Are we being primed for all schools to close next week?

[Lemons1571]

All I can see on Sky News and the BBC is that the “teaching unions are telling the government that all schools must be closed NOW”. Don’t usually see the media reporting this unless the government want to get us used to the idea.

Why else do doctors wear them?

Well normally, I think doctors wear them during operations etc to protect their patients from them. Nowadays, they wear them to protect their patients from them and their patients wear masks too to protect the doctor.

@ByersRd

Does it seem like NEU are preparing to instruct members not to teach in person next week? Seems like industrial action is brewing. Hope all neu members get on the meeting this weekend to show solidarity and stand up for their colleagues and the children in their care

I hope the NEU don't do this, not because I think teachers should be in school but because it gives the government and the public someone to blame.
Blame the teachers, blame the unions when it is the government who should be forced to take the difficult decisions.

We've been blamed for months already so what does it matter? Might as well live up to our reputation and protect ourselves.

Yes Covid had made me extremely selfish.

@LacyEdge

It’s really irritating that they’re attributing it to teaching unions. Teachers are only asking for schools to be made safe. It’s parents like me who are saying close them now. They’re spinning it as a lazy teachers thing again and it really isn’t fair or accurate. Sorry you’re dealing with this shit yet again, teachers.

Thank you

@IEat

Sounds like my school! Pink cleaning spray is like heroin.. we’re all addicted to it

Yep! We labelled our bottle and if it goes missing I go hunting. “Who took the spray from Class 2? Let me see your spray bottle - I can see if it’s mine, I won’t take yours. Where is it? I’m starting to get agitated now and that’s not good for anyone so just hand it over....”

This Govt - ALL the way through this crisis -

Wait until the majority of the public can see - from listening to the scientists and seeing what is going on around them - exactly what steps are needed to repress the virus - wait another 2 weeks, just to be sure we are behind the curve, and then rush those steps through (sufficiently watered down to minimise effectiveness) in the most chaotic way possible.

Useless.

"Give it back and we'll say no more about it."

@SaltyAF I feel, as you know, exactly the same.

I agree, but at no point during this has there been a ballot so no one has actually gone as far as finding out what the membership would do.

As for lateral flow tests, unless I’m being very dim, I cannot understand how this is going to help. Currently, PHE ask us to contact trace anyone who was in contact with a positive case in the 48hrs before symptoms started (as this is when they say you are most infectious, or if no symptoms, a positive test). Close contacts are anyone within 1m for 1 minute or 2m for 15 minutes. Indoors only, outdoor contact does not count.

So student A comes to school Monday morning and takes a lateral flow test. For the 30 minute wait they are in their class as normal. They test positive with no symptoms. They have been in a room for 30 minutes infecting those people, but those people are not sent home and then start to incubate. The following Friday, they test positive so their most infectious days were weds/thurs, but you don’t send those contacts home because you are lateral flow testing... I don’t see how that even limits the spread let alone halts it.

We have seen asymptomatic cases continue the spread because although contacts are isolating, siblings continue to come to school. You can map how it has moved around school, and mostly asymptomatic till it gets to an adult.

The numbers may say there are relatively few cases in primary schools- but that’s because kids are asymptomatic and so don’t get tested.

I want to be in school and I want my kids in school, but it’s a global pandemic and we are doing next to nothing to slow the spread- and keeping schools fully open will only accelerate it.

NAHT have started the first steps in legal proceedings against DfE. They are now awaiting Government's response.

@Macaroni46

As a primary teacher in a tier 4 area who is currently due in school on Monday I'd just like some notice of what I'm doing next week, so I can, you know, plan! Teaching online is very different to face to face and requires different preparation. Takes a lot of time to sort; it is not a case of simply moving existing plans online. A lot of my next week lessons are practical based which obviously wouldn't translate to online. Where possible, we try to avoid worksheets. I teach 5 year olds and moving lessons online for them is far from ideal but can be done given preparation time. I also believe that where possible young children need to be in school as their learning is so much more than lessons. So much of it is about social learning, sharing, turn taking etc and of course, they need adult supervision to access the online lessons set which is very hard to juggle for so many parents. Also, teaching is specialised. If every parent could do it, we wouldn't bother having schools. Don't really know what I'm waffling on about really! I suppose what I'm saying is: make a decision, stick with it and give us time to prepare. Please! This flip flopping around between are we open or not is really stressing me out (although we do remain open anyway to KW children and vulnerable so there's still a risk!)

Thanks for teaching through this. I agree with your point. I have a reception child, school is not just about phonics (which I can have a crack at, around my job or if grandparents help), it’s about the social skills. I do have genuine fears about what it means long term for children to miss out. I absolutely agree that teaching is specialised and should be done by trained teachers! .

@Kolo

I was trying to quote your post but failed god help me with google classrooms!

www.naht.org.uk/news-and-opinion/news/leadership-news/update-regarding-start-of-term-sent-to-members-on-2-jan-2021/

Guardian reporting Teaching Union threatening strike Monday:

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/02/government-faces-major-revolt-on-schools-reopening-in-england-over-covid-fears

@umpteennamechanges thank you

I suspect the meeting by the NEU taking place by executives are going to go the same route with legal proceedings.

Irre We had a school near us where loads of the parents started getting ill so got tested and had COVID, so several families got their children tested too even though the children weren’t showing symptoms. Most of the children’s tests were positive. They are as sure as they can be that it was going round the school, the children showed no symptoms but they took it home to families who were then ill.

Which backs up what you were saying.

from the Guardian link:

The government faces a major revolt from teachers over its plans to reopen schools, as the Observer understands the UK’s largest teaching union is poised to caution teachers not to return to their classrooms on Monday over safety fears.

The National Education Union (NEU), which represents the majority of teachers and more than 450,000 school staff in the UK, will inform its members that it is not safe for them to return to school until mid-January at the earliest.

It expects most of its members will follow its advice, forcing most schools to switch to online learning for the majority of their pupils.

Covid: current advice on reopening primary schools in England
Read more
The union will provide its members with a template letter to send to their headteachers, explaining that they are refusing to go into work because their workplace is unsafe, a right enshrined in law by section 44 of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Staff should still be prepared to work remotely, the union says, and should volunteer to look after vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers on school premises.

@AaronPurr
As I said those who are brave enough to copy in colour must have a death wish
This was me last day of term. Pressed print thinking I’d changed a 45 page document to black and white before I printed - oops hadn’t! Unfortunately for me, Head was at the printer photocopying when my document came through. I was summoned to the office 🤣😂

Guardian reporting Teaching Union threatening strike Monday:

Not a strike. A section 44 walkout, with teaching still provided remotely.

[quote Char2015]www.naht.org.uk/news-and-opinion/news/leadership-news/update-regarding-start-of-term-sent-to-members-on-2-jan-2021/[/quote]
Bloody hell. Government usually takes NAHT more seriously than NEU.

Well, we do live in interesting times...

@noblegiraffe

Guardian reporting Teaching Union threatening strike Monday:

Not a strike. A section 44 walkout, with teaching still provided remotely.

Sorry! Thanks Noble!

@TheLuckiest we do indeed.

I don't want them to close, but I think its going to be a lot of disruption in the next few months.
I'd rather be prepared now and have them of safe then worrying all the time over the virus and when they will be of isolating next.
From September to December my children have been of 5 times due to then having to have tests.
Then a few days before they broke up my dd secondary school had to close the whole school as to many teachers needed to self isolate.
Its just not sustainable.

Ire247

It's utter Maddness, gathering students together for a test! Why not send tests home to families.

Better than a Strike then as quicker to implement, maybe Gav thought over New Year there wasn’t time to challenge effectively?