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?

I fully support the NEU. It is not a strike. Schools will open for the children of key workers and those who are vulnerable. In some schools this could be 50% of pupils. Teachers who have invoked S44 will be in school then, teaching children who are physically there and also managing home learning. This is a far less easy option than just teaching your whole class, but it provides slightly more potential to maintain distancing and hand and nose / mouth hygiene.

Schools operating at normal capacity cannot possibly be Covid secure and teachers know that and they know even with reduced numbers in, there is still considerable risk. They just want the government to do the one thing left that could slow down transmission

@EYProvider

I own a nursery and I’m so relieved that the unions have no influence over early years workers.

What an absolute disgrace this whole Section 44 threat is. If everyone walked out of work because of Section 44 - doctors, nurses, shop workers, electricity supply workers, the list is endless - the whole country would come to a stop and then we would really know what a public health crisis was.

This is really dangerous trouble making, but quite honestly, it’s just what you’d expect from the nasty, vitriolic teaching unions.

I hope every teacher who does this gets sacked.

My nursery will be open and it will stay open, and thank God, the unions haven’t got their claws into my staff. They actually want to work.

I hope you are protecting your employees properly and providing them with PPE. If not, you've spectacularly missed the point.

@Whatelsecouldibecalled

Poor form to go against a union directive. Have to stand solidly for union to work effectively. The head union has taken legal action do I would hope heads support the move

Exactly. You shouldn’t be able to pick and choose which benefits you are afforded by a Union.

@OverTheRainbowLiesOz

I regard it as government mandated manslaughter.

This is a disgusting comment.

@Tryingtokeepgoing

If they do, I hope that all customer facing supermarket and delivery staff do the same...they’re at as least as much, if not more, risk than teachers given that they’re exposed to more people, and there’s no record of who they’ve been exposed to. Perhaps that’d help them see who else is an essential worker!!

What absolute bollocks. I haven't been anywhere near a delivery driver and have had loads of deliveries. They knock and leave. They certainly aren't in a small closed space with 6 lots of 30 different individuals six times a day without any PPE. FFS.

Supermarkets, limit the number of people in, have PPE, have perspex screens to keep them away from people, generally in a larger space. My local co-op is LARGER than any of the classrooms I teach in and is allowed LESS people in at any one time.

As a parent of a primary and secondary school child I fully stand with teachers on this. It is a disgrace they are expected to work in close proximity with so many children in such a small space with no PPE.

I teach adults. In the March lockdown everything went on line, no exceptions, no face to face visits or teaching, all zoom. As things gradually started easing I was given the choice in conjunction with the managers of the various settings/workplaces as to whether we stayed on line or I went in. Wherever I went in I wore a mask, had a large ventilated room and never saw more than 2 people at a time.

I have also just started group classroom teaching again which cannot be delivered on line. We have a stringent risk assessment in place with no more than 10 to a classroom which is the same size as my primary DS classroom (there are 35 children in there). Again I wear a mask and the learners are given the choice, most do. Why am I so protected and teachers are not? It’s disgraceful. All of my work in workplaces has gone back to fully remote no exceptions and i m waiting to find out what will be happening with our classroom delivery. I have a lot of friends who also teach adults and the safety measures are the same across the board regardless of the company they work for.

I wish the news would stop announcing underlying conditions stats. It could be mild asthma or a slightly underactive thyroid. Pretty much everyone over a certain age has something. The denial brigade love to shout about underlying conditions because the subtext is always “See, they were on their last legs already”, but that’s far from true in many (most?) cases.

My DH is in the NASUWT and their email says DON'T refuse to attend the workplace. He's just had a call from his Head asking him to swap his PPA tomorrow, so I assume some NEU members must have said they aren't coming in.

Lets hope the police, supermarket workers, health workers, bus drivers etc etc dont all take the same approach. I dont see that working in a school is vastly more dangerous than these professions and for the younger with no health conditions they may not get ill at all or have flu at worst

@LacyEdge

The ONS definition of underlying conditions only includes those that make you more vulnerable to COVID.

@manicinsomniac

An awful lot of teachers have left the NEU over the Covid stance. They're just too militant and don't speak for the majority of their members.

My school is closed despite being in a tier 4, non closure area because the head thinks it's too risky. I am not in support of this but obviously have no choice. If my school was open, I certainly wouldn't support strike action. But I'm in NASUWT who aren't, I don't think, recommending that teachers not go in without headteacher support.

In a private school, I'd be very wary. Unions and striking don't go down well, generally.

So much misinformation in one post.

An unprecedented number of staff have joined the NEU over the last week - they membership has massively increased.

No union is advocating strike action anyway.

NASUWT are also telling their members to not return unless employers have updated their risk assessments and can show their workplaces are safe. They are calling for remote education for all along with the majority of unions and scientific advisors.

The school I work in is supporting staff to work at home if they really don't want to come in. We are London so no children will be in. Apart from keyworkers' etc.

Mass testing of staff starts tomorrow

Thanks for your reply op. So your sister hopes to stay off work on pay until at earliest the summer term this year, or work from home? She has mitigating circumstances; being classed as vulnerable but she should take advice from her union on this.

She may well be "managed out" of her role, I don't know. It's all a mess for a lot of people.

"I know I’d be bullied out if I did."
Surely thats the point of a union?
Safety in numbers.
If you all send the letter they cant bully you all out.

From a personal, selfish point of view, I want only child DS4 to attend school as normal because he desperately needs the social interaction. We’re in part of North Wales where the transmission rates are very low and we haven’t had a single burst bubble in his small, one form entry primary.

I was a primary teacher before I had DS and I understand just how hard his teacher has worked to give my son as close to a normal experience as he could have to his start of his education. I stand in full support of teachers doing what they feel necessary to keep themselves, their pupils and their communities safe. This government is shocking.

When there wasn’t enough PPE for nurses in hospitals, the country pulled together and businesses manufactured ones. Community groups sewed scrubs and face masks and bags. I’m not comparing the risks of nurses to school staff, but it’s completely different to the reaction that teachers, with no safety measures in place, have got.

"The front line and vulnerable kids would carry on going in as they did in first lock down."

I thought those who work in special schools had been advised not to go to work.

Ours is shut.

@Tryingtokeepgoing

If they do, I hope that all customer facing supermarket and delivery staff do the same...they’re at as least as much, if not more, risk than teachers given that they’re exposed to more people, and there’s no record of who they’ve been exposed to. Perhaps that’d help them see who else is an essential worker!!

Do buzz off to one of the teacher bashing threads rather than one where teachers / their families are trying to communicate with one another

My dd is a secondary teacher and they have been told they have to go into school from Tuesday and work to deliver remote learning from designated areas in school. She has two dc (12 and 14) they will have to go in with her. They will take their laptops and sit in school learning remotely from teachers in other parts of the same building! Vulnerable and key workers dc will attend school and be in classrooms of mixed age etc supervised by teachers and TAs. No mention of testing.

EYprovider, you dont sound like you should be managing staff. Everyone has the right to join a union. I hope all your staff become unionised.

@EYProvider
No, your workforce don't want to work, trust me, they would rather they could put their health before your profits. Sadly, though they won't be able to

Out of curiosity, what would it mean for the vulnerable children and keyworker children if all schools closed again & teachers refuse to go in?

Providing no safety equipment and teachers are dying. Knowingly killing teachers without providing safety measures.

That is what is disgusting.

From the responses on here I would say 30-35% of teachers are likely to hand in the letter. Having said that the people that post on here are the ones who feel strongly either way so may not be a true representation of the outcome.

Why not start a thread with voting enabled asking only Teachers and TAs to respond, that will give you a better idea.

FWIW - I would send the letter if I was in the teaching profession