Schools still a covid shitshow

[noblegiraffe]

"Schools have been forced to send year groups home this week because of "rapidly rising" Covid rates among staff and an inability to find supply teachers, it has emerged.

The removal of the need for Covid testing among staff and pupils was making the situation worse, with some schools now experiencing their worst absence levels of the pandemic, a headteachers' leader told Tes.

Heads warn that some schools are having to send year groups home on a rota or combine class groups in an attempt to protect exam year groups from more disruption."

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/covid-schools-absence-send-year-groups-home-cases-spike

Some will claim that getting rid of testing would improve the situation, but clearly a situation where lots of teachers are getting ill and requiring a few days off school to recover, regardless of isolation rules, is not 'getting back to normal'.

The teachers that I know who have had covid recently would have required a few days off school despite it being 'mild' even without isolation guidance, even though teachers are well-known for dosing on Lemsip and turning up to school regardless of illness because setting cover work is worse.

Still, the covid catch-up effort has basically fizzled out, and it's looking like zero effort will be made by the government to support children in recovering their education from the impact of absences and lack of teachers.

Exams start in a couple of months for kids who are having an extremely disruptive time. The government has fixed the exam grades so that they will come out with better results than the 2019 cohort, this will basically cover up the impact on educational standards. How this will play out down the line at uni/college/sixth form is anyone's guess.

@BeenToldComputerSaysNo thank you. I'd take a thank you. And a booster. And the odd mask maybe too. Probably asking too much 🥴

When Gavin Williamson was knighted I threw up a little in my mouth. Absolute travesty.

@Malteser71

Raspberry jam chicken - Why does somebody always come on and start saying how teachers are teachers are a special case?

It’s been suggested that teachers are more at risk? You seriously think they spend more time to in enclosed spaces with people and that this makes them more vulnerable than say, healthcare workers dealing with actual covid patients?

It’s been the same on here for two years.

Hmmmm. I have been to the GP, hospital appointment and orthodontist in the last 3 weeks (not all for me). For all appointments, we have been required to wear masks, as have the health professionals. We have also been asked if we or anyone in our household had covid or symptoms and if so, we would have to reschedule.

Teachers are maskless, teaching kids who are unvaccinated and maskless, and who aren’t routinely testing for covid. Many of them have family members with covid.

My SIL works on a covid ward and wears some much PPE she looks like a Ghostbuster.

Yes, teachers often are more exposed than health workers.

@mumsneedwine, that's apparently not living with it though. Not sure why living with it means having to embrace covid with arms wide open, but there you go!

"It’s been suggested that teachers are more at risk? You seriously think they spend more time to in enclosed spaces with people and that this makes them more vulnerable than say, healthcare workers dealing with actual covid patients?"

Well, healthcare workers on actual Covid wards will be as good as wrapped in clingfilm and Hazmat suits. The last time I even managed to get a medic to see me face to face, I was subjected to the twelfth degree of questioning, had my temperature taken, had to wear a mask, had sanitiser sprayed at me at every turn, wasn't allowed to sit down in the surgery and the GP was head-to-toe in PPE.
Hardly your average classroom.

I'm fed up of the narrative that Covid is just like a common cold. For some people it is, for many it is worse than that. Not bad enough to require medical treatment, but bad enough to require time off work.
I'm a teacher, Covid has led to me having 12 days off school since November (had it twice), both times I needed the full isolation period. I don't think I've had 12 days off sick over the last 5 years.
I do feel we have to move on and learn to live with it, but that means acknowledging that many individuals and workplaces will be affected whilst we build immunity and/or an effective vaccination strategy.
The reality is the classroom, especially the primary classroom, is one of the few working areas where the vast majority of people in the room are unvaccinated.
Of course the staff in a school are not at greater risk than many of those in healthcare settings, but it is not a competition about whose working environment is the riskiest.
I know some people are fed up by teachers highlighting the difficulties in schools. I feel much of the frustration of teachers stems from the fact that those who we are answerable to (Ofsted and the government) are pretending Covid doesn't exist.
In England, pupil absence was over 10% last week and staff absence was 9%. That has a major impact on schools.
Telling teachers to stop testing is not going to fix the problem, instead schools have to be supported through this period.

School staff have been "living with it" for the last two years, whilst most other professions were (and in some cases still are) tucked up at home.
Pisses me off hugely when people tell us, of all people, that we need to get on with it. As if we haven't been all along!

Funny how this new variant is making school staff so unwell when most others are fine

Most others aren’t exposed to high levels of the virus day in day out, without mitigations. And surely the evidence of the last two years tells us that this can be a very debilitating and sometimes fatal disease. Sadly the people most affected seem to be in healthcare, social care and education as well as some other public facing roles. Especially as it seems that many of the public care not a whit, as evidenced by some posters on here.

@CallmeHendricks

'School staff have been "living with it" for the last two years, whilst most other professions were (and in some cases still are) tucked up at home.
Pisses me off hugely when people tell us, of all people, that we need to get on with it. As if we haven't been all along!'

Absolutely. We were there throughout, keeping schools open whilst the masses thought we were sipping gin in our gardens.

@Watapalava

Seems odd given teachers are so keen to test

Meanwhile in the real world everyone else binned the tests as soon as they could......

I'm not keen to test. I'm asked to test regularly in the hope if avoiding giving covid to anyone. Given that most of the kids have stopped testing, and that schools therefore more than likely have more covid than when we were regularly testing, it's not surprising that school staff are getting it.

Proper ventilation and air filtration in classrooms would show a real commitment, on the part of government, to the unrealistic attendance targets (97% attendance, in the middle of a pandemic).

One classroom in my DDs school has air filters (paid for by parents) and it's the one with the lowest covid absences and the one where no staff have had covid.

There's so much more they could do. In my older DDs secondary school they had to send year groups home today AGAIN. This is the third outbreak where they've not had enough staff to operate as normal since September. Normal it is not.

Every single secondary age child my DD1 knows has had covid at least once since October. Clearly the myth of 'herd immunity' and it running through school once and that being it has been well and truly disproven by now.

Teachers and students should still get lfts, especially if they're not investing in proper ventilation and air filtration. The day my DD1 tested positive, she was fine - by the evening she was streaming but had she not done an LFT that morning she would have gone into school and spread it around.

I don't get this attitude of 'living with it' meaning 'doing fuck all to stop the disruption and harm it brings'. Why are people so keen to actively cause harm and extra disruption?

Do you think there were people going around during the black death telling everyone they had to just 'live with it' and put up with it. Knowing human nature, I'm guessing yes.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

Fuck off *@Watapalava*

If you knew the conditions that teachers are coping with you would soon shut up. We turn up at the crack of dawn every day, put up with all varieties of shit from leadership team, ofsted and parents and take on more and more eorkload, most of which is pointless whilst firefighting the results of a fractured society for no thanks, shit pay and frankly deserve much better.

Perfectly put.

I'm always astounded how brilliant all the teachers at both my Dds schools are.

We're asking teachers to do more and more and giving them (as a society) less and less, no wonder so many are leaving.

I never said that school staff are at greater risk of catching Covid (although it would seem likely that they are given the number of unvaccinated people they have close contact with). I was responding to the poster who was surprised by the idea that teachers may be feeling so unwell by pointing out that they may be exposed to a higher viral load, meaning they may experience more symptoms.

Even healthcare professionals spend a limited amount of time with each patient (as well as wearing PPE). Teachers are in prolonged close contact with large groups of children.

The ONS data shows that education staff are more infected than other work sectors and have been for some time.

@theemperorhasnoclothes

Proper ventilation and air filtration in classrooms would show a real commitment, on the part of government, to the unrealistic attendance targets (97% attendance, in the middle of a pandemic).

One classroom in my DDs school has air filters (paid for by parents) and it's the one with the lowest covid absences and the one where no staff have had covid.

There's so much more they could do. In my older DDs secondary school they had to send year groups home today AGAIN. This is the third outbreak where they've not had enough staff to operate as normal since September. Normal it is not.

Every single secondary age child my DD1 knows has had covid at least once since October. Clearly the myth of 'herd immunity' and it running through school once and that being it has been well and truly disproven by now.

Teachers and students should still get lfts, especially if they're not investing in proper ventilation and air filtration. The day my DD1 tested positive, she was fine - by the evening she was streaming but had she not done an LFT that morning she would have gone into school and spread it around.

I don't get this attitude of 'living with it' meaning 'doing fuck all to stop the disruption and harm it brings'. Why are people so keen to actively cause harm and extra disruption?

Do you think there were people going around during the black death telling everyone they had to just 'live with it' and put up with it. Knowing human nature, I'm guessing yes.

Well put

I will accept that health care professionals working on covid wards are more likely to catch covid. Dentists seem to have a raw dealt too. But from what I can see right now, most HCPs are being very, very cautious (I don’t blame them) and are much less likely to catch covid than teachers.

Schools are in a state of crisis. After months of student absence, staff absence is really high. Most people are on Covid Round Two and many on Round Three. A significant number of them feel really grotty and wouldn’t be able to come into work even if it was allowed by our leadership team. The fact that it isn’t a one off illness and it appears that we can be reinfected every few months is what is so dispiriting. It goes round and round and round and round. Something needs to be done and the people who need to sort it out have just been awarded a 2.7% pay rise. They should attempt to justify it by actually having some policies so please don’t ask what we (the teachers) would do to sort it out. We aren’t paid enough to do our own jobs, let alone the MPs’ jobs too.

The thing is, we do actually know what would help. Ventilation. Air filtration. Testing. When levels of covid are high, masks for limited periods. Vaccination of children.

It's not rocket science. This is happening in some private schools already, and in other countries.

What is lacking is the political will to be bothered to try and make things better.

I'm not keen to test. I'm asked to test regularly in the hope if avoiding giving covid to anyone.

Exactly. I accept that, as a member of school staff, I am at high risk of carrying Covid to others, especially e.g. vulnerable elderly relatives for whom i have caring responsibility.

So I test myself to check that I am not carrying my risk (which I accept, as the corollary to the benefit to children of being in school) to others who are more vulnerable and have no choice about the fact they rely on me.

@Watapalava

Funny how this new variant is making school staff so unwell when most others are fine

Almoat all people I know who’ve caught it are fine

Everyone I know tells same story

This is a milder variant not worse

Coincidently are these rises due to no pcr as no one has to prove covid now do we? I’m guessing many are not genuine absences -

I've been a teacher and now have an office job (though have been wfh since covid).

I worked through covid in February, so appeared "fine". That's really easy to do when you are sitting behind a computer screen. I probably didn't work as well as I would when I am completely well. But I couldn't have taught for about a week. Teaching is performing in front of an audience. There's no fallback option of sitting down and going a bit slower if you feel rough.

Lots of people are really unwell with this variant, despite vaccinations. Ill enough to not be able to work. DH was in bed for ages with it.

Also, why should school staff go in when they feel rough? They have a physically demanding job that involves being on their feet a lot and projecting their voice to a large group. It's not something that's easy to do with a cough, let alone flu symptoms.

Some people really seem to not care about teachers at all as human beings. It's unbelievable.

Also this idea that teachers are faking illness. People who are inclined to do that don't become teachers. As so many have said, they create more work for themselves when they're off sick .It's a really demanding job. Anyone who wants an easy life doesn't become a teacher.

Almoat all people I know who’ve caught it are fine

Almost all the people I know who've caught it have been quite ill.

My anecdote proves yours is wrong.

Prof. Christina Pagel again with the numbers: mobile.twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1506306017897947137

"We are also seeing rapid increases in the number of teachers off school (for any reason) - back up to levels last seen in Jan with 9% of staff absent."

We are setting back an entire generation of kids so that the posters in threads like these:

• www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4498100-AIBU-to-tell-my-friend-to-stop-guilting-me-about-Covid

• www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4510338-Are-you-getting-your-primary-age-child-vaccinated?msgid=116054503

can be utterly selfish.

"Some people really seem to not care about teachers at all as human beings. It's unbelievable"

Afraid it is very believable. No one cared about teachers getting infected even pre vaccine. I recall quite a few cev posters bring told to get on with on with it or quit. It's quite clear that education is one of the highest risk occupations for contracting covid, despite all the gaslighting that's gone on over the pandemic

[quote noblegiraffe]The DfE has refused to publish data from its call for an army of retired teachers which means it was not successful.

schoolsweek.co.uk/covid-ex-teacher-call-to-arms-falls-flat-as-1-in-3-make-it-to-classroom/[/quote]
Oops soz. Too disabled many disabled offspring who are clinically vulnerable out of date long since I had a CRB(!) check lazy to have got round to signing up for what'sits (wheresgav?)
army of retired teachers...

So many teachers and TA's at my dc's school are off with covid. My autistic child (year 3) has always struggled with school but now with his intervention group stopped (which was the only thing about school he liked), his teacher off sick and his class being taught with the year above, he really isn't coping. Meanwhile my eldest has got his gcse exams soon.