The Sixty Third Republic - as we glide into staycations the DfE whip up anti-school media storm

[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 for school staff to let off steam.

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.

Do not give the staffroom password to non-staff as it attracts the wrong sort of crowd.

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. Do not sit on the chairs and do wear a mask. Finally, upload your covid test results twice a week on Wednesdays and Sundays.

Do they think primary kids stay in their seats?

Oh and good luck getting parents to answer the phone It takes fucking hours to get hold of someone when a child needs to go home as a close contact sometimes and I've had problem kids who I've spent a whole year trying to get through to a parent before.

I'm actually amused at the idea of them having to experience what it's like getting through to reluctant to be contacted parents and dealing with kids reeling off 50 or 60 names of close contacts in the last 48hours and trying to remember their surnames let alone contact details.

It'll be passed back to schools within days I'd imagine.

Please god just let me go to Egypt and get in the sea and sort my flat out and escape this fucking asylum for the summer. I need a break from the UK population.

There were a few good tweets about asking 4 year olds for close contacts. Stick figure drawings, Woody from toy story etc.

Will primary children not just say their best friends?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57766717

We’ll be seeing a lot of ‘children are low risk’ over the summer.

Jan where id Harries say this??

Well that is good mother but what about the adults they contact? Children are also at low risk of flu and they now get jabbed.

Bob would say "Benno and Knobber and Tosspot".
We know who Knobber and Tosspot are, and that Benno isn't Ben or anything related to Ben.
We'd also know that those are the people he sits near ... not the ones he throws in the bushes who are pretty close contacts due to being wrestled into a pyracantha repeatedly.
Track and trace will love Bob.

The Guardian's reporting makes one read it in a different , more cautious way. Good Old BBC...

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/09/first-year-of-pandemic-claimed-lives-of-25-youngsters-in-england

@MrsHamlet

Bob would say "Benno and Knobber and Tosspot". We know who Knobber and Tosspot are, and that Benno isn't Ben or anything related to Ben. We'd also know that those are the people he sits near ... not the ones he throws in the bushes who are pretty close contacts due to being wrestled into a pyracantha repeatedly. Track and trace will love Bob.

Going off topic but what is it with boys and nicknames? DH has a circle of friends whom he has known since school days. His nickname is longer than his actual name.

Exactly @Piggywaspushed. I wonder what the CV boards will look like come Autumn when schools close just to sheer numbers of staff illness or teacher parents taking leave to care for ill dependents?

@motherrunner

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57766717

We’ll be seeing a lot of ‘children are low risk’ over the summer.

Well, if it isn’t professor Viner!

Because no one has to isolate if a contact any more, loads of working parents are going to get flak about time off work when their child actually gets covid,so they won't test them. And so it continues ..

Let’s hope we’re not back to ridiculous government attendance pressures on parents/children in September. Parents won’t keep their child off for a cough if we’re back to those.

Can I ask those of you who have been reading everything - if someone gets covid do their household have to isolate? Or no-one at all once the isolation stuff is lifted later in august?

I think no one at all, hence the problem for parents ...

I thought that the route out of all of this was going to be testing? But we are stopping twice-weekly LFD tests after September. Alongside stopping isolating bubbles with close contacts in or household members of positive cases, then what ARE we going to be doing?

Are we left with ‘wash your hands’? Hmmm. Important certainly. But it can only do so much for an airborne virus, surely?!

Going by the flak my colleagues and a poster on a recent thread about childcare with covid have been getting, lots of businesses (and schools) are not going to be happy with people taking time off.

Here we are piggy
www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/covid-schools-bubbles-rules-restrictions-b1879926.html?fbclid=IwAR1ANbGLAP0a3R3hh2pOFNA2H27Yri8io8EALtt543Nyqv9YaXXteTLXvD4

Also, seen a screen shot of guidance for parents which says more about the testing on return in September: 2 tests, 3-5 days apart, schools can start this up to 3 days prior to beginning of term, and stagger returns across the first week.

Then twice weekly tests at home, to be reviewed for end of September.

We’re testing on the 6th-8th so pupils won’t be back in full time until the 9th. We’re once again being given roles in the testing centre.

Aren’t we back to the issue of 2 tests 3-5 days apart a week before the start of school being fairly useless, then?

Even if the tests did have 100% sensitivity it only tells you that people were clear when they had the test. Slightly different if this was an additional measure, not the main one.

I’M SEEING MY MUM TODAY! Did I mention that once before? I might have done once or twice. It’s been 21months, I might need to stock up on the tissues.

Oh my goodness, have a wonderful day @RafaIsTheKingOfClay!!

A year 12 positive case has just taken a whole bus out...the same bus as previously!

Also one in year 9.

Loads of coughing and sniffing today.

Did anyone see the TeacherTapp blog yesterday that showed how stressed heads are? At the same time though it showed that heads are most likely to want to scrap bubbles and other restrictions. these two things must be connected...classroom teachers want those things to say because they help us to manage stress and anxiety; heads want them to go so that they can be less stressed....

Thanks jan : this is astonishing

However, reviews into the policy are ongoing, and Test and Trace may not consider those in schools as contacts unless there is a major outbreak, The Independent understands. Unions have therefore asked the DfE to urgently clarify the definition of what “contact” means within the school setting.