Thinking of handing my notice in

[Jessie40]

Hello, I am a LSA in year 1 and after the Pm's latest statement regarding R, Y1/6 to be going back to school I am seriously thinking about handing my notice in.
It terrifies me the thought of having that many people in such a small area. The younger ones will not understand distancing.
I love my job so I feel torn.
I can't decide whether I'm overacting or not.

@FrippEnos

I agree with all of your points.

It does make me question why, if you’re so convinced we’re shit, lazy, dispensable and our jobs could be done by any graduate who was desperate for cash, are you so desperate to have your kids back in our care?

@TrustTheGeneGenie what should happen is that people in government actually listen to school staff and work with them to find a way forward.

The DfE guidelines should have been made available on the same day Boris announced that primary schools will open on 1st June.

Boris should not be saying that he would like all primary pupils to have a month in school before the summer holidays. This means that the so called ‘careful and phased reopening’ will take place over 2 weeks only with EYFS, yr 1 and 6 before we open up the rest of school (it’s a 6 or 7 week half term.)

The government also shouldn’t give conflicting advice for example saying that schools don’t need to take temperatures because it isn’t an accurate indicator of Coronavirus but airports must and wear a face covering when in an enclosed space but you don’t need it in a classroom which is an enclosed space.

The government have cocked up the free school meals voucher scheme (it’s still not running properly 7weeks later.) If they can’t get a voucher scheme running properly weeks down the line how can we put any trust in the current plans for reopening schools?

I’ve been sending my child to a hub since lockdown and in the city where I live I haven’t heard of a bad case yet

Because they’d inform you ...?

Schools are so unhygienic,before Covid there were always horrible viruses going around

I don't blame any of you for wanting to leave if you are not being allowed to have correct PPE etc

I don't believe even us teachers are

GreenTupils I’m sure it would reach the media if teachers and keyworker children had been becoming very unwell or dying.

Thanks for all the reports about this thread. While we understand that people will want to share their views, we're just reminding you that this area of the site is predominately for people within the teaching profession to share thoughts and to support each other.

We know this is a worrying time for everyone and we hope that we can be mindful that there are real people behind the screen and stick to our Talk Guidelines. Sorry for butting in OP.

@epythymy 500,000 teachers. If 60% get infected, and 0.003% die, that's 900 teachers. Look at the real numbers.

900 teachers won’t die. The NHS is one of the biggest employers in the world and only around 120 healthcare workers have died. Health care workers are usually only supplied with basic surgical masks when caring for patients who are covid positive. Most primary school teachers are white, middle class and female. I doubt there will be many, if any dying from covid. I think teachers need to try and manage the fear. I do under the fear though as I get it to.

What I don't like is that the decision is based on finances rather than risk. Primary school age children have been chosen to go back to school partly so their parents can work (Matt Hancock said it). That isn't about science, it's about money. And the health and safety around it is predictably irrational and incompetent, as per everything else, with decisions that should be based on science based instead on what the government can actually provide and the science then being cherry picked to make it ok.

IMO we shouldn't budge from lockdown until we have PPE, testing and contact tracing locked down. That's going on the science. Otherwise we'll continue to end up with a shambolic, death-heavy trundle to herd immunity or a vaccine, whichever comes first. That's not good enough for me.

Health care workers are usually only supplied with basic surgical masks when caring for patients who are covid positive And there was uproar in the press because of this. But it's ok for school staff to risk it?

stairway You can't compare what has happened so far, when we've mostly been in lockdown, with what will happen once that isn't the case. Absolutely no one can tell anyone else about the death toll, except that it would grow exponentially if the virus was unchecked, based on what it's done already when the country is locked down. That's really all we know. We don't know how many would die if the NHS was overwhelmed, what mutation might be in the pipeline. A month ago, we didn't know about the risks to BAME communities or the inflammatory response in children. You're not in a position to hand out reassurance that is purportedly more rational when there are so many unknowns here.

@stairway Please listen to @ClaraMumsnet and let this be a place for those within the teaching community.

My point siriusmew is that despite not wearing N95 masks when around symptomatic patients only a very small amount of healthcare workers have died. I support teachers having surgical masks too. I’m just giving another perspective. Maybe this overwhelming terror is not justified. There are unknowns, but many many people have already been going out to work and not being able to social distance ( the real guinea pigs). What we know is men from low skilled work are most likely to die from this awful virus. If the OP wants to quit a job she likes that is fine but she needs to put her fear into perspective.

Yeah 50,000+ dead. I've no idea why anyone is worried. Just a normal start to the year ☹️

I’m just giving another perspective You've come to a board aimed at teaching staff to deride those people for their fear and spread inaccurate bollocks like this All evidence suggests that children don’t spread it

I don’t understand why you are being so unpleasant Siriusmew, I presume it’s because you are scared? I’ve felt like that too. I came in this thread because the OP wanted opinions and presumably not just from people that are jus going to escalate her fear.

What constitutes a child, people? My concern, in a school that has a high BAME population, is how many of our kids might die?

Does the science tell us? What is the difference between a 15 year old, 6ft tall black student and an adult? Or a 17 year old Muslim girl who is worried about missing out on A level lessons? Are they safe because they are 'children'?

These are the pupils that I will be teaching from 1 June. Plenty of evidence that this virus affects BAME individuals more severely - and plenty of evidence that people with no underlying health issues (or none they were aware of) have died, or become seriously ill.

15 students in a small classroom? No PPE or ability to social distance. People who keep pushing to get 'children back in education' worry me that this hasn't occurred to them. I don't want any dead pupils.

@stairway you are calling Sirius unpleasant?! The OP posted in the STAFFROOM, rather than Aibu or chat, so it’s reasonable to suggest she wanted to discuss it with colleagues who actually have an understanding of working in schools and the current issues facing school staff.

@BlessYourCottonSocks I am really concerned about this too. My school is mainly BAME staff and students with many students living in multigenerational households. And staff with underlying health conditions.

Actually we don’t know that men from low skilled backgrounds are most at risk. We know men are at more risk of dying and men with pre existing conditions are at higher risk still. It’s not their low skill that puts them at risk but perhaps the fact they’ve not been working from home as much and haven’t been able to socially distance.

Ergo people who don’t socially distance are most at risk (men more so) and coincidentally it is the allegedly low skilled, in reality just low paid, who’ve not been able to wfh.

Once you force ‘more skilled’ people like teachers into situations where they can’t socially distance they too will be higher risk (again men at between 10 and 20% higher depending on source).

So low paid bus drivers (predominantly male) have been hung out to dry even with screens and masks and social distancing and somehow you see that as a reason to hang teachers out to dry?

Seriously we need to dedicate a bit less time to knowledge cramming and more time to critical thinking skills. Except every modern philosopher of education has known that that is not the job of schools. They aim to make people dumb, obedient and tolerant of boredom if the state gets their way.

Good teachers try to subvert that agenda and encourage critical thinking and enquiring minds. But you want those kind of teachers to fuck off and be replaced obedient bots who don’t question authority themselves let alone teach young minds to.

I despair.

TheHoneyBadger

Hear bloody hear.

TheHoneyBadger Hear hear
Stairway you are in Staffroom. You are not staff. You are posting completely incorrect opinions as fact. There are so many holes in your arguments I can't even be bothered to start.

Please go have these arguments somewhere else on the board. Or the entire internet.

@Cyberworrier. This is something that no one appears to have considered. I genuinely don't know what the difference is between some of our boys and adults. They are already at their adult height, and tower over me. People saying, 'oh children don't get it' seem to think that every child is about 4ft 2" and somehow immune. Presumably a 15-17 year old is just as much at risk as an adult of contracting the disease?