Coronavirus: General discussion (see opening post for rules)

[6Foot2]

Link:

[Matt Cartoons Picture Tweet]

 

[elsiegee40]

Political comment is not invited, but this may raise wry smile... or rolling of eyes

Edited January 4, 2021 by elsiegee40

[3s-gtech]

Well, today has been fun in terms of updating parents on what’s happening!

 

Was sent an update to go out to parents last week (staggered start), but didn’t publish it until 9am (as I wasn’t working last week). Then the council changed its mind (fairly reasonably, to start on the 11th) and I updated again at 4pm. Then it’s all changed again at 6:30pm to the 18th! Note: I’m not complaining about this - just how fast things are moving and perhaps how slow some decisions have been.

 

We’re going to get a *lot* of phone calls. They’ll have all forgotten their logins again too [emoji35]

[6Foot2]

[aicrd]

What a mess. People have already started school today and its now the government decides to shut everything down. All that unnecessary stress could have been avoided.

[elsiegee40]

English schools closed - online learning from tomorrow - exams off

[Ditto]

What happens to all the lateral flow tests that were delivered today?

[mikeprice]

So - National Lockdown again

 

school working remotely only

 

Extremely vulnerable to go back to shielding

 

reading between the lines

 

at least 6 weeks

 

Dept of Edu to liaise with Ofqual to come up with a decent system to replace the summer exams - I suppsoe this may involve soem stuff people here need to know about - talking to each other may be necessary

 

 

 

Good Luck to everyone out there - I would look to help out locally but wife now shielding again - so I'm going nowhere until she has the vaccine - and she will probably nail my foot to the floor until I have to as well

 

 

 

 

won't see the kids for ages either - even the new one when he finally comes home - whenever that is

 

 

 

TLDR - back on your heads people (to quote the old joke)

[caffrey]

Really getting fed up of this now

[3s-gtech]

Yup, today really has ramped up. Wales will likely follow England in the duration of our lockdown, which is to be reviewed later this month. They won’t want to risk opening up here before the rest of the UK.

 

Potentially a huge amount of planning and preparation now thrown out in schools.

[smurfomatic]

What happens to all the lateral flow tests that were delivered today?

 

What happens to the morning I wasted, helping the school to set up the overcomplicated testing system, figuring out how to get technophobic staff to record their test results, only to find out it's been a complete waste of my time?

 

Obviously expecting the government to know how to pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel was asking too much.

[elsiegee40]

“Children who are eligible will continue to receive free school meals”

Otherwise Marcus Rashford will be causing trouble again.

[Andrew_C]

HIC.... At least he wasn't late.

[psydii]

OMG Helpdesk is going nuts with password reset request from students/parents, and Teams administrative requests from teachers.

 

Seems the IT helpdesk has been listed as the first point of contact for problems. (TBF the pastoral safeguarding and admin team addresses are also in the most recent letter home - but the IT Helpdesk once again takes centre stage)

[elsiegee40]

Boris had to wait for Nicola to make the decision for him.

 

 

https://twitter.com/alistairbarrie/status/1346103509977100289?s=21

[witch]

What annoys me is that lockdown should mean lockdown. The only shops that should be open would be FOOD shops which happen to sell other essentials such as pet food, baby supplies and pharmacy items. The rest should be SHUT

Happened to drive past The Range and was horrified by the number of people coming out with everything except essentials. Ditto B&M and Home Bargains, I am told. These shops are not food or essentials shops, they should either be shut or at least the non-essential items should be not available. This should also happen in Tesco and the like.

 

I dont want lockdown. I am scared about the effect on my mental health which isnt currently very good. I know I am lucky - two of my three children live within walking distance and we are able to see our grandson as we are in his childcare bubble. How people who are unable to see family members are coping, I can't imagine. I feel that I should be coping better as my situation is SO much easier than other peoples.

 

But if we MUST lockdown to stop the spread of the virus, then we should decide to do it properly.

[elsiegee40]

The latest version of the rules for England

 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-lockdown-stay-at-home

[elsiegee40]

The latest version of the rules for England

 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-lockdown-stay-at-home

 

This is the section on Universities

 

 

Universities

Those students who are undertaking training and study for the following courses should return to face to face learning as planned and be tested twice, upon arrival or self-isolate for ten days:

 

Medicine & dentistry

Subjects allied to medicine/health

Veterinary science

Education (initial teacher training)

Social work

Courses which require Professional, Statutory and Regulatory Body (PSRB) assessments and or mandatory activity which is scheduled for January and which cannot be rescheduled (your university will notify you if this applies to you).

Students who do not study these courses should remain where they are wherever possible, and start their term online, as facilitated by their university until at least Mid-February. This includes students on other practical courses not on the list above.

 

We have previously published guidance to universities and students on how students can return safely to higher education in the spring term. This guidance sets out how we will support higher education providers to enable students that need to return to do so as safely as possible following the winter break.

 

If you live at university, you should not move back and forward between your permanent home and student home during term time.

 

For those students who are eligible for face to face teaching, you can meet in groups of more than your household as part of your formal education or training, where necessary. Students should expect to follow the guidance and restrictions. You should socially distance from anyone you do not live with wherever possible.

[Simcfc73]

What happens to all the lateral flow tests that were delivered today?

 

I've been asked to help out with our boarding pupils who are coming back this week. At least we'll use some of them.

[Ditto]

I've been asked to help out with our boarding pupils who are coming back this week. At least we'll use some of them.

It's proved difficult to find much info beyond the need to store in 'warehouse' conditions - i.e. something along the lines of 5 - 30C, but not in a fridge and keep out of sunlight. Some deeper research on general LFT development indicates a shelf life or 12 to 24 month, so at least it appears they won't go to waste when schools re-open.

[mavhc]

You can test the people who are still in looking after key worker children, practise at a slower rate and get the procedure working well.

[caffrey]

So who's in school today ?

[Linfit]

Me and my tech both in - he is dealing with distributing DFE chromebooks - we had a large delivery just before christmas. Based on yesterday, lots of google password resets and staff requesting help with remote access for the third or fourth time.

 

After today, we will likely be on a rota, one in, one out. Will think about that later today. We have about 60 key worker children based on yesterdays numbers. Only rota teaching staff are in, most of support staff are in today but thats likely to change from tommorow onwards once rotas and stuff going forward are sorted.

 

Our Head said yesterday that staff not on rota should work from home but building facilities are open if they need them. Some are doing remote lessons on Meets and don't have the kit/room/privacy to do that at home. Key worker kids bubbles are based in IT rooms as they are doing the same online work as students staying at home.

[sonofsanta]

Don't laugh, but I feel really bloody sorry for our SLT.

 

Penultimate day of term: you're doing mass testing in January! We've probably been planning this a while because it's not the sort of thing you do off the cuff but we thought we'd wait until almost the last moment to let you know.

 

Last day of term: you were upset about us dropping new plans on you yesterday, so we're delaying the start of school in January. What do you mean you'd already made plans for that week that now you need to remake?

 

First day of new term: so, uh, all that work you just spent your "break" doing because we left all our announcements till the last minute? Yeeeeeah you didn't need to do any of that*, we're just shutting you outright.

 

 

 

The lack of respect for school staff time is painful. They are going to burn people out and lose a lot of good professionals from the system, through resignations or worse.

 

*I know the work isn't wasted, as such, we'll be doing the testing whenever everyone does come back--but it didn't need to be done over the Christmas break, and could (it turns out) have been put together in a more measured timeframe while everyone was on the clock anyway.

[Disease]

All staff are in going forward, teaching staff are teaching their online lessons from their classrooms.