Is there going to be any announcements today?

[ilikexmas]

I cannot see anything on the news.

@SnowGnome

Independent schools have the resources to provide the measures the government pretends state schools have.

State schools have no SPACE so even the basic 'hands face space' is a big fat lie in state schools.

People who pretend there is no disparity between state and independent are either lying or ignorant.

The NEU has told members not to go to work on Monday, so that is telling. I'm a retired teacher & still in the union - there will be a Zoom call for union members at 4pm.

I can't see the government avoiding the pressure to delay the opening of schools, as is the case now in London. The safety concerns are very real, and most of the other unions (NAHT (headteachers), NASUWT, and GMB (support staff) are also demanding delayed return and a proper plan to introduce better safety precautions.

I think schools will be letting parents know something today - I'd be very surprised if they didn't.

Unions have told local authorities that it is up to the head teachers and governors to decide whether the school opens if their school is in tier 4 but not in London. This is going to cause mayhem we have 6 schools in a 6 mile radius and all could be doing different things!

I just don't understand how they can think opening as they were last term won't be a catastrophe with all the information/data they have access to? Why not take action before more people die?

@lockeddownandcrazy

When you get propaganda that says 'lockdown kids forget how to use a knife and fork' you can see that schools are being used to provide free childcare and prop up poor parenting, rather than education.

Teachers aren't frontline for vaccines, children don't get them anyway, so the spreading will continue but the government doesn't care.

I was shocked at ofsted report about cutlery and regression into nappies.

This is social care and not education and a laments responsibility.

All I thought was government had rolled out their ofsted inspectors because they thought people would take more notice?
I was confused by the message as a reason to keep learning in classroom rather than online and rota bases of face to face learning.

If the government think for a minute that pupils in Tier 4 secondary schools can return en masse on 18 January, they have another think coming.

December I know it's the government not releasing the data? I'm not sure if you highlighted my post to question my knowledge or in response to OP?

I'm fully aware the government won't release data or the science behind opening up because it is contradictory to their stance.

What's criminal is the fact they get away with it

If the teachers don't strike in those circumstances, I'll organise a parent strike.

My childrens primary school has notified us there will be no school except for key worker and vunerable children probably for at least two weeks

Other local schools however have sent out emails reassuring parents they will open as usual

The government need to say something

Whatever he announces, he will reverse it and do the opposite less than a day later. Unless he's made a new year's resolution to start taking the job of PM seriously.

@Beebityboo

I just don't understand how they can think opening as they were last term won't be a catastrophe with all the information/data they have access to? Why not take action before more people die?

The honest answer is this particular government don't care if people die. They don't care who, and they don't care how many.

That has been obvious since the beginning.

They vaguely care about completely overwhelming the NHS because that will affect re-election 2024, as it would impact the 'most competent' question.

@THATbasicSNOWFLAKE what tier / area are you in? I haven’t heard of that around us, we are in v high prevalence T4 area outside London where schools aren’t yet set to close.

@inquietant I don’t want this thread either to be derailed or to turn nasty so I’m just not going to engage on the state v private debate any further. Especially as it seems that state schools and teachers are able to vote with their feet (as appears to be happening above) and how the govt deal with it, that’s the key thing to be focusing on.

@SnowGnome there's no need for you to turn nasty, I certainly wasn't going to.

The snidey remark about state teachers voting with their feet shows what you think clearly enough.

Teachers in state schools are facing serious risks, those in independent schools know nothing about it, hopefully if they listen they will learn something.

How much is the fine if we don't send our primary children back yet?

@HankMarvinjg technically his actions are manslaughter, I prefer to call him a serial killer.

I hope he is made very uncomfortable by Andrew Marr but doubt he will be, as the BBC is scared of the threat of decriminalisation of the licence fee.

@Peregrina he may make a New Year's resolution, but probably not keep it for very long.

@MinnieJackson

How much is the fine if we don't send our primary children back yet?

If you are fined, it is £60 per child per parent?

This of course is the other freedom in independent schools - you can excuse yourself.

We are Tier 4 but rates are relatively low for T4. The school was badly hit with Covid between Sept and Dec though.

The most recent advice from SAGE is that schools should not open in January other than for children of key workers and vulnerable children. This is because the scientific advice is that it is not safe for schools to open. There are new variants of Covid-19 that are highly infectious and infection rates have increased significantly since schools closed.
I appreciate that measures have been in place since September to allow the school to open but according to SAGE those measures may no longer be sufficient. They state in their most recent report: -
The introduction of Tier 4 measures in England combined with the school holidays will be informative of the strength of measures required to control the new variant but analysis of this will not be possible until mid-January.

So it appears where the horse has bolted they are following advice.

But they aren't taking preventative measures elsewhere or in fact "following the science" as they claim.

If you want to keep your kid off (and are in the advantages position you can) literally every kid has a cold at the moment -just keep them off pending a COVID test that you can’t get.

If unions are telling people not to go in to work so they have to (sorry I have no idea) or ring in sick.

Teachers need prioritising for the jab -yes over old people. 80 year olds can stay at home generally and sheiks. Teachers can’t. Schools are necessary to the running of the economy. I’m generally a Boris supporter but they really fucked up over this tbh

@inquietant that would be £120 for us that we don't have to spend on fines we all live with my mum and she has copd. I don't know what to do for the best. Hopefully there will be some definite news by this evening. We had an email from the head last night saying our area is in 'the eye of the storm' but we're tier 3, with the highest increase in cases

[quote MinnieJackson]@inquietant that would be £120 for us that we don't have to spend on fines we all live with my mum and she has copd. I don't know what to do for the best. Hopefully there will be some definite news by this evening. We had an email from the head last night saying our area is in 'the eye of the storm' but we're tier 3, with the highest increase in cases [/quote]
If your school.opens Monday can you not say the children are ill?

It is a disgrace people are in this position.

Words can't really express how I am today.

While the briefings themselves are piffle waffle nonsense (and probably Saint Boris's personal highlight of the week, because he gets to play the clown for a few minutes, in the boring job of being PM), one good thing about all this is that the government is being forced to do something about their own mess.

If the government deliberately exaggerated the new strain of the virus (which I strongly suspect they did, to scare people into not mixing at Christmas), their crying wolf is coming back to bite them. We had the border issues, and now the teaching unions are taking the governments placard waving "Ooooooooooooh, the virus just got a whole lot more deadly!" seriously. Also, I think the government chose now to announce the school closures, while people were still in "holiday mood". If they had announced it before Christmas, people would probably have rebelled angrily by mixing over Christmas.

The public mood is fickle: right now, they are screaming "Close the schools!", and Boris's main strategy seems to be to do whatever he thinks the public wants. After a lack of school for a week or two or three, people might then start pleading for the opposite to happen; the government will do their U-turn, and a handpicked scientist will be bribed into saying "actually, having observed it, the new strain is not as bad as we thought. Back to school!"

@itsgettingweird And yes, it's the way the government is hiding everything, gaslighting, and lying that is really criminal, and that's what we really need to be getting angry about. That fight needs to go on after the pandemic has eased: that what we're really angry about is the deception behind everything. If their campaign wasn't so full of lies and doublespeak, I would have respected lockdown much more. And I still haven't forgiven Bliar for lying about weapons of mass destruction. That's the bigger issue: why do tolerate so much deception by the government, whose wages we pay?? Ordinary people get sent to prison for lying about much less (e.g. who was driving a speeding a car).

@inquietant yes I think I will but would have to be something like d&v so we don't have to get tests, which would give us about 3 days I think