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.

Well I didn't say all the cases are attributable to staff breaking rules. I just think this debate is very polarised, some of you seem to be portraying teachers as sitting ducks and then you get the Us For Them mob who villainise teachers at every turn. I'm not disputing the experience so many of you seem to be having at schools, albeit it's not my experience. I'm in a primary so I think it's very different. I just think this debate is being framed in a very black and white way.

And as a separate point, we don't know what's caused the new variant. It seems to be more widespread than thought and all coronaviruses mutate, hence a different flu vaccine every year. My instinct is, and backed up by a long conversation with an immunologist, that this mutation has been used as a political Trojan horse.

this mutation has been used as a political Trojan horse.

Can you explain what you mean? What is being hidden within the horse?

I don't know what you are expecting us to say. I don't know your colleagues and have no idea what they are doing. I know the rules in tier 4 and that's what I'm sticking to.

I think this mutation was used as an excuse to pull back on Christmas. The cynic in me wonders if the consequences are also beneficial in that they create chaos to hide brexit chaos or they allow for a deal to be more palatable to eu sceptics.

@mrshoho

I don't know what you are expecting us to say. I don't know your colleagues and have no idea what they are doing. I know the rules in tier 4 and that's what I'm sticking to.

I'm not really expecting you to say anything...

@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!

So these tests for which DfE employees will be £1,000 bonus to sort out the logistics for are basically a pile of crap. The government has purchased 10 million of these and they have a 40% or so accuracy

panic stations Mr Mannering

OK thanks for clearing that up.

[quote Sarcobaleno]@lonelyplanet why?[/quote]
Contact head ASAP

We were banned from having any get togethers other than via zoom. We were told not to use Teams for anything not involved with our timetables or school work

If you think my initial comment required no reply, why reply. Just scroll on past! I thought this was a forum for anyone to share their thoughts. I'll wind my neck in.

@SantaAssociationRepresentitve not sure if you directed that at me. I'm not really one for grassing colleagues who I generally get on very well with. Think I'll stick to sharing my frustration on anonymous chat forums.

@Sarcobaleno

If you think my initial comment required no reply, why reply. Just scroll on past! I thought this was a forum for anyone to share their thoughts. I'll wind my neck in.

You can't expect people to ignore obvious jibes at school staff, especially when posted by a member of school staff. If your colleagues are breaking the law report them. Most schools would take this very seriously at the moment especially in a tier 4 area.

@lonelyplanet I can't expect people to ignore jibes at school staff? School staff aren't above criticism. I'm "jibing" because I'm frustrated. As I've said, this debate has become very polarised which is a shame. Again, I'm not going to report my colleagues, rightly or wrongly. Bowing out now, the views seem quite entrenched and it's not for me.

DFE have postponed their webinar on “cost recovery and workforce requirements” from yesterday till 2pm tomorrow. Further webinars during w/c 4th Jan on “site set up, training, clinical checklist and recording test results”. So evidently the DFE have no intention of the testing starting that week; wonder when they’ll let their own social media teams know as they’re still saying it will!

@Sarcobaleno

I think this mutation was used as an excuse to pull back on Christmas. The cynic in me wonders if the consequences are also beneficial in that they create chaos to hide brexit chaos or they allow for a deal to be more palatable to eu sceptics.

You think being global lepers is part of a cunning plan and having closed ports and half the world banning us from travel would be less embarrassing than just cancelling Christmas plans?

And you joined mumsnet to tell everyone that allegedly some teachers you know are meeting up over Christmas.

Actually I can picture Boris coming up with a cunning plan to blame the new strain for cancelling Christmas and accidentally being taken seriously by the rest of the world who didn’t realise it was meant to be local politicking.

But the graphs for those ‘new strain’ areas do also look mental, so something is going on there.

@Misssugarplum12764

DFE have postponed their webinar on “cost recovery and workforce requirements” from yesterday till 2pm tomorrow. Further webinars during w/c 4th Jan on “site set up, training, clinical checklist and recording test results”. So evidently the DFE have no intention of the testing starting that week; wonder when they’ll let their own social media teams know as they’re still saying it will!

Well the DfE et al did use the word ‘from’ and not by

So from the first week could mean up to Feb half term. It doesn’t matter as the DfE will still get their bonuses for sorting it out

@Sarcobaleno

Well I didn't say all the cases are attributable to staff breaking rules. I just think this debate is very polarised, some of you seem to be portraying teachers as sitting ducks and then you get the Us For Them mob who villainise teachers at every turn. I'm not disputing the experience so many of you seem to be having at schools, albeit it's not my experience. I'm in a primary so I think it's very different. I just think this debate is being framed in a very black and white way.

I am also primary and felt very much like a sitting duck until I caught covid from my school. If your colleagues are all breaking the rules I can imagine how frustrating that is. But from my experience colleagues that caught this virus were all actually working in unsafe conditions.

I am also confused as to how us becoming global pariahs was a better situation than Boris just cancelling Christmas.

I'm not really one for grassing colleagues who I generally get on very well with. Think I'll stick to sharing my frustration on anonymous chat forums.

That's a shame, because instead of doing something concrete about a situation which could actually pose a risk to real people in real life it just looks like you're trying to derail a discussion about safety in schools by clumsily trying again to blame teacher behaviour for school outbreaks. As you were

People are not perfect and don't follow rules 100% of the time.

If a situation relies on 100% compliance in order to be safe, it's not actually safe because that is unrealistic. E.g. some people still car share to work, because they have no other way of actually getting to work.

I also know of several schools (including my own) which have had students test positive but no staff, so I'm not sure how you explain that if it's all down to staff breaking rules.

Sansa we've had 3 staff positives and over 45 students so the, 'it's cos of them staff not being responsible and giving it to the kids who don't spread it' bs that people were trying to sell back in September didn't wash at our school. Nor the later, 'stay out of the staffroom that's where spread is happening' spin.

@SansaSnark

People are not perfect and don't follow rules 100% of the time.

If a situation relies on 100% compliance in order to be safe, it's not actually safe because that is unrealistic. E.g. some people still car share to work, because they have no other way of actually getting to work.

I also know of several schools (including my own) which have had students test positive but no staff, so I'm not sure how you explain that if it's all down to staff breaking rules.

I shouldn't bite but who said cases are all down to staff breaking rules?

@Sarcobaleno. Jennny Harries at some point in August/September explicitly said that spread of covid in schools would be down to staff mingling in the staff room. Utterly oblivious, of course, to the fact that staff rooms in most schools are places people pass through to fill up a water bottle....an assumption we sit and gossip for hours on end. Ignorant entirely of the ventilation issue in most classrooms in secondary schools and the fact many schools have closed staff rooms and have banned any kind of gathering isolating teachers at break and lunchtimes by default. In my school there is no longer a briefing either.

Our Staffroom is closed. Briefings and meetings are online. Most staff now get a packed lunch

Yep - it was a pretty widespread belief in the early part of term. Along with, children don't spread it and they're more at risk from staff than staff are from them.