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

@MrsHamlet

I love Margaret Atwood.

Me too @MrsHamlet! Saw her speak in Birmingham last year. Such a great evening, she was captivating.

The child sent home in my class yesterday is now back. Apparently is 'fine'. FFS.

I'm meant to be doing learning walks and drop ins for obs. I have not done this. I have written monitoring reports as if I've done it. #slackboss

And office staff are refusing to leave the office during the day, and not letting us in it either to get things from cupboards... apart from yesterday when they did a walk around to grill us on why each child didn't have two tissues on their desk.

Well, because I gave my children two tissues on their desks, and they shredded them, drew on them, spent horus folding them up in pretty ways and so on, so literally 2 minutes before you arrived I lost my shit with them and told them to put them in the bin.

I've already given up with them having their pencil cases on their tables, or even their reading books and water bottles. Just so much faff. And they are busy sucking on water bottles like flippin' babies with bottles, so the toilet need interruptions are significant.

goats, there is a big push back form NASUWT on learning walks and drop ins. They want members to flag these as unnecessary.

NAS have sent Gav a letter.

“The letter emphasises the serious issues which have arisen as a result of the Government deciding to open schools, and its failure to:
take proper regard of the practical and logistical challenges in schools to meet the demands for COVID-19 safe working practices;
provide robust guidance and measures nationally to secure COVID-19 safe working practices;
implement appropriate measure to ensure compliance across all schools.
The letter has also put the Government on notice by expressly reserving members’ legal rights in the context of a tortious claim for breach of duty of care and personal injury due to foreseeable and any other legal recourse available.”

I have no idea what that last bit means.

Brutus had a post with a clip from cnn with raab saying the spike was schools and university!I

There is also a post where the mum say a kid went back after a negative test and 2 days later 2 classmates have positive. Seems unlikely the first one was actually negative then.

Which is concerning as dc1 was negative.

Saying government are negligent i think?

There are false negative tests but isn't it just as likely that the other children caught it from someone else (in or out of school, with or without a positive test - so many people aren't getting or can't get tests)?

What would be useful from schools, is the number of places where there are more than one case in a bubble/contacts. I was expecting there to be cases brought in at the beginning of term, it's the transmission that's interesting terrifying.

@ohthegoats We’ve had 2 positive cases in a year group. Year 12 were supposed to be in end of this week after a positive case but the have had this extended as there has been another positive.

ToryFibs on Twitter is collecting this info (I'm not sure how up to date it is). The percentage of cases that are 2 or more in one school (as opposed to single cases) is nearly doubling every week. We can't ever know without DNA testing whether these are extra (separate) cases or transmission - though I suppose if it's children who sit next to each other in every lesson, that's pretty good evidence.

Of course. But in small bubbles in primary schools for example, the chances of there being two randomly brought in cases to a class of 30 would be a bit weird (or would have been weird in the last 3 weeks, when community stuff was lower).

I dont know seems odd
I child symptoms of covid
2 children symptoms positive
With 25%+ false negative sounds about right. But also obviously parents are having to do a test.
Im personally not convinced dp did it right as there was no description of dc complaining etc

Wales said i think 30% of times it has spread and that is with limited tests, the 2w not veing up for many and obviously not testing the whole class.

The letter has also put the Government on notice by expressly reserving members’ legal rights in the context of a tortious claim for breach of duty of care and personal injury due to foreseeable and any other legal recourse available.”

Legalese meaning the govt can’t weasel out of legal action brought by staff who get ill or their dependants if they die? By setting targets for Covid Compliant workplaces that schools can’t possibly fulfill without more space, more staff etc the narrative is “schools are safe, if you catch it it’s your fault” the govt has tried to preempt any such cases being brought.
I can see that’s what our SLT has been made to say. They are very much holding the line on “school is safe if you follow the procedures” when some of those procedures are impossible (not touch a child who has run off and doing a dangerous thing?).

Are any of your schools isolating anyone else while awaiting tests?

Apparently, we had a member of staff come in whilst awaiting a test!!

They panicked...

🤦‍♀️ piggy why would anyone do that? It’s stay away until result at the schools I know of. Or a whole year group sent home then contact tracing decides who can come back the next day.
The only conceivable reason you’d be able to come in while waiting for a test or result is if you were part of a study, like the NHS one I’m doing, where it’s a sample, not down to any reported symptoms.

Morning. I’ve done my test and posted it. Hopefully didn’t balls it up.

Ds tearful today about the state of his trainers which seems ridiculous till he starts with the are we poor questions. We’re not poor by my standards but I can’t afford his tastes all the time. Difficult conversation with no resolution. He’s obsessed that everything on his body has to be Nike or Champion.

And he’s right that it’s everyone his age not just him.

Sorry divergent whinge today

Guilt purchases have been made, with a degree of compromise. I find these things hard to judge because I do lean to the frugal side and am prone to shock at the price of things.

I think I’m also struggling to adjust to having a teenager. He used to be so easy and relatively cheap to buy clothes for. Teenagers are bloody expensive between eating enough for an army and having big feet that incur vat.

Not feeling too bad with solpadine on board other than my chest and feeling less guilty since my colleague who brought the test told me how many staff are out today.

We’re not poor by my standards but I can’t afford his tastes all the time.

He does understand this? I mean, we’d all like certain things/brands but we cut our coats according to our cloth (if you want to annoy him with a really old fashioned saying ).
Could you make a list of the absolute essentials that have to be branded? So, underpants - Nope, T-shirt - Maybe, trainers - Ok.
I do tend towards the “no one ever died because their hoodie was the wrong logo” school of thought, though! The rapacious turn over of brands aimed at teenagers makes me quite cross.

My DSs have never had designer stuff. they do wear Nike trainers and football boots but the cheap end of line one. Sometimes I buy DS1 something nicer ( a North Face hoody and some New balance trainers) and he isn't appreciative!

Don't buy GAP though. Leads to homophobic bullying, as I discovered

My parents would say that
you can have it when you pay for it
Also it's relatively pointless if you are still growing a lot.
Any nice clothes were often birthday or xmas presents.
I went to a private school and im just not used to this comercialism. But i think as well we just didnt get the bullying. As DP always goes on about being bullied for having cheap trainers.

However we do get say addidas trainers as actually they were cheaper than Clarkes for school.

Does anyone know whar Boris was talking about today? He said a letter from the 4 medical officers today showed that transmission in primary and secondary were low. He said it at PMQs.

The next town over (village?) Now has total of 2 at secondary and one primary. We are becoming a hotspot grr. Rubbish when now hit in first wave or jun jul but now attendance is mandatory. Even more worrying is the lack of tests it is likely even worse.

Ffs. There’s a thread complaining about windows being open in the winter.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4031564-Schools-leaving-windows-open-during-winter

Do parents not realise we’re trying to do our best???

The poster who thought teachers should be made redundant if they didn't work hard enough in the summer term is now complaining about after school clubs not running