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.

*make members of staff

MALE - aaah!!

@phlebasconsidered

Yesterday I organised my classroom to accommodate 2 new pupils. I now have 36 kids. Some are 3 to a desk. All 36 will use two toilet cubicles. By break they will be swimming in wee and loo roll. But I do have a window. So Covid safe!

BBC? Real schools are over here! (Waves.. waits...)

Toilet provision isn't great in school here either.

Reception have the most provision - iirr there are 5 cubicles for 3 classes.

2 x year 2 classes have 1 toilet per class, as they are in a separate block.

The other cubicles (5 I think) are being shared between 4 classes - 1 y2 and 3 y1 classes. They have designated cubicles for classes/bubbles.

Re staff - we only have mixed sex toilets - 2 are individual rooms with own hand basins and are also our disabled access toilets, and then 2 cubicles within a room. We don't have many male staff members - less than 10% - and it's been this way for decades due to being an overcrowded old Victorian building. 4 adult toilets for 30+ staff and any adult visitors.

I appreciate that. There's one female staff toilet for two floors of classrooms in the main block which obviously everyone is trying to access at the same time. Can't sit down in the staff room but we can share a toilet and sink with 50+ people.

Just been for my vaccine (group 6) and the rigmarole of queuing round the block with masks on despite being outside and 2m apart etc is surreal. Same if I go to the pharmacy - 1 person allowed in at a time, all in masks and staff behind a screen. It feels bizarre when you're used to having to wade through a corridor full of teenagers to get to your classroom.

As with other settings, appropriate mitigations such as ventilation, social distancing and handwashing are important in school settings to reduce transmission.

What annoys me is the government and DfE's reluctant to actually show that these things are really tricky to manage in a school.

Hand washing - fine, we can do this. It takes up a lot of time to fit in 5 or 6 hand washes a day - each room Has 1 sink, or there are the toilet sinks, which are limited if you see my post before. Takes time but we can manage this.

Ventilation - some rooms have very limited opening windows. Some have none. Some have ones that should open but haven't been able to be opened for decades. Some are tiny and near the ceiling, none at child height. We can open doors but only 2 classrooms have doors which open onto the outside of the building, most open on to a corridor.

Social distancing - have they ever been into your average state school classroom?! It's simply not possible to have 1m SD, let alone 2m.

I've now had my first vaccine 8 days ago.

I've been wfh since a January, mainly due to my specific role during a lockdown. My WiFi is better at home so managing and overseeing all remote learning is best done away from school.

I caught covid last term, but have remained vulnerable as I developed a new health condition which has been difficult to manage, we are almost there now, though a number of long covid issues remain. Not sure my body would deal with a second hammering of covid. I was in hospital and off work for weeks last time as it was.

I am returning to school on Monday. I'm so so so grateful to have had my vaccine. It feels like an extra booster.

I've got the thermals out ready for layering up!

Gosh you've been through the mill! Do you feel ready for Monday?

@Fluffyow100 Sorry, off topic but 'm intrigued!, How are you legally watching Channel 4 news , on any medium, if you have cancelled your TV licence?

I am in Ireland, certainly not paying a UK tv licence and I can watch Channel 4 online, I just logged in there to check it was still working and it does.

I may have signed up to it while living in the UK a few years ago, but it still works fine for me here.

I can log onto 4online in Egypt - they make their revenue from ads so don't care where you watch.

I don't have a licence either. Partly because I hate their stance on women, the child anuse cases, and now their sucky attitude to Labour and teachers. And mostly because my kids don't watch it, I don't either, and I have netflix, prime and all the other free in demand channelsike now tv, itv player and ch 4. I disconnected my aerial. I don't miss it.

We've got 60 boys using one single toilet.
60 girls using 3 cubicles.

The state of the boy's toilet is.. well you can imagine.

Ours are unisex poor buggers. So 480 kids 4 cubicles. I toilet per 120 kids.

Covid secure! Sure.

For those recently vaccinated, the various research results I've seen give day 12 before the vaccine even begins to work and day 14-35 before a reasonable or good level of protection might be offered - day 21 seems reasonable to me and this was also the advice given by a specialist doctor. The best level offered is of course after the second dose.

@TheHoneyBadger

Gosh you've been through the mill! Do you feel ready for Monday?

Guess we will find out on Monday. I'm certainly ready to see colleagues and see other adults bar dh :) And seeing the children will be lovely. I know some of them so well through remote learning but not in 'real life.'

I've been working ft form home all term, infact since I was first diagnosed with covid. I went back for 2 or 3 weeks in December - that was tiring but I wasn't on a full timetable.

When I go back I'll be back to my normal role kind of, but my ht is lovely. I'm not a class teacher these days. I do cover and other stuff. She is allocating mr time off timetable for sorting online stuff - an hour every morning, which means if my fatigue and aches arebad (can be in a morning) I have some time before I need to 'get going' - and she's told me to let her know if I encounter any issues, especially with my blood pressure issues.

🤞🏻

@MrsMackesy

For those recently vaccinated, the various research results I've seen give day 12 before the vaccine even begins to work and day 14-35 before a reasonable or good level of protection might be offered - day 21 seems reasonable to me and this was also the advice given by a specialist doctor. The best level offered is of course after the second dose.

I'm hoping my first dose might have acted as a booster from having covid 4 months ago.

The BBC apparently decided that now is the time to report on the need for improving ventilation in schools and CO2 monitors. And the fact that there’s no funding for any of this.

BIT FUCKING LATE BBC.

Yeah, what have YOU been doing for the last 12 months, BBC?

Yes my daughter reminded me that when she goes back all the girls in her year are sharing one toilet cubicle (due to trying to keep bubbles separate).

We have 4 toilet cubicles in the 'girls' toilets and 3 in the 'boys' toilets in our ks2 area. The cubicles are all inside a room with sinks in the shared area of the room. To avoid mixing of bubbles, all 60 y6 kids use the 3 boys room cubicles now and another 60 y5 all use the girls room cubicles.

A March 8th school return guarantees an Easter break blighted by rising infection levels and hospitalisations especially among 35-50 yo parents and school staff. This worries me as DS and DIL are in this age group.
I’m (aged 67) teaching adults face to face from Monday, but in small groups that I have at least some control over and it’s three weeks since my first jab, so I’m less worried about myself now, and more about them.

I find the propaganda insulting. We’re not all brainless idiots believing all we read. Especially when it contradicts previous news.
I still can’t get over all the masks are really unnecessary and people are too stupid to wear them/ masks are essential and save lives reports.

Covid spread like crazy in my dcs school. Almost everyone I know who have dcs at secondary schools in my area caught it by Christmas. Last term was a shambles with all the self isolating.
I’m just hoping we all have antibodies still and we’ll be safe now.
For a while at least.

I used to work in PR for local & central government. I’ve found the whole thing fascinating. The government has done a very good job of manipulating the news at key times to influence public opinion. Honestly, there will be case studies of it in the future on marketing degree courses. Most of the “Tory” newspapers are clearly onboard. Example: Government realise 30 year olds are ignoring lockdown rules. Next day: Quick, find a story on a “healthy” 30 year old dying of covid (don’t mention the fact he’s 22 stone!) and plaster is all over the Daily Mail.

@PinkPiranha11 Glad to see this backed up by someone who's been in the business. Exactly what you said - "Quick, find a 30-year-old dying of Covid"; and I wouldn't be at all surprised if plan B is "get an actor, and we'll make one up!" (Have to provide some work for actors, as we've destroyed their industry.) I find it utterly terrifying the way the government have been able to manipulate the public, who have swallowed the whole thing in one gulp, and allowed the government to stomp all over our civil liberties with barely a shred of resistance.

Not just manipulation but downright lies

www.thesun.co.uk/news/14254492/how-covid-safe-classrooms-look-monday/?utm_campaign=sunmainfacebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1615044836

I wonder if anyone's classroom will look like this tomorrow! None in my school have any of these measures except windows and sanitiser.

Ha ha lonely planet. That diagram is so blatantly inaccurate it's funny.
Surely no one would be daft enough to believe that could even vaguely happen... Who even comes up with the ideas?