How will schools be able to go back in September? (Continued)

Gentleman Off The Pitch · 18-09-2020 08:19AM

Deleted User wrote: »

I said if they had 30 contacts, and them laid out a more plausible scenario. But by all means,selectively edit my post to paint me as blaming teachers.

The teachers in this school know if they were close contacts with the confirmed case or not, so all the bluster about the app, is just that, bluster. The app is for situations where you may come in contact with someone in a less controlled environment - socialising, transport, shopping etc., and either not know about it or forget.

Question for teachers - are you being asked to keep a log of daily school contacts that occur outside of the school timetable? Its best practice for anyone in the workplace during covid, and the principal / DES should be asking you to do it.

On initial read of your post, I thought its first paragraph, which I quoted, was standalone from the second but in hindsight I should have quoted it too, apologies.

While I think your posts throughout this thread are fair and balanced, my point still stands that I expect we will see many attempts to shift the blame on teachers, despite them repeatedly warning that in many schools the implementation of the guidelines is little more than a charade

18-09-2020 08:19AM

downthemiddle wrote: »

You have no idea what happened in the school so your speculation is worthless.

If 30 teachers are close contacts they are all congregating together in the one location. Note I said if. I don't believe for an instant that this is the case for this school, as public health found when they did the review

Lolle06 · 18-09-2020 08:24AM

Will Yam wrote: »

Sorry, I was using a stat from blondini who told us that there were 131 cases in schools.

Now, given that it was blondini, the real figure could be 1, 13, 131, 1300, 13100, or even 13 million.

Probably 13 million as it would suit her/his argument best.

Well, I live in a rather small town. Out of 3 schools in our vicinity, 2 have confirmed cases. I don’t think, we hear the half of it from „official numbers“, so I would go with the higher number.

Blondini · 18-09-2020 08:27AM

facehugger99 wrote: »

Someone who does his own thinking rather than waiting for an unelected Government mandarin to tell him what to do?

Guilty.

Doesn't explain your obsession with schools and children though.

irishblessing · 18-09-2020 08:28AM

facehugger99 wrote: »

Someone who does his own thinking rather than waiting for an unelected Government mandarin to tell him what to do?

Guilty.

Interesting. So what other government guidelines are you ignoring? Do you wear a mask? Are you social distancing? Washing hands? Limiting visitors?

downthemiddle · 18-09-2020 08:29AM

facehugger99 wrote: »

Someone who does his own thinking rather than waiting for an unelected Government mandarin to tell him what to do?

Guilty.

And if everyone does their own thinking, especially with your level of responsibility, where would that get us?

byhookorbycrook · 18-09-2020 08:46AM

Oranage2 wrote: »

There should have been measures put in place to give the schools the best possible chance of staying open. They wasn't any.

They just opened the doors and gave out basic health advice. Not good enough and now we can see many individual cases and a school closure after just 2 weeks.

Oh dear . Our staff spent quite a lot of August at school sorting out issues like staggered break times , extra supervision, staggered arrival/ departures , one way systems, buying PPE , holding meetings between SNAs and SETs , arranging special education provision that stayed with the much vaunted “bubbles ,” creating 2 new class rooms , hand sanitizer stations , re-arranging classrooms to create as much space as possible between desks , training in extra health measures, meeting with parents who were anxious about the re-opening etc.

But yeah , schools just opened their doors .

byhookorbycrook · 18-09-2020 08:47AM

Deleted User wrote: »

If 30 teachers are close contacts they are all congregating together in the one location. Note I said if. I don't believe for an instant that this is the case for this school, as public health found when they did the review

Or there were say , 5 positive students spread among a number of different subjects / teachers .

18-09-2020 08:51AM

https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0917/1165854-drogheda-school-covid-19/

The alerts came after it was confirmed that a staff member at the school had contracted the virus.

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Or there were say , 5 positive students spread among a number of different subjects / teachers .

average_runner · 18-09-2020 09:06AM

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Oh dear . Our staff spent quite a lot of August at school sorting out issues like staggered break times , extra supervision, staggered arrival/ departures , one way systems, buying PPE , holding meetings between SNAs and SETs , arranging special education provision that stayed with the much vaunted “bubbles ,” creating 2 new class rooms , hand sanitizer stations , re-arranging classrooms to create as much space as possible between desks , training in extra health measures, meeting with parents who were anxious about the re-opening etc.

But yeah , schools just opened their doors .

I believe schools are doing a great job. It's the parents I have an issue with. Half of them not wearing masks on the school grounds after the school requested the parents to wear them.

Some people are so rude

is_that_so · 18-09-2020 09:16AM

average_runner wrote: »

I believe schools are doing a great job. It's the parents I have an issue with. Half of them not wearing masks on the school grounds after the school requested the parents to wear them.

Some people are so rude

Fresh air is far less of a risk anyway but I would have thought making them wait outside school grounds would be standard.

Coopaloop · 18-09-2020 09:20AM

My son goes to the school that was closed, and up to now I've been very happy with the way the school has run things in terms of drop off and collection. Class activities. Keeping classes sperated. They can do everything but that doesnt stop ppl getting in close contact outside school, nothing can or will stop that. It was bound to happen.
From what I have heard it's two forth classes with a good few cases and definitly one teacher ( I would imagine that was the main motivation to close the school as obviously the teacher most likely mixed with other teachers..my guess! I could be 100% wrong, but I would imagine they all need to be tested) then there is the siblings in other classes.....so we really wont know that full extent until a few days. I would say 1 to 2 weeks closed.

average_runner · 18-09-2020 09:22AM

is_that_so wrote: »

Fresh air is far less of a risk anyway but I would have thought making them wait outside school grounds would be standard.

Under a certain age you can walk them in.
Fresh air is less risky, but if the school is making sacrifices, surely we can help

JimmyVik · 18-09-2020 09:26AM

How many different students from different pods would a resource teacher have contact with in a week?

is_that_so · 18-09-2020 09:30AM

average_runner wrote: »

Under a certain age you can walk them in.
Fresh air is less risky, but if the school is making sacrifices, surely we can help

I see. The local primary school is keeping them all outside the gates regardless so I assumed it was the same everywhere else.

18-09-2020 09:31AM

is_that_so wrote: »

I see. The local primary school is keeping them all outside the gates regardless so I assumed it was the same everywhere else.

Our school let parents walk in Juniors for the first week, but had a later start time. Now we just leave them at the gate

average_runner · 18-09-2020 09:38AM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Our school let parents walk in Juniors for the first week, but had a later start time. Now we just leave them at the gate

We have a staggered time. 840-915

DangerScouse · 18-09-2020 10:08AM

irishblessing wrote: »

Facehugger is all over other threads too accusing people of hysteria and blatantly says he traveled "to the continent" and refused to restrict his movements. It was right before schools opened too, and said he was ignoring the return to school policy sent out that said if you/your family have been out of the country in the last 14 days you must not attend school and self isolate. Also says you don't have to tell your employer about your holiday plans, if you went to a non-green list country so you don't have to self isolate for 14 days coming home.

That is the kind of person we're dealing with here.

Really not worth engaging with but unfortunately there are many like him/her.

Selfish to a fault.

18-09-2020 10:32AM

irishblessing wrote: »

Facehugger is all over other threads too accusing people of hysteria and blatantly says he traveled "to the continent" and refused to restrict his movements. It was right before schools opened too, and said he was ignoring the return to school policy sent out that said if you/your family have been out of the country in the last 14 days you must not attend school and self isolate. Also says you don't have to tell your employer about your holiday plans, if you went to a non-green list country so you don't have to self isolate for 14 days coming home.

That is the kind of person we're dealing with here.

With respect, none of us know what kind of people we are dealing with here. Best we can do is report and/or put on ignore list. Thank you for your own very helpful posts.

Murple · 18-09-2020 10:40AM

JimmyVik wrote: »

How many different students from different pods would a resource teacher have contact with in a week?

It would depend on arrangements in the schools but in my school, each support teacher works with 4 classes so directly or indirectly has contact with up to 120 children. Now with support teachers to be used as subs if needed, they could have direct contact with several different classfuls a week.
In some schools, smaller ones especially, a support teacher could work in several schools in the space of a week.

For those still not seeing the risk of Covid spreading or who like to say that certain groups aren’t affected so it’s no big deal if cases arise in certain settings, this story may help.
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0918/1165931-coronavirus-us/
A wedding was traced as the likely source to 7 deaths and over 150 cases. None of those who died actually went to the wedding. 80 of the cases identified were prison inmates, likely infected by a prison guard who was at the wedding. 65 people attended the wedding.

wirelessdude01 · 18-09-2020 12:03PM

JimmyVik wrote: »

How many different students from different pods would a resource teacher have contact with in a week?

We have changed our SET this year so that teachers are involved with certain classes. Pretty much split along JI/SI, 1st/2nd and so on.

TheValeyard · 18-09-2020 12:05PM

is_that_so wrote: »

I see. The local primary school is keeping them all outside the gates regardless so I assumed it was the same everywhere else.

Lot of primary schools do this for insurance reasons I think. Been happening long before Covid.

wirelessdude01 · 18-09-2020 12:06PM

average_runner wrote: »

We have a staggered time. 840-915

We have staggered drop off times as well but no parents allowed onto school grounds since the first day. 100% adhered to as well with no issues which we are eternally grateful for.

FishOnABike · 18-09-2020 01:30PM

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Where and in what way were people having no responsibility? Was it school staff, parents or a mixture of both?

A parent and their teenage student. A parent who was referred for testing, sent their teenager to school, while the parent was waiting for the result and after the parent receiving a positive result. The teenager engaged in high risk behaviour, shared food and utensils with a number of friends all who now have been referred for testing as close contacts. All now isolating, waiting for testing + results.

SusanC10 · 18-09-2020 02:18PM

FishOnABike wrote: »

A parent and their teenage student. A parent who was referred for testing, sent their teenager to school, while the parent was waiting for the result and after the parent receiving a positive result. The teenager engaged in high risk behaviour, shared food and utensils with a number of friends all who now have been referred for testing as close contacts. All now isolating, waiting for testing + results.

Words fail me.

wirelessdude01 · 18-09-2020 03:10PM

FishOnABike wrote: »

A parent and their teenage student. A parent who was referred for testing, sent their teenager to school, while the parent was waiting for the result and after the parent receiving a positive result. The teenager engaged in high risk behaviour, shared food and utensils with a number of friends all who now have been referred for testing as close contacts. All now isolating, waiting for testing + results.

You'd have to wonder what is going on between the luggs.

BonsaiKitten · 18-09-2020 04:31PM

JimmyVik wrote: »

How many different students from different pods would a resource teacher have contact with in a week?

Totally depends on your school. At mine the resource teachers would have around 20 kids each on their caseload. These would be coming from different classes - some might be in the same pod but that's not a guarantee. Thinking about classes I've taught previously, I often had those kids at different tables for behaviour management reasons.

SET have already had to cover classes in my school (teachers waiting on testing and no subs around) so that's more exposure for them again.

caveat emptor · 18-09-2020 05:22PM

INTO calling for changes.

https://twitter.com/intonews/status/1306935561639342083?s=21

irishblessing · 18-09-2020 06:20PM

Excellent.

Urgent review needed

The INTO Executive Committee also restated the union’s call for a full review of the effectiveness of arrangements made for the sector, including:

The adequacy of the resource package for sanitising and PPE
The capacity of the enhanced capitation for cleaning of schools
The capability for schools to adhere to social distancing and impediments to the safety of school communities including the prevalence of supersized classes of 30 children and more
The response times of the HSE to testing and tracing
The availability of substitute teachers
The demands being made of teachers to do extra substitution on a voluntary basis
Gaps in supports for principal teachers
The chronic lack of appropriate infrastructure to support remote learning.

While INTO members would prefer to engage directly with pupils in their classroom, the union will not countenance an absolutist approach towards keeping schools open. Where public health advice indicates our schools must close, there must be no political second guessing.

INTO will be seeking a firm commitment from the Department of Education to rethink how schools will be configured at various stages of the 5-level plan published this week.

No teacher, parent or pupil wants to return to the dark days when all of our schools were closed. Any class that has to self-isolate must be provided with the resources to continue engaging remotely with their teachers to ensure the continuity of learning.

Rather than visiting schools to check compliance with Covid-19 plans, representatives of the Department of Education should be deployed between now and budget day to complete a national audit of the adequacy of provision for primary and special schools during the pandemic. This should include particular scrutiny of our supersized classes and other issues which hindered the ability for our schools to reopen and may yet prevent them from keeping their doors open.

https://www.into.ie/2020/09/18/union-opposes-absolutist-approach-to-keeping-schools-open-at-all-costs/

scooby77 · 18-09-2020 07:32PM

Just on Scoil na mainistreach celbridge ( I feel sorry for staff btw, I'm sure they worked hard to prepare) find strange no mention of St. Brigid's- the girls' school in the town?
I'm sure some children there close contacts (of siblings)?

How will schools be able to go back in September? (Continued)

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