Boris Press conference

I think most teachers would do some work from home if the school was shut. Schools aren't babysitting services so if they close its because travel to them is dangerous and non essential.

 

Sounds like you might! When I was entitled to sick pay I maybe had 3 days off in that time. Illness always seemed to come to me in the school holidays!

 

It’s guaranteed! When teaching, I was never sick in school time but was sick almost every single holiday. Now, I’m only sick some holidays. I guess it’s down to less stress.

 

I don't mean teachers by the way. I don't know many teachers and from my memory of being at school it was very rare for teachers to be off for more than a day or two with one exception who was off for I'd say around 3 or 4 weeks.

Its more a general thing. For example I used to get 6 months sick pay and i remember 3 different people all taking the full 6 months. One did it twice two years on the trot, one of those times was for a shoulder injury which took 6 months to the day to heal completely (what a coincidence).

 

I think the reasons are:
1) it may be unsafe to travel for staff and students (and all school buses stop running)
2) parents bring children in the morning and then can’t get back to pick them up at home time as the snow has got worse and someone has to babysit them into an ungodly hour in the evening
3) it affects attendance figures for those children who can’t make it which is terrible for the school in terms of Ofsted and not great for the kids who are on attendance watch anyway
4) it’s harder to keep the grounds safe and people will do anything for a bit of compo (and obviously schools don’t want to be unsafe anyway)
5) staff would get way more work done at home in the time wasted travelling for hours (as most teaching staff live quite far away generally)

In terms of sick pay, after the first 5 days of self-certifying you need a doctor’s note and have meetings, you can’t just cough down the phone for a year and get paid.

 

Got to say the snow thing does make a lot more sense when explained like that (though the attendance figures part I strongly disagree with heads being able to close schools simply to make their statistics look better).
The general sick pay though I think one of the biggest problems is that doctors give out sick notes far far too easily meaning anyone with half a brain can walk into a doctor's and walk out with a sick note when there's nothing wrong with them so if you do want to be off for a long period and you aren't an idiot then it's quite easy to do so.

 

Has trixie hacked your account!

 

As above - when did workers rights become 'waste'?

40 years of Tory policies and workers have stopped even believing they should be treated fairly and now think it's 'wrong' when a group of workers has managed to hold onto some rights. Absolutely bonkers.

BTW I'm 'entitled'* to 6 months fully paid sick leave - and other than a week for surgery 3 years ago - I haven't had a day off sick in about 14 years.

*That said - I'd almost certainly get the sack well before I had accumulated 6 months

 

What happens to students doing their GCSE or A level exams this summer if as seems likely schools close?

 

You can disagree all you want. Ofsted work in strange ways to mark schools as inadequate. You’d be surprised at the hoops most schools have to jump through. Whilst not the main factor for closing a school, the consideration of attendance will be an influence.