Boggles wrote: » I'll try once more. The HSE have not made masks mandatory for anyone, no such advice exists, particularly for kids returning to school. France have. One of these groups is kids returning to school aged 11+. Now you can acknowledge that fact or you can continue to be obtuse, either way it's your own integrity you are chipping away at.
ricero wrote: » Its gonna be some nightmare sorting out classrooms for September especially for secondary schools. A shortage of teachers, inadequate facilities and overpopulated classrooms. I think Ireland has one of the highest student per teacher ratios in europe. The lack of investment in the past decade from Fine Gael in education will come back to bite us.
JRant wrote: » So looking at a number of options that are being proposed by a few schools in the area and none make for good reading. Split days, alternate days, alternate weeks being the main ones. These all have major downsides for the children and teachers involved IMO. Children would have a completely disjointed schedule while it would be a nightmare for teachers to track the different groups on different rotas and try manage their day to day work plans. If the DOE do keep with the 2m rule then they better start rewriting the curriculum asap because what the children have now is in no way designed for online workloads that these options would require. The department will have to spell out very clearly to parents exactly what the requirements will be for the coming academic year, particularly the distance learning sections. Teachers will have enough on their plate without having to redo the curriculum as well. I'm still not sure why classes, especially in Primary school can't be considered their own "bubble" allowing easy contact tracing etc. Maybe I'm not getting it but something will need to be done as having children in school for half the required time will be a huge blow to their education after missing 4 months of this year.
kandr10 wrote: » This is a good point about the curriculum. Particularly in second level, it will leave future jc and lc students at a severe disadvantage. As far as a class being considered a bubble, I would guess it wouldn’t be practicable as the numbers would be too big. If there’s any risk of infection spreading, having 30 kids, a teacher and potentially sna all in close contact would significantly increase the risk of spread to those families outside the classroom also. It would be great if the distancing was reduced, and was safe to do so. It would certainly take away a lot of those headaches.
beggars_bush wrote: » Actually FG had started to lower the ratio The biggest issue has been a high birth rate
s1ippy wrote: » https://twitter.com/FergalBowers/status/1270386124746379264?s=19 "The Director of the UCD National Virus Reference Laboratory has told the Dáil's special Covid-19 committee that the evidence around the use of cloth masks is "not fantastic". Dr Cillian De Gascun told the committee the uptake of masks had not been very large, but added that there was not great evidence that the virus was stopped by non-medical grade or cloth masks."https://www.rte.ie/news/europe/2020/0609/1146359-masks-compulsory-in-spain-until-virus-is-eradicated/ "Meanwhile Spain's health minister has said that wearing face masks will be compulsory there until the coronavirus epidemic is defeated once and for all. Salvador Illa said the measure would remain in force after the state of emergency ends on 21 June and will "remain in place until we permanently defeat the virus, which is when we have an effective treatment or vaccine against it". Since 21 May, it has been compulsory for everyone aged six and over to wear a mask in public where it is not possible to maintain a two-metre security distance from other people." Six and over. What do they know that we are refusing to fathom here???
Treppen wrote: » Actually, Have you a source for that?
beggars_bush wrote: » https://www.finegael.ie/pupil-teacher-ratio-reduced-lowest-level-ever-mcloughlin/
blueberrypie wrote: » Info on schools reopening will be released on Friday.
wirelessdude01 wrote: » Going to be busy with Dept press releases on Friday. JP/Summer school stuff to be released as well.
TheValeyard wrote: » Wonder who Is doing the summer school stuff. Be interesting to find out.
wirelessdude01 wrote: » The word 'voluntary' is used a lot in an article on rte.ie so I wonder if teachers and SNAs are going to be sort of bullied into doing it for free this year. When that doesn't happen the dept and media can just blame those lazy teachers and SNAs. You know how these things happen. Govt don't really want to have to pay for their expanded criteria this year so easier to make it fail before it starts.
s1ippy wrote: » I used to do July provision and it was very hard work. If I had spent the last three months having to put in the sort of work I'm hearing about teachers putting in and I was expected to do that work for free I would be diving for the door (again). Reminds me all over again why the pros of public sector are heavily outweighed by the cons.
Zahir Bitter Cellist wrote: » Did he say teachers would be expected to do it for free?
