The Sixty-Fifth Republic - The Covid School Phoney War under way so who will the gold medal and who will get the wooden spoon?

[Staffholidayclubrep]

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.

You can sit on chairs but keep the windows open. You don’t have to upload LFT results during the holidays. You do not have to wear mask - free choice

In work, the NHS has been pretty much the same. The assumption is that you’ve been social distancing. The difference here is that it’s being extended to times when you absolutely know there’s been no social distancing, like if your partner or children have covid.

@WarriorN

Surely PE is one subject that can be taught outside in the summer? Poor kids

They've been doing it since Easter but terms 1 and 2 they were mainly doing cover. Except we've not had much cover!

Your PE dept are something else MrsH. Does no one say anything?

I think people generally think it's fair that they have more frees because they're expected to do fixtures... which I can sort of see. But unless they have exam classes, and they mostly don't, they have no marking.
The expectation that year was they'd do a lot of cover - but there hasn't been very much.

Ah yes Warrior, I mean if they are close contacts, not if they have covid.

True about household members, we’ve still been allowed to isolate if in contact outside of school because they’ve not been able to override it with the school risk assessment.

Our swap is no marking for no fixtures. We do have btec and GCSE PE and those PE teachers do fewer clubs and fixtures.

That would cause seething resentment in my school. Let's not even get started on the lack of "planning" required for PE. Ours openly admit they don't plan practical lessons.

I don’t understand the nightclub double jab thing. It goes against everything we know about Boris and his government. They’ve always had exemptions to rules that other countries haven’t. Masks -wear a lanyard. School closures - not if you’re a keyworker. Stay indoors - except for exercise. It’s not what they’re about as a political party, to mandate vaccines (look at the resistance over care home workers). As we know they were reluctant to even lock down, and even last week they were saying vaccine passports were out of the question.

Following on from the pilot study to get out of self-isolation gaff, I’m wondering what the hell is going on at the top at the moment.

I think the night club double jab is a headline to get the u30s vaccine rates up. When the actual "guidance" comes out it will be littered with get out clauses.

Also, remember we are introducing it nearly 2 months after opening nightclubs.

@warriorN as I understand it, you do still have to isolate if you test positive.

With regards to children not being ill, most the students I know at secondary who have had covid were off longer than the 10 days isolation as they were still feeling too unwell to be at school...

I agree it’s probably about trying to increase vaccination rates, but politically it’s a terrible decision.

Business minister on R4 this morning struggling to defend it.

I just saw another thread where NHS staff (from what I read) were feeling very annoyed about the ‘no isolation’. Seemingly, they can go out to work but that’s it - when the shift ends, they have to isolate again. They were asking how they could get home and whether that counted as work! It shows yet again that ‘key worker’ just means ‘someone who will put up with shit for people working at home’.

Throughout the 1990s I was regularly timetabled in ordinary classrooms for ICT lessons, apart from at A level when we brought it in, for which, ironically, computers weren’t always strictly needed. It took me years to convince management that it was in KS3 (one lesson a week) where they always needed access to machines, even if only one between two.

Thanks flags and Nobel, my concern is that delta seems to be the most easily transmitted version yet.

Although jabs do help undoubtedly, and hugely, many double jabbed are catching it (the majority mildly/ moderately thankfully.) It feels like, proportionately, a lot.

It's the knock on effect of staff self isolating, staff who are parents of children who test positive having to take time off, then also catching it, isolating and children missing school (longer obviously for ill with it). Those are the exact scenarios I've seen in the past few weeks. I feel it will be chaos, certainly in our school. Normal winter bugs in normal years have come close to closing us before.

Someone please tell me I'm missing something!

Oh, maybe school staff suddenly being critical workers?!....

Morning everyone. Any advice for ds, who is covered in heat rash at the moment? He has an antihistamine every morning and air purifier and fan in his room. Did someone mention bicarbonate of soda or did I imagine that?

Dd and I were going to London this weekend to watch a show, but it's been cancelled due to a member the cast testing positive. Gutted but we'll go and see family, and hopefully rebook in the future.

Melting here. Took the kids to a ropes course yesterday which was a great way to spend a couple of hours, not too hot as shaded by trees. They were very docile in the afternoon .

Yes. The non-isolation is only for work. So you can be allowed into a hospital or care home, but not then go to Tesco and go shopping.

Like the issue with too many people being contacted by T&T is does seem to be avoiding no the elephant in the room - perhaps we’ve got too many cases of Covid.

I just saw another thread where NHS staff (from what I read) were feeling very annoyed about the ‘no isolation’. Seemingly, they can go out to work but that’s it - when the shift ends, they have to isolate again. They were asking how they could get home and whether that counted as work! It shows yet again that ‘key worker’ just means ‘someone who will put up with shit for people working at home’.

Plus the hospital nhs staff I know have had some annual leave cancelled already to cope with the next few months.

Nhs staff won't be putting up with this shite for much longer.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

Yes. The non-isolation is only for work. So you can be allowed into a hospital or care home, but not then go to Tesco and go shopping.

Like the issue with too many people being contacted by T&T is does seem to be avoiding no the elephant in the room - perhaps we’ve got too many cases of Covid.

I find that contemptuous of the staff. But nothing surprises me with this government anymore.

Also really frustrated by all of the commentary about T&T being "not fit for purpose" because too many people being contacted. Remind me how much money it cost again?

@WarriorN

Someone please tell me I'm missing something!

Oh, maybe school staff suddenly being critical workers?!....

I expect this will be the case. I'm AZ jabbed. Do you think school staff will be eligible for boosters in the autumn?

Doubt it. We weren't originally.

They won't think about this till the 11.999999th hour anyway.

Though at least anyone over 50 will
Be?

Surely household contacts should isolate even if vaxxed....
Well we'll soon see how effective AZ is if bj etc catch it (although his natural immunity might make a difference)

AZ here too. I was hoping maybe AZ'ers would be prioritised for boosters with eg. Pfizer as that idea was around at one point.

SH and I had AZ too. Apart from my older in laws I don’t know anyone who was jabbed with anything else.

*DH