The Forty - Eight Republic - countdown for DfE media agency to wake up

[StaffRepFeistyClub]

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

Just done the calculator thing.

I should get a vaccine soon as an unpaid carer.

If I don't, I just miss out on the priority age categories as late 40s. Apparently, this will make a difference of 12 weeks, which is quite a lot.

On the plus side, DH has had first dose as ECV so the risk to him of me being in school is much lessened.

Yes I'm worried more about my partner than me.

Oh gosh didn't realise it had been deleted, hope it didn't get nasty...

It was a super thinly veiled attack on noble but when I saw it there were thankfully people telling the OP to basically shut up 😂

I have up yesterday too with all the error messages.

I have Yr 8 Parent’s Evening tomorrow. I only teach Yr 8 once a fortnight for Performing Arts, most of those have been remotely 😆 8 parents have made appointments 😭 WTF do I say?????

I have a feeling the parents have seen my name, thought ‘English teacher’ and made an appointment and I’ll have to spend 5 minutes explaining ‘no I can’t comment on your child’s English progress’. Much the same like Monday before half term when I had to participate in Yr 9 Choices Evening and explain ‘your child doesn’t get a choice in taking English, it’s core’.

Just listening to a podcast with Dr Ranj promoting his new book: www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-grow-up-and-feel-amazing/dr-ranj-singh/david-oconnell/9781526362957?awaid=3787&utm_source=redbrain&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=css&gclid=EAIaIQobChMImb7oi7X67gIViaztCh0shwDTEAQYAiABEgJw8vD_BwE

Think it sounds so good for our young people.

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/feb/20/teachers-fear-mass-covid-testing-of-pupils-in-uk-schools-will-be-a-nightmare

Just 0.31% of all the Lateral Flow Tests conducted in schools since January have returned a positive case. That's below the ONS random sampling, isn't it? And bearing in mind that people leaving the home are much more likely to have Covid than those who aren't, and especially the children of nurses and doctors?

Over 4\5s of our staff had already had confirmed cases before the LfTs, so maybe that ship has sailed in lots of schools?
Smallish primary, close knit staff so we do know exactly who is off and why.

Yes, this last half term, for years 7-11, the incidence started at 3% and went down to 0.5%. So an average across the weeks much higher than 0.31% (of course, the test results include staff as well, not just students.)

The LFT are unreliable. Remember some of that percentage is students doing it themselves so probably won't be done properly.

Oh, I know that. I've been vociferously campaigning to get them thrown out as a measure. This is more evidence, isn't it?

My Head didn't really know what fuss I was making in January. By end of half term, he was like "well I don't believe that. Not one single case in all those hundreds of tests?"

... Yes, and not just the children doing them themselves, the adults too. I doubt that unless you've had a PCR test previously, you realise just how far up the nose you have to go and just how accurate you have to be when touching tonsils and nothing else.

I've double checked the ONS for staff ages groups. The three relevant age groups start on 1st Jan at roughly 2.2% and end at half term at an average of 0.9%. But, again, we're out of the house working, so should expect to see more than 0.31% positive tests (caveat : I have no idea how that 0.31% breaks down into staff and students).

Oh yes they're pretty much useless! Anecdotally I have heard from colleagues and none of their schools have had a positive case from LFT. Partly I can believe it because we have so few students and staff in (30/1000) but I'd have expected positives from primary schools using our test site.

Local pre school staff all tested positive on LFTs pre symptoms and only half of them got symptoms. All confirmed covid with PCR. This was first week back in Jan.

The concern is of course, as it says in the Guardian article, that students who get a "negative" are even less likely to attempt to SD in school and even less so out of school. I do despair at the sheer lack of logic running our country. Any idiot can work out that this is a bad idea.

Interesting about the vaccinations @RuleWithAWoodenFoot. Wonder if they will go by occupation. Seems silly for say a 40 year old IT consultant wfh to get it before a 35 year old secondary teacher, but hey what do I know.

I also can’t find anything about vaccinations for pregnant women other than you can get it along with your priority group if you are at ‘high risk of catching the virus’. No definition of that yet. I don’t want to waste GP time but may call re this, as I’ve had GD in the past so know this is an additional risk factor (along with the 30 eight year olds with whom I share an unventilated attic room all day 😂).

I just cannot see how the government can justify WFH under 40s (and 50s) being vaccinated before teachers, prison officers, police etc. It's a complete lack of acknowledgement that we're taking extra risk. It also would mean schools, prisons, police etc could function better because they wouldn't have staff off work so often.

I just don't think the governments understands parental attitudes to education. They hear that so many parents so earnestly want their children back at school that they think these parents will do anything to keep them there. What they don't seem to understand is that teenagers' enthusiasms may not be as motivated as parents! They don't understand the relationships many parents have with teens (from passive and permissive to distant ). They don't understand that - in the nicest possible way- parents want children back at schools so that they ahve somewhere to go every day where, for a few hours, parental responsibility can be totally handed over to other adults/ I don't want mass testing in schools but that does not mean I believe every family will suddenly out of some sense of national duty ensure their children are swabbed and swabbed properly. before attending.

Lots of parents on PUAUS say they won't do it!

I am still perplexed as to why secondary school teachers have to do it at work... surely we are more trustworthy?? I reckon all of this is a) because they don't want to not use all the tests they got off Matt's mate and b) they want to tell heads that setting up testing centres wasn't a waste of time.

So many people I have spoken to over the phone, video calls or on social media, has been surprised that teachers as a group are not being vaccinated (they have brought up the subject not me!)
My SiL who is an optometrist at a hospital has been working from home and not seen patients in person in months and she is saying her colleagues are surprised teachers are not on the list and they are nervous about schools opening up fully.

She also told me that their hospital sent out 500 texts to the wrong people by accident but they didn’t cancel any of the appointments made and went through, vaccinating young and healthy people instead.
Such an administrative error and flies in the face of the vulnerable being the most important.

Half Term would have been ideal to vaccinate teachers in our schools. Madness.

45, asthmatic, obese but not morbidly obese and skint enough for uc but not in a poverty stricken postcode so I'm guessing I'll be offered when, or if, they do people in their 40's 🤷‍♀️

At least tomorrow we'll find out the plan for schools instead of endless speculation and the media acting like lobbyists instead of journalists.

I reckon all of this is a) because they don't want to not use all the tests they got off Matt's mate and b) they want to tell heads that setting up testing centres wasn't a waste of time.

Hits the nail on the head.

Again, my SiL said ‘What!?’ When I told her which tests the schools were using. They are not the tests NHS staff use weekly and that’s because they know these types of LFT tests are ‘useless’ in her words!

At least tomorrow we'll find out the plan for schools instead of endless speculation and the media acting like lobbyists instead of journalists.

I live in hope that some decent questions will be asked by them but so far, I have been very unimpressed in the wrong questions being asked by the journalists.

Yep, will have to zoom straight home to try to catch the PM in the Commons at 3.30pm. (Doubled checked my LFT test wasn't booked for after school )

It must be because of the fuss of making testing centres that secondary staff are doing them in school and primary at home? Bonkers, regardless.

We've had one member of staff test positive from a LFT without symptoms. But no kids that I'm aware of.

We have had one student test positive on LFT in our secondary, no staff. This is with about 100 students in school. I am part of the testing team (support staff) and if it's big bang opening we have an unholy size of operation to run as we have over 2000 students.

I am still perplexed as to why secondary school teachers have to do it at work...surely we are more trustworthy??

More trustworthy than primary teachers?!

I don’t get why they don’t just give them to you to take home-they’ll still be used up as fast, won’t they?

So it’s looking like all back on the 8th, then-unvaccinated and no masks, I presume? MPs too, or can they stay WFH...