The Forty Fourth Republic - primaries sort of in, secondaries out, Gormless Gav says two weeks notice

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The epidemiology professor on PM on radio 4 was Mark Woolhouse.
He's the guy who wrote in the times that we need to do a Sweden, a d also said there had been no case ever of a pupil transmitting to a teacher...

Yeah, if they make it KS1 (all of), it's another indication that they don't know that anything other than the standard primary (R-6) and secondary (7-13) model exists.

In my county, almost all the villages have through primary schools. Almost all the towns/cities have separate infant and juniors. Properly separate. So if they had KS1 only, you'd have some schools full and some with nothing except KW. Bonkers.

I think they should initially say something like 1/4 of children max at secondary age and 1/2 max at primary age and let the HTs decide how to operate and whom to open to.

Yes I'm really annoyed with the Beeb for reporting he said "all children", he didn't! it'll be some year groups, some (most?) regions as far as I can see.

Yes, I can only imagine the "schools are safe, it's just that they are vectors of transmission" oxymoron is so no one calls them out on continually telling us that schools were safe. Unless he thinks there's a widespread belief circulating that store cupboards are being used to house dragons or maybe that teachers are secretly poisoning the inkwells (Hint: Boris, we use ball point pens nowadays, at least in state schools....)

For me, Y8 are doing ok-ish, but Y9 are a real concern

No idea what other people are finding but I very much agree with this.

What did van Tam actually say? I see someone on the Data thread "thought his answer was very good", sigh....

As a teacher in an infant school, it would seem crazy to have all of our children back full time-jam packed, all staff in, but to have our feeder junior school empty with staff and children safely at home. Especially if the school return was mandatory for those year groups and parents would be threatened with fines.

I don’t know what I’d do if I was in charge-I wouldn’t want to suggest plans for secondary, and would hope the government might see fit to speak to some serving state school heads before making that call (yes, I know...!) but for primary, I’d probably have YR, Y1, Y3 and Y6 back in half classes somehow for the x weeks back until Easter. If that didn’t work for first/middle schools-I’d talk to some of them first before making a plan as well!

I don't think it'll occur to them that it's stupid having some schools empty. I bet they're still not going to do anything re SD, and certainly not in terms of moving some Infants to a Junior schools premises, it's too tricky for them to think about....

Let's hope I'm wrong.

It was a person who peoples other threads in a somewhat different way, though.

It was a very JVT answer. Not develop : just yes and no. I guess if you didn't go inside a school every you'd think it was commonsense in its approach. But what is weird is children have suddenly turned into these dangerous vectors. The schools are safe, the teachers are apparently really safe, but children , the devils, infect their homes. God knows where from eh? Even thought the young uns don't really transmit.

People who think it was clear really didn't hear the paradoxes.

Can I just point out that Woolhouse is not an epidemiologist. He is a zoologist. I have no idea why he gets so much attention.

Piggy, if I'm to make head or tail of your post then I at least need to know what the question was (sorry I realise I didn't clarify that I didn't know what he was answering 😂 ...)

Some of the reasoning from these people is completely bizarre.

In other news I did my first LFT today and it was negative. It'll be interesting to see if any colleagues test positive as nobody is presenting with any symptoms.

This January. Copied from sky

This is becoming the JVT show. England's straight-talking deputy chief medical officer is the best communicator among all the government boffins.
Answering a question about children and COVID, he rattles off a series of short, snappy questions with Yes or No answers. Can children get COVID? Yes. Can they get ill with it? Very rarely. Can they transmit it? Yes. Do teachers get COVID? Yes.
Already something of a cult figure during this pandemic, JVT is a reassuring presence at these news conferences. He speaks clearly in language everyone can understand.

He was asked how schools could be safe and yet be vectors january.

Absolute devil's advocate here but if KS1 are in, they will all be back surely? So whether infant or primary, the KS1 classrooms will be in use. Are there really enough classrooms to spread them out with KW kids in primary schools?

I get that junior schools will have less children in.

Whatever way you look at it, someone will complain. At least a blanket KS1 in is easier for heads to deal with re parents. I wouldn't want to have to decide which students can come back on site and which can't.

twitter.com/tes/status/1354495594929270788

Re JVT

And he said we don't know if teachers can catch it in school or in the rest of their lives. Pfft.

I think it will after the Easter break before we are all back. Maybe some year groups - Year 11 (for IGCSE revision) and Year 13 before

@Piggywaspushed

Can I just point out that Woolhouse is not an epidemiologist. He is a zoologist. I have no idea why he gets so much attention.

A quick Google says he is Chair of infectious disease epidemiology though?

@EnemyOfEducationNo1

The epidemiology professor on PM on radio 4 was Mark Woolhouse. He's the guy who wrote in the times that we need to do a Sweden, a d also said there had been no case ever of a pupil transmitting to a teacher...

Things like this annoy me so much- because we can't easily prove who transmitted a case to whom. So you can say that, as a fact- but it doesn't mean it's actually true.

There is some evidence that points towards pupils transmitting it to their parents though, which is arguably even more of a problem.

I'm amused that he thinks we have lives outside of work. My life = work, going out to collect prescriptions once a month and saying hello at distance to my post lady and Tesco delivery person. Otherwise it's just me, the boy, the cat and the dog. God knows what the cat gets up to though. Currently she's sleeping it off in a cardboard box she's commandeered.

Woolhouse is also the man who moved his whole family to a Hebridean island last March...

My cat is not following any covid restrictions. He keeps going out getting up to no good I am sure. He will not wear a collar let alone a mask

Thanks for explanations.

also said there had been no case ever of a pupil transmitting to a teacher...

That fucking guy. MNHQ even started deleting that claim it was so bollocks.

I know some people have previously rated JVT but he has pissed me off ever since touting his heat maps as evidence children weren't being infected but grouped in 15 year olds with babies. He knew what he was doing there.

And Whitty, when he put up a graph of test positivity rate and made it look like children infection rate in a briefing.

They've both spun the data on kids.

He just said on C4 that teacher rates are lower when adjusted for age and sex. That simply is not true. Especially for men.