staff.

@Sarcobaleno

I wouldn't have thought so. I'm not a parent. I'm staff.

Oh I see. It's very strange.

Many staff at my DD's should are doing some charity advent fundraiser. I'm very very pro schools and teachers right now but I'm a bit mouth-open that the school are posting multiple pictures of these very strictly bubbled separately in school all within MMs of each other to do this event. Someone clearly hasn't thought through what they have sharing

In what way? Disappointing, yes. Loads of people break rules. Just more grating when you see some of the consequences first hand.

No different to the many medics I know that break the rules. Honestly, I cannot fathom it.

Just more grating when you see some of the consequences first hand.

Never nice when people break rules. But it's more likely to be spread by the conditions within schools than by staff members breaking the rules, isn't it. Unless all the cases we're currently seeing in primary and secondary children can be directly linked to teachers breaking rules, I'm not sure it contributes a lot to the discussion. There are rule breakers in all professions but the spread of the new variant has come about despite the tier restrictions. In other words, it's caused by people going to work and school like they've been told.