Government flip flops / school closures

Bobtheman

km79 wrote: »

I have no sympathy for her. She had a permanent teaching job but she was more interested in playing the political game . She won and got what she wanted despite being way way too inexperienced for what we needed in an Education Minister at such a crucial time. The worst thing is that in terms of politics she is doing a good job for her party/the govt as she has toed the party line and done their bidding throughout.
I don’t want to see another teacher in as Ed Minister for a long long time.
They are completely different jobs with different skills sets .

I generally agree we need more women in politics. Look at the poor state of childcare in Ireland as proof. With many male politicians having never minded a kid full time in their lives. I could cite many other issues.
However having Gender quotas for cabinet is a bad idea. Norma got in there because they needed a woman.. Lisa Chambers lost her Dail seat otherwise she would have been it. Otherwise I don't understand why you appoint anybody just in the Dail to a ministry unless they have exceptional experience. Being a secondary teacher is not enough to get education after three months in the Dail.
However FF doesn't have a huge amount of talent and unless a big beast got it - Martin was going to push around any junior politician who got it.
I don't think background particularly matters in politics. It's a profession on its own. Margaret thatcher was a chemist but say what you like about her - she got her way. Lemass was in politics since his 20s. Its the determination to change things. However our political system which requires politicians to have their head up constituents arses doesn't help. Bertie canvassed every week despite supposedly running the nation. Cameron never did that

KaneToad

Bobtheman wrote: »

I generally agree we need more women in politics. Look at the poor state of childcare in Ireland as proof. With many male politicians having never minded a kid full time in their lives. I could cite many other issues.
However having Gender quotas for cabinet is a bad idea. Norma got in there because they needed a woman.. Lisa Chambers lost her Dail seat otherwise she would have been it. Otherwise I don't understand why you appoint anybody just in the Dail to a ministry unless they have exceptional experience. Being a secondary teacher is not enough to get education after three months in the Dail.
However FF doesn't have a huge amount of talent and unless a big beast got it - Martin was going to push around any junior politician who got it.
I don't think background particularly matters in politics. It's a profession on its own. Margaret thatcher was a chemist but say what you like about her - she got her way. Lemass was in politics since his 20s. Its the determination to change things. However our political system which requires politicians to have their head up constituents arses doesn't help. Bertie canvassed every week despite supposedly running the nation. Cameron never did that

Why would she be more qualified than the current incumbent?

mtoutlemonde

km79 wrote: »

Stephen Donnelly is Health . He too is out of his depth completely.

He has been out of the limelight since he said there was more of a risk on a trampoline than in a school. He is also a self righteous so and so.

amacca

Irishphotodesk wrote: »

The government should really be clear with people and tell them what makes a close contact and how the virus is transmitted, also explaining how to identify the signs/symptoms and when people should isolate/restrict

I think that's where you and I fundamentally differ

Afaic they have been very clear about how the virus is transmitted and symptoms via tv/radio advertising, social media campaigns, hse wrbsite, public health officials your local helpful friendly immunologist interviews every second day on current affairs programs.....christ I've heard more from luke I Neill in the past month than when he was my tutor at college

If you don't know the above by now you've been living under a rock and no Govt can reach you ....they have perhaps muddied the waters on what makes a close contact by the way they define or try not to define an reclassify contacts in schools vs other places and that coukd certainly cause some cognitive dissonance but on the whole people unless they are complete gob****es or living in a social media conspiracy bubble know these things but still go about doing stupid selfish unnecessarily risky ****? Why....was it because they didn't make enough of recommendations to them to stay within 2km of the house do you think?

What I think they should do is set down clear rules about mixing and enforce them with penalties (significant fines / attached to income or social welfare) for all sectors of society and ignore ineffective recommendations about distance from your house thst most people ignore on a daily basis (outside of urban centres anyway) ....or if thats not possible then some form of consequence to encourage compliance

5km not as good as 2km when it comes to reducing contacts ...its not like I dont understand the simplistic logic of what you are saying, its that I think its a completely ineffective step to take in the real world because a large swathe of people will simply ignore and go about their business (including the unnecessary ****wit business) what im saying is it's compete PR/window dressing and it's as you said a recommendation..........its on the level of chocolate teapot solution to making tea....

km79

I think we are now looking at remote learning until end of January at least
Maybe until mid term

Postgrad10

I hope so km79. It would be the correct thing to do. The risk is too great.

shesty

amacca wrote: »

Fair enough.....Like what sort of actions should they be taking on the other side of the fence with the time bought would you think?

To my mind the strategy is rolling lock downs until enough of a percentage of population vaccinated, coukd they be doing the vaccination more efficiently?

I think...having watched this roll out for several months....there are probably some basic things they could be done, and then some bigger, longer term things.( and obviously I am making assumptions here that none of things are in discussion anywhere) -and my apologies for dragging the thread way off course here, I will head away after this!!

My biggest fear is that we come out of this with no changes to our healthcare system.That we will pat ourselves on the back and say sure it's great, we survived, RIP all the dead, health workers were brilliant, and then continue limping on with a private/public hybrid thing where nobody wins except the consultants and trolley numbers are just increasing and increasing year on year...and then the next time something like this hits, we will all be running around like idiots again.Will we take the chance to reconfigure our health system?More primary care centres, no public/private contracts for consultants(I am aware this is rolling out), maybe another medical layer between Senior registrar, and consultant, maybe -just maybe - abolishing the VHI and similar and implementing a universal healthcare payment or similar to cover costs?? Increased ICU capacity, increase bed numbers, any of it?That is a medium term thing, but it has been there for years and tbh if a pandemic hasn't highlighted it in glaring lights enough, with an open chequebook and an "open" scope to do practically anything with hospitals to make things work, then I suspect nothing ever will......

I think vaccination could be done more efficiently.I am aware supply and demand is obviously an issue but this is not a new problem.We knew this was coming, so it was controllable to certain degree.We certainly should be tracking and reporting on how many are vaccinated, we are quick enough to report case numbers.I believe Donnelly is implementing this reporting; let's hope it works out.Short term issue.

Tracking and tracing seems to be a huge pillar in the success in countries that are handling this well.We appear to have failed fairly abysmally at this.And I don't just mean in the last 3 weeks, I mean from day 1 we struggled to manage it.So we have now reached a point where our formula for success seems to be reduced to testing those with symptoms, and a vaccine.And until then, shut everything.It is very extreme at both ends of the scale, the middle ground of actually living with it more comfortably could possibly be assisted better by more effective tracking tracing and isolating, but we will never really know, because we haven't really tried it.Also a shortish term issue.

As background noise goes, I am firmly of the opinion that the nightly news conferences should go.There is research out there showing that the rolling 24 hour news cycle creates a situation where people start to become "desensitised" so to speak - they can't possibly take on board and feel for every single bad news story that comes across the screen, so they start to stop listening essentially, their brain has to filter most of it out to protect their mental health.I wonder if this is becoming the case here.I know myself I literally avoid any story or headline to do with covid, NPHET, cases, anything.I just don't want to hear it anymore.It may also be why the constant refrain of "the next 2 weeks are critical," and that NPHET are "very concerned" and references to catastrophic numbers etc, etc, just loses all meaning after a point.There is only so much of that stuff that anyone can pay attention to and maybe if they dialled it back and saved for a point in time when numbers were actually increasing rapidly, it might be listened to more, with a corresponding effect on people's reactions.

My other criticism, mainly of late, is that if they make a decision, they should try to hang a bit longer to see what works.Minds were changed 3 times in the space of about 24 hours right before Christmas.The situation was critical, yes- but even on Jan 1st, we were barely 24 hours into the latest L5, and already NPHET were sending letters about maybe needing more restructions.I just feel they need to think about this more strategically long term, about how to bring people with them.I don't like it, but you know, maybe if they stopped kite flying about extra restrictions and extended time now, when we KNOW things are bad, and came back in 2 weeks with a good bit of data behind them and said look we have to extend this by 3 more weeks, they might get more people on their side.I just think by barely giving the thing a chance now, they are possibly losing people already.


As regards schools, (and I will keep this short because have gone on too long already) - I just hink the Deot have behaved abysmally in this.They left it far too late to bring out guidelines for schools, they should have centralised procurement for all items such as PPE, voice amplifiers, cleaning supplies etc, anf they should have made available budgets to school with no proper IT hardware for teachers at the very least.Exams could be sorted by now (maybe they are), a single platform for online teaching could have been put in place, and detailed guidelines made available.

Hindsight is obviously 20-20 but the fact is as more time passes, the apparent lack of initiative on the part of the Gov/HSE is becoming irritating.Constantly pointing fingers at the public is getting pretty old, and the squabbling among ourselves over whether a runner can breathe on you, or whether 2km is better than 5km is taking attention off the decision makers.Right down to the IT system not being able to handle the number of case reports and it is basically the public's fault for getting too many infections....I mean, really?It is worrying that they can use models of big numbers to make decisions about closing the economy but apparently not to prepare the health service in any way.

I shall leave it at that, as the thread is being dragged way off course -I appreciate it is probably a topic for discussion from many angles but this is obviously not the right place for it.

beveragelady

Gael23 wrote: »

Would you all be willing to help with contact tracing during normal school hours should schools be closed?

I would happily go on the dole, or get by on my savings, if it meant not returning to online teaching. I would also cheerfully work at contact tracing or delivering to isolated elderly or absolutely anything else, and I would be willing to take a paycut if that goes with the job.
If we're given a definite timeline for online teaching I can cope. If it's open-ended I don't think I'll manage. It's a nightmare.

km79

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/html5/#/radio1/21889228

Anne Piggott ASTI
She spoke well in fairness
Meeting of all stakeholders is tomorrow apparently

amacca

A lot of fair points there...I too dont want to drag thread off topic but just on them reforming the health service because of this I would agree with you, that's highly unlikely to happen anytime soon and if something like this did occur in say 10/15 years I'd fully expect the response to be no better.....but I'm a pessimist (I prefer to say realist) I suppose.

shesty

Admittedly, the same here amacca.

And there we shall leave it :-)

Treppen

am_zarathustra wrote: »

Jesus where do I sign up, I am dreading being up til 11 every night prepping and correcting and tracking down kids not engaging. I have 2 HL LC classes so best to get someone with a bit of expience teaching my subjects from the pool of contact tracers! Maybe that's where all of those subject teachers are, because they are not rocking around Dublin waiting for a call for substitution.

On rte radio they had government adds out encouraging people to do the PME , so I bet they are eager to get you cover ASAP am_

rainbowtrout

Treppen wrote: »

On rte radio they had government adds out encouraging people to do the PME , so I bet they are eager to get you cover ASAP am_

Really? Numbers must be down for applications this year. Students looking at the current situation and going 'no way am I signing up for that mess'.

Treppen

Is it beyond the bounds of possibility for the department to set up online bookable drop in clinics/tutorials for leaving and junior certs?

Plenty of JCT / Inspectorate experts who love telling us how to teach. Now is their time to shine and cut out the middleman.

mirrorwall14

Considering they haven’t even managed to join the dots between very high risk teachers and students working from home..... I mean my school are delighted to have an extra pair of hands not in the classroom but if they were doing this right every teacher working from home should have been in a database and running a couple of tutorials a day online. Or even recording lessons and topics for the whole country equipment and training supplied on line. This could have been invaluable time creating resources and supporting the whole country. Instead it’s been very useful for me and my school and I’m building a data base of lessons for my own department. But completely useless for the whole DES

rainbowtrout

Treppen wrote: »

Is it beyond the bounds of possibility for the department to set up online bookable drop in clinics/tutorials for leaving and junior certs?

Plenty of JCT / Inspectorate experts who love telling us how to teach. Now is their time to shine and cut out the middleman.

Ya couldn't the inspectorate offer 'masterclasses' that students could sign up for and attend on zoom. They are the experts after all :pac:

It's a tragedy that we don't get to avail of their knowledge and experience in this difficult year. :pac:

ethical

You mean the Egotists that have sat on their butts since last March and have contributed nothing to the teachers on the frontline!

Do you honestly expect them to contribute,working remotely,on their "funded" home office and state of the art laptops?

Louis Friend

Will the schools reopen on the 11th?!

Irishphotodesk

Louis Friend wrote: »

Will the schools reopen on the 11th?!

More than likely ...no

Bobtheman

KaneToad wrote: »

Why would she be more qualified than the current incumbent?

She wouldn't be. But nowadays it's all about optics. Lisa Chambers = female. I agree with gender quotas for Dail elections but not for the cabinet. It can be hard enough to get 15 capable people from a government of between 80-90 seats without further complicating it by saying you have people from all four provinces and have to have so many females.

amacca

Bobtheman wrote: »

She wouldn't be. But nowadays it's all about optics. Lisa Chambers = female. I agree with gender quotas for Dail elections but not for the cabinet. It can be hard enough to get 15 capable people from a government of between 80-90 seats without further complicating it by saying you have people from all four provinces and have to have so many females.

Quotas of any kind are a disgrace in my book .....you should get there on competency to do the job...........

beveragelady

ethical wrote: »

You mean the Egotists that have sat on their butts since last March and have contributed nothing to the teachers on the frontline!

Do you honestly expect them to contribute,working remotely,on their "funded" home office and state of the art laptops?

Take that back!
As I reported on another thread, the expert in teaching who inspected me and pointed out my many failings is currently very very VERY busy.
Very busy inspecting schools to make sure they're doing a good job of preventing disease transmission. So no time for teaching, obviously...

History Queen

beveragelady wrote: »

Take that back!
As I reported on another thread, the expert in teaching who inspected me and pointed out my many failings is currently very very VERY busy.
Very busy inspecting schools to make sure they're doing a good job of preventing disease transmission. So no time for teaching, obviously...

Love this. All hail the inspectorate.... and the JCT...and the Dept...and Norma....

km79

beveragelady wrote: »

Take that back!
As I reported on another thread, the expert in teaching who inspected me and pointed out my many failings is currently very very VERY busy.
Very busy inspecting schools to make sure they're doing a good job of preventing disease transmission. So no time for teaching, obviously...

They obviously won’t be needed for this if school buildings remain physically closed though
They will ramp up the child protection inspections instead no doubt
Despite providing no national guidance on how to overcome the many Gdpr/child protection issues associated with live streaming , satellite rooms etc etc
Oh sorry they did
“Update your policies “
That’s grand so. Thanks a million

doc_17

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Ya couldn't the inspectorate offer 'masterclasses' that students could sign up for and attend on zoom. They are the experts after all :pac:

It's a tragedy that we don't get to avail of their knowledge and experience in this difficult year. :pac:

We had an inspection a few years ago and they praised my schemes of work but offered some suggestions as to how they could be improved. I asked him would that be in the report...he said it would.

So I said “why don’t you just release the best scheme in the world so that we can all follow it and not only will our students benefit, but so will teachers as it’ll cut down on our workload”.

The response? “We don’t want to take away each schools’ freedom to implement a policy that best suits them”. So I said “we’re on a hiding to nothing then? At least if you had your template in place, I could either follow it, or explain why I chose not to and state why my students would benefit from doing it in a slightly different way”.

He said he would come back to me. Lesson learned is that inspectorate aren’t educators.

Icsics

Norma & the ‘spokespeople’ having a tele conference re schools....says it all

scrubs33

Icsics wrote: »

Norma & the ‘spokespeople’ having a tele conference re schools....says it all

But she didn't make the cut for the meeting tomorrow about actually making the decision to open/close schools. finance, health, public expenditure, NPHET and HSE will all be there. Morto for her.

byhookorbycrook

scrubs33 wrote: »

But she didn't make the cut for the meeting tomorrow about actually making the decision to open/close schools. finance, health, public expenditure, NPHET and HSE will all be there. Morto for her.

Norma is in Knock, praying for a massive snow storm so that she can claim that's the reasons school buildings aren't open.

shesty

scrubs33 wrote: »

But she didn't make the cut for the meeting tomorrow about actually making the decision to open/close schools. finance, health, public expenditure, NPHET and HSE will all be there. Morto for her.

That is a bit embarassing...

keoclassic

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Norma is in Knock, praying for a massive snow storm so that she can claim that's the reasons school buildings aren't open.

Maybe the decision is already made!