Schools: anyone else utterly sick of being manipulated by the press?

[Incogweeto]

Just that really. I’m so sick and tired of logging onto the BBC and finding articles every day promoting whatever viewpoint the government currently wants us to believe. At the moment it’s the onslaught of schools are safe/teachers are safe/tests are a game changer. When they were about to close the schools, the narrative was completely different with kids more likely to be index case/variants will kill is all/out of control vectors.

I’m not saying I agree or disagree with any particular viewpoint in any particular article just that I’m SO SICK of being manipulated. It enrages me that they think we are such pathetic sheep that we can’t see what they are doing.

It’s not just schools, it’s every course of action they want us to take or not take. I hate the PR and the manipulation.

I agree that the press was muted from September about anything to do with covid in schools.
In our school, even staff don't know exactly how many had in in our outbreak as they were told not to talk about it, and as bubbles weren't mixing, the usual opportunities for gossip weren't there. If staff don't even know the extent of it, then the community and press certainly don't.

@Lemons1571

I thought teacher training applicants were up on previous years, due to other industries who are on their knees not recruiting, and lack of other attractive options (postgrad experience from your childhood bedroom anyone?)

Even in a pandemic the govt still failed to meet its training recruitment targets for physics (45%), MFL (72%) design and technology (75%) and maths (84%).

Given that it has failed to meet recruitment targets for years in those subjects, we are still going to have a critical teacher shortage.

Luckily there will be loads of PE and history teachers to fill the gaps.

Absolutely with you OP.
I am very angry. Anger is irrational, but very real.
I am angry at the government for ... don't get me started.
I am angry at their medical advisers who keep silence knowing full well how reckless it is to open schools as it is going to happen now.
I am angry at all medical professionals and scientists who are unable to make their voice heard.
I am angry at the media, their propaganda is unbearable.
I am angry at the headteachers who repeat this BS about schools being safe and threaten parents with fines and deregistration.
I am angry at the teachers who are going to go to work in a dangerous environment as they did in September and pretend that it is all fine.
I am angry at myself for not seeing the way out of this madness.

The thing about the press not knowing about the issues with covid in schools, that's not true. They could have looked at the attendance figures and the soaring infection rates in secondary kids and linked them to the complete lack of mitigation measures but they never did.
When tens of thousands of kids in Birmingham and Liverpool were missing school due to massive outbreaks it was reported in the local press but not national, and when this was brought up on MN people said 'it's merely a local issue'. When unis were screwed, it was national news.

@Lemons1571

I thought teacher training applicants were up on previous years, due to other industries who are on their knees not recruiting, and lack of other attractive options (postgrad experience from your childhood bedroom anyone?)

To be fair getting people onto the teacher training courses hasn't been an issue in many cases, though certain subject areas struggle at times hence the bursaries.

But teacher retention, especially for older teachers and also those within the first 5 years, has been a massive issue. So has recruitment for management level posts, and things like heads of years.

If masks are so good elsewhere, wont they also save the schools?
But there isn't any other setting where you have so many people in such a closed environment for such a length of time.
I've honestly never felt like such a tin hat person then when talking to my friends who dont have school going kids. We got regular emails last year about kids in the school/ in his year isolating etc, while being told it didn't affect our son. Same with other schools in the area. The media would come out with numbers for schools that were so so tiny and if proportionate, meant our area was covid central and should be quarantined from the rest of Ireland!!!

Meant to - in many primary education cases.

Teacher training applications are up overall but down in several subjects. Look forward to a glut of psychology teachers in a couple of years

How much did Kirsty Gallagher get paid last September to say schools are safe. Was there a set fee?

Figures not released, but based on usual costs for influencers, up to about £15,000

schoolsweek.co.uk/tv-star-and-celeb-gp-hired-for-back-to-school-promo/

Applications don’t translate into teachers.

The course has a 40% dropout rate. 12% in the first term. And that’s before you get into the actual qualified teaching period.

noble pretty sure recruitment to history went down this year!

I'm going off this graph, Piggy.

Can't use the biology teachers to teach maths or MFL, they'll be busy propping up the lack of physics teachers.

I can't remember the source of my info but my chart showed relative increases and decreases. Anyway. it's all moot when we know the issues are a) retention and b) low quality and commitment of many applicants.

It is interesting you began I thought , Lemon which may rather prove the media spin machine worked there!

@NotQuiteHere

Absolutely with you OP. I am very angry. Anger is irrational, but very real. I am angry at the government for ... don't get me started. I am angry at their medical advisers who keep silence knowing full well how reckless it is to open schools as it is going to happen now. I am angry at all medical professionals and scientists who are unable to make their voice heard. I am angry at the media, their propaganda is unbearable. I am angry at the headteachers who repeat this BS about schools being safe and threaten parents with fines and deregistration. I am angry at the teachers who are going to go to work in a dangerous environment as they did in September and pretend that it is all fine. I am angry at myself for not seeing the way out of this madness.

I feel EXACTLY the same

Ps the shittiest thing ever was they released the numbers of kids with covid the day the kids were back in school here. We were livid over it, if they'd put it up the day before people could have made an informed choice

I feel EXACTLY the same
I don't know if this will be helpful to you but if you look at this from page 6 onwards it details "the science" on education.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/963390/S1115_SAGE_80_Minutes.pdf

Well we’ll all feel better when they release updated statistics won’t we. Guess what! The rate of school staff infection was well below community average, so schools are safe. Safe safe safe. What’s the time period over which data was collected? Jan to March 2021. Which just proves schools are safe, because schools were OPEN!

Nice photo of a socially distanced classroom to accompany this statistic. Bosh. My god, I should work in government pr.

I really do think the gov think we are that thick (as a population, are we???)

[quote BunsyGirl]@ChloeDecker As a parent I (selfishly) want teachers to be vaccinated to help keep schools open. However, I completely understand that the U.K. vaccination programme has been designed to mimimise risk of death and hospitalisation. I therefore support it for the greater good of the country as a whole. The US health system has never put the country as a whole first so I feel that comparisons with it are completely pointless. Age and vulnerability are the biggest risk factors for Covid.[/quote]
I was merely just wondering if you thought it was also an age issue in the US, as you claimed re: the Ivory Coast, not your opinion on vaccinating teachers in the U.K. but thank you.

I’ve been very disappointed with the poor questioning from journalists in the live briefings and events such as the Dominic Cummings debacle.
Definitely not asking the ‘difficult’ questions and often repeating each other’s questions over and over again.

How much did Kirsty Gallagher get paid last September to say schools are safe. Was there a set fee?

Figures not released, but based on usual costs for influencers, up to about £15,000

Bloody hell. How do these people sleep at night? Real teachers have died for goodness sake (and parents). Blood on their hands. And schools get virtually no money (less than the 'influencers' apparently who presumably all have their kids in private schools) - it's so shockingly immoral.

What ever happened to the discussion about how the new dominant variant is not only more transmissible (so therefore more of a problem where large groups congregate inside) but also there was preliminary data that showed it was actually causing more severe disease too? What happened about that?

@ChloeDecker
Totally agree

@IloveJKRowling absolutely

@IloveJKRowling
Can I apologise to you in advance?

When I read your post above I was thinking that maybe it was something that had been on social media as it seemed too crazy to be true.

Again apologies I don't know why I doubted you.

schoolsweek.co.uk/tv-star-and-celeb-gp-hired-for-back-to-school-promo/

@StarCat2020 - absolutely no need for apology.

There are so many things the government have done or failed to do this year that I simply would have disbelieved as being outrageously unrealistic and too evil for even the Tories in 2019...

These days I think if it's awful it's almost certainly true. :(

I wonder if Ms Gallacher's kids go to state school. It doesn't actually mention that very important fact anywhere that I can see.