The Thirty-Fifth Republic - Covid - the gift that keeps on giving even during the Christmas Break

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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 staffroom password just in case it attracts the wrong sort

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 booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation.

If you come with a stick to goad us then that is not allowed in the staffroom and you will receive a detention

Agree with all you are saying. I’ve been unable to sleep worrying about going back to school with the rocketing rates in my borough.

My school sent our surveys to parents at end of term asking about who would need a keyworker place, confirming access to tech, travel to school etc... we have a much better idea of who we need in school this time BUT I don’t know how we’ll manage teaching the combination of both - although as ever we will manage it.

I’m so angry that we haven’t been allowed to plan for this - work out who needs to be in school, who an work from home, how we can manage both effectively using staff cleverly. It absolutely could be done well - some staff remote teaching, some in school in person teaching, some providing paper packs for those without tech who are SI or doing remote feedback or planning some of the lessons. What will now happen is we will all be in school, with shit tech, and doing a bit of everything badly rather than one thing well.

@TheHoneyBadger

Omg I just read pages of comments on a telegraph article. Couldn't find one that believes Covid is real and many irate at the idea of depriving youngsters of their education.

Lots of talk of how this is all part of the 'Great Reset'. I need to google it but could be a very deep rabbit hole.

There’s no way I’m looking at that. My mental health is relatively ok at the moment a find I’d like to keep it that way.

Telegraph version of “the Great Reset” probably just involves rich people getting even richer.

Don't honey, we may never see you again!

Yes I know what you mean re numbers possibly 'cancelling each other out' in the last week or so. HoweverI think (because of what Covid messenger says plus Wales figures plus the fear in Matt Hancock's face at the last presser) that the figures are going to rocket SO much from today onward (and particularly on 29th which is the first day all 4 nations' figures will be shown again) that there will be no balancing.

I think I've seen the telegraph article on twitter, about Gavin battling "lockdowners" to keep schools open.

It all sounds very ideological, rather than thought out in terms of what would be sensible, safe and effective.

Apparently he got his stuff in about testing early deliberately to help make the case for keeping schools open.

I do think that the mood has changed recently. A lot of businesses are getting sick of repeated restrictions for the sake of keeping schools open, I think.

When are they planning on releasing the attendance figures for the last week of school??

Fairly shallow rabbit hole actually. Basically a woolly proposal that all stimulus spending should go towards green technologies or strategies. From what I saw the conspiracy concerns are around more globalism/new world order type stuff and the more rational naysayers are critical because stimulus spending needs to reach pockets of spenders quick not be held up by research and think tanks for years.

No idea how telegraph readers connect that to us trying to deliberately deprive the nation's children of education

I've just been for a swab. It was all a bit dystopian and surreal, sitting in my car trying not to gag. A row ofbpeople in cars all wiggling round swabs in their noses. It was efficient but busy.

I am now slumping and napping for the rest of the day.

Not til 12th:

The publication previously pre-announced for 22nd December has been cancelled. The next publication will be 12 January 2021 and data for 11 to 18 December will be included in this publication to ensure a consistent – full – timeseries is available, including the end of the autumn term. This will enable a fuller explanation of attendance trends which are complicated by schools starting their Christmas break or having INSET days by Thursday 17 December.

And from 19 Jan they're publishing workforce absence data. Ah. That'll be another reason why Gav's trying to get the testing (for staff) in place of self isolating set up. Kerrching....

Brilliant, so we’ll all be back for a week before they bother announcing how crap December attendance was!

Does inset really complicate attendance? If a school has inset, their attendance will not affect anything, surely??

I can envision being made to go to work still as a close contact but not being allowed to eg pick up my prescription from the pharmacy.

I'm concerned it's the kind of pressure and increased stress (eg being shut in classrooms with known close contacts) that will tip some staff over the edge and stress and depression sick notes will start to roll in.

Yes @Achristmaspudsskidu you'd think even the DfE would be able to do the Maths to show attendance per day that school was open to children even if it's a different number of days to a usual week!

The attendance data is always a snapshot of one day’s attendance (a Thursday) and they just disregard schools that are closed (e.g. ones that had a two week half term).

when have PM'd you.

I can envision being made to go to work still as a close contact but not being allowed to eg pick up my prescription from the pharmacy

I can see that this is exactly what will happen.

Meanwhile, no doubt Boris will continue to have meetings with no masks with people that later test positive so he will need to slope off and hide for 10 days.

FFS, this is so bloody stressful - why can’t we just have SOME indication of a decision now, so we can prep.

I think primary will be business as usual so (apart from being terrified about passing the virus onto my 71/76 year old ILs who look after DD four days a week) it shouldn’t be too bad for us....secondaries, you have my every sympathy right now.

Although actually, the realisation that we are tier 4 has just hit as I sent that, so I’ve just considered the possibility that I could be double planning each week for one or two isolating children 😒

This has pissed me off. From the DF...

‘We have seen how effectively military personnel worked to clear the backlog on the approach to Dover, and previously in Liverpool where they provided mass testing against the virus,’ said Mr Ellwood, who served in the Royal Green Jackets before entering politics.

‘Now the focus shifts to schools, with parents concerned that their children’s education will be compromised by potential class closures and the resort to remote learning. In this context, it seems perfectly sensible to me that medics from across the Armed Forces could bring their skills and versatility to bear ahead of the planned return of schools next year.

‘In the two to three weeks before the beginning of term why not use these medics to pass on their first-hand experience of Covid testing to school staff?

‘This is surely preferable to schools being expected to make their own arrangements for training and testing.'

He is suggesting that army personnel train up teachers to do the tests in the 2/3 weeks before term starts?! How long does he think that school Christmas holidays are?!

Errr 2 or 3 weeks? There's 1 Tobias Dickfeatures

Ha! I guess he assumes we'd all jump at the chance of spebding the rest of OUR WELL EARNED BREAK being trained up too!

He is suggesting that army personnel train up teachers to do the tests in the 2/3 weeks before term starts?! How long does he think that school Christmas holidays are?!

Remember he’ll only be aware of private school holidays.

Thanks so much for the PM crackle when you give your advice remember I’m an NQT. If you are worried you are being patronising you’ve probably pitched it about right

Well he can fuck off to the far side of fuck, and then fuck off some more!

So does that mean I get to spend the next 3 weeks socially distanced being trained by army medics instead of being packed into my classroom trying to teach?
Tbh there are merits to this plan...

@OnehorseopenBobsleigh

So does that mean I get to spend the next 3 weeks socially distanced being trained by army medics instead of being packed into my classroom trying to teach? Tbh there are merits to this plan...

I would imagine it will be training after school-from 5-8pm.

Probably over zoom

Stay away from telegraph comments. How far right do you have to be to believe the tories are left wing?

They also hate the nhs (a communist institution apparently) and are incensed at the idea that the majority should have to be in any way inconvenienced to protect the vulnerable.

I need some light to shrug off my deep dive into the world view of such death eaters.

@Achristmaspudsskidu
I would imagine it will be training after school-from 5-8pm.
Yeah, cos that's all it'll take to get us up to army medic standard. I bet that they're as thrilled at this prospect as we are.