Teaching with asthma

[halfdeer]

In light of the decision made by the government yesterday I'm wondering whether teachers with asthma should be at work?

I'm really keen to do my part in keeping everything running but I'm also concerned about my own health. This year has been particularly bad in terms of my lung health, with three chest infections and flare ups of asthma since November. What would everyone recommend?

I plan on speaking to my Head today but understandably he's very busy at the moment! Live and work in Outer London and no confirmed cases of Covid-19 at the school as far as I'm aware...

My workplace was the same. There was absolutely no question about the importance of anyone who was pregnant not being in work but ‘vulnerable’ adults to whom exactly the same ‘strongly advised’ advice was given could just ignore it - which some in my school did initially.

think that I could cope if it wasn’t a respiratory illness

This is finally starting to crack me. I've been resilient till now.

I have a perpetual silver linings gene, which does help often; after a winter of 3 bad chest bugs and also dealing with what I've just realised was anticipatory anxiety around asthma and coughs, I feel people at work and even my husband is taking asthma and breathing issues with viruses more seriously.

The school I teach at hadn't a clue about asthma plans etc till I mentioned them.

People (slt leaders) didnt previously seem to understand that chronic means you have it all the time, but also that it doesn't seem that you do as an asthmatic should be well controlled. A few colleagues had no idea I have asthma.

I had to really put my foot down over chemical air fresheners at work around young children, back in January. Even though there was a directive given from the la a couple of years ago.

So if there's one thing that comes out of this it's more respect for asthmatics.

Luckily my workplace did take the asthma advice seriously. I had a lot of absence before mine was well controlled.

@carrottopper Yes, same site. It had said as part of the additional guidance below the list that specifics oral steroids weekly, that if you'd had 2 or more courses of oral steroids in the last year then that would be a trigger too.
That's now been removed and just has 2 sentences about needing hospitalisation in a period of time, or ICU ever.

It’s all got too much for me today and I just keep breaking down. Finding it very hard to motivate myself at home and it’s only the first week! I need to get into some sort of routine - any ideas?

I'm struggling with routine too.

Our classes have a lot of stuff they took home with them, so we are only setting a maths/eng/something else activity a day to supplement what they have in their books.

I get up as normal, have breakfast and do something quick that's housework. Then sit to my pc at the normal time I'd be at work. I check everything's gone out that was scheduled and look for any emails to check or work to give feedback on electronically.

Then I play my piano for an hour - that's my bonus as I had intended to use my summer hols to get back into playing just for me, so I'm fitting it in my 'break time' as I can't go out and realistically, have less time consuming work to do.
Then I am stuck... I have some assessment recording I do a bit of. And I'm tweaking our planning, but it's mostly up to date.

And then I'm bored. Too guilty to do decorating (using stuff I already have) or sorting out as I feel I'm still 'on the clock' but I've run out of stuff to do before then checking emails again at the end of the day.

Next week I'm hoping my partner teacher will do more setting of the work so I'll have even less to do!

I need to fit in some exercise. That would help.

It's all I can do to keep on top of my own children let alone anyone else's!

Luckily I've been given curriculum tasks as I'm part time.