Schools closed until March/April? (part 4) **Mod warning in OP 22/01**

Locotastic wrote: »

Might actually be what happens given the arguments being put forward. I hope not, if current progress continues then Feb midterm will be soon enough.

So now you think that all students might be sent back tomorrow. I give up.

km79 wrote: »

Apparently into are having an emergency CEC meeting at 2pm tomorrow ahead of Normas big webinar

I can confirm it's at 2pm. Originally planned for 5:30 but had to be changed due to avalanche of contact this weekend.

Watch this space is all I will say.

daheff wrote: »

That's not the same as saying that the HSE is deliberately trying to massage the figures to suit a certain outcome (as is being strongly incinuated).

HSE have set criteria for different situations
...like how people can go into shops for food, but not for non essentials.

How they see close contacts in different situations is dependent on the situation.

I don't agree with this differentiation btw, but they are the paid for experts in their field, working in the ultimate best interests of society....so I am accepting of their decision.

They do want to suit a certain outcome - schools staying open.

''Talking us through a hypothetical school public health risk assessment, after a hypothetical child in a classroom is discovered to have the virus, she said there was a balance to be struck "between what is reasonable, with what is necessary".

On the one hand, Dr Collins said, they want to stop the virus, but on the other she spoke of a "very real understanding that school is a very important place".

"If you designate someone a close contact you are automatically excluding them from education (for 14 days) and exclusion is harmful and undesirable."

Further on in the article, it expands this limited designation of a close contact in a school setting to show how it is similarly used with regard to teachers and SNAs.

So there is quite clearly a difference in how data is gathered regarding close contacts in school settings vs other workplaces. This has been confirmed by Public Health.

downthemiddle wrote: »

So now you think that all students might be sent back tomorrow. I give up.

Who's going back tomorrow, who said that? They'll probably all be sent back at the same time if no agreement can be reached.

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

I can confirm it's at 2pm. Originally planned for 5:30 but had to be changed due to avalanche of contact this weekend.

Watch this space is all I will say.

I can't see the DES backing down to union pressure to be honest. The only reason they backed down last time was because parents and LC students were up in arms.

The only way I can see them being able to retract this and save face is if Tony and NPHET write a letter stating that transmission is still too high to risk greater mobility. They've already said the situation in hospitals today is 'stark'. I can't see why they would risk making this worse by allowing a significant cohort of kids and adults to mix.

And yet tomorrow we have this webinar to tell us all how safe it is. I'd love to know if they actually believe it.

Prepare for a joe duffy special tomorrow with all these advocacy organisations complaining about the unions and a U turn, while working remotely themselves and not providing outreach services

hesaidshesaid wrote: »

I can't see the DES backing down to union pressure to be honest. The only reason they backed down last time was because parents and LC students were up in arms.

The only way I can see them being able to retract this and save face is if Tony and NPHET write a letter stating that transmission is still too high to risk greater mobility. They've already said the situation in hospitals today is 'stark'. I can't see why they would risk making this worse by allowing a significant cohort of kids and adults to mix.

And yet tomorrow we have this webinar to tell us all how safe it is. I'd love to know if they actually believe it.

The only letter I see Tony writing any time soon is to get the schools fully open, give it a while.

Union pressure will only serve as a delay tactic and everyone will be back to school in a few weeks anyway.

The unions will look like they've earned their subscriptions, the government will look like they've compromised and hostility between some of the groups involved will end up having long term negative impacts.

Birdy wrote: »

The main issue is that SETs will be brought into mainstream primary schools along with SNA's to teach children with additional needs. This means that every primary school would be open. Vastly different to just special schools and special classes/units.

Maybe that's the mobility trade-off? LCs and their teachers not moving so mainstream primary SET moves instead.

Birdy wrote: »

There wasn't much outrage when it was mooted that special classes and special schools would return at primary level?

Are those teachers and SNA's not as important?

The funnier thing is that some posters think Norma will resign over this.

So what do you think we are all talking about?

Birdy wrote: »

I stated what the original proposal was and how people didn't seem to be outraged by it. Are the staff in those schools not as important?

They are but it quickly became apparent that the opinions of parents and LC students were going to be what swayed the DES decision so they said very little the last time.

Birdy wrote: »

I don't know any SNA's whereby childcare would be a problem. It's laughable if that is the best Fórsa can come up with.

The reality is they cannot do their job remotely and they get plenty of holidays as it is. Go back or take sick leave. Simple as.

Birdy wrote: »

Are the staff in those schools not as important?

They have the same holidays if that is what you are getting at

hesaidshesaid wrote: »

I think what is meant here is the original proposal that LCs, special schools and special classes would go back last Monday.

If that is the case I apologise for the misunderstanding.

khalessi wrote: »

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40091705.html?type=amp&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&__twitter_impression=true

Covid-19: Expert calls for 'honesty' about decision to keep schools open

Well this is interesting

November 28th

khalessi wrote: »

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40091705.html?type=amp&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&__twitter_impression=true

Covid-19: Expert calls for 'honesty' about decision to keep schools open

Well this is interesting

That's from November.

But it still stands. There has been 0 transparency.

km79 wrote: »

Hi TTLF

I would be interested to hear from an actual LC student first hand how you think remote learning is going this time around in your school . Be it good or bad !
Would be good to get a first hand account rather than some of the conjecture we are being treated to here

Hey km, I would be glad to do this! I’ve been taking a little break from this forum and the boards recently because I wanted to get my “schedule” back on track and spend more time with my family. I will now do what I always do, and do a very in depth analysis on how my life, and the life of schooling as as a 6th year is going. illl do a pros and cons analysis.

Pros
I’ll start off with my school and say, I think I’m one of the very lucky students. My school has been absolutely immaculate with how our day is now run. We start school at the normal time of 8:50am, but we now finish at 2:50pm. This is a class earlier than usual as we would typically finish at 3:30pm instead If we were in school.

I now have 5 classes a day instead of the typical 9. With 6 on Wednesdays (one being religion) but finishing at 1pm as it’s our half day, and lucky me with only 4 classes on Friday. Our school really took the liberty of doing surveys and asking us questions, seeking advice from the student leadership team and created a much better suited online timetable given the circumstances. With this, I don’t feel as burnt out as I did back in March-May with my 9 daily zoom classes which caused more issues than solutions. I’m happier doing my work and at times I have more time to take breaks, study or do homework, so overall my school has definitely created a much better system towards catering for its students especially in 6th year. I was curious and asked a close friend of mine in TY and his schedule seems to be in the same order as mine with regards to breaks and such, so it’s obvious to see 6th yrs are not the only year with staggered classes.

As for myself, the weight of online learning is in the back of my mind, I’m happier we have this new system and I’m typically of one to adjust to these changes quite quickly and respectfully. As I stated in a previous post, the uniform rule went out the window and I’m happy about that because it was never needed in the first place. I’ve become more at ease with schooling this month since it’s different, and I’m lucky enough to be working with my computer I built back in 2016 and have been on the internet since about 2007 so I know how pretty much all of it works. Thanks to that skill, I’m able to do my homework online and quicker than before. My mental health, while deteriorating a little, has been better than in the first lockdown. Not a lot, but before I just felt numb inside, I was lucky to not have to worry about the LC back then of course, but now today is a much different world to back then.

Cons
Schooling is still tough. Nobody wants to be in this situation, ever. The quality of being taught is varied from teacher to teacher, I do believe I need to pick up my own pace and teach myself things because online, classes are never engaging, and typically tend to be the teacher asking random questions towards people with little to no replies. It’s certainly an awkward environment and at times, it can be hard to focus. For example, my maths teacher is a very techy head, so he can make classes engaging and I’m learning maths at the normal rate, and actually understanding what I’m being taught. But then you look at Irish or even geography, where it’s just us looking at our book and reading off of PowerPoints. This isn’t learning to me, I’m a literal sense anyway, it’s more so being taught to a lesser extent. There’s something about being in the classroom that helps you understand the things being taught better, and this can truly be seen in our work. This week hasn’t been amazing for me, but I’m sure it hasn’t been amazing for anyone right now. On Monday and Tuesday, even with only 5 classes a day I was still dumped on with a lot of homework to do, which I have completed, but it took me a long time. I recall on Wednesday night, I was doing homework until about 12am (Thursday) because my business homework was past revision questions (9 of them) which were all 20 or 30 markers which I had 2 days to complete. This is a long process, and took me about 3 hours to type out, and I’m a fast typer. I also had geography work I was doing, where we’ve been going over the glaciatiion chapter, I remember my teacher saying “We aren’t studying this in depth, but you need to know the erosional and Depositional features of glaciation, so I want you to write them out with a diagram etc.” Now I’m one for making sure my work is organised and easy to understand to me, with correct diagrams etc, I’m not sure why I’m like that but it’s just always been the case, but even that took me about 2 hours to do in total, and I didn’t even fully retain it in the end. It could be by my own wrongdoing in the end, but I definitely noticed it in class on Thursday. She gave us an oral test on the chapter, which she kept cutting out during, but a lot of us didn’t really know our material, which is interesting to me because, why is that the case? I read over the chapter in my own time, did out my notes with colour and order, and watched a few videos. (I probably did more than most people did in that class) but we all didn’t know the chapter well. It was so odd and I think it made me realise, retaining information in a homeschool setting is actually so hard to do. So while the quality of the school setting has been much better, the quality of teaching itself completely various from person to person in classes.

How I’ve been doing as a 6th year in the last week.
It’s been really tough. In the last few days I’ve switched off from the media and tried my best to become more relaxed with how angsty I was acting around my family, and tried to endure to the best of my ability what I could do. Although it’s not always worked out. Online school is hard. We all know this, it can never replace real school. But I think the faults I’ve had are also down to my own issues rather than remote learning. There’s times where I’ve become more lazy, which is going to happen when you’re working in a setting that’s meant to be for relaxation (i.e. your bedroom) but I have no choice. Hey, I’m actually lucky I have a place I can sit without constant bother from people walking in and out, most kids don’t have that. But there’s something in me right now that’s making me feel way more chill than I should be. Many students are very stressed right now, but personally I feel nothing. I actually looked at the calendar today and went “wow! My mocks are in just over a month, crap...” The remote learning really makes a student work less diligently than if you’re in school and I’m experiencing this first hand. This can also be down to teachers confusing instructions too however, sometimes they’re not bothered putting up the work on classroom after they’ve said it in the zoom call, while I’m usually able to retain what they ask us to do, many pupils in my class have to ask in the Snapchat group chat what the homework was. I do my due assignments to the best of my ability, because I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I’m either not finding the time, or have become lazy with personally studying. You can never do a remote learning test properly, it’s way easier to cheat, so you never feel like you “have to study for a test.” Now I’m not usually like this, I do study for exams because at the end of the day you’re only kidding yourself if you cheat. But there’s some days where you’re at your limit, and you need to peak at notes at some point to make yourself feel better in class or even mentally. It’s a weird trickery of the mind I guess.

In turn with feeling more lazy, the idea of never having a real routine can trick your mind into thinking you have more time. It’s important of course to take breaks, but I notice myself telling myself I can scroll on TikTok or Twitter or distract myself for longer because I’m not in a position where I have to waste time going to and from school, or feeling hungry because I’ve eaten later than a typical school day. This takes its toll later in the day and I probably speak for a lot of students when I say that. I’m working, but am I working hard? No, probably not to the best of my ability, because homeschool doesn’t have a real feel to it. It’s been a rough week, like I said. It’s hard. I think especially coming from me, it’s been a very tough week because of other things I’ve had to endure. I don’t go outside for exercise, I live in Dublin, the captial with 1.1 million people, my local suburb is riddled with the worst infection rate of COVID and I have underlying heart issues, I’m too scared to go outside, I haven’t left my house properly in two weeks. I went on one walk because my mother pleaded me to so I could clear my head, but I ended up trying to distract myself on my phone during the walk, and actually felt more nervous to be outside than ever before because of the mass amount of people going on what I call “boredom walks” which I have to avoid. Even when I went at 8pm on my walk, it didn’t help and I ran into almost 12 or 13 people I had to keep crossing the road to avoid or even walk in the centre of the road. I think I’m being a little paranoid there when I do that, but honestly I’m terrified because I already have enough Heath issues to deal with and I don’t need more. I’ve also had to help out my girl friend over the phone, crying because her granny was admitted to hospital (not COVID related) but being gutted I couldn’t be there for her in a time of need, and only being able to offer her to watch a movie together to cheer her up, that to me is soul crushing, add the complex situation we’re all in and I felt super upset inside. Every night I stare at the ceiling and ask myself why I’m not working harder, better. I know this work I’m doing isn’t to the best of my ability, but there’s something in me that’s not letting me push myself to that, something mentally. No routine really sucks, and even if you try make one for yourself it’s hard to stick to. I do checklists and try manage my work, but I never get around to really hitting the books properly. I’ve given up in the debacle for our Leaving Cert, I keep up to date at times but it’s so topsy turbey I think I’d have better luck winning the lottery than guessing the outcome on their decision. It’s very hard to work towards an uncertain goal. I don’t even have traditional mocks anymore with new info being asked because DEB pulled out. I hope the weeks get better, January is quite a depressing time for most people, and I think where we are right now isn’t helping. I’ve actually been playing Minecraft with a few friends from America lately to help cheer myself up and I’ve been cooking just to get a refresh in my head, but it also makes me feel guilty I’m doing this, because just like walking, doing it constantly ends up being a time waster than real help. As my father said to me, “you’ll never get these days again, so work hard.” And I agree with him, but it also stresses me out a little bit lol. My mental health is deteriorating and I’m not sure how to feel, I keep telling myself to work harder, but I never end up changing the routine I’m in because it changes from day to day. I think sleep is a big issue I’m trying to fix, but it’s hard to do when you have no routine so my sleep is a bit all over the place and wrong. If there’s one thing I’ll say, I miss the luxury of after school study where I got 2 real hours of work in a day. .

Just know, if you’re a teacher or a leaving cert student like me, it’s okay to feel not okay. I’m going through this too, and it’s a really tough time for us. I suggest listening to the Nintendo “Wii weather sound track” or the “Minecraft Sound track” to relax to, it’s certainly helped me. Or if you’re into movies, I really enjoyed the stories from the Studio Ghibli studio on Netflix, they’ve really helped me through the past 2 rough weeks. I hope everything can become normal again soon, but only fate knows when that may be, stay safe everyone, and remember to live life to the best you can, even if you have an off day like me .

I hope this helped Km, sorry if this was an over the top insight, but if you actually read to the end, I’m very thankful you took time out of your day to do so. Stay well!