School staff ARE more at risk from contracting COVID than the general population- according to data released by the DfE yesterday.

[Feenie]

neu.org.uk/press-releases/impact-covid-school-workforce?fbclid=IwAR2ayf6jFbhEMcpICBffM5daowz8tdrIs77bqyCKFQHWaKB109Z1TktZXEk

Data that contradicts continual assurances that were still being given as late as yesterday by Dr Jenny Harries to the Education Select Committee.

PHE were producing a weekly report ii Autumn that detailed outbreaks in schools - I wonder if that is still available. I think those charts would be very helpful to this discussion.

Unfortunately not helpful at all as an outbreak counted as two linked cases and many schools were far worse hit than that in a way that was not at all captured by that data.

The teachers at the school were I live are wearing ppe

Are the kids? Because one person in a classroom wearing a mask will do very little to prevent transmission.

@noblegiraffe

The teachers at the school were I live are wearing ppe

Are the kids? Because one person in a classroom wearing a mask will do very little to prevent transmission.

They are all SD in the class .... I am sick of hearing about the teachers have it rough ... there are SO many key workers having the same troubles including my partner..... I am sure I will get flamed

Halfshrunkmoretogo I’d be up for reopening primaries like that but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon. No masks allowed due to the DfE guidance and my class bubble is 32 which I don’t think is a small group. We are a large school so I am allowed to teach across my year group which is 95 children plus the adults in the room. The school has also reduced the cleaning due to budgets. Now tables are wiped once a day and not even after the children have sat and eaten their lunch at them and toilets are cleaned twice a day. The measures you suggest are good and require government funding put into them and an acknowledgement that mask wearing is an important risk mitigation measure in schools.

@Spiratedaway how do they SD ? I had 32 students in rooms that can't expand so all squashed in. How did your school find all the extra space to keep them 2m apart ? Really interested.

@bluechameleon

Where's the line on the graph for shop workers? They aren't on this graph because it is about school staff. Nor are bus drivers or security guards or care workers or police officers or paramedics. No one is saying school staff are the only people at higher risk than the general population. What they are saying is that the government has repeatedly lied to us, saying that schools are safe and school staff are not at risk when it was abundantly clear that these statements were not true. They had their reasons for not wanting to close schools, but rather than being honest they fabricated this view that schools were safe and teachers were just hysterical and workshy.

It's relevant because comparing school staff against the general population is meaningless, especially at a time when so many workers aren't actually at work, i.e. on furlough, working from home, etc. The only useful comparison is against other workers actually at work, i.e shop workers, NHS workers, police, etc etc. They're at work because they have to be and can't work from home, just like teachers. So, the graph is useless unless it compares other workers in similar situations, i.e. at work.

They are all SD in the class .... I am sick of hearing about the teachers have it rough

Do you get that that is not true for the vast majority of teachers and has led to uncontrolled covid spread in schools?

Mmm interestingly, the recent PHE reports don't appear to include the schools outbreak charts they previously had.

The only point within the report that might help contribute to this analysis is the school surveillance scheme. See page 28 from one of the December weekly reports (I chose Dec as schools were still open then). assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/942969/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w50_FINAL.PDF

It seems they monitor a sample of boarding schools (I appreciate this is only secondary) and test staff and students periodically to determine the general infection rate in both populations.

In Dec, when the new variant was taking off, they determined the following:

The overall laboratory confirmed COVID-19 rate (all school years) for week 49 was 6.04 per 1,000 students compared to 1.21 per 1,000 students in the previous week.

The overall laboratory confirmed COVID-19 (all staff) for week 49 was 3.65 per 1,000 staff compared to 1.61 per 1,000 staff in the previous week.

I guess the question is whether a rate of 3.65 per 1000 is meaningfully different than the population at large at that time.

To the poster who said children are SD in class I can tell you that is not happening in the primaries near me by as is impossible in classes of 30. The DfE guidance even acknowledges that children aren’t required to social distance. Stop spreading misinformation.

For what it’s worth- DDs teacher and TA are both in hospital with COVID. They both tested positive after the first week back in Jan. It’s a tiny school and they now have half the teachers off ill.

The teachers at the school were I live are wearing ppe !

Really helpful when posting on a thread about lies from the government, who say we don't need any. Thanks.

They are all
SD in the class .... I am sick of hearing about the teachers have it rough ... there are SO many key workers having the same troubles including my partner..... I am sure I will get flamed

There is no SD - you are lying.

The thread is about government lies. Again, are you disputing this, or have you just come on to have a meaningless pop? I can guess which.

@feenie he doesn't have a professional body , and tbf him
Wearing ppe is the only mitigation he can take , other than to not go in at all, which isn't possible.
This may be about teachers but it still needs to be compared to
Other professions? Surely you want that as well as if it then shows teachers above every other profession( excl nhs ) this would help the case surely ?
Can you not see as many have pointed out this data is flawed and can be picked apart to easily.
Also the goverment will be more concerned about who is a risk of hospitalisation etc , hence as children are generally not the ones who become ill , they see them at low risk being in school ( the kids themselves) but obviously has a risk on the community as whole with increasing cases.
Tbh I was surprised it took unions as long as it did to step in.

[quote LizardWar]@sundowners

Frankly whether primary DC can access zoom lessons is neither here nor there.

The priority at the moment is keeping people safe. Schools opening will expose DC, staff and parents to the risk of death or permanent disability.

Even after everyone has been vaccinated, schools will only be able to open on a rota basis with social distancing.

Because

1. Vaccines do not prevent Long COVID,

1. They are not 100% effective so some DC and teachers will die otherwise and

1. We need to minimise the workload of our poor NHS nurses and doctors- 0.1% of teachers needing hospital is 0.1% that wouldn't if schools stay closed.[/quote]

You need to get a grip.

What you are proposing is ludicrous.

Comparison - okay. PPE is mitigation the DfE says teachers and children DO NOT NEED.

[quote LizardWar]@sundowners

Frankly whether primary DC can access zoom lessons is neither here nor there.

The priority at the moment is keeping people safe. Schools opening will expose DC, staff and parents to the risk of death or permanent disability.

Even after everyone has been vaccinated, schools will only be able to open on a rota basis with social distancing.

Because

1. Vaccines do not prevent Long COVID,

1. They are not 100% effective so some DC and teachers will die otherwise and

1. We need to minimise the workload of our poor NHS nurses and doctors- 0.1% of teachers needing hospital is 0.1% that wouldn't if schools stay closed.[/quote]

If you are a teacher, you really don't do your profession many favours by posting this sort of stuff

Littleowl - the "outbreak" data has been very difficult to believe for a long while.

One particular week I looked at it it had "zero" for that week for educational settings in my region. The same week that we had 8 cases in a week in my school, 33 in a DAY in a friend's school, 45 in a week in a different local school. Not unusual numbers by any stretch. An outbreak was supposed to be 2 or more cases, wasn't it?

Me and my husband are teachers, we've both had covid. My chid's TA has had it too. It's rife in schools.

[quote LizardWar]@sundowners

Frankly whether primary DC can access zoom lessons is neither here nor there.

The priority at the moment is keeping people safe. Schools opening will expose DC, staff and parents to the risk of death or permanent disability.

Even after everyone has been vaccinated, schools will only be able to open on a rota basis with social distancing.

Because

1. Vaccines do not prevent Long COVID,

1. They are not 100% effective so some DC and teachers will die otherwise and

1. We need to minimise the workload of our poor NHS nurses and doctors- 0.1% of teachers needing hospital is 0.1% that wouldn't if schools stay closed.[/quote]

@littleowl1 the fact that few children have ended up in hospital surely doesn't suggest little risk - we know that symptoms in children have always tended to be slighter, even with the new variant.

This means that they don't get admitted, also that they don't get tested unless in a mass screening programme. (Obviously ONS /other bodies' calculations allow for these factors in working out how many children might be infected.)

On the other hand, adults in schools are exposed to the same aerosols and droplets as the children, but may well have more severe symptoms. Ditto for adults (parents etc) who end up being infected by the children who've come home from school.

I've just finished teaching for the day (planning period next, just getting a quick cup of coffee).

I've had about 80% of my students in, actively engaging, returning work on algebra, geometry, etc. We've had two way communication, I've marked their work, they've got instant feedback during the lesson. I'm very lucky that we have such a high proportion of children with internet access, I know, but it is working really well.

Feedback from parents at the school is extremely positive. They feel their children have about the right amount of work and that it's a high quality.

Compare this with before Christmas when half our classes were out isolating, teachers dropping sick left right and centre, lessons being covered by teachers with no experience in the relevant subjects, students coming in having had 3 lessons out of the last 10, but a different 3 lessons to the person next to them.

This isn't ideal, but I feel like it's structured, organised and pretty effective. Yes, I worry about the 20% who aren't engaging, but I've referred them on and someone from pastoral will pick them up.

I can work from home and I am working from home. If I have to go to back to work in an environment with 30 unvaccinated students per hour and the new variant still spreading at full throttle, with no vaccination, no social distancing and no masks in sight, just so Johnson can say he returned schools before everything else, and if it then returns back to chaos, sickness, whole years in isolation and recurring absences within a few weeks, when I could be delivering excellent lessons from and to complete safety, then I will be extremely pissed off.

My bubble popped first week back. Multiple cases in both children and staff. We only know about most of the children because parents decided to test, most were asymptomatic. That's a large amount of the children who would have been in school unknowingly with Covid. We are not allowed to wear masks in class only in corridors. There are 25 in my class and 4 adults (lots of vulnerable). Completely unsafe.

I am a TA so in class all day.

To be fair don’t blame the government about masks etc

Dds secondary school teachers mostly all wear mask

I’m sixth form and we can wear masks if we choose and about 1/4 choose to

We can wear aprons too if we want

Masks aren’t banned so you should be speaking to your head and union

My friend teaches fe and masks are mandatory there

To be fair don’t blame the government about masks etc

Tbf I absolutely blame the government about masks because their guidance says that masks in classrooms should be avoided.

And banging on about teachers wearing masks makes very little difference to transmission in schools if the kids aren’t!