Coronavirus: General discussion (see opening post for rules)

[Norphy]

I have just bought some badges for my Mum

 

She has worn hearing aids for over 50 years, and is now almost completely deaf. She lipreads so well that most people don’t realise she is deaf.

 

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I urge anyone in a customer facing role to wear a visor rather than a face mask if it is practical and safe to do so. My Mum is undoubtedly not the only person struggling with communication right now.

 

The trouble with visors is, they're not a replacement for a mask. They need to be used in conjunction with a mask otherwise there is a massive gap in underneath your face where droplets can escape. Having hearing difficulties myself and struggling to hear people behind Perspex screens, I'm more than sympathetic to your mum's plight but encouraging people to swap masks for visors isn't the way.

[FishCustard]

Various speech & language professionals have created masks with transparent sections in them to allow people to lip-read. That's probably a better solution than a visor.https://www.ideasforears.org.uk/blog/masks-with-a-clear-panel/

[elsiegee40]

The trouble with visors is, they're not a replacement for a mask. They need to be used in conjunction with a mask otherwise there is a massive gap in underneath your face where droplets can escape. Having hearing difficulties myself and struggling to hear people behind Perspex screens, I'm more than sympathetic to your mum's plight but encouraging people to swap masks for visors isn't the way.

 

I said

 

if it is practical and safe to do so.

 

However, I have edited my post

Edited August 11, 2020 by elsiegee40

[keyboards]

Anybody know what the rules are, as our office we've got 5 people in and no way are we all 2m apart with only one entrance/exit door

[LeMarchand]

Anybody know what the rules are, as our office we've got 5 people in and no way are we all 2m apart with only one entrance/exit door

 

No. Nobody does. Including the government.

[6Foot2]

Link: https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson_MP/status/1292706885758595073 [Text Tweet]

 

 

[DrBeaker]

Link: https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson_MP/status/1292706885758595073 [Text Tweet]

 

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[mikeprice]

 

Is that a list of things to include in the next Presidential rally????

[mikeprice]

You know those video interviews on telly

 

and similar stuff from politicians

 

and - you know they all seem to try to have an impressive bookcase in the background??

 

well - is it just me that would get hold of some book covers off the WWW ( Possibly by 'nautical means' to quote 'someone on edugeek')

print them off at an appropriate size

 

and wrap normal books (possibly from a charity shop) in the printed cover

 

and - make the book covers slightly dodgy (Karma Sutra - or Lady's Chatterley's lovercome to mind (haven't bothered checking - other spelling may be available)))- or make them spell out something 'interesting'

 

 

 

because - to be fair - any journalist worth their salt - has been enhancing and enlarging those bookcase looking for 'the next front page'

 

 

or is that just me - 'cos I would

[elsiegee40]

.....

[twizz]

Anybody know what the rules are, as our office we've got 5 people in and no way are we all 2m apart with only one entrance/exit door

 

Same here, well we have 4 squeezed in an office and we're adjoining an IT classroom. It's impossible to stay 2m apart in the office, especially getting in and out because it's narrow, and we have two shared phones between four! The only way in/out of the office is via the classroom, which I learnt last week will be filled with 32 students plus various teachers. Different students on various days so in a week all of a year group will have been in there at some point. With the increasing evidence of airborne transmission, this is making me extremely nervous as I'm vulnerable because of health issues and medication. Most support staff are in offices away from classrooms and students, except us.

 

I have no idea how IT support is actually going to work. we use a ticket system so we will have to keep pushing this and try to stop the large numbers of "drop ins" we usually get. We can fix remotely wherever possible of course. However as for physically fixing an issue that we can't deal with remotely- I have no idea. Technically we would need to wait until a room is empty and has been cleaned; but I can't see that going down well at all!

[keyboards]

Same here, well we have 4 squeezed in an office and we're adjoining an IT classroom. It's impossible to stay 2m apart in the office, especially getting in and out because it's narrow, and we have two shared phones between four! The only way in/out of the office is via the classroom, which I learnt last week will be filled with 32 students plus various teachers. Different students on various days so in a week all of a year group will have been in there at some point. With the increasing evidence of airborne transmission, this is making me extremely nervous as I'm vulnerable because of health issues and medication. Most support staff are in offices away from classrooms and students, except us.

 

I have no idea how IT support is actually going to work. we use a ticket system so we will have to keep pushing this and try to stop the large numbers of "drop ins" we usually get. We can fix remotely wherever possible of course. However as for physically fixing an issue that we can't deal with remotely- I have no idea. Technically we would need to wait until a room is empty and has been cleaned; but I can't see that going down well at all!

 

Yeah, I haven't got health issues like you but totally echo your sentiments of what I don't really understand what is going to happen nor what should, as surely by the book, at max two people should be in the office and all help either done remotely or out of hours but as you said I can't see that flying.

[Rob_D]

My understanding support wise (here at least), is that we can go into classrooms to fix things as long as we maintain 2m (or 1m+) distancing from the teacher and the students and all the rooms have surface cleaner that we can use to wipe down any kit we need to touch. (the techs also have all-in-one mouse and keyboard devices they can use in classrooms rather than touching the teachers kit.)

 

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that we're hunting around for extra office space so people can maintain social distancing. @twizz maybe there's a chance you or some of your team could be based somewhere else?

[elsiegee40]

What a mess

A-levels and GCSEs: Predicted results to be used for Welsh exam grades

[3s-gtech]

It really is. They’ve induced so much anxiety, so much cost and chaos, for nothing. If they’d asked, they would have been told this would happen, too.

 

I’m keeping ‘they’ vague as it’s not political but organisational.

[elsiegee40]

And the English U Turn follows

 

A-levels and GCSEs: Teacher estimates to be used for exam results https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53810655

[mthomas08]

And the English U Turn follows

 

A-levels and GCSEs: Teacher estimates to be used for exam results https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53810655

 

Just goes to show if people in general unite and protest and scream at the top of their voices... there is an off chance that a u-turn can occur and people shouldn't just "lump it". This is yet another example that we should never just get on with it.

[Andrew_C]

Trouble is, I read that teachers had predicted 40% A & A*... That CAN'T be right either.

[6Foot2]

And the English U Turn follows

 

A-levels and GCSEs: Teacher estimates to be used for exam results https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53810655

 

Meanwhile...

 

Link: Delayed BTEC results: Students told to contact Pearson [TES]

 

Some BTEC results were delayed last week - Pearson says it is working around the clock to solve the problem.

 

Exam board Pearson has said students still waiting for their BTEC results should contact the organisation directly. This comes after Tes revealed that students at some centres did not receive their results last Thursday because of a delay, which Pearson said was due to colleges passing on required data late.

 

A spokesperson for Pearson said: “We are aware that some BTEC students experienced a delay in receiving their results and we understand the frustration this must have caused. We are working closely with the students and colleges involved to look into this urgently and provide their results as soon as we can.”

Edited August 17, 2020 by 6Foot2
Formatting. :(

[elsiegee40]

Meanwhile...

 

Link: Delayed BTEC results: Students told to contact Pearson [TES]

 

It’s not just the delay. It’s the way the results have been calculated too

[6Foot2]

It’s not just the delay. It’s the way the results have been calculated too

 

Yes, sorry I didn't make it clear. The delay of the BTEC results is ANOTHER disaster for students this year.

[elsiegee40]

Yes, sorry I didn't make it clear. The delay of the BTEC results is ANOTHER disaster for students this year.

 

It sounds like IB and IGCSE results are affected too

[6Foot2]

And the English U Turn follows

 

A-levels and GCSEs: Teacher estimates to be used for exam results https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53810655

 

Link:

[Richard Osman Text Tweet]

 

This government U turn was originally a B turn.

 

[6Foot2]

Link: A-levels: Student foresaw exam crisis in winning story [bBC News]

 

 

An award-winning writer whose dystopian fiction about an algorithm that sorts students into bands based on class says she has "fallen into my own story".

 

Jessica Johnson, 18, said the University of St Andrews had initially rejected her after her English A-level was downgraded from an A to B.

 

Exams this year were cancelled due to Covid and grades based on an algorithm.

 

Ms Johnson said it was "ironic to become a victim like one of her characters".

 

Her piece, A Band Apart, won an Orwell Youth Prize Senior award in 2019.

 

"I wrote about the inequality in the education system," the Ashton Sixth Form College student said.

 

"I wrote about the myth of meritocracy and it was about an algorithm that split people into bands based on the class that they were from.

 

"I feel like that is quite ironic, I've literally fallen into my own story."

 

"I feel a victim of it," she added.

 

Ms Johnson, of Stalybridge, Greater Manchester, needed an A in English Literature for a place at St Andrews and a £16,000 scholarship.

 

"I've done a lot of extra-curricular work and I've been given that scholarship on the basis of my achievements and it just felt like all of that [has] been taken away from me because of the place I live and the college I attend," she said.

 

About 40% of A-level results - published on Thursday - were downgraded from teachers' assessments by exams regulator Ofqual, which used a formula based on schools' prior grades.

 

Following protests, the government has now said teacher estimates will be used and Ms Johnson is hoping she will get in at St Andrews.

 

She said she was "thankful" and "excited" about the government's U-turn but felt it should have been done sooner.

 

"It's caused a lot of stress and anxiety that it didn't need to by making us wait," she said.

 

Professor Jean Seaton, director of the Orwell Foundation, praised Ms Johnson's "prescient story".

 

She said the teenager "saw into the heart of what the system represents and her story demonstrates the human ability which exams only exist to uncover".

[mikeprice]

2 points - around exam time there are always loads of stories about those kids that get totally stressed by exams and hence do really badly - or just can;t do them

 

Those kids must be massively relieved

 

 

second point

if it wasn;t for all this fuss about predicted grades v moderation etc

then journalists would have been looking for school where the teachers had estimated higher grades than they normally get - especially if they could find 'posh' or 'independant' school that may be trying to fiddle it

 

Basically there is no perfect system to sort this and any system they use will have caused problems

 

I'm just glad I'm not a teacher (anymore) that has to work out fair and impartial marks for the students

It is far more complicated than it sounds!!!