Sixty Seventh Republic - under temporary guardianship

[Hercisback]

In the absence of staff and her fabulous thread titles and witty openers here is a 67th thread. The broom cupboard is overflowing so time for another Republic. Hopefully we hear from staff soon.

Stolen from thread 66.
'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.'

I know it would be v interesting to know how tests are allocated wouldn’t it. It was only brought back on stream in Sept to cope with the schools surge.

Maths teachers - bumper formula sheet for June 2022 confirmed.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/4376625-Y11-Extended-formula-sheet-info-for-GCSE-maths-released

The kids should probably be given it for mocks too, shouldn’t they?

E Mids (quite east and quite north E Mids )

We're going to give it ours noble. Mostly so they're used to using it.

It's @graphcrimes on twitter. Discovered it last night.

It has my favourite ever graph which I thought I'd lost.

Thanks @RafaIsTheKingOfClay! I love a crap graph!

@noblegiraffe

I'm not entirely clear about how a lab in Wolverhampton badly affected results in the SW and not, say, Wolverhampton. Where were Wolverhampton tests going?

Bristol? It wouldn't be the weirdest decision made by this government.

Still not convinced that Plymouth lab are OK. Dh's 4th false negative was processed there according to the staff at the test centre.

There were issues with samples from Newbury Showground too, which don't seem to have been linked to the Wolverhampton lab. If the Wolverhampton lab wasn't running any QC, are the other labs? How many of them are run by dodgy private Tory chum firms?

I think that there have probably been smaller-scale issues with a number of labs, and a dramatic failure of the Wolverhampton lab - with the latter given news prominence so that the issue can be seen to be 'sorted' and 'isolated' (and linked only to a private lab) so as not to further destroy confidence in the testing procedure as a whole.

Perceptive analysis, Can't.

There’ll be a report slithered out in a few months, no doubt, that they hope no one will pay attention to because by then it’ll be old news.

Just saw on twitter "Footnote #1: Anecdotes are coming in of people as far away as Nottingham/East Midlands being sent texts advising them to go for a retest after their initial PCR swab was "analysed" by the dodgy lab. The problems are clearly worst in the SW, but other areas haven't escaped."

What a mess.

@noblegiraffe are these people being told that their swabs were analysed at Wolverhampton? Just wondering if there is another lab that is producing false negatives.

Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest, but we're unlikely to be told about it unless it becomes obvious.

I mean, there have been reports of the same issue in the NE and even Scotland! Who knows? People on Twitter are compiling tables and making graphs.

It would be helpful if we knew whether SAGE were still meeting, they’ve published no minutes since April I think….

*NW, I changed autocorrect’s version once but for some reason it prefers the NE! Cheshire iirc.

Presume people have seen the reports that 12-15 yos are to be allowed to get jabs in walk in centres v soon? Good news, however as this Twitter scientist points out:

“I think proposed 12-15 walk-in access is great news!

But with 8+% infection prevalence in 12-15s, I wonder if there’s a way to segregate them from 3rd-dose/booster jab-takers? Eg require negative LFT for 12-15s to attend clinic, use separate clinics, or segregate clinics by age?“

I’m presuming teachers aren’t eligible for their booster?

But my DH (just turned 50) who solely WFH is?

No - unless they’re in the States!

@Appuskidu my dear Mum keeps asking when I will be getting my booster ‘because you’re more exposed than practically anyone’. Bless her.

As it happens I have Covid now anyway so guess that will give me the boost I need. Sigh.

Sorry to hear that @TreeLawney (great name!).

See this letter from an obviously stressed head to parents at a primary, taken from Twitter - how things are much more hard for schools with an outbreak now than last year:

twitter.com/dikt54/status/1449763622020866055?s=21

Got a similar-ish email from my DD’s primary Head this afternoon Jan basically saying word for word what my school had to send out earlier this week, that many adults, children and parents have teated positive of LFDs and some PCRs this weekend.

Just LFD everyday and hope for the best folks!

Oh Tree sorry about your positive.

I guess I won’t be getting a booster as only had my second dose last July. Did go for a flu jab though-thankfully, Boots did their teacher scheme again unlike last year.

@ChloeDecker

Oh Tree sorry about your positive.

I guess I won’t be getting a booster as only had my second dose last July. Did go for a flu jab though-thankfully, Boots did their teacher scheme again unlike last year.

Do you mind me asking how you access that?

When I looked on the Boots website they only mentioned health and social care workers or carers? Is it free?

Just LFD everyday and hope for the best folks
It does feel like that's the strategy at the moment.
I've already had it, but am worried about getting reinfected with another strain.