How schools will stay open without priority teacher vaccinations?

[CadburysCrunchie]

I'm not a teacher, but I am wondering how our children's schools will stay open (and we can continue going to work) without teaching staff being given some sort of priority for the covid vaccination?

My child's school has already completely shut for two weeks in November due to rapidly increasing cases, then reopened, and now with 3 days notice is changing to home learning next week due to staff shortages (people being sick, shielding, or having to self-isolate for 2 weeks). The school thinks it is likely the school will have to go to home learning again next term due to all the staff shortages.

If you are not a keyworker so that your child can request to stay in school, how can you go to work outside the home (no home working alternative) if you have no childcare?? What about children who don't have access to a computer etc?

I don't know if this is allowed, but I am going to link to a petition I have seen: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/554316 - Admin, please remove this if the link is not allowed.

YABU - You should stop worrying
YANBU - You are right to worry about this.

@Yoshinori

Teachers shouldn’t be given priority just because they are teachers.

Imo teachers moan and moan about being exposed when so many other professions are also exposed to COVID risks and often even more so.

As a teacher you interact with mostly the same group of students, retail workers/shop workers are exposed to a greater pool of people all who are more likely to have Covid than young students.

The same group of 1200 students.

For longer periods of time. Every day.

Without perspex screens.

When they're ill.

@lucidnightmare

Its ok, no need to worry, teachers are immune and schools don't spread Covid. It's probably just an excuse for the work-shy staff to get extra holiday...

/sarcasm

My school won't even tell staff which children have tested positive out of the lists of 80+ pupils who are self isolating. I mean they did draw a box around our desks with masking tape so clearly that's enough. No consideration how we can actually do our jobs, help pupils who are stuck etc without us leaving or pupils entering said box.
The great irony of SLT having "Learning Walks" last week and criticising staff who didn't 'interact with pupils enough'.
The last 3 positive results in pupils were framed to staff as 'if you have broken the risk assessment then talk to the HT who will judge if you have put yourself at risk...'

Omg! I've worked in many schools and although it doesn't surprise me that the school have worded it like that it does make me see red!!!

SLT in your school will try any bullying tactic to keep you as a staff member in school!

Ie. It doesn't matter what child where tests positive no teacher should have to isolate because you should have read the magic risk assessment and if you haven't followed it, please come and explain to us why you are now a huge inconvenience to us that we now have to manage!

What a shit attitude in a global pandemic. I know my risk assessments are vague and purely a legal box ticking exercise. Any practical information is either not site specific or unachievable

There no 'we're in this together at your school is there!'

You CANNOT control an airborne virus in a classroom with one entrance/exit and 4 walls

@BerriesAndPineCones
I refer you to the op's posts. She might have said not before them, but implies alongside because there is no indication she means as a phase 2 priority.

@noblegiraffe that might be the case, but doesn't back up a pps claim the data proves me wrong. And there won't ever be any data available on how many zero hour/ low paid people have had it or been put at risk because many will have actively avoided making it public knowledge because they can't afford the time off.

Sorry @Hercwasonaroll, I must have missed the data showing teachers were hospitalised or even died in greater proportions than health staff, carers, bus drivers etc.

That's because the government have fudged the data and been reported to the statistics regulator. The DfE aren't releasing the data anymore, because they know what it shows. Teachers are being infected at one of the highest rates. This means they can't work and many are requiring weeks, not days, off work due to long term symptoms. The viral load is higher because of the conditions teachers are working in.

Teachers needing regular isolation has a big impact on schools, as many have seen in the last term. The more the government can do to stop that, the better.

As I say on all these threads where people say that teachers aren't at risk, would you...

...walk into a small room where 30 people are sitting, completely unmasked? Would you feel comfortable sitting among them for an hour? When they leave, will you stay while another 30 unmasked people come in and stay for an hour? Then repeat that three more times? Five days a week?
Oh - and you can't wear a mask either. Or open a window more than a few inches.

I bet the same people who think teachers should stop moaning, would absolutely refuse to even spend that first hour among 30 unmasked people in that small room. And those same people will glare at anyone without a mask in the supermarket. Or at the guy with his nose poking out from his mask.

It's bizarre. Seriously, I'd love to challenge these people to go unmasked among 30 unmasked teenagers.

I work in a special school where I physically manage. I tested positive on Thursday. I would never ever request priority over the physically vulnerable but I do think that at the very least special school staff should be a priority.

We look after the most vulnerable in society and it’s almost impossible to socially distance and wear PPE.

I think people have got confused about which priority was being suggested as the op mentioned the problem with disruption in the next term of school. If anyone is thinking that all of the priority clinical groups will have been done by April they are clearly a lot more optimistic than me. Given that it also takes about 6 weeks to have a full course and become immune I think we’re looking more at the effect on the next academic year after a natural respite in the warmer months.

So priority for the vaccine is

Elderly people

Teachers

NHS staff

then?

So why tell me the data isn't backing me up if the data doesn't exist Herc?

As the parent of a y12 I'm fully aware teachers are getting ill like many frontline staff, and know how the current generation of teenagers are being screwed over. But I also live in a rural village with my nearest town being rural and deprived, and I can see what it's doing to those communities. Which is just as bad as teaching or anything similarly risky but made so much worse with the poverty factor.

No, it's

1. residents in a care home
2. over 80 and frontline health care workers
3. over 75s
4. over 70 and CEV
5. over 65
6. 16-64 with underlying health conditions
7. over 60
8. over 55
9. over 50. The petition asks that teachers are then placed in a category with OTHER key workers at number 10.

The problem is spaniel if they aren’t in any of those categories the chances of any illness resulting from covid is minimal.

But JCVI have already identified teachers as a priority after the existing clinical needs groups.

But they are more at risk of catching it and passing it on, which has happened to my colleague.

The JCVI have advised that teachers should be in this group but the government have to make it policy, so far they haven't done so. This is what the petition is asking for.

@TrainspottingWelsh

The limited data available put teachers in 3 categories of primary, secondary and other. The biggest category by far was "other teacher" however that data was all but hidden. This showed teacher infection rates to be higher than care workers at times.

The data on student infections has shown students age 11-18 year old being the most infected subset of the population since about mid October (can't remember exactly when).

But I also live in a rural village with my nearest town being rural and deprived, and I can see what it's doing to those communities. Which is just as bad as teaching or anything similarly risky but made so much worse with the poverty factor.

1. There are teachers living in poverty.
2. Education is a route out of poverty. That won't happen if teachers aren't in school.
3. Schools will undoubtedly be supporting students in poverty as best they can with food parcels etc. They need staff to do this.
4. I agree that low wage workers working in a similar environment to teachers with close contact (factories etc) should also be on the priority list.
5. Rural poverty is devastating. I'd expect lots of the jobs rely on hospitality being open. Having schools open will help achieve this.

DH is a GP and had his first vaccine yesterday. As from next week their surgery will start doing the vaccinations. The first group are the over 80’s and medical vulnerable. If they get Covid they are most likely to require significant medical intervention and have the worst outcome.

@Parker231
We do know that, my father died from Covid- related outcomes. No one is asking for teachers to be placed as a priority OVER the current priority list, but that the JCVI recommendations are implemented.

that might be the case, but doesn't back up a pps claim the data proves me wrong.

You switched what you were asking for.

1. teaching isn’t risky (data doesn’t back you up there, it suggests it is at least as if not more risky for catching covid than healthcare)

2. teachers aren’t at higher risk of hospitalisation/death (data has been suppressed)

@spanieleyes

But they are more at risk of catching it and passing it on, which has happened to my colleague.

There still isn't enough data to show that the vaccine prevents transmission. All we really know is if you get CV the symptoms won't be as severe. Unless anything new has been added online about the trials, we don't even know if this will prevent long CV.

So sorry to hear about your dad spaniel

Phase 2 is,at the least, months away, it will be influenced by many things including vaccine availability, the individual characteristics of the vaccines, take up in priority groups, observed side effects, efficacy in different age groups, so many variables! The risk benefit ratio in a healthy under 50 is not the same as for an over 80. You never know if we’ve ordered a load of vaccines which don’t show sufficient efficacy in the over 50s teachers could be bumped up the list ahead of some others. To release a full plan before we know many of the details, have no idea how long vaccination programmes will take, or how many vaccines will be available and the characteristics of those vaccines seems a bit silly to me. Great news teachers have been identified as priority, I don’t think we’re ready to plan phase 2 more than that at the moment though

@lucidnightmare

Its ok, no need to worry, teachers are immune and schools don't spread Covid. It's probably just an excuse for the work-shy staff to get extra holiday...

/sarcasm

My school won't even tell staff which children have tested positive out of the lists of 80+ pupils who are self isolating. I mean they did draw a box around our desks with masking tape so clearly that's enough. No consideration how we can actually do our jobs, help pupils who are stuck etc without us leaving or pupils entering said box.
The great irony of SLT having "Learning Walks" last week and criticising staff who didn't 'interact with pupils enough'.
The last 3 positive results in pupils were framed to staff as 'if you have broken the risk assessment then talk to the HT who will judge if you have put yourself at risk...'

Sounds familiar...

@Hercwasonaroll
I'm not of the opinion teachers earn a fair salary for their job, or that it provides an affluent lifestyle. But it's ludicrous to suggest teachers are living in poverty, even the lowest starting salary is higher than nmw. And unlike many of the poorest, being off isolating or ill doesn't result in no income.

Rural education is a whole other thread, and even pre covid isn't a route out unless you're exceptionally gifted or exceptionally lucky. Unlike the Londoners whinging about having to pay peanuts for previously free buses to travel short distances, here you only get chance to get suitable post 16 education if your parents can afford the expensive transport. Teachers being prioritised for vacs isn't going to make much difference tbh.

Hospitality isn't the main factor here, it's farming locally, with the majority of low income households working in factories, shops, industrial estates etc in local towns with the poorest there also limited to those opportunities. I know for a fact many are aware they've probably been in contact or even suspect they have it, but given the choice between not eating, eviction etc they don't have any option to do the sensible thing. And I would suggest vaccinating them, so their dc also aren't spreading it is more beneficial than having ample school staff to deliver food parcels to them. Not to mention that teachers would be less at risk.

@noblegiraffe no, I said I wouldn't put teachers as the highest risk group, a pp said the data indicated otherwise, I asked where it was, you said it wasn't available. That isn't me switching what I asked for.

There are teachers living I think poverty. Whether you believe that or not is a different matter. However I personally know of two that rely on food banks as single parents needing wrap around care.

I agree with you that factory workers and other key workers you listed should also be on a priority list.

Rural poverty/education is its own quagmire to delve into. Funding cuts disproportionately affect rural areas. I've taught in a rural school and have seen the issues first hand too.

Having (particularly) primary school teachers in work full time to support those vulnerable families has to be a priority.

That first sentence should say 'there are teachers living in poverty'