The Thirty-seventh Republic - Mass testing rolls on - school staff remain expendable

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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

Oh yes piggy, I completely forgot you'd said that. When they invented tiers they said they'd always publish the data, think they did eventually last time, so they will this time?

Have a look at lovely Michael Rosen's twitter to feel loved and supported.

I think it’s strange Rebridge isn’t on the list - they had the highest rates through the second part of the Autumn term and all surrounding boroughs are included...

*Redbridge

@Useruseruserusee

I think it’s strange Rebridge isn’t on the list - they had the highest rates through the second part of the Autumn term and all surrounding boroughs are included...

It’s now been hastily added to the bottom of the list...

Ah, Alan Gibbons too. He once stepped in at a couple of hour’s notice to do a presentation to a group of professionals (after a certain children’s author blew us out to do a media interview #neverforgethorowitz) and he was amazing. Full of passion and fire for literacy.

Redbridge Has Fallen!

Wes Streeting's Twitter is updating. It's like a less exciting Eurovision.

The incompetence of the government never ceases to amaze me Piggy!

I'm wondering what the threshold of infection is in order to make it onto that list.
My LA is at just over 500/100,000 and not on the list. The one next door (and half my school's catchment) is about 760 I think. Where is the cut-off?
Wondering too @CallmeAngelGabriel
My borough is in the 500s per 100k - primaries closed.
DSis's borough's in the 800s, but not on the closed list.(both London).
Anyone got any idea WTF is going on??!!

I had dinner with Alan Gibbons once.

Incandescent with rage here. So sorry for all you primary lot

I'm just checking in so I don't lose you all. I can't believe everything that's happened today. I don't know what to say though, as you've all pretty much summed it up. It's a complete shit show and the government are incompetent arses.

@MrsHamlet

I had dinner with Alan Gibbons once.

Was he an erudite socialist warrior? In a good way, of course.

Sorry I'm new to the staff room but I recognise all the names.

The best people I've heard speak today are Jeremy hunt and the Labour shadow education minster.

There must be some legal hook somewhere that would stop this Maddness..

They don't though will they? They'll be queuing for their fucking pointless tests every day for a week instead (ignoring the 10 day rule too note)

They won't if they have no tests (and potentially no-one to test them).

My HoD said recently on our department group chat the rumour is that we will get up to 1000 tests on 4th Jan (which isn't even enough to test all staff and students, with no word about when the next batch will arrive).

I think the testing of close contacts won't happen, because we won't have the tests to do it. We'll be lucky if every student gets tested once.

(and yes, I agree the tests are sort of pointless, but at 50% accuracy, they are marginally better than nothing).

If it's about a rise in cases, then the next-door borough has a lower rate of increase than mine, yet they're on the list and we're not???

Michael Rosen is wonderful isn’t he Piggy?!

Welcome PandemicPavlova fancy some Staffroom gin? It’s needed after today! Yes, there must be a legal challenge here somewhere...

twitter.com/miss_mcinerney/status/1344362968021168129?s=19

Fucks sake. Our head will go all out for this.

Who the actual fuck would be a Head Teacher now?
What would happen if they all just down-tooled?

Off-topic, but was Thread 36 the quickest on record?

@SansaSnark
(and yes, I agree the tests are sort of pointless, but at 50% accuracy, they are marginally better than nothing).

Not when they are the replacement for isolation.

There is no mass testing - that's a misconception pushed by the headlines. Those 1000 tests you got are exclusively for close contact testing.

I am so despondent. In all seriousness, how long can primaries possibly manage to stay open? Cases are surging out of control. I’m effectively in a bubble of 360 children and 40-odd staff (when you factor in office/kitchen/caretaking staff as well as teachers and TAs) and that’s by no means unusual. What is that if not ‘households mixing’ and causing the spread?

Remember the accuracy of the LFTs is (at best) 50% of 70% ( the only other way of confirming Covid, ie checking a LFT positive). So that's 35%. But the Birmingham Uni trials made it 3%.

So when the mass testing was announced at the end of term at least one LA, and some schools, stated that they were not going to do it. (Not sure if I read this on here or PUAUS Page.) Will they be forced to now?

As an aside, DD and I are waiting to hear from school what will happen about her mocks. Put back by a week??

Yes he was, Saucery
I've also had dinner with Michael Rosen, and Geoff Barton, and Luke Wright, and the kid's poet with the beard, and Berlie Doherty... but not all at the same time.
I was forced to have coffee with Simon Armitage once. 🤮

The first most effective thing I can think of is to thin out pupils? So can't heads say they can't guarantee safety in school or something and give parents the choice to keep their dc off if they want
. If enough school did this then how hard would it be to take action agaisnt them?

We need some sort of movement!