Teachers/TAs - what can we do?

[Khara]

Ok - so as a primary school TA of a certain age (over 50) and overweight ( in the obese but not morbidly obese category) I am understandably nervous of going back to work next week in a newly tier 4 area.

My family, to whom I rant about these things, have said you need to stand up for yourself/do something. But what?

My dh says I need to complain to the Heath and safety executive. He says the risk-assessment provided by my school isn't worth the paper it's written on. (He works in the chemical industry and has been on courses about writing risk assessments.) Apparently it should include an actual numerically calculated risk. He has done some research and calculated my risk of death in the workplace as 1:400. The Health and Safety executive say that any risk lower than 1:1000000 is unacceptable.

Have any other teachers/TAs (especially in primary atm) considered actually complaining

I wouldn't be giving his maths all that much headspace tbh. It seems very 'back of fag packet' and very different to the recognised stats.

I'm an hlta, younger than you at 40 but a bit fat. I'm looking forward to going back and am not that concerned.

@Walkaround

Data from late November onwards would be most useful - 50% of the staff at the school I work in managed to get covid in that time.

Yes I agree the same time lots of us caught it in my class / school.

October - November was crunch point at my school.

Hopefully we are all now carrying some immunity.
I'm hoping so as I'm now out of my '90 days' period and my new hypertension just adds another notch to the clinically vulnerable category for me.

To follow up on my last with links, there's a discussion of the difference between IFR and CFR at www.cebm.net/covid-19/the-declining-case-fatality-ratio-in-england/. CFR has been consistently dropping, partly because more mild cases are being diagnoses, and partly as treatments improve. Only the latter is a real drop in actual risk.

Your calculations also assume that the risk that any individual in the class is infected is the same as the infection rate in your area. In practice, this risk is (should be!) significantly lower because symptomatic children/children who are contacts of symptomatic and positive people are (should be!) kept out of the classroom.

You have also assumed that the risk of your wife catching covid if one child in the class is positive is 100%. I haven't been able to track down data on this, but the secondary attack rate in households is 16.6% jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774102 (download PDF). Yes, the two situations are not comparable, but I don't see why it should be 100% in a classroom when it is very much less in a household.

Finally, you have assumed that obesity increases risk of dying five-fold. Whilst obesity is a risk factor, I don't see any evidence that the increase is that high, particularly given that many in the relevant age range will already be obese - that risk is to some extent already factored in.

(THis is why I hate numeric risk assessments. They look great but they're very often based on sand and supposition.)

And it's all irrelevant: if the government have assessed it as safe and laid down guidance, the head teacher is not going to set that aside because a TA's husband thinks it too risky.

@Motorina - you’re wrong about symptomatic children being kept off, because children often don’t get the adult symptoms. We had loads of children being sent into school with tummy pain, headaches, low appetite, sore throats, fatigue, a few that vomited while in school. Parents who need to work will send their kids in with all sorts of symptoms, including coughs.

And it's all irrelevant: if the government have assessed it as safe and laid down guidance, the head teacher is not going to set that aside because a TA's husband thinks it too risky.

The government have not “assessed it as safe” they have merely asserted it is safe, and schools have parroted this assertion.

I don’t think it’s particularly safe, but I do get that schools are vital and need to be kept open as a priority if at all possible. I’m willing to accept an increased risk as a result - up to a point. If only vital resources were funded as such and the risks more widely acknowledged, so as to encourage more responsible behaviour.

[quote Walkaround]@Motorina - you’re wrong about symptomatic children being kept off, because children often don’t get the adult symptoms. We had loads of children being sent into school with tummy pain, headaches, low appetite, sore throats, fatigue, a few that vomited while in school. Parents who need to work will send their kids in with all sorts of symptoms, including coughs.[/quote]
I know, hence the "should be" I put each time. Parents are idiots and plenty of kids will be coming in who shouldn't be. But plenty are beign kept off - we know that from all the threads on here where people are upset about "His 4th isolation this term".

And if even 50% of those who should be kept off are, then it reduces the headline 1:400 risk to 1:800. That's before all the other errors that, cumulatively, mean this calculation isn't worth the fag packet it's written on.

@HipTightOnions

And it's all irrelevant: if the government have assessed it as safe and laid down guidance, the head teacher is not going to set that aside because a TA's husband thinks it too risky.

The government have not “assessed it as safe” they have merely asserted it is safe, and schools have parroted this assertion.

Well, yes. But in terms of what the OP can do about it it comes to the same thing.

I say this as someone who thinks schools should be closed right now, because the risk is unacceptably high. But poor maths based on poor assumptions is not going to get the school the OP works at closed when the government says that they should be open.

The trouble is that it will be headteachers who will be screwed over by people going off sick/resigning. Nothing will cause upset for the DFE unless on a large scale.

Basically, I want my kids in school, having as normal a life as possible, because they’ll never get these years back. If I want my kids in school, then obviously I have to accept the risk of working in a school myself. I deeply resent the lack of adequate funding to maintain even basic safety measures, though, and the pathetic list of symptoms which justify insisting that a parent should not send their child into school while unwell.

Ah, I see dh has stuck his oar in. (You see what I have to put up with!)

I think what irks him the most is that no one has assessed anything as safe in any meaningful way. You can't even get hold of data to see how many teachers/TAs have died of this thing. The data they use to say school staff aren't at risk comes from a time when schools were only open to a small number of pupils and is totally irrelevant to schools operating now.

What doesn't fill me with confidence is the posters on here who say that 50% or even 3/4 of their staff caught COVID from school last term. It seems pretty likely that I'll get it at some point. And my risk of death is apparently at least 3x more due to obesity. That doesn't factor in other health issues. I would definitely be one of those "with underlying conditions" deaths even though I don't have any conditions on the CV or ECV lists.

I just want to know why it is acceptable that I (and all the other school staff in a similar position) are put at risk in this way?

Oh, and I also think it’s idiotic to have any tier 4 schools return as normal on 4 January. I think it would be much more sensible from a health and safety perspective to delay the return for all schools until 11 January, to give time to see what is happening with post-Christmas and New Year figures and in hospitals. Opening primary schools on 4 January is for childcare and because it’s too late to establish updated lists of essential workers and vulnerable children, so everyone has to go back.

Get signed off with stress, OP. I wish all school staff would. That would concentrate the minds of the government.

Your health is more important than them keeping their promises by risking your health. Go sick.

@Khara - the irony is, you may have had it already, for all you know. The 30% of people thought to get it asymptomatically is not limited to people in the groups at lowest risk of complications and death, it seems to be spread across the population in all age groups/linked to genetics/linked to previous infections with similar viruses/who knows what or why.

OP, why are you working this year? The pay isn't high. Can your family cope without the money? Give your notice, or get signed off sick. Get the vaccine and then go back if you feel it is less risky.
Talking about risk assessments and government policy is a waste of your time. You are choosing to work among the community during a pandemic, yet you feel you are at a risk of death due to obesity and other risk factors. Don't do it.

I am going to sit at my desk by the open window and not walk round my class at all. I am going to tell my TAs not to work next to children ( or at least give them the choice, I won’t ask them to do something I’m not happy about doing myself.) Just going to try and minimise my risks in a bad situation.

I’ve been signed off with anxiety since September. However, I do have long term mental health problems anyway, but Covid is a step too far for me. I’m now going for ill health retirement, but there were lots of issues before Covid which are clearly documented by my gp.

Another member of staff has just become increasingly anxious due to Covid, and is off sick. For those of us with mental health issues who work in schools the whole thing has been horrendous.

Section 44 is your best bet. Or get signed off. I’m seeing a psychiatrist. His caseload is mainly teachers and NHS staff.

And l miss my classes and colleagues😢

We won't be self isolating after someone in our "bubble" tests positive. We'll be in school as usual, us and the children, testing daily with the lateral flow tests. That is the bit that worries me.

Your calculations also assume that the risk that any individual in the class is infected is the same as the infection rate in your area.

But actually it's higher - the infection rate in primary and secondary school age groups is far higher than community levels based on the latest data.

Unsurprisingly as they're the only group of people allowed to mix indoors in large numbers without masks.

@cardibach

It's also worth noting that by ONS figures, the first wave did not show any higher death rates for teachers than for other white collar workers, it was people like hairdressers and factory workers who were far more affected I’m so sick of this, *@OverTheRubicon* In the first wave teachers worked from home. It’s really an irrelevant stat now. And for some reason the government refuse to release the data from this last term...but I’m sure it still says the same, despite the secrecy....

Those statistics were also challenged and disputed by academics such as the mathematician Dr Sarah Rasmussen of Cambridge University who believes that the figures had been presented in such a way by the ONS as to allow the government avoid admitting that teachers are actually more at risk. She took her complaint to the UK statistics authority.

I also think that - whatever the risks - there is a difference between a workplace that takes basic, easy safety measures and one that doesn't.

On a building site there's a chance of falling bricks etc. So people wear hard hats. Would you work on a site that told everyone they shouldn't wear hard hats because it impeded bricklaying?

It's a failure of the most basic of protections and a breach of trust. Teachers and TAs should be wearing masks - not only will it reduce transmission they've been shown to also reduce viral load - increased viral load = more severe disease.

I'd say to TAs and teachers, get signed off if you need to but if you don't please wear a mask. I know it's still, bizarrely, against DfE guidance. I know you shouldn't have to go it alone. It's shit but it will protect you, not just those you teach.

Do something about your weight of it is causing concern
Wear a face mask or visor
All classes should be regularly cleaning the class tables door handles etc when the kids are out the class

So many TA's resigning, so many local job adverts. Unprecedented.
Last TA recruitment drive, just 5 applicants, 3 withdrew before interview, the appointed person - a teacher wanting to reduce her hours in schools.

Schools are going to grind to a halt. Isolation, illness, departures and in the midst of it redundancies because school budgets are so much in deficit.

You could be 'in isolation' OP for 10 days, perhaps by then your school will be closed anyway.

You could work with your union.

If your school is maintained you could contact your LA, we have a health and safety team of advisers working with schools. ( your trust if an academy)

You could complain to your governors or at least meet with them to raise H&S issues.(again trust for an academy)

You should be complaining to your MP and asking for numbers related to deaths/illness in schools. We are too accepting as a group of education professionals. I've dealt with the death of a TA, no underlying health issues. Devastating.
I've dealt with staff transmitting COVID by car sharing for minutes.
I've dealt with school closures where so many staff are in isolation, PHE deeming that contact was too close.

The more people who raise issues the better.