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.

@cantkeepawayforever, you're absolutely right and have put it perfectly.

However, I strongly advise you to ignore any particularly goady posters on here. Scroll on by.

@cantkeepawayforever

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.

Absolutely this. Some posters on here trying to take cheap shots rather than actually listening to what people are saying.

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

@Chillychangchoo
You say ‘bleat’, I say passionate about education and workers’ rights. What kind of teacher am I if I allow things that are wrong to pass unchallenged? And there are many things which are wrong and need changing if children are to receive an educational experience on a level to that received before Covid. I worry that some posters on don’t really support that goal and aim for a ‘close your eyes and it will go away’ approach to problems caused by Covid.

I hope your sister and friends GENUINELY feel children and teachers are being well served at the moment and they aren’t just taking the path of least resistance. On the other hand, they could be posting on here without you knowing, of course!

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

Nurses, doctors, paramedics, police, firefighters, shop workers.....I'm sure there are more but these are the ones that spring to mind as likely needing replacing when off ill, any kind of service doesn't tend to just run with little to no staff.

Just have a general attitude problem then I guess

Someone who has a different viewpoint to you has ‘a general attitude problem’? And you’re questioning my professionalism?

@Usual2usual

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

Nurses, doctors, paramedics, police, firefighters, shop workers.....I'm sure there are more but these are the ones that spring to mind as likely needing replacing when off ill, any kind of service doesn't tend to just run with little to no staff.

Yes, yet despite the considerable skill needed for performing any of those well, to some extent you can replace 'like with like' more easily than in education (albeit there are highly specialist/varied experience levels for certain skills or knowledge of a particular patient/scenario that one individual may have that others don't, within that team/profession).

I'm sorry but it just doesn't work the same way in education, where there is far more need to know the current level of each pupil, and how to stretch them in a carefully planned way beyond the current capacity (but not too far, too fast). Being sensitive to individual needs and strengths, their emotional wellbeing, and on and on. A supply teacher can 'replace' the teacher and keep the children safe, maybe help them do a few pages of the textbook, but it simply isn't the same.

With PM refusing to isolate after his staff member tested positive I do not see how they can impose isolation in schools from September www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58123017.
PHE has admitted that vaccines do not stop spread of delta www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-variants/england-says-delta-infections-produce-similar-virus-levels-regardless-of-vaccine-status-idUSKBN2F719I
Delta is the most common variant at the moment. Not sure why pharma companies do not alter vaccines to protect against Delta. It seems there is no point to vaccinate more people with vaccines that do not protect against Delta.

Don't supply teachers costs extra money do they get extra money for that or comes out of existing budget meaning schools have less money.
Some schools shut last term due to low staffing.
You have to have sufficient safe staffing levels in schools.
So we may need a whole army of supply of lots of teachers are sick with covid and off school.

It is definitely not easy to replace like for like in the nhs- generally we just have to manage. Staffing pretty stretched even without sickness due to vacancies and difficulties in recruitment especially in high dependency areas.

There are three issues with using supply teachers to replace teachers who are absent die to being ill with Covid:

• Cost.
• Availability - not all supply teachers are willing or able to take a placement in a school where infections are high, because many are doing supply because of caring responsibilities.
• Competence - teaching is not just delivery of a lecture, but making every child make progress. Doing that requires detailed knowledge not only of the subject (and the specific curriculum / approach used in that school) but also of the children and their needs.

As a result of the above, pretty much all schools cover absence internally, if at all possible. So in primary, TAs often cover classes - either using planning sent in by the class teacher or remotely supported by another teacher in the school. In my children’s secondary, most absence up to Y 11 was covered by cover supervisors, and in sixth form, students had no cover and were expected to use the time for private study.

A large increase in teacher absence WILL lead to poorer teaching and learning, for all of the above reasons.

Parents will, in general, be unaware of the juggling and compromises made to cover absence - they will know an adult was in the class, but the fact that 90 children (usually with 6 staff ) were covered by a single teacher and 2 TAs pulled from elsewhere across the school, depriving children there of their usual support levels, will generally be invisible.

Just to clarify I was t suggesting schools should just manage - it’s completely rubbish for many. That T&T wasted money could have and should have been used for health/ education and social care.

• wasn’t suggesting

Yes all teachers etc have been offered the vaccine. However, I am pregnant (high risk) and due to severe allergies I am not permitted to have the vaccine while I’m pregnant in case I go into anaphylactic shock. I’m still expected to teach a class of 33 with no ppe and no social distancing so very little to protect me from becoming seriously ill and going into pre-term labour. Unsure how that is fair when I can’t help that I’m unvaccinated. Parents won’t keep ill kids home as they don’t care so no chance of me avoiding infection.

@Haveyoulosttheplot

Yes all teachers etc have been offered the vaccine. However, I am pregnant (high risk) and due to severe allergies I am not permitted to have the vaccine while I’m pregnant in case I go into anaphylactic shock. I’m still expected to teach a class of 33 with no ppe and no social distancing so very little to protect me from becoming seriously ill and going into pre-term labour. Unsure how that is fair when I can’t help that I’m unvaccinated. Parents won’t keep ill kids home as they don’t care so no chance of me avoiding infection.

JCVI largely opposed to Covid vaccination for children under 16, primary school children included www.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/07/jcvi-largely-opposed-to-covid-vaccination-for-children-under-16 You are not permitted to have the vaccine so do the primary school children. "f you need health and safety adjustments, you must notify your employer in writing (e.g. email) that you are pregnant, breastfeeding or have given birth in the last six months.

Your employer must consider the risks and take action as follows:

Step 1: temporarily alter your working conditions or hours of work, if this is reasonable and avoids the risk, such as allowing extra breaks, ensuring that you can sit down and avoiding heavy lifting. This applies to all workers.

Step 2: If that is not possible or does not avoid the risk, your employer must offer you suitable alternative work on terms and conditions that are not substantially less favourable than your original job.

Step 3: If there is no suitable alternative work, your employer must suspend you on full pay for as long as necessary to avoid the risk.

Steps 2 and 3 apply to employees only and agency workers with more than 12 weeks in the same placement."
Infectious decease are among the risks that the employer need to consider. More are via the link below:
maternityaction.org.uk/advice/health-and-safety-during-pregnancy-and-on-return-to-work/

@cantkeepawayforever

Parents will, in general, be unaware of the juggling and compromises made to cover absence - they will know an adult was in the class, but the fact that 90 children (usually with 6 staff ) were covered by a single teacher and 2 TAs pulled from elsewhere across the school, depriving children there of their usual support levels, will generally be invisible.

Absolutely this. And also that staff worked all day without a break or they had to do colouring in instead of maths for a multitude of reasons.

This is what's worrying is people want thier kids in school at any cost.
Many are happy bubbles and isolating are gone.
They not considering the health or well being of their child's teacher.
The quality of the teaching/ education.
That their child maybe just being supervised by unqualified teachers and tas.

I don't see how people can imagine school be normal this year.
We done nothing to better ventilate schools and no teens have had vaccinations and we know double jabbed teachers can still catch covid.

Thank you but I’ve already submitted all evidence and have got no chance of them taking any notice. As far as schools are concerned it’s up to us to teach normally and remind the children to distance themselves from us. Not sure they’ve ever tried getting a 7 year old to stop touching you while you’re in the middle of teaching or helping another child.

The quality of the teaching/ education.
That their child maybe just being supervised by unqualified teachers and tas.

Those are the two key issues in my opinion. November and December were about babysitting for large chunks of time at my school, same towards the end of this last summer term. Just not enough staff for everyone to feel safe. Certainly earlier in the year when staff were shielding. In our case we also had staff having (unrelated to covid, but not helped by covid) mental breakdowns, so off work almost all year, and other staff having covid related mental health issues.

I wrote to my MP about it, got nowhere. Schools are safe apparently.

With a few exceptions, teachers will have had the chance to have been fully vaccinated and be well protected from severe Covid, even if they are still susceptible to being infected. As such, I don't see autumn term would need to be much different to bad flu season. Teachers and children take time off when too ill to attend, but apart from that, crack on.

The 10 days isolation is the thing that seems to be causing more issues than Covid!

I think that measures continue to need to be in place for those that remain very vulnerable even after vaccines (offered the ability to shield and be replaced with a supply teacher), or particularly vulnerable children (continued home learning whilst the current waves rolls through or even taught in more Covid-secure locations with others), but blanket policy that impacts everyone equally to protect what is a small
minority is bad policy, and the worst of all worlds as the CEV aren't really being fully protected if population cases remain high and everyone else is nonetheless significantly impacted.

Some people seem to want to operate on the basis that vaccines have had negligible impact on the Covid risk... but I don't suppose those people will ever be satisfied, and if it was up to them we'd be masked, distancing and sanitising for decades... literally.

This is what's worrying is people want thier kids in school at any cost .Many are happy bubbles and isolating are gone. They not considering the health or well being of their child's teacher.

The teachers will have been able to have been fully vaccinated... Unless they are CEV to the extent that the vaccine is ineffective (and proportionally there are very few such teachers),
in which cases I think special measures should be put in place, then the risk to those teachers is very small. The risk was very small before the vaccine for most... it's extremely tiny once they've been fully vaccinated!

As such, I don't see autumn term would need to be much different to bad flu season.

The difference is anyone who tests positive for covid has to self isolate for 10 days.
In a bad flu season you might, for example, have 6 teachers get flu - 2 might be off for a week, 2 off for 2 days, 2 with milder symptoms who don't need any time off.
That is a lot less supply cover than 6 covid positive teachers.
I've been teaching over 25 years and apart from my first year (when I was building up my immunity) have never had more than 2 days off in a row, in my school it is very rare for a teacher to have a full week off.
I actually don't think autumn will be as bad as the last few weeks of summer term (where there were several times we were a whisker away from sending classes home due to staffing shortages) but I do think it will be challenging.
We had more positive cases amongst staff in the last few weeks of term than we had from March 19 - Jun 20. I am pretty sure in the autumn term we will be heavily reliant on using TAs and supply teachers - better than sending classes home, but investment will be needed to support schools to help all children catch up.

but investment will be needed to support schools to help all children catch up

I think we all know this support will be non-existent!

@laselvar

The difference is anyone who tests positive for covid has to self isolate for 10 days.

True, but why does this have to be the case now? Time to treat it like we do the flu and stop trying to "kick the can down the road" with half-hearted attempts at suppression that can only delay spread somewhat rather than eliminate Covid.

Time to treat it like we do the flu

Primary and secondary schoolkids will be vaccinated against the flu this year. Is that what you are arguing for?