Notified at 5pm tonight that primary school not opening tomorrow

[Rinoachicken]

Just received notification from school. INSET tomorrow and then home learning Tues and Wednesday. Keyworker and vulnerable children only. No hint of what happens Thursday onwards.

The late notice aside...it does make me wonder if they know something about what the govt is planning to say on Wednesday...

For context, I live in Surrey, Tier 4, but my kids primary had no cases from September.

The thing is, the logical outcome of teachers refusing to work because it’s unsafe isn’t to close schools. That’s only the outcome because the government has refused to listen to warning, is ignoring statistics and their own science advisers, and is even now going “la la we can’t hear you everything is fine”.

The logical and desirable outcome is that they decide to put measures in place to allow teachers to work safely, which is what they would have to do for nurses if nurses refused to work in unsafe conditions (a perfectly legal and possible thing for them to do).

[quote MamuleMu]@fastwigglylines

Risk to who? To one of these 8 kids in class? To the teacher? Is teacher's mental health suddenly gets better if she looks after 8 kids?

Teacher is a key-worker.[/quote]
Are you being deliberately obtuse? The risk to a teacher of catching covid is much reduced if she has 8 DC in a class compared to if she had 30 DC, as is the risk to the DC in the class and to the wider community.

Also, there's a massive difference between teachers and nurses. The point abotu schools is no one should be there right now. If the teachers pull out and the DC are taught form home, that helps stop the virus spreading in the community.

If the nurses refuse to go, it's not like the patients can just do home-healing in the same way the DC can do home learning! And the ideal isn't for the hospitals to close. But the schools should.

Are you pushing this for a political reason?

I had a last minute text from both my DS primary schools. I felt relief! Relief that the school cared not only about their staff, but my kids too!

@MamuleMu

We don’t have an adequate NHS workforce either. But that is an entirely different conversation.

Clearly, we need hospitals open. Many Doctors are calling for school closures, to reduce community transmission, and ease the pressure on ICUs.

By only opening schools for key workers and those who are vulnerable, hospitals can function without staff needing to stay home for child care reasons, but schools can operate at lower ratios which lowers community transmission.

I was just asking rhetorical questions? They do not require answers. They are just food for thought.

Schools been closed for 2weeks over Xmas, loads of people on leave not working. Great time to stay at home and stay put. This clearly hasn’t helped infection rates as we see. Sadly.
Is schools are closed we have to close everything as we did in March. Can we afford it?

@MamuleMu

I was just asking rhetorical questions? They do not require answers. They are just food for thought.

Schools been closed for 2weeks over Xmas, loads of people on leave not working. Great time to stay at home and stay put. This clearly hasn’t helped infection rates as we see. Sadly.
Is schools are closed we have to close everything as we did in March. Can we afford it?

We’ll have to afford it as we can afford people dying in the streets even less...and that’s what it will come down to.

Same at DDs primary (tier 3 Yorkshire) closed for tomorrow to be back Tuesday. Our rates have gone from 220.5 per 100,000 (15th Dec) to 240 per 100,000 (28th Dec) so not massively increasing at the minute.
Luckily secondary age DD off until the 18th at least with this next week being an extension to the holidays.

How many people actually stayed home over christmas period? Didn’t go shopping, didn’t go to meet family for Christmas dinner? Left house only for genuine reasons.

Hand on heart how many of you can say that you done everything you could for this wave not to happen?

We are in Tier 3.

Got a text and e mail that school is closed as of tomorrow at 18:30 today.

No further info

@MamuleMu

How many people actually stayed home over christmas period? Didn’t go shopping, didn’t go to meet family for Christmas dinner? Left house only for genuine reasons.

Hand on heart how many of you can say that you done everything you could for this wave not to happen?

I can say hand on heart that we followed all the rules. Didn't meet anyone from any other households indoors or outdoors, maintained SD in all public spaces, wore masks in all indoor spaces, stayed local and only went to places within our area that were allowed to be open in accordance with the tier restrictions. My household has not formed any kind of bubble with any other household.

We stick to the rules because DD attends primary school, and that is the only risk we believe we can accept, we have given up any other opportunities to socialise to enable that. DD being at school means we cannot risk close contact with grandparents or great grandparents because they are all Clinically vulnerable or extremely clinically vulnerable.

Same here and for most of the people we know - all following the rules even if we do not always agree with the logic of them. My adult son ate his Christmas lunch entirely alone at his home for example and sent us a photo.

I am also following the rules because I want DS in school as my top priority. DS sees his dad as we are divorced but that's it. I spent Christmas day alone as DS was with his dad.

Schools are finding out info the same time as you, that's why planning is do hard. Senior Leaders were watching Marr yesterday to see if Johnson said anything that would affect what they were doing.

@MamuleMu

How many people actually stayed home over christmas period? Didn’t go shopping, didn’t go to meet family for Christmas dinner? Left house only for genuine reasons.

Hand on heart how many of you can say that you done everything you could for this wave not to happen?

Are you a Tory politician? You seem desperate to blame someone other than the government for this shitshow.

For what it's worth, yes, we did follow the rules. I didn't see my family for the first time this Christmas, we had Christmas at home and didn't visit anyone.

But, if large numbers of people aren't following the rules, then there has been a breakdown in public trust, because they were back in March. Dominic Cummings, the lack of transparency in Government decision making, their exploitation of the crisis to provide lucrative contracts for their mates, their failure to act in the interests of the public, Boris's terrible public speaking, their obvious contempt for teachers and the NHS etc etc have all served to undermine public trust in their mismanagement of this crisis.

If large numbers of people aren't following the rules, the Government have to take a fair chunk of the blame.

In New Zealand, for example, people had a lovely Christmas with family - even music festivals are back on. We're facing another national lockdown. Why? Well, they acted decisively where Boris prevaricated. And here we are.

Great! You are following government rules. So keep following them and send your kids to school. Government tells you what to do - you follow.

I am not Tory politician, I am apolitical.

I am just trying to ask questions, to make people think.

Do people really need to be told to stay home? Would you like army and/or police to in force it?

Would you like your kids to be locked at home like Spanish government did for 6weeks not allowing kids outdoor? Are they in better situation now?

School is not compulsory, education is compulsory, nobody is going to force you to send your child to school if you want to educate them yourself for next year or two while we are in pandemic or you can take risk and send them to school it is up to parents to decide.

This is not going to be a quick fix. Lockdown then not lockdown then again lockdown.
For how long?

Sweden is great example of advise approach and people making their own decisions. They are not worse off.

You can’t compare NZ and UK. Population density is different, geographical location is different etc.

You don’t have to agree with what I say, you don’t have to answer any of my questions, but one has to think and make decisions for themselves.

Stay safe

@MamuleMu

Great! You are following government rules. So keep following them and send your kids to school. Government tells you what to do - you follow.

I am not Tory politician, I am apolitical.

I am just trying to ask questions, to make people think.

Do people really need to be told to stay home? Would you like army and/or police to in force it?

Would you like your kids to be locked at home like Spanish government did for 6weeks not allowing kids outdoor? Are they in better situation now?

School is not compulsory, education is compulsory, nobody is going to force you to send your child to school if you want to educate them yourself for next year or two while we are in pandemic or you can take risk and send them to school it is up to parents to decide.

This is not going to be a quick fix. Lockdown then not lockdown then again lockdown.
For how long?

Sweden is great example of advise approach and people making their own decisions. They are not worse off.

You can’t compare NZ and UK. Population density is different, geographical location is different etc.

You don’t have to agree with what I say, you don’t have to answer any of my questions, but one has to think and make decisions for themselves.

Stay safe

You may think you're apolitical. but it's very much coming across as if you have a political axe to grind - politics isn't only party political.

I'm curious, do you actually have school age kids, MamuleMu?

Sweden is great example of advise approach and people making their own decisions. They are not worse off.

Really? Who told you that, MamuleMu? Sweden had a much worse time of it than their neighbours, as you can see from these charts from the FT.

It looks like cases are on the rise there again, I can't see a similar rise in Norway or Denmark, for example.

(The red line is deaths from all causes in 2020; grey lines are previous years).

@Rinoachicken

No INSET planned. We were messaged on Friday confirming school would be open for all on 4th as planned.

It’s part of a larger academy trust, and the decision is trust wide apparently.

Ive beet in school today for our Inset. We’re opening tomorrow but have notified parents that if Bojo closes us down tonight, tomorrow will be an inset day in order for us to fully prep for online learning and key worker classes from Wednesday. So that could be what your school mean.

I meant to say, the figures at the top of the individual country charts are for excess deaths and the percentage different to what would have been expected for this year without covid.

Excess deaths are up 12% in Sweden. They're actually DOWN in neighbouring Norway and Denmark - both countries had lockdown.

Those touting Sweden as a success story are usually following some pretty dodgy "news" sources IME, many of which can be traced back to pedlars of conspiracy theories and supporters of Trump's anti-establishment* propaganda designed to appeal to his voters.

*(deeply ironic considering he IS the establishment, or was).

But - this is a huge diversion. I'm really interested to know if you have kids, MamuleMu, and whether you're actually interested in schools closing or if this is just an opportunity for you to air your views?

There's an online meeting on schools being broadcast right now, just started with:

• Mike Rosen - author & broadcaster
• Kevin Courtney - Joint general Secretary of NEU
• Jeremy Corbyn - MP Islington North
• Zarah Sultana - MP for Coventry South
• Jordan Rivera - Health worker Homerton Hospital
• Farrah Mirza - UCU Havering College

See it at Facebook here: www.facebook.com/JeremyCorbynMP/videos/151820363153364

Or Zoom here: bit.ly/4safereturn