The Twenty-third Republic - school attendance not great - half term to be renamed circuit break?

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement. Baiters, haters, goaders and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

You can play here if you are a member of one the following groups-

-ABBA - anti bashers and baiting association
-SWAB - school workers against bashers
-SWOT - school workers opposing teacherbashers
-STARS - schoolworkers together against ranting + slurs

Do not give ‘The Every twat for Themselves mob’ the staffroom password as a number of them are operating in an alternative reality.

No DfE muppets allowed

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the toffee vodka is hidden.

If you are fed up with cakes and biscuits there is now a cheeseboard on offer

If you come with a stick to goad us then that is not allowed in the staffroom, especially if you have not used the hand gel. Close the door quietly on your way out and put your mask on

The surveillance report is out.
I dont think the deniers can deny any longer.
Even if they say it didnt cause it it certainly is some fuel on a fire

You got a link keep?

www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports

Hmm. Think our parents' consultation evening will be by phone appointment, but I'm anticipating we will be expected to use our own phones for this. Just wondering if I'm justified in being reluctant. Not sure why, but it doesn't sit right.

Doesn't seem to be any consistency in secondaries, some schools sending whole year groups home when there's been a positive case whereas we've just been told anyone the kid sat next to in lessons and that's about it!

I've had to tell 3 Yr7 off this week for picking their noses and eating it IN LESSONS.

I make them sanitise their hands.....just 🤢🤢🤢🤢

We're doing phone consultations. Only got 2 external lines though, for 16 classes, so it'll be our own phone. As a positive, I'm only doing 4 - 5pm (4 days though), because they can take a call anywhere.

Oh god guy
I'm trying to be healthy but sod it... fish and chips are calling me.

If I was in the food and drink industries I'd be irritated at curfew when looking at cases by establishment. Why have they changed the graph's x axis range? Avoiding comparison with March?

It is absolutely scandalous that more and more of us are reporting positive cases with no one else told to isolate.
There would be a national outcry if this was in any other industry.
Teachers and young people are so obviously expendable.

The London Borough that I teach in has also been telling schools that positive children are more and more predominantly presenting with an upset stomach and /or diarrhoea but not the 3 main symptoms and telling schools to send those children home and advise to test but this information is not being updated with the test sites, NHS or gov!

Rock and hard place.

Oh well, we have all very much earned our pay packet this month.

Cheers everyone

I think we've probably earned overtime rates.

I'm waiting for parent complaints because I won't shut the windows. There is an open classroom outside my room which is in constant use so I can't have the door open. I'm not shutting it.

I had a quick look at FB earlier and saw that someone who rarely posts is moaning about kids eating outdoors because her DC says there isn't space (the local school, not where I work). I don't. Think parents get that it's this or closure.

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/25/halt-in-person-university-teaching-until-test-and-trace-fixed-union-urges?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Sigh.

Well, it is unsustainable (in the Government/general public's eyes) that schools keep sending home whole year groups, so it's inevitable that they toughen up the guidelines for doing so.
I could cry.

But in the meantime, there's

Which report are you looking at?

That surveillance report .

I wonder what the ‘get back to schools, it doesn’t spread there’ brigade would have to say about that?!

The London Borough that I teach in has also been telling schools that positive children are more and more predominantly presenting with an upset stomach and /or diarrhoea but not the 3 main symptoms and telling schools to send those children home and advise to test
I have a front row of 4 kids who sit about a m in front of me (at the start of the day - by break time they've shuffled forward a bit) . One was off w diarrhoea on Weds, another off w cough on thurs . Don't know if they were back today - I'm pt.
I am going out for a drink w friends tonight - I feel guilty and that I should isolate after these contacts. But if it's safe enough for me to work surely it's safe enough for me to go out in line w Covid restrictions.

They would say 'what do they even call an outbreak?' and that there is no proof they didn't pick it up somewhere else. Don't forget 'most transmissions occurs in households. Stop scaremongering.

I've been trying to articulate what it is about this whole situation that makes me so furious.
I think it's the lies, and (to coin a DM phrase) the obfuscation and being taken for a fool.
Just watched the news and every single sector is jumping up and down trying to limit spread. So there are university halls in lockdown, office people now being asked to work from home again, masks everywhere you look in shops. Infection rates are sky-high and rising. Scottish adverts showing poor old Grandad hugely at risk in his house from his granddaughter.
And yet, walk into your average school and it's business as usual, and
EVEN WHEN THERE IS A POSITIVE OUTBREAK, it's as if we teachers are making a bloody fuss to object!!!!

That's exactly it, Angelina, and I articulated as much to a senior leader at my school this. "I don't blame you but I'm absolutely furious that my own govt would try to gaslight me like this..."

Would anybody mind posting a screenshot of the schools section of the report please? I'm hemming my flipping work trousers so they're ready to go again next week.

On brtus there are parents being forced towards deregistering -one whose school now has 13 cases and the school are still pushing it!!!
Even if people could argue that is unrelated and from community surely the chance of a large outbreak is there. Then the schools in the area need to shut.
If a rate suggests tha t there would be a case in every secondary in the area then it is too high.
The national 1/500 is almost 1 in our 400 kid primary. I guess then you could argue it's only a 1/7 chance its in the year bubble but still imo it is too high

The key part of it is 250-odd outbreaks that have more than one case, and they are linked. Ie, not possible to assume it's form community spread.

The year 9s at my school were lustily singing Happy Birthday in a crowd of about 50 today...

mobile.twitter.com/adamhamdy/status/1309539236710944768

A good summary on the above Tweet.

Did i say i saw on fb reception teachers group and they were all discussing what songs they now sing handwashing. .