Current Affairs

[towny44]

Agreed. They asked for 3 weeks notice and that's what they got. And the back to school message has come with the "if the science says it's safe" caveat. A judgement that will be made closer to the proposed time.

The problem seems to be that the unions are demanding that they are only willing to agree to the return if someone proves it will be totally safe!
Now call me a cynic but where are they going to find someone stupid enough to give such a guarantee?

[Onelife]

Thanks teachers

Clearly, we’ll have a better picture of how the land lies in two weeks’ time, but if all goes to plan then I agree in principle that there should be a return to school. Teachers are key workers and should be treated as such if this is the way our Government wants to go…. whilst appreciating the complexity of what is being asked of them, although I’m not so sure any amount of time will allow for adjustment especially where young children are concerned.

If I were to play devil’s advocate, then I do wonder what real bennift there will be with only four weeks before the summer break.

[oldbluefox]

If I were to play devil’s advocate, then I do wonder what real bennift there will be with only four weeks before the summer break.

I think the government want to get the country up and running as soon as possible and key to that (apart from the Covid situation) is in getting the children back to school.

[Onelife]

If I were to play devil’s advocate, then I do wonder what real bennift there will be with only four weeks before the summer break.

I think the government want to get the country up and running as soon as possible and key to that (apart from the Covid situation) is in getting the children back to school.

Unfurtunatly Foxy there lies the problem... you can’t separate the two in this situation and whilst I agree at some point children need to return to school the question remains… when is the right time, and how do they go about it? Let’s just look at nursery schools… places of early years play, learning and social interaction. To segregate little children into groups without them being able to understand why will take some careful handling…. when a child gets upset will the classroom assistant be able to give them a reassuring cuddle?

With the way infection and death rates are going I can’t see Schools opening in two weeks but if they do, I think they should carry on looking after key worker/vulnerable children but introduce online tuition from children’s own teachers…I can’t see this being to hard to set up and would facilitate more children getting some form of education. I certainly hope the government is considering tutorial education online as come September if we are still in the same position children of all ages will require teachers input.

[Kendhni]

The questions I have is why are we being told the NHS needs 3 months to get back up and running and teachers need 3 weeks?
Private industry will be back up and running pretty much as soon as the doors reopen. Teachers have had the time to prep and be ready to go. The NHS probably needs a deep clean and reassignment of duties back to original jobs (that should be no more than a few days). My brother says he can have his surgery open and ready to go in under 24 hours with a full list of patients, he cannot carry out some treatments, but others he can - he took his 'time off' to complete some essential maintenance (like painting and deep cleaning his entire surgery), bought in PPE and kept his equipment serviced and in good order.

[Mervyn and Trish]

My question is are the parents who say it's not safe to send their children back to school the same ones who are desperate to get them back on a plane for their summer holiday?

[Stephen]

My question is are the parents who say it's not safe to send their children back to school the same ones who are desperate to get them back on a plane for their summer holiday?

.......or fill up Brighton beach!

[Manoverboard]

Returning to school is surely not that straightforward, a chap on the Breakfast News explained this morning that going back for kids in London, say, is fair enough but in Hartlepool their CVID19 peak lags two weeks behind the Capital therefore returning to school in that part of the Country should be delayed by a further two weeks. Does that make sense ?

[david63]

Returning to school is surely not that straightforward, a chap on the Breakfast News explained this morning that going back for kids in London, say, is fair enough but in Hartlepool their CVID19 peak lags two weeks behind the Capital therefore returning to school in that part of the Country should be delayed by a further two weeks. Does that make sense?

Makes perfect sense and I see no reason (although I'm sure somewhere there will be some obstructive reason) why schools cannot go back education authority by education authority.

The NHS management as usual cannot get their act together. One the one hand they are saying that services need to get back up and running and on the other hand they are not allowing them to.

At the very start of lockdown Mrs63 had to go in the local hospital as a day case for a minor procedure - no problem with staff. Two weeks later she then had to go to the dressings clinic and again no problem with staff. This coming week she has an appointment with the consultant to check that everything is OK. On Thursday she had a phone call to say that they are not allowed to have "face to face" appointments and that it would be a telephone appointment!

[towny44]

The questions I have is why are we being told the NHS needs 3 months to get back up and running and teachers need 3 weeks?
Private industry will be back up and running pretty much as soon as the doors reopen. Teachers have had the time to prep and be ready to go. The NHS probably needs a deep clean and reassignment of duties back to original jobs (that should be no more than a few days). My brother says he can have his surgery open and ready to go in under 24 hours with a full list of patients, he cannot carry out some treatments, but others he can - he took his 'time off' to complete some essential maintenance (like painting and deep cleaning his entire surgery), bought in PPE and kept his equipment serviced and in good order.

Are we being told it will take the NHS 3 months to get back up and running, or 3 months to get back to something like normal?
Certainly the schools won't be back to normal in 3 weeks, or even 3 months.

[Gill W]

By June, I think we are more than likely going to see a rise in cases. Not just because of yesterday’s protest, but because of general back to work message. The R is close to 1 anyway, it won’t take much to push it above 1. We don’t have a track and trace system in place, so if it does go over 1, they can’t take swift action to reduce the figure.

Last weekend, the R was promoted as all important. I get the impression they are playing it down now, so they are hoping we will have forgotten about it by June!

[Onelife]

By June, I think we are more than likely going to see a rise in cases. Not just because of yesterday’s protest, but because of general back to work message. The R is close to 1 anyway, it won’t take much to push it above 1. We don’t have a track and trace system in place, so if it does go over 1, they can’t take swift action to reduce the figure.

Last weekend, the R was promoted as all important. I get the impression they are playing it down now, so they are hoping we will have forgotten about it by June!

If you join the race too late then don't expect to finish too early ....simples!

[CaroleF]

I don't think I've said before, although Foxy knows, my husband's family has owned and run a Funeral Directors since 1856 based mainly in our village although we now have two other branches. We don't have any connection with any of the large companies, or indeed any other company. The reason I mention this is that the business is now run largely by my elder daughter and son-in-law and they have two children aged nearly 8 and 10 coming up 11 so they are in Years 3 and 6. As both parents are Key Workers the children have been going into school on the days when both parents are working ever since the lockdown began. No cases of Convid 19 have occurred in their school. The staff have been wonderful and online lessons have been provided for those who are not in school.

Before retirement I was Head of a Girls' Junior school and before that worked in Comprehensive schools. I would certainly say that schools should be opened as soon as is practical. I see it as eminently sensible that Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 as far as primary school are concerned should be the first back. I know some people tend to think that the beginning of primary school isn't important but is is vitally important. Time lost then may never be caught up. Year 6 children are off to Senior School in September and they need to go back, for their mental health for one thing but to prepare for the transition to their new school. To have their Primary school education just cut off abruptly and then be thrust into a new, probably larger, in some cases, huge Senior School would be dreadful. So yes, with the necessary preparations and some schools already have these in place, schools should go back as soon as possible. I, as a former teacher and Grandmother feel it very hard that I cannot help in looking after my Grandchildren. My husband is in the vulnerable section plus I'm over 70 so have to keep away at the moment.

I'd just like to mention that my daughter and son-in-law have found their new way of working to be stressful but they and their wonderful office staff, who are working from home plus those members who, of necessity are involved in the preparation and carrying out of funerals are coping. They have not had any problem obtaining PPE and feel they are well protected. Neither my daughter, nor my son-in-law have been ill and have, of necessity, mixed with all sorts of people.

I do wonder if those Union people who are urging that the children stay at home but have never, as far as I know, complained that some teachers have been working for weeks, use Supermarkets, buy things online and have them delivered, have their bins emptied regularly.

Carole

[Mervyn and Trish]

Returning to school is surely not that straightforward, a chap on the Breakfast News explained this morning that going back for kids in London, say, is fair enough but in Hartlepool their CVID19 peak lags two weeks behind the Capital therefore returning to school in that part of the Country should be delayed by a further two weeks. Does that make sense ?

That makes sense to me. When they announced the road map they did say clearly the phased schools return would be from 1 June, at the earliest, as the 1-5 alert scale allows. They said last night they're trying to get reliable infection data on a "granular" basis, by which I understood more local figures. That would support exactly what you're saying. There's also a difference between schools. My niece is a teacher in a small village school that only has 4 teachers and limited space so much less flexibility than the school our grand-daughters go to, which has plenty of space to spread out pupils from two or three of its seven years and a lot more teachers to look after them.

But the big point for me remains that the teaching unions said they would need three weeks notice to prepare for going back. They've been given that notice of a possible start date on 1 June so they should get on with preparing. If the science on 1 June says we need to wait a little longer nothing is lost. If they'd been told on 1st June it was now safe to go back, they'd have then said we need 3 weeks notice so it can't happen until 22nd. Basically the lefties among them aren't interest in any solution proposed by the government. And are possibly enjoying their taxpayer-funded holiday isolating too much.

Last weekend, the R was promoted as all important. I get the impression they are playing it down now, so they are hoping we will have forgotten about it by June!

I'm not sure where you're getting your information now Gill. We watch the press conference every day and the R has been mentioned every day this week.

[Onelife]

I don't think I've said before, although Foxy knows, my husband's family has owned and run a Funeral Directors since 1856 based mainly in our village although we now have two other branches. We don't have any connection with any of the large companies, or indeed any other company. The reason I mention this is that the business is now run largely by my elder daughter and son-in-law and they have two children aged nearly 8 and 10 coming up 11 so they are in Years 3 and 6. As both parents are Key Workers the children have been going into school on the days when both parents are working ever since the lockdown began. No cases of Convid 19 have occurred in their school. The staff have been wonderful and online lessons have been provided for those who are not in school.

Before retirement I was Head of a Girls' Junior school and before that worked in Comprehensive schools. I would certainly say that schools should be opened as soon as is practical. I see it as eminently sensible that Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 as far as primary school are concerned should be the first back. I know some people tend to think that the beginning of primary school isn't important but is is vitally important. Time lost then may never be caught up. Year 6 children are off to Senior School in September and they need to go back, for their mental health for one thing but to prepare for the transition to their new school. To have their Primary school education just cut off abruptly and then be thrust into a new, probably larger, in some cases, huge Senior School would be dreadful. So yes, with the necessary preparations and some schools already have these in place, schools should go back as soon as possible. I, as a former teacher and Grandmother feel it very hard that I cannot help in looking after my Grandchildren. My husband is in the vulnerable section plus I'm over 70 so have to keep away at the moment.

I'd just like to mention that my daughter and son-in-law have found their new way of working to be stressful but they and their wonderful office staff, who are working from home plus those members who, of necessity are involved in the preparation and carrying out of funerals are coping. They have not had any problem obtaining PPE and feel they are well protected. Neither my daughter, nor my son-in-law have been ill and have, of necessity, mixed with all sorts of people.

I do wonder if those Union people who are urging that the children stay at home but have never, as far as I know, complained that some teachers have been working for weeks, use Supermarkets, buy things online and have them delivered, have their bins emptied regularly.

Carole

Hello Carol

As we are all aware this is a chat forum so my reply isn’t one in which I am trying to undermine anything you have said, indeed you have made well reasoned comments with of course a wealth of experience to back them up.

If I may….I have just been listerning to Michael Gove speaking on the Andrew Marr show in which his opening comment were that he is absolutely confident School teachers have nothing to fear..he did latter go on to clarify this by saying.. "there are no guarantees".. What worried me about his presentation was how he feels shools can/will have to adapt.....social distancing of class layouts, staggered start times, staggered lunch breaks and instructions on how to tie disruptive Stephen to his chair . All of which will be very disruptive to a child's learning experience and stressful for the teachers to apply. 

If the scientists have it right children are less likely to pass this virus on so instead of adopting new working practices perhaps in cases such as primary schools one should blow caution to the wind and just get on with it?

The biggest risk to cross infection will probably concern perents mixing at the school gates so perhaps a pick up/drop off school bus service might be a way of cutting the risks down.

If ever this trace and track gets off the ground then schools would be a good place to start as it could  be well managed (one would presume) and reassuring at the same time?

Please overlook any spelling/punctuation mistakes... "teacher".... l spent more time outside of the class than l did in......even though l was a little

Regards

Keith

[Onelife]

Returning to school is surely not that straightforward, a chap on the Breakfast News explained this morning that going back for kids in London, say, is fair enough but in Hartlepool their CVID19 peak lags two weeks behind the Capital therefore returning to school in that part of the Country should be delayed by a further two weeks. Does that make sense ?

That makes sense to me. When they announced the road map they did say clearly the phased schools return would be from 1 June, at the earliest, as the 1-5 alert scale allows. They said last night they're trying to get reliable infection data on a "granular" basis, by which I understood more local figures. That would support exactly what you're saying. There's also a difference between schools. My niece is a teacher in a small village school that only has 4 teachers and limited space so much less flexibility than the school our grand-daughters go to, which has plenty of space to spread out pupils from two or three of its seven years and a lot more teachers to look after them.

But the big point for me remains that the teaching unions said they would need three weeks notice to prepare for going back. They've been given that notice of a possible start date on 1 June so they should get on with preparing. If the science on 1 June says we need to wait a little longer nothing is lost. If they'd been told on 1st June it was now safe to go back, they'd have then said we need 3 weeks notice so it can't happen until 22nd. Basically the lefties among them aren't interest in any solution proposed by the government. And are possibly enjoying their taxpayer-funded holiday isolating too much.

Last weekend, the R was promoted as all important. I get the impression they are playing it down now, so they are hoping we will have forgotten about it by June!

I'm not sure where you're getting your information now Gill. We watch the press conference every day and the R has been mentioned every day this week.

Hi Sir Merv......just listening to some comments this morning one supposedly knowledgeable person was a little vague in his interpretation of where R has been going...just saying!

[Mervyn and Trish]

Returning to school is surely not that straightforward, a chap on the Breakfast News explained this morning that going back for kids in London, say, is fair enough but in Hartlepool their CVID19 peak lags two weeks behind the Capital therefore returning to school in that part of the Country should be delayed by a further two weeks. Does that make sense ?

That makes sense to me. When they announced the road map they did say clearly the phased schools return would be from 1 June, at the earliest, as the 1-5 alert scale allows. They said last night they're trying to get reliable infection data on a "granular" basis, by which I understood more local figures. That would support exactly what you're saying. There's also a difference between schools. My niece is a teacher in a small village school that only has 4 teachers and limited space so much less flexibility than the school our grand-daughters go to, which has plenty of space to spread out pupils from two or three of its seven years and a lot more teachers to look after them.

But the big point for me remains that the teaching unions said they would need three weeks notice to prepare for going back. They've been given that notice of a possible start date on 1 June so they should get on with preparing. If the science on 1 June says we need to wait a little longer nothing is lost. If they'd been told on 1st June it was now safe to go back, they'd have then said we need 3 weeks notice so it can't happen until 22nd. Basically the lefties among them aren't interest in any solution proposed by the government. And are possibly enjoying their taxpayer-funded holiday isolating too much.

Last weekend, the R was promoted as all important. I get the impression they are playing it down now, so they are hoping we will have forgotten about it by June!

I'm not sure where you're getting your information now Gill. We watch the press conference every day and the R has been mentioned every day this week.

Hi Sir Merv......just listening to some comments this morning one supposedly knowledgeable person was a little vague in his interpretation of where R has been going...just saying!

I listen to the medic/scientist. No it's not an exact science at the moment, but my point was I don't agree they're playing it down. Every single night they say it is the key to progress through the alert levels. And last night they discussed how it is varying across settings and areas. And how they are working to improve on the precision of local figures.

[david63]

Has anyone thought that there is no reason why schools have to close in July/August this year? It's not as if anyone is going away on holiday and they have just had eight weeks off - yes I know that some have been doing some work at home but I would make a guess that they have not put in the same hours that they would if at school.

If they did not close for the summer holidays then there could be staggered attendance so that all pupils had some time back at school and then possibly by the start of the new school year the situation may have eased a bit more.

Sorry forget all that - the unions will not agree!!

Talking of unions did anyone else have the misfortune to hear the rail union chap on Question Time this week who kept bleating on about the Government "jumping the gun"? There is no jumping the gun - the Government call the shots (oh look such a good pun!!)

[screwy]

It was reported on Radio news last night....not the Beeb I may add...that Jezzers brother stated “ the Virus is a lie, it’s an excuse to control people”. Wtf.? So every Government in the world is suddenly complicit. I wonder if he was the brainier of the two.?

[Onelife]

Hi Sir Merv,

Apologies for diverting your meaning into something that helped my meaning…if you understand my meaning

[Onelife]

It was reported on Radio news last night....not the Beeb I may add...that Jezzers brother stated “ the Virus is a lie, it’s an excuse to control people”. Wtf.? So every Government in the world is suddenly complicit. I wonder if he was the brainier of the two.?

Probably reported out of context screwy but let’s hang him anyway

[screwy]

Best shoot him, got to get close to hang someone.

[screwy]

Best shoot him, got to get close to hang someone. And while were at it let's do his brother too.

[johnds]

By June, I think we are more than likely going to see a rise in cases. Not just because of yesterday’s protest, but because of general back to work message. The R is close to 1 anyway, it won’t take much to push it above 1. We don’t have a track and trace system in place, so if it does go over 1, they can’t take swift action to reduce the figure.

Last weekend, the R was promoted as all important. I get the impression they are playing it down now, so they are hoping we will have forgotten about it by June!

Gill. You really are a glass half empty person

[Mervyn and Trish]

As I understand it 36 actual demonstrators turned up yesterday in Hyde Park, rather outnumbered by journalists and police. One bloke turned up at a copy cat mass gathering in a park near us and he was promptly arrested. I can't see that greatly influencing the infection rate. There were more in Sainsbury's on Saturday