Woohoo. Goodbye jobs. Hello suicides

The Ministry of Education had an "all-hands" call on Monday where staff were told that schools would be open. When it was obvious to just about everyone except Johnson and Williamson that they would have to shut and fairly urgently.

According to an article in Nature, shutting schools is the second most effective method of reducing R among those tried in various countries. Most effective was cancelling small gatherings. Movement restrictions and national lockdowns were 5th and 6th.

Border restrictions are 3rd - which we haven't really done, nor quite a few others on the list.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-01009-0



Covid rates among teachers were found to be 333% higher than the general population of that area..

https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-teacher-covid-rates-333-above-average

And children unfortunately play an important role in the spread.



I don't want this to be the case. I don't want kids missing school or education, I don't want teachers and family members dying as a result of Covid, and I certainly don't want anyone to have long-term mental health issues. But, this was entirely predictable. It has been predictable for the last year. And nothing has been done to make things better for the kids. Yes, there are all kinds of supply chain issues for laptops and tablets - after all many more people are working from home and need them, but why weren't robust plans in place for testing Y11/13 kids in case exams couldn't be taken and teaching all other kids. This is an epic failure of governance and should have resulted in the education secretary losing his job months ago.

 

If he had locked down before Xmas people would have still met family over Xmas. I'm just glad covid doesn't have a cscs card and can't get on construction sites.

 

the problem with construction is there is no attempt to differentiate between genuinely essential works and non essential works.

 

They'll be claiming they're doing a great job reducing crime next.

 

Have they though, or are they counting taking it out of the fridge, filling the syringe, administering the dose, as three vaccinations; similarly to when they claimed swabbing your thoat and nose was two tests.

 

I just think personally its kept going because its such a big industry and for the tax generator and obviously cannot be done from home. For example skimming someone's back bedroom isn't really essential work but its permitted. But I also agree with you it is hard to differentiate just have to be safe.

 

And a pair of gloves counted as 2 pieces of PPE.

 

yeah very difficult I’m meant to be setting a sites up in Rotherham and Bradford next week and ideally wouldn’t attend either ATM but know if I don’t they won’t be set up to be as Covid friendly as possible but then again I’m making an unnecessary journey which undermines the point. Hard to know what to do.

 

Do they have consoles? You can access Google Classroom, Teams etc. on Xbox and PS. Smart TVs work too (anything that has a browser basically).

 

You can access teams in a mobile. And complete a lesson on a mobile or tablet. The only problem occurs if they send something else like a worksheet... however If the school is any good they’ll be in a format (pdf) that can be seen and zoomed in on a mobile.

 

I just thought he might have wanted a bigger screen than a mobile as he already mentions using those above.

 

Yes, at both places. However, I cant see how they would use MS word on it. Hence me asking the school how it's intended.

Anyway, we have all received an email today explaining further, and if she needs to sort out loaned laptops she will have to. They have everything here they could possibly need

 

If they have an Xbox you just plug in a keyboard in the USB port to type and use controller or plug in a mouse to select stuff.

 

Not in our house it isn’t...

That was a euphemism yeah?