Just how pathetic is Boris going to be allowed to be?

Oh, and one more thing. Johnson looked like a burst sofa standing next to Macron yesterday. This was a solemn event and he looked scruffy, his shoes were unpolished, his hair, as usual, all over the place. I do not believe this is accidental, it is part of his cultivated 'good old Boris, the absent minded buffer' image. Well, he doesn't fool me. As my late Father would have said ( he was a stickler for cleanliness, polished shoes, appropriate clothes), he looked like a bag of sh*t tied in the middle. Shameful.

While we can likely all agree that no government can anticipate a pandemic, this current one did have a warning of the potential problems with the Cygnus report which they chose to ignore. To me it is; the pandemic was unanticipated, unplanned, but austerity which was deliberate has certainly made coping with the pandemic far worse. I watch the news and sneer at what the cabinet say, I do not trust any of them and this goes beyond politics, it is now a matter of confidence and I do not have any.

They don't yet know which day they have been allocated, whether siblings will be in schools on the same day or not consequently it it difficult for parents to make plans for their working arrangements too.

AGAA4

Welsh schools are returning for all year groups on 29th June. This was because they didn't rush in as Boris did with a far to early date and had to make a U turn at the last minute.

This has caused major frustration for parents, teachers and children in England.

Instead of blaming teachers and their unions the blame lies firmly with the government.

Yes they are.
But they are returning on a rota system so each pupil will have about 5 days in total from then until the end of July.
They will each go in for one day per week.

They will not be going back full time.

This will be just in order to catch up with what they have been doing and learn about what will happen in the future.

Couldn't agree more GillT57.

Well, reading this thread, and a couple of posters in particular ( on opposing sides) it seems to me that Cummings' work is done. Nothing like a good distraction such as are teachers onside or not, to deflect from the atrocious government we have.

The Select Committee of 15th June on the Science of Covid-19 was just on the BBC Parliament channel questioning a fascinating group of scientists who have been involved with this. There seemed to be quite a bit of doubt that herd immunity is possible.

The other thing that caught my ear was the way the thymus gland works. It (apparently) produces the "T" cells we need to fight viruses. It is at it highest production in our teens and it is then downhill from there on and it's pretty worn out by out later years. This is part of the reason why older people (over 50) are more susceptible to this virus.

There is also some doubt that it will be seasonal but rather that, unlike flu will stay at the same level all year round.

AGAA4 I agree with your summation.

Welsh schools are returning for all year groups on 29th June. This was because they didn't rush in as Boris did with a far to early date and had to make a U turn at the last minute.

This has caused major frustration for parents, teachers and children in England.

Instead of blaming teachers and their unions the blame lies firmly with the government.

That's how herd immunity works maddyone.

And what about the staff?

Children can either go back to school with one metre physical distancing (still tricky, but probably doable) or they can stay at home or attend part time. That’s the choice, like it or lump it.

Gaga
That sounds absolutely lovely. Bless those children. And a teacher who thoughtfully gave them a lovely opportunity to learn.
One of my grandchildren had all his lessons via Zoom during lockdown. He was kept fully engaged and learning the whole time. His parents were extremely supportive though, despite one of them, my son, being extremely busy working from home, often till seven or eight at night.

GGumteenth

It's now been announced that we have moved to Level 3. What's the betting that we will be told that schools can move to 1 metre distancing as they have decided in Northern Ireland.

If we really are ready for this all well and good but the head teachers could never have decided to do this. It had to be the government.

There is absolutely no doubt that we'll be moving to 1 metre distancing. Whatever the scientific evidence (and somebody - can't remember who - said the government isn't following evidence on this), it will enable more children to fit in a classroom. Pure politics, absolutely nothing else.

Online teaching, obviously! Sorry. I didn't make that clear.

maddyone, one of the activities that my Y6 class have enjoyed the most during remote learning has been reading together. They were each in their respective homes and we would all read a section. I gave them numbers and would call the next number when it was time to move on. They did it so well, I meant to record them to send to their parents but never got round to it. It was really 'feel good'.

“Just a reminder that the #NHS #trackingapp that's bitten the dust was being developed by a firm called Faculty, which was a VoteLeave AI firm and is run by a mate of #DominicCummings. The same firm is hoovering up Whitehall contracts.“

R is averaging 0.8.

Too high imo for comfort.

Higher is SE and London.

It's now been announced that we have moved to Level 3. What's the betting that we will be told that schools can move to 1 metre distancing as they have decided in Northern Ireland.

If we really are ready for this all well and good but the head teachers could never have decided to do this. It had to be the government.

Paddyann. Wales and NI have the power to stop tourists from the rest of the UK so why is Scotland different?!

Gagajo
You are right that schools allow volunteers to be in the classroom without a DBS so long as the volunteer stays in the classroom with the teacher. The school I worked in took volunteers without DBS but applied for it straight away, and it usually took about three weeks to come through then, but now I imagine, maybe much longer. The problem then is that schools, like other institutions, are limiting the number of people who can be contact with the children, and so it would seem to me to be very difficult to volunteer at the moment. I also think that applying for lots of DBSs so that volunteers, (even ex teachers who’s DBS have expired,) can help ensure smaller groups of children, would be time consuming given that administrative staff have more than enough to do simply to ensure safeguarding the children’s health and physical safety.
I’m an ex teacher, I also have asthma and am 67 years old. I loved my teaching job, but no way would I put myself into the risky position of volunteering in schools at the moment. And no way would I feel confident to comply with all the new rules and regulations, plus I feel a tad rusty on the curriculum. I might be fit to do do guided reading with a group and that’s about it, and that at a distance of two metres would be difficult. We usually operated at about one metre for that particular activity.
Incidentally I believe that many school administrative staff are still not back at school. This means that applying for a DBS would be left to the headteacher along with all other administrative tasks. Our small school had three full time administrative staff, which surely shows just how much administrative work there is to do in schools.

MaizieD I apologise I'd forgotten Get Brexit Done. Of course Boris has managed something!

Well done, Lucca That's it in a nutshell ??

In all fairness the situation in Scotland is different so Ms Sturgeon has better chance of getting schools back.Our death rate is a fraction of Englands with just 2400 ish confirmed by CV in all settings ,we've had several days with no deaths in the past couple of weeks.We dont want a new wave though and thats why she is being cautious
.There are all sorts of plans in different coucil areas and not everyone is happy with what they are being offered.
Like the rest of us Nicola Sturgeon is human ,probably a bit more human than Bojo ,she's one of us and understands how ordinary folk live ,work and survive .That has been to her advantage these past few months .She's not nor would she think shes a saint and her supporters dont think she is either.She will tell you that when she looks back she will see mistakes she made

I am a supporter of bothe Nicola and the party but even I have some issues with some Scottish government policies.Surely thats how we should be ALL governments should be open to criticism. We're lucky that in the main she will answer our complaints and explain why she has taken the route she has .THAT to my mind is what government should be PUBLIC SERVANTS ,not people who have no idea how the minions live and really aren't interested as long as they get their wages massive expenses etc etc etc .
Devolution isn't enough to make the differences we need because in situations like now we weren't ALLOWED to close the borders or start lockdown when we or rather Ms Sturgeon wanted to .We had to wait until Bojo gave "permission" now thats not democracy ,Now we have campervans flooding north again and really we dont want vsitors ...not yet and we haven't the power to stop them .

vegansrock
‘This seems to have descended into a teacher bashing......’

I have certainly not descended into teacher bashing. I explained some of the difficulties in allowing volunteers into schools normally, let alone during this pandemic. Volunteers, however well meaning, would be yet another logistical nightmare for schools at the moment. Safeguarding the children is the legal responsibility of the schools headteacher. The usual safeguarding practices still apply, along with the additional safeguarding of children from contracting this disease, which clearly means limiting the number of people the children come into contact with during the school day. If it doesn’t suit some people I’m afraid that’s tough, but schools will not shirk their legal duty to safeguard the children.

This