Re-opening Schools?
- Thread starter ska invita
- Start date
I heard that Williamson's wife is a teacher. I bet she's not really looking forward to walking into the staff room on the first day back!
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
TBH I'm surprised that Williamson wasn't required to fall on his sword right after the GCSE results were released - I thought that was the only reason they were keeping him around.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Scottish headteacher on R4 'Today' this morning saying how, irrespective of any guidance to the contrary, they'd asked kids & parents to wear masks to & fro school & visors (for staff?) in school. Seemingly driven, in large part, by 27% vulnerable staff & 5 resignations citing concerns. An interesting line that may play out in many other schools with numbers of staff nearing retirement age?
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
If I was a headteacher, I'd for damn sure be mandating masks for everyone in my school.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Says a lot about the priorities of the authors
Last edited:
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
"Because".
We've been told all children must be in class by September 15th. Before this we've been told to arrange some sort of stagger whereby 50% of the pupils are in at any one time.
It's figures pulled out of an arse to look like something is being done because "something must be done". At the same time as we are constantly being told in that back-to-school guidance that everything is being done within the bounds of "the science" we are fed this meaningless drivel of numbers that are simply politically driven.
gaijingirl
Well-Known Member
Jesus - poor woman.
I just googled it. She's a former primary school teacher. Rather amusingly, from the same link, it seems they almost separated when he had an affair with a junior colleague in his days as a fireplace salesman (yes, really)
hegley
never odd or even
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
gaijingirl
Well-Known Member
Christ.
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
Fuck's sake. It's going to be a nightmare innit.
gaijingirl
Well-Known Member
Well I'm really looking forward to going back on Thursday now. 
Sir Belchalot
arenicola marina
Recent U.S. study which doesn't bode well:
news.harvard.edu
Looking at children as the silent spreaders of SARS-CoV-2
A new study has found that children infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 were shown to have a significantly higher level of virus in their airways than hospitalized adults in ICUs for COVID-19 treatment.
news.harvard.edu
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
So much for there being "much less transmission from children to adults than adults to adults" as claimed by Dr Fuckwhitty.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
But, there's nothing in that report that suggest the teachers caught it from a child.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
The virus spreads in schools. That should be enough. The focus on child-adult transmission is bullshit, a red herring being promulgated by a purported authority that has already demonstrated itself to be compromised.
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
So what's the solution then? Leave the schools closed? If so for how long? until there is a vaccine which will be the end of the next year at best. Johnson and Williamson are making a complete hash of handling this but they are right about one thing. Children and especially those from more deprived backgrounds will lose out if they don't return to school and the longer it goes on the worst it will get.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
The 'solution' to this rests in the dim, distant past when the Government should have developed a strategy to crush the virus with a timely and effective 'lockdown'....but we are where we are, with persistent community transmission.
Given the shitshow we're starting from, I can't see why the DfE could not have aimed for a phased return of pupils, possibly starting with 1 day/week/year group to enable re-connection with their school, work to be set/taken in and then see what happened to the health & well-being of pupils, their families/communities and the adults that work with them in schools.
NoXion
Craicy the Squirrel
Education is important. But human health and lives are even more so. Given that poor and BAME kids are more likely to be exposed to the virus, the crocodile tears from the government about "deprived backgrounds" are especially sickening.
As well the more piecemeal approach outlined by brogdale , the government needs to stop fucking bullshitting us. If they want kids back in school, then parents should be made properly aware of the risks, and not be fed speculative bullshit dressed up as scientific fact.
Some American guidance on reopening schools
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
Numbers are science too. Don't make the mistake (that the government want you to make) of thinking that any reference to 'science' is only talking about virology/epidemiology/health - behavioural and economic science are the driving factors behind most of their decisions.
My sister teaches quite a lot of said children and they have kept their schools open throughout lockdown. When not at school she has been offering remote learning and support to said children. All the staff at her school have been doing the same.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Well exactly; the government's approach to re-opening schools makes complete sense from the perspective of (very) short term, economic recovery. Beyond that, it looks like a very risky and potentially costly, counter-productive punt that puts the health of millions at further risk.
Thora
Differently Ethical
And cases at a linked primary and after school club.
After school clubs are going to be a real issue, especially the ones that collect from multiple schools and then have the kids all mixed.
Last edited:
Thora
Differently Ethical
I guess it's impossible to know though as presumably only staff/children with symptoms were tested - so we only know many more adults were symptomatic than children, not the numbers that are actually infected. Could be that loads of the children are silently infectious and have spread it to staff - in fact that makes more sense as children will not be social distancing from each other or staff, but adults will be avoiding contact with each other.
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
What sort of response has she had to offering remote learning?, Mrs Q school has also been offering remote learning and whilst it started off without about 70-80% of the kids turn up for online lessons this quite rapidly fell to more like 30-40% quite quickly.
This is a school rated 'excellent' as well with motivated kids and pushy parents aplenty.
Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
Without knowing all of the data, you can't even say that with any certainty. It might be that the research on the long-term health benefits of education (in terms of life expectancy through greater economic attainment) mean that on average, the number of children that will die from going back to school now are much lower than the cumulative impact of missing out on education measured in the long-term.
Which won't mean much to parents who lose kids, kids that accidentally kill their grandparents, or the families of dead teachers.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
Whilst I think we can all agree that an earlier lock-down would have saved a hell of a lot of lives, I am struggling with the logic of connecting that with the current situation of 'persistent community transmission', when countries that locked-down earlier are reporting larger spikes in new cases than the UK.
I was reading a report on the Republic of Ireland earlier, they went into lock-down ahead of us, and was considered to be doing very well, but their 7-day average of new cases, adjusted for population size, is now running at around 35% more than the UK.
They are still moving towards re-opening schools, together with all four of the UK nations, and most of Europe, although I accept the devil will be in the details of how different countries are actually managing it.
Similar threads
