NEU tells teachers not to go to work on Monday

[Workyticket]

skwawkbox.org/2021/01/02/breaking-union-tells-teachers-not-to-go-to-work-on-monday/

@ DrRamsesEmerson Do you think teachers are disposable?

There is a zoom meeting tomorrow for members to discuss this etc. It hasn't been confirmed yet. I really wish they would talk to us the members before leaking anything to the press etc. At the moment it seems to be aimed at primary teachers.

My DH teaches primary and really doesn't want to not be at work but at the same time he's really concerned that infection rates are just going to rocket.

The whole thing is a bloody mess.

Actually I don’t want the schools to close at all and yes I expect my children’s school to have them so I can have other key workers and all the vulnerable children (which there are lots at my school) . Unless you’d like my NHS worker husband to take time off...? As they’re his children too. So no, I do think I’m
being hypocritical at all.

Good. I fully support them.

Will the back office staff be put on furlough this time? I've 2 family members/friends- one admin in a school, one admin in councils education and libraries team. Both have had very very little to do when the schools were closed, yet were on full pay. One even called the first lockdown her unexpected paid career break.

Both found that when they went back into the office their workloads had lightened considerably as new processes (basically automating more processes so now she just has to check rather than manually do and check) had been put in place. One's a bit worried as she now hasn't enough to do but not too concerned as she says she 'can make herself look busy'. The other seems completely unconcerned and she used to say she was never that busy before!

Seems to me there's savings to be made via furlough and some modernisation of processes which could be reinvested across the piece

"NAHT’s policy position is clear: We want to see children in school. It is the best place for their education and their wider well-being. We understand that the government has been seeking to strike a balance between minimising the risk of transfer of COVID-19 and providing face-to-face education for all children.

However, the latest data shows that in large parts of the country, control of infection has been lost and the lack of understanding regarding the new strain has now created intolerable risk to many school communities.

We are calling upon government to remove people in schools from the physical harm caused by the current progress of the disease and to work with the profession and Public Health England to establish new protocols and interventions to make schools covid-secure."

So the NAHT are asking the government to work with teachers and PHE to ensure that school sites are as covid-safe as possible and, in the meantime, to continue providing education remotely.

It's shameful that it's needed things to get to a crisis point for this to reach the point of legal action. This was what teachers, unions and parents with any degree of common sense and foresight were asking for in the summer.

I understand what the union is saying and I do have sympathy for the teachers. My problem is that the work and contact received from my child’s teacher during the last lockdown was nothing short of appalling, even bearing in mind the difficult circumstances. We did our best to supplement this but we are not qualified teachers. The only contact we had from the teachers were pithy notices on the school Twitter account saying how much they were enjoying spending time in their gardens 🤷‍♀️ If there was proper online learning I would support this, but it seems that some schools are more able / willing to provide this than others.

bus drivers, prison officers, supermarket workers, pharmacists, care workers, vets, accommodation managers... all of whom would expect to come in to contact with 30+ people a day

Most of those are behind a screen/mask and come into contact with people for v short periods who are also nearly all wearing masks, rather than 30 different people every hour who are not wearing masks.

They need to be there. Perhaps restrictions are necessary. But they are key workers who need to be there. I have no respect for the teachers unions whatsoever anymore.

Of course teachers should be there.

With PPE.

With sufficient cleaning staff and equipment.

With additional heating paid for to allow windows to be open all the time

With additional space utilised to allow social distancing OR with restrictions on numbers entering the building.

With CEV staff in safer, non close contact piositions.

ie Under EXACTLY the same conditions as other key workers. Do we have any of those available? No.

@PaperHalo

Without meaning to be rude, have you been living under a rock?

The issue is not the number of contacts, the issue is time. Teachers are in small rooms with poor ventilation for 6 hours a day with 30 children a day. There is no social distancing, and no mask wearing. All the jobs you mention all have some form of protection in place - it might not be adequate, I totally get that - but there have at least been attempts at putting things in place to support people in keeping safe in work. All we have are masks in corridors in senior schools. And that’s not enforceable.

Moreover, we are unable to control what goes on outside school, so households mixing ensures that our indirect contact figures are more than likely into the thousands a day particularly if in senior school. On top of that, there is now an expectation that we oversee medical procedures on a daily basis and that children who are close contacts of k own cases no longer need to isolate.

It will cause teacher deaths and that is frightening but more frightening is the fact that community transmission is higher than it needs to be, impacting the NHS and our ability to get the medical care we need - not just for covid - has been removed. Closing schools will help us get back to a more comfortable place quickly - more quickly as the vaccine is rolled out as well.

@LaBStar

What a PP said:- What about?

bus drivers, prison officers, supermarket workers, pharmacists, care workers, vets, accommodation managers... all of whom would expect to come in to contact with 30+ people a day

Should all of these people stop work on full pay?

Teachers are key workers.

They need to be there. Perhaps restrictions are necessary. But they are key workers who need to be there. I have no respect for the teachers unions whatsoever anymore.

Would you be happy to remove all of the safety provisions that these groups have?

After all if teachers are expected to their job with no safety provision surely the named groups should do so as well?

If teachers are indeed keyworkers that need to be there, then the government should be pulling out all of the stops to make sure that it happens and not spreading the bullshit that schools are safe.

It's not coming into contact with 30+ people a day, though is it- it's sitting in a crowded room with them all day, which is slightly different.

But equally, if any other group wanted to use this legislation to refuse to work, I'd support them.

If we all walked out for one day, it might make the government sit up and take note.

I’m failing to under what is so horrifying about expecting teachers to continue to work... like bus drivers, prison officers, supermarket workers, pharmacists, care workers, vets, accommodation managers... all of whom would expect to come in to contact with 30+ people a day?
Should all of these people refuse to go to work too? And expect to continue to receive 100% of their pay

Why do you think they are limiting numbers on buses and in shops,have you noticed those perspex screens round the checkouts.

At my local pharmacy they only allow two customers in at a time, you have to stand behind a line so you aren't too close to the counter, there is a perspex screen, they wear aprons, masks, visors, gloves, just like schools really isn't it?

If there was proper online learning I would support this, but it seems that some schools are more able / willing to provide this than others.

Proper online learning has been mandatory from October. All schools are prepared to deliver online learning, though its effectiveness will be limited by the Government's failure to roll out devices to the disadvantaged, and their very short notice decisions over the last few days.

@PinkFondantFancy

The hypocricy if teachers are willing to send their kids in to be cared for by someone if they're not willing to go onto schools themselves is staggering. 'But it's socially distanced' is a figleaf.

I assume if teachers are off they would keep their own kids at home. Something needs to be done I can’t cope with this dragging on any longer. Let the teachers get on with it and stand their ground.

@UnshakenNeedsStirring, what a stupid question. I don’t think anyone is “disposable”. I do think teachers are key workers and need to get on with it, in the same way that NHS staff and care workers have had to (and in the early days, those groups had to see Covid patients with no or inadequate PPE, so by your logic they ought to have downed tools and gone home on full pay).

Someone asked if that was just primaries or special schools too?

Statement says continue to provide support for vulnerable children.

Therefore special schools will remain open as they've been told to do since September. They had separate guidance basically saying not to close whatever happens.

Do those of you whining about other professions not realise that teachers have literally no PPE? So guaranteed exposure if someone in the class had covid?
All the other groups have visors, screens, masks etc.

@FrippEnos

PaperHalo

Firstly no one has refused to work.
The unions are proposing that work is done remotely.
Secondly, teachers have very few of the safety provisions that those in your post have.

The thing is my mum died yesterday, of COViD, on a COViD ward. We were allowed to visit her in her final days once it was clear that she would not make it. The staff on the wards wore masks, plastic pinny style gowns and gloves (as did we). I believe teachers could and should be provided with the same to wear if they choose to do so. I myself am an accommodation manager and come in to contact with with a good number of people each day as well as having to enter homes to check various things. I wear a mask and I wash my hands often. How much more protection do people in favour of keeping schools closed think should be offered? And how much of a difference do they think it would make?

@mrjuno

Crack on, my sister in law teaches her own class and she hasn’t even got a GCSE to her name. (Academy school). This is how much “education”has moved on in 20 years.

Similarly, I have now been given a timetable for year six, on my own. Not every lesson of course, but far too many in my opinion. I started as a TA a few weeks ago, i have no fucking clue what I am doing but I need the money. Woefully unqualified but I do have a pulse so apparently that’s enough now.

At last, so sorry for the way teachers have been treated.

[quote DrRamsesEmerson]@UnshakenNeedsStirring, what a stupid question. I don’t think anyone is “disposable”. I do think teachers are key workers and need to get on with it, in the same way that NHS staff and care workers have had to (and in the early days, those groups had to see Covid patients with no or inadequate PPE, so by your logic they ought to have downed tools and gone home on full pay).[/quote]
Yeah. They should have done.

I think PPE would have been found very quickly, then.

I also do think nurses and care workers have different choices to make compared to teachers- but I think had nurses even threatened to walk out in the early days of the pandemic, they would have been treated a lot better.

@Jamjar77

I understand what the union is saying and I do have sympathy for the teachers. My problem is that the work and contact received from my child’s teacher during the last lockdown was nothing short of appalling, even bearing in mind the difficult circumstances. We did our best to supplement this but we are not qualified teachers. The only contact we had from the teachers were pithy notices on the school Twitter account saying how much they were enjoying spending time in their gardens 🤷‍♀️ If there was proper online learning I would support this, but it seems that some schools are more able / willing to provide this than others.

As a teacher I would agree with you that that is unacceptable. The only defence I could give would be that the short notice and lack of infrastructure available in some schools meant that they were very unprepared.

The secondary I work at is very modern and tech savvy, so we did (in my opinion) a really good job. Thought I have to say that engagement with it wasn't great. I think schools this time would really have no excuse not to achieve a higher benchmark for the quality of home learning because closures have been a likely prospect for the whole of last term.

Lastly, I think there needs to be some understanding that parents have very different expectations. Simultaneously we were getting complaints for setting too much work and placing undue stress on families, as well as complaints that we weren't setting enough.

@PaperHalo

I’m failing to under what is so horrifying about expecting teachers to continue to work... like bus drivers, prison officers, supermarket workers, pharmacists, care workers, vets, accommodation managers... all of whom would expect to come in to contact with 30+ people a day? Should all of these people refuse to go to work too? And expect to continue to receive 100% of their pay?

All those people wear masks, and all the people they deal with do, too. (Though I can't be sure about prison officers who I think have a terrible job)

The things is, at present we're getting more than 50,000 cases a day. While kids are at home. When they're all back in school with a new variant of the virus that spreads MUCH more easily, those case numbers are going to double or worse within days.

Opening schools without testing for all age groups or making masks compulsory for pupils, is simply madness at this point.

As long as teachers are ok not getting paid.