Will Schools Close after Christmas?

Franbern

NEU currently holding a mass zoom meeting. Forty thousand in attendance!!!! Surely, these are the 'Experts', and what they decide should be what happens.

There were 400,000 NEU members present in total, apparently the biggest Union meeting ever. Please can I be clear that no teacher is refusing to teach - all but the CEV are willing to support vulnerable children and the children of key workers, and all are preparing to teach remotely. But there’s a very widespread consensus that having children in classrooms, dining halls and other school facilities it isn’t safe for our communities or for school staff. SAGE and other reliable sources have said that schools need to close to reduce transmission of the virus.

DD has just been told that our primary school won't be opening. She had pretty much decided GS2 wouldn't be going because of the risk to his father, but she's pleased to have the decision taken out of her hands.

I agree with everyone who says just repeat the year. Meanwhile perhaps have the younger students in school one day a week - just 6 per class each day, just to keep them socialised. Or maybe just the ones who can't have a parent at home in the day due to their work.

NEU currently holding a mass zoom meeting. Forty thousand in attendance!!!! Surely, these are the 'Experts', and what they decide should be what happens.

That’s Brighton and Hove. I’ll be interested to see the advise from East Sussex CC as well as West SussexCC.

That's interesting WW. Last time my local authority advised schools to open up two weeks after Johnson advised. The head teachers in my area all followed the local advice.

My LA has announced that all schools in their area should move to on line learning until further notice, because of the continual rise in covid cases.

Thank goodness there are some authorities with spine. They are by passing HMG

Johnson needs to man up.

They should all close until March !!

Williamson will say whatever he’s told to say whether it makes sense or not.

Williamson reluctantly agreed that all primary schools in London should remain closed, after the chiefs of nine London boroughs threatened to take him to court. In his official announcement he squirmed and waffled, but is still claiming that schools provide a safe environment. I don't know how anybody can come up with that kind of nonsense!

westendgirl

They should move Williamson straight away and get someone in place who is up to the job. Mass testing , volunteers from where ? More than likely another job for the teachers , who are supposed to be there to educate, not to child mind. Badly thought out last minute plans are no good and our teachers deserve better.I really do feel angry with the government for creating such a fiasco in schools. I heard a headteacher on radio 4 the other saying that he was incandescent. So should we all be , if we value education.

Williamson was fired from his post as Defence Secretary by Theresa May wasn’t he but brought back to the cabinet by Johnson because he was a Brexiteer and a ‘Yes Man‘. Now that Johnson doesn’t need his Brexiteers, Williamson should be replaced by somebody who can give our children and teachers the support and guidance they deserve. I watched Williamson announce that he had arranged for schools to receive all the resources they need for mass testing but the issue of manpower wasn’t mentioned. How on earth will this pie in the sky notion of mass testing in schools be accomplished? Not by volunteers because I read this morning that retired NHS professionals who want to volunteer to give vaccinations have to fulfil a 21 point checklist of qualifications and training needs before they can be considered for the job, the list includes ‘Preventing Radicalisation, Level 1’!

vegansrock

Please don’t bash London(ers). We have been victims of the shilly shallying as everywhere else. Half the schools closed was never going to work

No London bashing 'ere: my birthplace, my hometown, my university, my children, my work etc.

Maybe they should have created a tier 5 for all the schools in London which need to close next week. That might show some justification as to why they are singled out, but I still dont understand why? Surely someone hasn't gone through adding up the BAME inhabitants, though that could be an issue in the capital? Surely if it was done to protect the teachers then this should happen nationwide?

My greatest concern, however, is for the younger kids, who prior to the new strain were considered unaffected.

The National Education Union are having a special meeting today to discuss its response to this shambles. It is making a number of ‘demands’ to the government but I watch and wait to see whether I walk back into the classroom next week. (I’m not in London).

Williamson must surely be one of the most appallingly inept and absurd ministers in this incompetent corrupt Vote Leave government.

Please don’t bash London(ers). We have been victims of the shilly shallying as everywhere else. Half the schools closed was never going to work

Michael Rosen

Dear Dominic
We've finally got a clear policy: we're closing London schools because they're in London. Newcastle schools are not in London so we're not closing them. If they were in London we would close them. But they're not. So we're not closing them.
Clarificatio faeces
Boris

Below are just two of the very many media reports on Covid-19 infection rates in livestock and meat processing plants.

www.bbc.com/news/53137613

www.pnas.org/content/117/50/31706

This is not a problem for just only schools. Not looking at infection circumstances across all industries and sectors is I feel the reason Britain has become known a "Plague Island".

The most recent ONS infection survey, which randomly samples people irrespective on symptoms shows prevalence of COVID-19 of 1 in 33 in secondary school children & 1 in 50 in primary school children- higher than in all age groups >25 years.

So, perhaps along with closing all the schools the government should also close all the animal slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, food distribution centres and large food transport depots.

Covid Infection rates among those who work in meat processing (especially slaughterhouses) are among the very highest in any industry, therefore surely they should also be closed to prevent those workers, and those employed allied to the industry, spreading the infection to all others.

The whole issue of cross infection is now far larger than just the school's sector and requires to be addressed on that basis.

Such now is the urgency of the developing Covid-19 infection situation.

What’s the point of the tier system if all the schools in tier 4 aren’t treated the same?

I think schools have become significant spreaders of the new variant.

This is significant because we are going to see a huge rise in deaths, resulting in the NHS being overwhelmed.

We need to close schools now.

But what is that has changed with primary aged children with the new strain of the virus?
It has to be either that they are now viewed as greater spreaders than was previously thought, or that they themselves are at higher risk.

Whitewavemark2

So logic must tell Williamson that all tier 4 primary schools should not open surely.

Who know why Williamson does anything?

To be fair, there are degrees of Tier 4. Some London boroughs and parts of south west Essex now have Covid incidence rates four times higher than Manchester. Ironically, of course, some of those boroughs are the same ones Williamson threatened to sue when they wanted to close for a week before Christmas. The wider area is a hotspot for the new variant, which is spreading outwards to where I live.

Some of my tutees are in Essex, so I have some insight of the communications which parents have received over the last few days. I can't think of anything polite enough to describe it. These are pupils who are supposed to be sitting exams this year and this has come on top of three major changes to the format of the exams themselves. Stress levels are stratospheric.

It seems that quite a number of parents are going to risk being fined and have decided not to send their children back to school until it's safer. They've made contingency plans for childcare, where necessary, and home schooling and are just going to get on with it. This is a solid Conservative area, but I've never seen so many negative comments about the government.

The re
Ortiz from medics in London noon hospitals are frightening. Children and 30year olds with no underlying health problems I.C.U
The new variant not only spreads more quickly, it is affects children

Yes it was always ridiculous closing some London boroughs schools and not others. Teachers who live in one borough having to travel to teach in another, when their own children’s schools were closed. Trouble is Williamson is actually quite dim and has been promoted beyond his capabilities as a nodding dog.