How many teachers will be handing in the section 44 letter tomorrow and not going in?

[SoscaredforJan]

My DSis is scared to go to work tomorrow in a private primary school in Tier 3 but lowish numbers. She is not ECV but has got chemo damaged lungs so it petrified of catching Covid.

She desperately wants to follow union advice and not go in tomorrow but she’s worried that most teachers will be in as normal, she will have a black Mark against her and will be quietly pushed out.

Are there many teachers on here planning not to go in tomorrow? What do you think will happen tomorrow?

@FrippEnos - gotta say I agree with you :(

manicinsomniac

How can secondary schools have been told it's not an acceptable level of risk to work in an empty classroom.

In the same way that you should not be working in an empty office building.

On the same note, if someone is informed that you are there and check up on you then it may not be a problem.

But then I suspect that this is why, the NEU are currently aiming their advice at primary schools and not secondary.

Although secondary school will be in the same position from next week onwards.

I was going to add the tire 4 directive but AppleKatie has beaten me to it.

BungleandGeorge

Employees aren’t entitled to a choice of workplace, they are entitled to a risk assessment and safety measures

and it clear that the government has implemented very few safety measures and actively blocked others,

But how does the union want the teachers away from school for? Months isn’t realistic, not every parent is a key worker.

[quote mumsneedwine]@BatteredHake can you tell that to the families an children of my 2 colleagues. That they were not 'at risk' of Covid. One ran the London marathon last year and the other was a wild water swimmer. They are both now dead. From a Covid. Get your facts straight before you talk crap. [/quote]
Those are both tragedies. However, they don't in themselves prove anything. The two people I know who have had Covid are both in their 80s. One had a bad cough for about a month afterwards, but wasn't particularly ill. The other had two days of feeling as if she had quite bad flu, but then bounced back.

None of these individual stories tells anyone anything much. The same stories could be told of meningitis, TB, flu (yes), Measles, etc, etc, etc. Some people are massively unlucky, and others are surprisingly lucky.

I was a teacher, and I wasn't in a union because I wasn't willing to be lumped together with people with whom I disagreed on many points that mattered to me, a lot.

If I were a teacher now, I would be going in, and I would refuse to have anything to do with Section 44. If there are children who need teaching, my job would be to teach them.

@TwentyTwentyOne

I work as a key worker. I get a free mask and some hand gel. That's it. I don't think my secondary teachers are more exposed than I am. If my child's GCSE's are disrupted further by the very people meant to and paid to help them I'll be livid. I'm more than happy to say well if it's too dangerous for them, it's too dangerous for me. What's more I've worked all lockdown for the past 10 months whilst teachers have worked Sept to Dec with at least a month of that off.

Also my 2 DC are at a private school. If they teach my DC online then I'll demand a lot of the fees are refunded. They can't justify those fees.

If you are a vulnerable teacher then you
should be supported to stay home. Otherwise, just like the rest of us KEY WORKERS, crack on with it.

Honestly I'm more than happy to hack my job in. If I have to concentrate more on my kids because of this then there is NO WAY I am putting myself at risk for others either.

So already you get one more thing (two in some cases) more things than teachers.

Are your clients/patients/colleagues also wearing masks? If so, that’s three more things.

Are you in a room with at least 30 other un-masked people at less than 1m distance for more than an hour at a time several times a day?

But you are allowed to go to work in Tier 4 if you can't work from home. And that would include your employer requiring you to go in, as long as they have good reason. And there are good, safeguarding and practical reasons for why many schools prefer their teachers in school. Even in the last lockdown, more and more teachers needed to be on site as it progressed. And the need is determined by the head, not the teacher.

What would happen if every single prison officer or prison staff member decided to not go to work tomorrow as they personally don't feel safe?

It's selfish of teachers to keep stating they are the only "key workers" being made to go into work when covid is in such high numbers. There are 10's of other professions, including the prison service, probation, police, SOCIAL WORKERS, who are still working because we have to.

Teachers should be in work too, end of conversation.

@BungleandGeorge

From a safeguarding point of view I think it is much safer to live teach from the controlled environment of a school classroom. For so many reasons. And having just 4 TAs teaching 120 students with no back up staff/ teachers in school doesn’t sound particularly safe. Unless you’re over 60/ have health conditions/ using public transport I think you’re being unreasonable. Employees aren’t entitled to a choice of workplace, they are entitled to a risk assessment and safety measures

A rota system for teaching staff would mean no TAs need to teach KW classes. None at all. And that's the system we had back in March, when a member of teaching staff would lead the class while a TA was there for support. A member of SLT would be on-site in an office and someone would be on reception. Even if we had double that number of people in at once, the majority would still be safely working from home. No one would be in full time and everyone's risk would be minimised.

As for safeguarding, I can't see a difference as long as a tight policy and appropriate procedures are in place. I've been teaching online for a while, that's not an issue for me or many other teaching professionals in all parts of education who are already doing it. Again, I don't see a reason the choice can't be there.

But how does the union want the teachers away from school for? Months isn’t realistic, not every parent is a key worker

Woah, who said months? I don't support the unions' stance but we're talking about 2 weeks here, not months!

I have no idea why I have to go in to work tomorrow.

Instead of delivering my lessons from home, I will be moving from empty classroom to empty classroom, using the same computer the person who has just vacated the rooms has used and mingling with the other 200 members of staff.

@netflixandmixedgrill

What would happen if every single prison officer or prison staff member decided to not go to work tomorrow as they personally don't feel safe?

It's selfish of teachers to keep stating they are the only "key workers" being made to go into work when covid is in such high numbers. There are 10's of other professions, including the prison service, probation, police, SOCIAL WORKERS, who are still working because we have to.

Teachers should be in work too, end of conversation.

My colleague’s daughter is a prison officer. The same colleague organises for our engineers to go into origins to work.

He reckons that the prisoners are more at risk from Covid from the officers/other staff than vice versa.

He says his daughter would not work there if she didn’t feel safe.

@netflixandmixedgrill

What would happen if every single prison officer or prison staff member decided to not go to work tomorrow as they personally don't feel safe?

It's selfish of teachers to keep stating they are the only "key workers" being made to go into work when covid is in such high numbers. There are 10's of other professions, including the prison service, probation, police, SOCIAL WORKERS, who are still working because we have to.

Teachers should be in work too, end of conversation.

How many of these are stuck in 1 room with 30 of their service users and no ppe for 6 hours a day?

@netflixandmixedgrill

What would happen if every single prison officer or prison staff member decided to not go to work tomorrow as they personally don't feel safe?

It's selfish of teachers to keep stating they are the only "key workers" being made to go into work when covid is in such high numbers. There are 10's of other professions, including the prison service, probation, police, SOCIAL WORKERS, who are still working because we have to.

Teachers should be in work too, end of conversation.

Well, let's compare what would happen if those prison officers didn't show up, versus what would happen if teachers delivered their lessons online.

Situation 1: Prisoners don't get fed or taken care of.

Situation 2: Students get slightly subpar education.

@manicinsomniac the NEU has close to 500,000 members. They lost a few thousand during covid, but gained over 50,000. So I wouldn't say they don't represent teachers.

I also think that demanding safe workplaces for your members makes them militant

@netflixandmixedgrill

What would happen if every single prison officer or prison staff member decided to not go to work tomorrow as they personally don't feel safe?

It's selfish of teachers to keep stating they are the only "key workers" being made to go into work when covid is in such high numbers. There are 10's of other professions, including the prison service, probation, police, SOCIAL WORKERS, who are still working because we have to.

Teachers should be in work too, end of conversation.

Are teachers trying to claim we're the only ones going to work? I've not seen any do so, and surely these would be dismissed as batshit given it's pretty damn obvious.

5 million people mix in schools every day (plus onward mixing to families). We should all be concerned about this during a national pandemic when we are doing everything feasible to stop spread. Not saying this means they should be closed, but it is really poor to think "I have to go to work, so you should too" without actually considering the consequences.

I have a lot of sympathy with prison officers, but if you can't isolate people from the outside community in a prison, where can you isolate them?

netflixandmixedgrill

Posting

End of

Actually reduced the validity of your point.

@Beautifulbonnie

Are the private school teachers covered by the unions? Or is that just state school teachers?

Yes we are but the school can choose not to recognise the union.

My Best friend is a nurse, she has been on a COVID ward for since May, Her Husband dropped down dead in front of her one day, he hadn't been ill so she was shocked to the core. The NHS were so kind and let her have 11 days off. Her elderly Mother was rushed into I.C.U with COVID, my friend wasn't allowed leave to go and see her. My dear friend is on anti depressants, she can't sleep, she is still in shock over her DHs death, She misses her Mum, she is petrified of catching COVID and she has nightmares about the awful painful deaths of her patients but she will still go to work tomorrow for a 12 hour shift and she will go the next and the next and the next. She doesn't have the luxury of saying i don't want to. She would never forgive herself for not doing her job.

@manicinsomniac

But you are allowed to go to work in Tier 4 if you can't work from home. And that would include your employer requiring you to go in, as long as they have good reason. And there are good, safeguarding and practical reasons for why many schools prefer their teachers in school. Even in the last lockdown, more and more teachers needed to be on site as it progressed. And the need is determined by the head, not the teacher.

They might require or prefer it. If they can't demonstrate that their premises are safe and covid compliant the employee is perfectly entitled to invoke a44 and work remotely and/or with reduced numbers of pupils.

How awful for her, Lowland.

You have to understand, teachers are threatening to stay home because they think it's the right thing to do for the whole country, not because they think it's the right thing to do for them.

The carriers have aircraft.

One would hope so...

www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2020/06/28/britain-spent-so-much-on-two-giant-aircraft-carriers-it-cant-afford-planes-or-escorts/?sh=4ea3d9875bcc

@LowlandLucky

My Best friend is a nurse, she has been on a COVID ward for since May, Her Husband dropped down dead in front of her one day, he hadn't been ill so she was shocked to the core. The NHS were so kind and let her have 11 days off. Her elderly Mother was rushed into I.C.U with COVID, my friend wasn't allowed leave to go and see her. My dear friend is on anti depressants, she can't sleep, she is still in shock over her DHs death, She misses her Mum, she is petrified of catching COVID and she has nightmares about the awful painful deaths of her patients but she will still go to work tomorrow for a 12 hour shift and she will go the next and the next and the next. She doesn't have the luxury of saying i don't want to. She would never forgive herself for not doing her job.

This is really really shit. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

But you seem to think that because one profession is working in shit circumstances, we all should be. Thankfully, we have legislation to avoid that.