Schools and Covid 19 (part 5) **Mod warnings in OP**

When all this is over, and a review of how things were handled is done, will it be found that the Government/NPHET blatently lied about the schools being safe originally?

Over the last few days, I have heard various experts say how the schools are a hive of infections at present, and they are accounting for a third of all cases in the country.

Yet they were safe as houses only a few months back, claimed many times by NPHET.

What changed? Or as stated, was it all a pack of lies to keep them open?

Why do you want your kids getting so much homework?

Well as parents we do that in every other aspect of his life so I don't see the problem with letting him have 5 minutes a day to do something independently of us that his teacher will check anyway. He's 10, not 5, so I trust that he will do the work to the best of his ability and according to his teacher his homework is always of an excellent standard.

If you have a PCR on Day 5 they'd find it hard to argue. Antigen aren't as good as PCR tests so they ask you to do 3 over 5 days. One PCR at the end should be sufficient. But it could take 48 hours to get a result. Storm will have stopped testing today so there will be a backlog to clear as well. I'd do the antigen tests if I was you.

Solid post. Thanks for the insight.

Do you think some form of a supervised study hour incorporated into the school day instead of homework would be beneficial?

It could potentially keep the positive aspects of homework, while not encroaching on their leisure time either, and also add a bit of variation to their day.

Covid-19 spreading in schools only became an issue in recent months. Why?

(1) Reasonable measures were put in place in September 2020 in schools which ensured that the disease did not spread widely in schools. Unstructured engagements such as birthday parties and playdates were a much bigger factor in spread at that time.

(2) Protection fatigue has become a factor. Across society, social distancing, mask-wearing and handwashing rates have declined. They were important factors in school protection and their decline has led to an increase in infection in schools.

(3) The latest variants are more infectious and the measures that were put in place over the last year are less effective.

That may be true of your school, but it is not true generally. Significant measures have been taken. As someone involved in a Board of Management, I am aware of many measures that have been taken.

Nowhere was safe from the virus, that has always been the case, but schools were and are safer environments than birthday parties, playdates, etc. which are unstructured mixing environments.

As far as I can see, they keep the classes apart at break time, they use hand gel and open the widows. Yes there is enhanced cleaning too.The CO2 monitors aren't much use because it's either let them red line or freeze the kids. Are we going to have to close the schools everytime there is a NW/NE wind?

They could have added IR heater panels, electrical upgrade probably needed. They could have put in HEPA filters. Very little capital was spent to make things better.

Neither of my kids have been to birthday parties, very little of that has been happening. They have only had playdates with kids in their class. Trying to blame it on that is corck of sh1t.

A guy I work with has a big family, one of his kids caught covid in school, 9 in her class caught it last I heard 3 of his kids now have it, probably more by now. A lady me wife works with has had the whole class sent home and told to book PCR test there are that many cases in the class. That's all evidence I need to show the measures done simply aren't effective. It would have been far better to overspend on measure and not need them, it would at least slow the spread.

Most classes have a consumer unit, so run a wire to celling to mount the heater panels. Don't the army, OPW and council have electricians. Weren't sites shut down for a good portion of last year, weren't the schools closed at the same time. They had the ability to keep us 2k from home they could easily have done upgrades in schools. Even if you could only do 80% of classes and get to the remaining 20% later.

Viruses go two ways the become very severe and kill the host and die out. Or they become milder and cause less problems for the host, the hope is that Omicron will be milder

People's freedoms are a bit more important than a few rules by a long shot. So if you can set them aside you can break a few other rules. The cost the tax payer is running into the billions so 100 million an capital for schools would be money well spent. If they needed trades people and appealed for help I'm sure they would have gotten it.

Total rubbish, I am a PP teacher, the only measures in place are Carbon dioxide monitors in some rooms…which do nothing to stop the spread of COVID and windows open all day everyday, anyone telling you anything else is lying !!

The measures and theory behind what was put in place are great but how those measures then work in reality when hundreds of kids are in the same building leave an awful awful lot to be desired I'm afraid.

So you don't have staggered start and finish times, you don't have restrictions in staff rooms, you don't have pods, you don't have masks, you don't have different yard times etc. etc. you only have windows open and CO2 monitors.

We've just had the schools closed for two days due to a "storm" AkA it was to windy to teach and have the windows open. The first day yes it was the storm but second day? Do you really expect me to believe that!

@duffsfarm sorry about the hassle but look on the bright side, they are less likely to have it over Christmas now. Wonder how many parents will take them out next week

They were making the case on Primetime for closing schools a bit earlier before Christmas. I was only half listening, but I think they were wanting them to close 17th

I'm a secondary teacher and I give zero homework. I test them instead (1 a month in 1st year, fortnightly every other year and weekly for exam years) small, manageable tests that add up to an entire revision of the course by the end of the year. The exam timetable for the year is given at the beginning of the school year so it doubles as a study plan. Parents and students love it but it took me 7 years of teaching to figure out that homework was a waste of time. For all of the reasons that @glack mentioned and also the added reason (in the case of second level) that they all copy it. It used to be that they would copy off each other on the corridors or before school, but they are much more sophisticated now and have 'homework' Whatsapp groups!

100%. If they are going to do this, they need to decide now. It's ridiculously disrespectful to working parents announcing it with a day or two's notice

There are roughly 1 million households in Ireland, so the 100 Euro off your next energy bill is going to cost 100 Million Euros. Yet they couldn't find 80 million to make schools safer because of "procurement rules" or some other nonsense. Raging

For some people it will be life line others nice and all as it is it's not needed they aren't struggling.

Not sure. The circular issued to schools might be what you are looking for?