The Fortieth Republic - Schools are safe but they are vectors so go online

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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

Wow, those graphs don't really tell us anything we didn't already know, but it's good to see we were right.

We've got snow here. Not enough to stop me getting to school in normal times, but it would be enough for about half the kids and staff to be trapped in their villages, so we'd probably have cancelled school for the day due to staying numbers. Not today though, no sledging for me, I'm chained to the laptop providing help for anyone who emails me. I did go out this morning with dd and build a tiny snowman

@noblegiraffe

Here's all of them. I also thought that about the parent age group. No sign of massive increases due to Christmas mixing which is good but still some time to wait to be sure.

School closures have had a huge impact. Will be interesting to see what happens now they're partially closed.

They were saying on the radio this morning that the Christmas mixing data hasn’t come in yet.

Have the attendance figures for the last week of term been released now?

Chatting to parents of the primary I teach in and it seems they were planning a boycott had we opened on the Tuesday anyway!

Next Tuesday Appu

They were saying on the radio this morning that the Christmas mixing data hasn’t come in yet.

The ONS data covers at least 7 days after Christmas so you'd expect some indication if it was going to be awful.

Thanks, @noblegiraffe

I shall be fascinated to see this. I have a horrible feeling they’ll fudge it somehow though.

@noblegiraffe

Oh the kids will get more infected outside of the controlled school environment

Exactly. Makes my blood boil when I hear 'oh well they might as well be in school as there are a whole group of them in the park'. 🤦‍♀️

@MrsHamlet

Fucking hell. HT wants to discuss monitoring of remote learning with me. For which I have to go to school. Fuck sake.

for goodness sake.

@StanfordPines

Chatting to parents of the primary I teach in and it seems they were planning a boycott had we opened on the Tuesday anyway!

Brilliant. Some parents are great. I was going to keep dd at home even if school was open, and I know her 2 closest friends were planning the same even though they are both in the NHS, or perhaps because they're both in the NHS.

Dd's school have sent a message saying they have had 15% of pupils in school this week, rising to 30% next week. They have said that is their limit based on bubble sizes from the summer but it may change later if it is deemed to be safe to increase.

"Deemed to be safe to increase?????"

It's not even safe to be open AT ALL in my view, even for a very kids. I know all the reasons for it, but the bottom line is, either this virus spreads when people are at close quarters or it doesn't. The reasons behind it actually make no difference to that spread.

I agree callme. They are doing their very best though. They have a limit of 11 pupils per bubble and are enforcing social distancing. And unfortunately there does need to be somewhere looking after children of proper keyworker. The majority of the pupils who are in school have parents who are actually necessary to keep the city running, with quite a lot of them working extra hours at the hospital.

Daily Mail pointing out the school testing programme is 'effectively useless' as pupils do their own swabs.

Interesting set of photos www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9126267/Pupils-forced-perform-Covid-tests-school-nurse-watches-on.html

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/950426/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W1.pdf

I think this pretty much does show that gathering in schools gives kids covid??

@Piggywaspushed

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/950426/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W1.pdf

I think this pretty much does show that gathering in schools gives kids covid??

Who would have thought it?! That's incredible! Schools are safe though, right?

What that also shows is that people didn't test kids much over the Christmas period. The positivity rate was much higher than it had been.

Great that the DM and hopefully others, reporting some of the testing problems. However very annoying that they quote John Deeks from Birmingham, but not his finding of only 3% accuracy in detecting positive cases!

The effect of Christmas mixing is not just how many catch Covid (and go into test positive) from someone on 25 December remember. It's how many people they then give it to, who give it to other, etc.

Have heard today about a vulnerable relative who's tested positive (asymptomatic and on day 4 though), and my brother's residential home has 9 staff and 3 residents positive.

What a week! Parents dobbing each other in left, right and centre as Not KW/Not Working Every Day/SAHM etc. What a lovely, supportive school community
As if we can do anything about it with the amorphous, meaningless govt advice to let everyone in.

This one is always interesting. Why does it start at week 36? Can’t see we the whole graph from earlier in the year?

Do other countries do this? I mean do they have all these kids in school because one parent is a critical worker, or the child is deemed vulnerable?

I do accept there are “vulnerable” kids, always has been but no one ever said before that we need them looked after in school during the holidays did they? So ironic seeing those kids off in July till September. Ah, of course, at that point they are the responsibility of Social Services, now, they are schools responsibility. Is there any limit to what we have to do?

I am finding recording lessons really, really difficult. Still not ready for Monday never mind the rest of the week.

2 week early closure could have avoided a lot of this
Closing on 18th true insanity.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-deluged-with-5000-emails-as-parents-turn-tables-on-williamson-by-reporting-superb-schools/?fbclid=IwAR3QXj6mO2dpOrK7wqXKGsnvs1KfJljCKZPwEWl7sY47nyCmk0VJITPNFss

@RigaBalsam

[[https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-deluged-with-5000-emails-as-parents-turn-tables-on-williamson-by-reporting-superb-schools/?fbclid=IwAR3QXj6mO2dpOrK7wqXKGsnvs1KfJljCKZPwEWl7sY47nyCmk0VJITPNFss]]

Ha

Week 1 done, sort of. My microphone chose not to work in a live lesson of year 12s but they did get the work done. At least it worked for 2 year 8 lessons, and in the last lesson of the day, the kids were able to share the pieces of music they had worked on with each other.

Had our 2nd tests this morning. Head now saying everyone must be tested on Mondays & Thursdays. Ok, Monday is fine but on a Thursday I work elsewhere. So I asked if I have to drive 16 miles for a test, 16 miles back again, then 3 to other school and was told yes. Fuck that for a game of soldiers. The tests aren't even compulsory. It's not "for my own good". I'm not an idiot; I don't mix households and if I come into contact with the virus, it'll be at work. It was all going so well with this Head too.

@RigaBalsam

[[https://schoolsweek.co.uk/ofsted-deluged-with-5000-emails-as-parents-turn-tables-on-williamson-by-reporting-superb-schools/?fbclid=IwAR3QXj6mO2dpOrK7wqXKGsnvs1KfJljCKZPwEWl7sY47nyCmk0VJITPNFss]]

Fantastic!