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

Everything is rage inducing. It’s just so utterly pointless to be taking this particular path with an 80 MP majority and no election looming.

Why is everything a bloody popularity contest? And it’s not even like it’s working.

Putting in a complaint to the Mail over their current headline- 'no.10 gives in to pressure from teachers and unions' - it was the bloody government who told us to have a staggered start! Arseholes

If school close for January I won't be engaging with any teacher bashing whatsoever. I will enjoy the relative safety (I imagine we will still have full exam classes so I do mean relative) and not explaining myself to anybody.

@Cantaloupeisland can you add that the photo is stupid too ? Back to the one child per desk and lovely open windows. I write my resignation letter this morning. Thinking of not going back is we fully reopen - my head can't get round the stupidity of some parents.

That's an enormously convoluted headline form The DF there!!

It's not even particularly us in the firing line if the R rate raises. it's the whole of society. Horrifying Darwinism.

I really don’t see how schools can go back, especially in the SE. The local hospitals there are screwed. They really can’t afford to let the situation get worse than it is.

I doubt that doing something so utterly stupid will result in any sort of criminal prosecution for the resulting deaths though. It should do.

Definitely some kind of press suppression going on even at a local level.

Our most popular local news website was publishing full details of year group or bubble closures from the 1st September. They seemed to have a direct hotline to the local publuc health team, a running rally etc. Very different to what some of you were reporting etc. Suddenly, last three weeks of term, the tone and the content changed and it was now just "new cases reported to local health board" - in other words, if your school had already had a single case back in September, they didn't mention that you know had five year groups at home because it was just "new cases". All schools in their list were just primaries because, of course, all the secondaries had already had multiple cases (and were, in some cases, fully closed.) Not mentioned. It made it sound like the last two weeks of term were really calm and safe when, in reality, like the rest of the country it was pure carnage.

Tons of typos there but you get the gist. Most odd.

@Jinglingmod

Definitely some kind of press suppression going on even at a local level.

Our most popular local news website was publishing full details of year group or bubble closures from the 1st September. They seemed to have a direct hotline to the local publuc health team, a running rally etc. Very different to what some of you were reporting etc. Suddenly, last three weeks of term, the tone and the content changed and it was now just "new cases reported to local health board" - in other words, if your school had already had a single case back in September, they didn't mention that you know had five year groups at home because it was just "new cases". All schools in their list were just primaries because, of course, all the secondaries had already had multiple cases (and were, in some cases, fully closed.) Not mentioned. It made it sound like the last two weeks of term were really calm and safe when, in reality, like the rest of the country it was pure carnage.

This is where it’s frankly criminal not to release the attendance figures for that last week.

Our school's was around 58%.

I have had to turn off LBC that Majiid is dangerous in my opinion. Still going on about Sweden and the Barrington. He also loves Carl Henegan. Was stressful to listen too.

Isn't it interesting that now, FINALLY, we have posters conceding that it might be a good idea if teachers were provided with (or allowed to wear) PPE. And also, shock horror, suggesting we might be vaccinated?
Only a week or two ago, we were accused of elbowing the elderly and vulnerable out of the way in our selfish, undeserved desire to be first in the queue.

It’s not just schools. I have it on good authority that at least 1 hospital in the SE attempting to declare a critical incident and being prevented from doing so.

It goes together with the data from schools being hidden I think. If we try and hide how bad the situation is getting then people won’t query the inaction.

cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/uk-novel-variant.html

Was t sure if this had already been posted on here?

Yes, it's all hidden. It shows up in people's attitudes and the telly : none of that rather lovely first lockdown hygge with Captn Tom and Joe Wicks and clapping and all the stuff we now sneer at. Also no footage of upset nurses and doctors, no reporting of deaths as individual people, many of who may be nurses, or porters, or taxi drivers, or education staff. I got told off on the data thread but I think that kind of soft data focuses people's minds on human cost.

I ahve never listened to LBC but it is interesting what they allow their presenters to say : a lot of that would be removed from Twitter , or at least tagged.

Who is this Majid?

Rage inducing about sums it up really. It's bad enough for those of us in secondary but I feel primary colleagues have truly been forgotten in the most recent 'plan'.

My son is Y2 and his school have done everything they can to be as covid safe as possible but the simple fact is that they can't social distance. My DH drops him off and he said you see the reception children running up to hug the teacher/TA! My son's class go up to the teacher/TA to show/tell them things. Kids fall and need first aid. It's just madness to think that primary schools can implement social distancing in the same way secondary schools do (and it's virtually impossible there!).

Even some of my Y8 form struggle to keep distance from me -there are a couple of very vulnerable children who really rely on adult contact.

I did my first post Christmas run this morning- a good escape from thinking about it all! I probably should attempt some planning today but not feeling it at the moment.

pumpkin I agree primaries have been very overlooked.

I do have to tell you, though, that secondary school pupils also can't won't socially distance!

Oh you are a secondary teacher. As you were!

@Piggyinblankets

I ahve never listened to LBC but it is interesting what they allow their presenters to say : a lot of that would be removed from Twitter , or at least tagged.

Who is this Majid?

A rude human being but in another thread lots love him. Some topics he is ok on but not Covid. He is doing schools next. He will be like us for them.

The bigger the numbers of excess deaths get the more difficult it becomes to see them as people, I think. At this point I think it’s difficult to even visualise the numbers.

What's his last name? Is he the guy that ran as Lib Dem? i find that hard to believe!

Why doesn't DfE just ditch exams?? So many of their crackpot plans are born out of a desire to keep forging on with increasingly unfeasible exam plans.

Us4Them are all over MN and the media at the moment.

Maajid Nawaz? Superb on counter-terrorism, apparently a bit clueless on the health threat of Covid in schools. Always a shame when people whose work you admire turn out to have Opinions on stuff they know fuck all about.