Let's boycott all school threads outside of Education

[Everyexitisanentrance]

Honestly guys we are getting a kicking on other threads. We repeatedly have to explain our contracts, holidays, why we are not doing more online, why we should be doing less on ...... it is never ending. So far we have been off for the Easter break plus a max of two weeks. There is a lot of the population that do not need childcare. We are open for key worker children but that gets ignored. All the social distancing issues are ignored. All the ppe requirements are ignored. Now it could be that the trolls just see us as an easy target, hence all the forlough calls. So as a union member, I am requesting that teachers do not have to explain themselves on other threads as we are just fueling the fire. (I have been guilty of this).

So I am calling for a union boycott!

It's rubbish isn't it? I'm less worried about me than I am DH (overweight, medicated hypertension, arrhythmia), ds (brittle asthma) and my mum who is 81 with vascular dementia and lives with us. I'm super fit for my age despite asthma (I run 5km 3 times a week and 10km every Sunday at creditable times for a 50 year old) and haven't been really wiped out aside from allegy asthma for a long while. But I would feel worse about bringing it home. I don't think i would ever forgive myself.

I got so panicky and so sure we'd be sent back that I made DH dig out his life insurance and we got together a "death folder" of paperwork just in case.

I'm being great with the kids though. We've just made smores and got out the sleeping bags. Thos bloody bin bag bivvies better hold up because it's forecast rain round our way.

Some of the solution being offered by non teachers on other threads alarm me. If they are not that far off the truth (see the MH thread) then I can see people leaving teaching : I know that happens anyway, but these would be the teachers who came into the profession to actually teach, who enjoy the interaction in classrooms ,and could be some of the most talented professionals who cannot envisage a future as described.

Amanda Spielman's words are now being reported pretty much out of context by the BBC : what is it with these journalists! She definitely did not say that everyone needs to rush back to school!

My DH doesn't have life insurance phlebas....

No one will insure him!

It's all right , though, because under another poster's plans you, my DH, probably me will be locked away to plan remote lessons for an army of young unqualified things to deliver in leisure centres. Then we just get the fun of marking the work...

The Ofsted boss said she did not expect inspections to resume before the end of the summer term and schools would not be judged on how they had educated children during the current crisis

Just spat tea out. Implies inspections resume in sept?!

Which is just silly. Surely!

There was a detailed Twitter thread yesterday which suggests she didn't really say half the stuff the BBC is saying she said (or not in exactly the same way). But , yes, she very kindly said we would not be judged on our performance during lockdown because everyone would not meet required standards! Charmed.

She was very clear that school reopenings are nothing to do with Ofsted but then the media have reported it as if they are.

Shame Ofsted can’t just disappear for good.

If we agree that children cannot stay out of education (which they pretty much are right now) for much longer without serious effects, and we agree schools play a pivotal role in allowing the workforce to return to their places of work, which also needs to happen some time soon - before a vaccine is likely, and we agree that teachers and their families need to be protected from the virus where vulnerable.. then what could the solution be?

I mean this genuinely and with respect.

I'm not suggesting you should have the answers, I'm just interested in your ideas, because I'm struggling to see a solution and its frightening.

Is it a radical overhaul of the way education is delivered?

I'm not suggesting you should have the answers, I'm just interested in your ideas, because I'm struggling to see a solution and its frightening.

We genuinely all feel like this...

It's not what teachers signed up for. I know you could say that about lots of jobs but I can't think of many jobs that have so so DRASTICALLY changed because of this illness. I find that depressing.

Neither can I really. I know a few teachers and they are all missing their jobs and the children, and I feel like their worried about the children actually.

Perhaps with more testing of the population in general and key workers and their families that might enable a solution?

I like this article : it fits in with my argument that there would be no harm if things were cut form overstuffed curricula:

www.tes.com/news/dylan-wiliam-immoral-teach-too-full-curriculum

Perhaps, although I read yesterday that results may take 25 days. What on earth is the point of that?

Workers from care homes have had to travel 200 miles for tests.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/schools-reopening-children-coronavirus-covid19-18159339.amp

Here are Kirsty's 5 principles.

I just hope Wales and England do the same thing. Having kids in school in.one country and working in.another can be a nightmare.

That’s interesting-I wonder who exactly they mean about disadvantaged pupils? FSM? PP?

I can see there being outrage at one or two schools round here if heads were to admit some children whose parents ‘don’t work and sponge off the state’ as a priority rather than the children of ‘those of us who WORK, goddammit!!’.

PP is such a crude measure. Kids off working poor don’t qualify as the income threshold for fsm is so low (ie literally no earned income) and then people like my son qualify for whole school life because I was ill and a single mum when he was in reception so he had fsm for a term.

Don’t know who said about teachers leaving (on crappy phone that can’t cope with mn so dare not scroll) but I agree. There are so many teachers at the stage of the proverbial camel

Perhaps, although I read yesterday that results may take 25 days. What on earth is the point of that

It doesn't have to be that slow. Talking in principle, if testing was available and timely then children/families with a positive test could stay away from school, as could staff members.
You'd also have the benefit of staff with symptoms knowing if they needed to be off or could be at work.

I work at a large NHS Trust and we have testing for staff and household members established now to assist with maintaining staffing levels.

With enough investment (which any solution will need) testing would be a game changer.

Realistically you’d need testing every day/week. Just because you didn’t have it on Monday doesn’t mean you didn’t catch it on Wednesday and I thought we were agreed mostly that the symptomatic stage was too late in terms of contagion?

One way I could see working would be antibody testing but we are not there yet in terms of reliable available testing and we’re still getting mixed results on whether having it provides any real immunity.

There isn’t anything to merit rush and risk. Keyworkers children are being taken care of and kids are adjusted. Millions are furloughed or unemployed and at home, millions more working from home and exams have already been waived. What’s the justification for the risk?

If it’s too soon to open the village pub that has 10 people in at busy o clock how is it fine to open the school with 1700 kids crammed in who are traveling from a 20 mile radius on public transport?

It is too early to open schools.
But at what point will the risk be low enough to open them?
And how?

Also the risk is traded off against the reward.
So the reward of opening a school is greater than the reward of opening a village pub.
I'm just interested in discussing ideas in the context of the huge problem that needs solving. I know teachers are feeling like we're having a go and I'm honestly not.

hmm. I actually think the value of opening sporting events, theatres and pubs is underrated. A world in which we all traipse off to work or school, do our duty and then are trapped back in our homes, unable to watch what we want or engage in leisure pursuits or many hobbies is not the way round I want my world to be

I don't at all think you are having a go, don't worry .

However, when I read about the misery that is schools in Japan and Denmark at the moment, I can't see a reward . (This si ignoring 'but the economy' arguments)

I agree piggy. That you tube of a social distanced school looked grim.

My dd needs to play in a park with a few friends at first and see how that affects R value.

I can’t understand the economy arguments if kids are only in on a rota.

There was another thread on here ‘when do you expect to go back to work?’ And quite a few were saying maybe not till next year, that they are totally able to do their job from home and that social distancing couldn’t be implemented in their workplace so wfh makes more sense.