Just been told my son's teacher is now working from home

Yes it's not safe for NHS staff either. The front line staff at Barnsley still haven't been vaccinated yet they have worked through it under tremendous pressure. Maybe their unions should say to them it's unsafe and they should basically go on strike.
For me it's simply unacceptable that certain key workers have no voice yet the teaching unions basically withdraw their labour.

 

They will still be working.

 

The 'whey-faced paltroon' and Frank Spencer impersonator, that is the minister for education, could well be heading for a career ending showdown with those who perhaps know more about education than he does. My understanding is that teachers have been advised that they are at liberty to exercise their right as defined by Section 44 of the 'Employment Rights Act 1996' (legislation introduced by the Tories).By not attending school teachers are not 'striking' they are exercising a legal right. The DfE as an employer is intentionally not directing teachers (their employees) for fear of breaching HSWA.

Employment Rights Act 1996 (legislation.gov.uk)

 

I can bet that if your work asked you to plan and deliver presentations each day for 5 hours of the day to blocks of 30 people at a time and then give them all feedback on what they have learnt you wouldn't class it as not working. (Feel free to substitute 5 hours of delivering presentations, plus the extra hours it would take to prepare those plus the feedback time, to you doing whatever your work is for 8 hours at home whilst they had a camera on you watching you for the majority of it. If your answer is 'I can't do my job from home' then get creative and imagine that you somehow could).

 

I'm sure some will but many won't. How can primary teachers do online work with 5 year olds? Their will be many cinc

The union has told them not to go to work because it is deemed unsafe. I am just pointing out it is unsafe for consultants, doctors and nurses on the front line but they have had to deal with this without a break (no long holidays etc) for months on end. They have an endless task of fighting this disease without their union saying its unsafe. They can't and won't stop working but the focus has drifted away from our NHS "heroes" who put themselves and their families at risk every time they leave for work. I caught covid more than likely because my wife is one of those workers. Who are expected just to get on with it without even a timeline as to when they will get vaccinated.

 

Two things about this for me.

Obviously schools aren't completely safe for anyone, nothing is but with the amount of people it makes schools less so than most workplaces. But, and again I'm not a teacher or anything, isn't there an element that as the adult it's your responsibility to keep yourself safe? By that I mean why do teachers need to be so close to pupils? You can't necessarily stop the kids contacting each other but why can't you stop yourself getting too close?

The second question is that when children are doing school work from home are the teachers also at home or are they going in and doing the zoom lessons from an empty classroom?

 

I don't disagree with you. The government's plans and response to this whole pandemic has been terrible. I am not criticising teachers I am critical of their unions response using health and safety as a reason. I'm have a friend who is a teacher and I know she is very contiencous and always does her best for her pupils.

 

If working from home involves uploading worksheets to Google classroom (for both of our kids who are at the same school) then leaving parents (who both work full time in our house) to get on with it - often at it until late at night, with no phone calls or online classes available, then yes they will be.

 

In our local supermarket. All staff wear PPE. All customers they come into contact wear masks. Those dealing most directly with customers do so from behind Perspex. They are not enclosed in a small badly ventilated building with the same 30 others for 6+ hours per day with zero PPe and no one wearing masks.

 

Going by the science - you are far more likely to catch it if you spend 15 minutes or more with someone with the disease.

Probably why pubs etc are closed - would you spend 15 minutes in a supermarket within close proximity to someone ? Not so sure. Attending supermarkets you are more likely to wearing a mask in an environment where they can limit people inside the store.

Teachers have made the best of a bad job but all of a sudden some seem safe yet some are closed - are they safe or aren't they?

This isn't my position but what our government is implementing

 

Some at home and some are in school. Not sure it matters as long as they are teaching - secondly not sure a schools internet bandwidth would cope with all staff in schools teaching online at the same time

 

No I was just curious which it was really. Was trying to imagine a teacher with a big makeshift whiteboard at home or one in an empty classroom doing science experiments to themselves.

 

Seen it done both ways to be honest - bandwidth is a big issue. One school I worked in struggled to have two teachers in school teaching at the same time

 

Have you been to a supermarket recently? Social distancing basically doesn’t exist to I would say 70% of folks in them.

 

That will depend on the school, our staff are all in as there will be some vulnerable/key worker kids and, later, exam year kids in who will go to their usual classroom. All the teaching staff will be 'dual streaming' so they will be teaching to the kid(s) in the classroom and to everyone at home at the same time. They will teach the lesson then move to the next classroom, some classrooms will be empty, some will have one or more kids in. If the teacher has no classes with kids in then they could theoretically teach from home I guess but that is unlikely as they teach a mixture of year groups each day so may have some exam years where they will have full classes and will almost certainly have a least one child throughout the day and definitely throughout the week.

Edited to say that our teachers have been 'dual streaming' to years 10, 11, 12 + 13 every single lesson for around a month now so that anyone isolating can watch from home. Years 7, 8 + 9 have had work uploaded for every lesson for anyone isolating. If it is the teacher isolating then they have been live streaming all lessons from home for all year groups which are then shown in the classroom and to any kids isolating at home. Instructions to staff have been clear that in line with Ofsted expectations, all dual streamed lessons are to be of the same quality as normal in person lessons and must show progression and have some form of feedback (can be whole class occassionally, mostly individual and a certain number of times a week it must be in depth).

 

As I pointed out this is what the government are saying - social distancing really doesn't exist in schools