Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

Re-opening Schools?

Shippou-Sensei said:
Over lockdown I got ofsteded. In my online class and checking marking and talking to students.

Turned out ok but I almost had a heart attack.
Click to expand...

How does that work? Honestly if some random shows up in my online class I'm saying I
I don't know you, can't check your credentials, safeguarding comes first, leave immediately or I will end this session.
 
Butting in here - just listening to Van Tam, justifying teachers (NOT all school staff) not being vaccinated.

He has compared some mostly male dominated professions, against a comparison with male teachers, to defend their reasoning and that's also been done using data from March to the end of Dec, when schools were shut to all but a few pupils for 2/3rds of that time.

Male teachers make up around 25% of teachers (in 2019, no reason to imagine there's been much of a shift).
I'm not sure that that includes teaching assistants either (who have much higher case rates/mortality?).
Along with that, teachers make up slightly under a half of the total of all school staff.
Can't find any male to female ratio figures for the rest but, outside of facilities (caretaking etc - who generally spend more time outside anyway) my own experience is that the bulk of the rest - admin, cleaning, kitchen staff (of which I am one - and where I note that catering is a pretty high risk profession) are women.

So, they are using figures for the 25% of all male teachers, which ought to be further reduced (to half that? Less?) when you look at all school staff, for a period of time when many of them wouldn't have been onsite anyway for the greater proportion of that time and/or with far fewer kids outside of March - Sep (when SD WAS easy), then setting those against risks to other, more male dominated professions, to produce some fucking made up numbers that will only continue to diminsh the safety of all school staff, along with feeding the idea that it's teachers being difficult, while they experiment with fully opening schools.
 
sheothebudworths said:
Butting in here - just listening to Van Tam, justifying teachers (NOT all school staff) not being vaccinated.

He has compared some mostly male dominated professions, against a comparison with male teachers, to defend their reasoning and that's also been done using data from March to the end of Dec, when schools were shut to all but a few pupils for 2/3rds of that time.

Male teachers make up around 25% of teachers (in 2019, no reason to imagine there's been much of a shift).
I'm not sure that that includes teaching assistants either (who have much higher case rates/mortality?).
Along with that, teachers make up slightly under a half of the total of all school staff.
Can't find any male to female ratio figures for the rest but, outside of facilities (caretaking etc - who generally spend more time outside anyway) my own experience is that the bulk of the rest - admin, cleaning, kitchen staff (of which I am one - and where I note that catering is a pretty high risk profession) are women.

So, they are using figures for the 25% of all male teachers, which ought to be further reduced (to half that? Less?) when you look at all school staff, for a period of time when many of them wouldn't have been onsite anyway for the greater proportion of that time and/or with far fewer kids outside of March - Sep (when SD WAS easy), then setting those against risks to other, more male dominated professions, to produce some fucking made up numbers that will only continue to diminsh the safety of all school staff, along with feeding the idea that it's teachers being difficult, while they experiment with fully opening schools.
Click to expand...

Men are far more likely to die, which is why he used figures for men. Teaching assistants are at lower risk of death than teachers in those ONS stats.

I agree with the JCVIs decision, because if you start doing it by occupation it’s going to get pretty messy - however you view it, teachers won’t be top of the pile in terms of risk, and you can debate for ever about what job titles of catering worker are most at risk compared to other catering workers or whatever.

Doing it by age means the most at-risk people in all occupations will be vaccinated first.
 
platinumsage said:
Men are far more likely to die, which is why he used figures for men. Teaching assistants are at lower risk of death than teachers in those ONS stats.

I agree with the JCVIs decision, because if you start doing it by occupation it’s going to get pretty messy - however you view it, teachers won’t be top of the pile in terms of risk, and you can debate for ever about what job titles of catering worker are most at risk compared to other catering workers or whatever.

Doing it by age means the most at-risk people in all occupations will be vaccinated first.
Click to expand...

I agree that it's complicated to work out risks for individual professions but schools are being fully opened, first.
I am well aware that men are at greater risk of dying from covid (& so are older and BAME staff). Why do you think that is? What positions are those men working in?
Men only make up 25% of teachers and the results are from a period covering March to Dec (schools were shut to most pupils between March - Sep) therefore the results are not comparative to other professions - particularly when they are compared to other professions where the ratio of men is far higher (obviously?).
Fwiw, teachers also make up less than 50% of school staff.

There are newer (worse, all round) stats that go beyond December - you'd imagine they'd be relevant in making decisions to reopen schools.
 
Last edited:
I doubt newer stats would push teachers to the riskiest occupation. Plenty of more risky occupations in transport, food preparation etc have been going throughout lockdown, and these workers would be ahead of teachers on a risk basis.

Attempting to do it by occupation would mean older school staff most at risk of death would possibly get the vaccine later than if it was done purely by age.
 
Last edited:
SpookyFrank said:
Prioritising school staff would make school staff...less likely to get vaccinated?
Click to expand...

That’s not what I said was it. Prioritising by risk of occupation would mean school staff wouldn’t be first on the list, other occupations would be vaccinated first.

The school staff most at risk have already been vaccinated, because age is the biggest risk factor, so continuing on that basis is fairest for everyone. And it means an e.g 49 year old school teacher gets the jab ahead of a 20 year old police woman etc.
 
platinumsage said:
That’s not what I said was it. Prioritising by risk of occupation would mean school staff wouldn’t be first on the list, other occupations would be vaccinated first.

The school staff most at risk have already been vaccinated, because age is the biggest risk factor, so continuing on that basis is fairest for everyone. And it means an e.g 49 year old school teacher gets the jab ahead of a 20 year old police woman etc.
Click to expand...

I have definitely not suggested bumping police up the queue. Unless you can catch covid from kebabs and racism they should be just fine.
 
prunus said:
Seems any secondary school staff who volunteer to do some of the lateral flow testing of pupils will be able to get a vaccine immediately as volunteer front-line health staff - so hopefully schools will organise themselves such that everyone is a volunteer, and cut through this mess.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't the first doses should have gone out to people a month ago then, given that they take at least two weeks to have an appreciable effect?
 
stdP said:
Shouldn't the first doses should have gone out to people a month ago then, given that they take at least two weeks to have an appreciable effect?
Click to expand...

Should, certainly. But this is better than nothing (albeit it’s accidental rather than targeted).

In Lambeth and Southwark at least the local NHS trust(s) have been running a scheme for several weeks where excess doses are given to local teachers, police, and other groups (rather than them go to waste). It’s semi-official in that they have clearance to do it (ie in an organised way rather than just back-door). Why it isn’t national policy I don’t know - it might be happening in other areas too of course.

All the staff at my partner’s school and my kids’ schools have been done a week or more ago, so they should be into the protection zone by the 8th.
 
Thanks, I hadn't heard of the scheme (the other half applied for volunteer positions in lambeth in november/december but there weren't any placements due to the new lockdown) - nice to hear at least someone's being sensible about it, even if it is just "excess" doses.
 
prunus said:
Should, certainly. But this is better than nothing (albeit it’s accidental rather than targeted).

In Lambeth and Southwark at least the local NHS trust(s) have been running a scheme for several weeks where excess doses are given to local teachers, police, and other groups (rather than them go to waste). It’s semi-official in that they have clearance to do it (ie in an organised way rather than just back-door). Why it isn’t national policy I don’t know - it might be happening in other areas too of course.

All the staff at my partner’s school and my kids’ schools have been done a week or more ago, so they should be into the protection zone by the 8th.
Click to expand...
I teach in a Lambeth school and it hasn’t been offered to us.
 
round here, there's some schools getting kids in towards the end of this coming week for a covid test rather than trying to do it all monday week.

i've got a school bus network ready to run again from 8 march and now waiting for the government's latest screeching u-turn and / or half the schools to decide they want to change their hours / have kids doing staggered start / finish times and all that sort of thing...
 
spanglechick said:
I teach in a Lambeth school and it hasn’t been offered to us.
Click to expand...

Ah, I don’t know the precise details of the scheme I’m afraid, maybe it’s only Southwark, sorry; I thought it was both. My info is only 2nd hand. I believe the thing to do is have your head contact Kings and get the school booked in. Hope it works. Apologies if it doesn’t.
 
prunus said:
Ah, I don’t know the precise details of the scheme I’m afraid, maybe it’s only Southwark, sorry; I thought it was both. My info is only 2nd hand. I believe the thing to do is have your head contact Kings and get the school booked in. Hope it works. Apologies if it doesn’t.
Click to expand...
I would like details if anyone has them to give to my head. We are a Lambeth school but on the border with Southwark and very close to Kings.
 
nagapie said:
I would like details if anyone has them to give to my head. We are a Lambeth school but on the border with Southwark and very close to Kings.
Click to expand...

They just took it upon themselves to contact the nearest schools. It's super ad-hoc. It got cancelled at the last-minute last week as their own staff took up the leftovers.
 
nagapie said:
I would like details if anyone has them to give to my head. We are a Lambeth school but on the order with Southwark and very close to Kings.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's that organised. You probably could get your head to ask kings to have them on standby if you're near.

Chemistry teaches in Southwark and has not had the opportunity.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Thora
If primary schools/nurseries open on 4th January, will you send your children?
2
Replies
40
Views
1K
Oula
Oula
S
Pubs open
7 8 9 10 11
Replies
313
Views
11K
hash tag
hash tag
H
Home schooling material
Replies
5
Views
328
CNT36
C
F
Keeping children off school
2 3 4
Replies
108
Views
4K
Thora
Thora
Thora
Is the school reopening plan going to cause a childcare problem for critical workers (including teachers)?
Replies
5
Views
313
scifisam
scifisam
Back
Top Bottom