Primary schools from September...

[SandyStarfish]

Good that contacts will no longer have to isolate... however, Covid will run wild through the classes won't it? And the viral load will be high for children and staff in those classrooms because of all the particles in the air. And in winter it's too hard to ventilate much. It's going to be horrible working conditions again.

@Chillychangchoo

School staff need to get on with it. I worked as a TA during the winter peak in a primary school. All the teachers wanted the vaccine (fair enough). They now have it and some are still moaning. Never happy. Literally never happy.

I moved from my TA job to a support worker role and the conditions for covid much worse in social care sector. My colleagues don’t moan like teachers do though. I think teachers moan that much now that people just switch off.

I'm so glad you are no longer working in schools.

As far as I've seen it's never been suggested for anyone who tests positive, regardless of profession, to go into work.

It has, however, been suggested, by the JCVI, that positive children should still go into school.

@SandyStarfish

Well, it isn't only positive cases that have to isolate... so do people with symptoms, until proof of negative test. So maybe as a sensible way forward, schools need to get strict with sending home children with signs of illness until proven non-covid.

Ideal world kids would be kept off if ill, not just Covid. How to get parents to comply and employers to accept it however…

So maybe as a sensible way forward, schools need to get strict with sending home children with signs of illness until proven non-covid

Maybe parents need to actually parent, look at their kids, listen to them, so they don’t actually come into school when unwell? Or is that too much to expect?

@Wellbythebloodyhell

And as a side note if employers were more understanding with sickness or parental leave then less parents are likely to fill little Billy up with calpol and send him in because they feel they can't take the time off too look after their sick child. It's not a ploy to make teachers ill or because they can't be arsed to look after little Billy when he's ill but sometimes real life consequences of losing income and possibly their job altogether mean parents often have to make those difficult decisions

Spot on!

Well yes, that would be ideal. But as we know, some parents will send them in anyway. Therefore we should also be confident in sending home ill children. It should be released nationally via Gov and local councils that headteachers will be expected to not tolerate ill children unless proven non-covid. Yes, employers may have an issue with this being that children get ill a lot... but if everywhere has the same strict blanket rule, it will be easier.

@DolphinFC

As a primary school teacher in my 50s, I would like to have the same level of protection from covid as my friends. Many of whom are refusing to go back to half empty offices as it still 'too dangerous'.

Surely you have been double vaccinated now.

@Chillychangchoo

School staff need to get on with it. I worked as a TA during the winter peak in a primary school. All the teachers wanted the vaccine (fair enough). They now have it and some are still moaning. Never happy. Literally never happy.

I moved from my TA job to a support worker role and the conditions for covid much worse in social care sector. My colleagues don’t moan like teachers do though. I think teachers moan that much now that people just switch off.

Do teachers in real life moan as much as they do on mn though 🤔perhaps mn attract the more whingy types. The type of people that always look for reasons to be negative abound on posts whereas the positive teachers just get on with doing their job and are perhaps too busy to spend hours posting on mn?

@Usual2usual

Teachers can also by asymptomatic and pass it to each other btw.

In my sons class the teacher was positive but none of the children were....thankfully she didn't pass it on to them eh.

Science and research might tell us that children don't pass it on as much (as per CDC link above) but nooooo the scientists must be wrong only teachers can possibly ever be right.

I'm from a family of teachers (only one of whom has tested positive btw with no symptoms - since we only like anecdata on these threads) and am all for mitigations in school btw but stuff like this plus almost 18 months of these types of threads and hearing teachers on many threads refer to children as things like 'germ factories' really pisses me off.

Quite.

@TheTallOakTrees
How rude are you?

Whinging and moaning are very different from highlighting concerns.

Do you work in a school?

The biggest thing I have found is that last year my kids school was still actively encouraging you to send your children in even with cold symptoms.

If you had one of the 3 official Covid symptoms, then yes of course get a test. However, as soon as they got their negative test they wanted them back ASAP.

Employers also want you back as soon as you can, regardless of whether or not you could potential spread other bugs or viruses around.

In my experience attitudes towards illness has not changed in schools or workplaces. If you can physically get out of bed and have a negative test then get back to work/ school.

It should be released nationally via Gov and local councils that headteachers will be expected to not tolerate ill children unless proven non-covid

Sorry, you think sick children should be in school? That teachers should just put up with sick children in their midst? That sick children should just get on with it?

What kind of fucked up world do you live in?

I doubt the poster meant children vomiting or bad colds. Some children have snuffles for weeks and would be off most of the winter if they had to stay home with them.

If all parents did the right thing it would help. We get parents rang because bubble burst not picking their children up for hours. We have parents sending siblings in when brother or sister is testing then oops it's positive sorry! We have even been informed by PHE of a positive child and had to ring the parent to come and collect the multiple siblings in other classes. The stories could go on.
Unbelievable!! Then people wonder why staff who then get Covid and take it home to their families moan a little.

The issue with schools is everyone thinks they know how it works and they don’t.

A teacher off sick causes a major headache to get a replacement - they may not know the school or understand the current lesson plans etc

Nowhere else are people routinely replaced when they are off ill.

@Getawaywithit

It should be released nationally via Gov and local councils that headteachers will be expected to not tolerate ill children unless proven non-covid

Sorry, you think sick children should be in school? That teachers should just put up with sick children in their midst? That sick children should just get on with it?

What kind of fucked up world do you live in?

@Getawaywithit

Excuse me?? Have you even read ant of the thread, including my OP and my general opinion? Could you BE any more wrong?

I said headteachers should not tolerate ill children.

Not "headteachers should bot tolerate absent children"... which is where you seem to be mistaken?

Just odd.

Unless you actually meant that I must be happy surrounded by sick virusy children everyday at work? Lol. You're the kind of poster that just gets irrational rage over silly things : D

Of course I do not like ill children around me. But you obviously do not work in a school, where half the class have a runny nose every day all year round. Bless you.

But you obviously do not work in a school, where half the class have a runny nose every day all year round. Bless you

ODFOD. I teach.

Just have a general attitude problem then I guess.

@GoldenOmber

You aren’t planing your child off out of site out of mind to be ‘looked after’ as some sort of free childcare

I was hoping we had got past this delightful phase of the pandemic, but no, here we go again.

It's frankly a ridiculous phrase.

@TheTallOakTrees

Yes 🙌. Most teachers just get on with it, my sister being one of them and a few friends who absolutely do not bleat on the way Mumsnet teachers do.

If you met me in my classroom, you would say I am positive, that I am not worried about the pandemic, that you have never heard me complain and that I ‘just get on with it’. The same would be said about every member of staff in my school - in our professional roles, we put on our professional faces and say the professional things. Underneath this mask, and in private, we have our private worries - CEV children in our classes, CEV staff, CEV family members (our own, and those of our pupils(. We live with our phones on our desks, ready to be texted to be told to send our classes home, to collect our own children from school when their bubbled pop, or to hear of the serious illness of our colleagues. To parents, we let slip none of this. We seldom meet our colleagues due to infection control. So occasionally we vent on MN or similar. What we post here is not necessarily a balanced picture, any more than our professional mask shows a balanced picture. Like everyone in this pandemic, we have our good and bad moments and the truth is somewhere in between.

[quote Chillychangchoo]@TheTallOakTrees

Yes 🙌. Most teachers just get on with it, my sister being one of them and a few friends who absolutely do not bleat on the way Mumsnet teachers do.[/quote]
I agree. The teachers I know work hard have a practical approach and mainly enjoy working with children.
I wonder if some that say they teach on mn actually do.

The teachers I know work hard have a practical approach and mainly enjoy working with children

ALL teachers I know fit this description - in fact all work exceptionally hard, strive to find a workable solution to almost any problem, however challenging and unreasonable, and care deeply about the children in their care.

ALL also worry about Covid - its effect on the children they teach and the community, its effect on their own families and its effect on themselves and their colleagues.

The two are not mutually exclusive - in fact, IME, they always coexist in every teacher.

I would also say pretty much all love working with children - if they don’t love their jobs, it is almost iniversally because of the aspects of the job that are not to do with children - the paperwork, politics, poor management, funding issues that prevent them doing the best for some children with the highest needs etc.