I am a teacher, and there are loads of issues that could do with being ironed out. In Scotland, the yeargroup cut off is 1 March, with a school year that starts in August. This results in some pupils completing National Qualifications (GCSE Equiv), but not being old enough to leave school. Every year we put significant resource into providing a curriculum, and staffing, for pupils who don’t want to be there from August to Christmas (when they can legally leave).

WRT Football, wouldn’t a delay to the end of the current season potentially allow for a between season break that accommodates the 2022 Qatar World Cup?

How about making fun of some of the other professions on the forum for a change, DD: DrP, Drac, rocketdog, TiRed, TJ, Cougar, Konabunny, Greatape, Kerley… we all know what they do but people don’t take the piss (edit: out of there professions as it isn’t obvious to one).

Teacher retention is lousy, there’s a reason for that. Get out A-A, they don’t deserve your skills and commitment. Try elsewhere, you might like it and get well paid and some deserved respect.

anagallis_arvensis

I like my job tbh.

How dare you come here with that attitude!

Stay in A-A! You’re needed.

A-A

Feel free to send your kids to school, I’ll be on holiday!

What attitude will that be then,

No smiley so those of us not in the know might have taken that at face value.

Yep aware some teach

Edit premature post, further contentious views below.

You don’t need to take the piss out of TJ’s job – he gives you enough ammo without bringing his profession into it.

Assuming schools are closed for the whole of the summer term (IMHO that’s fine if it needs to happen) does anyone have any idea how the practical aspects of children being out of school for 6 months are likely to be handled? I’m thinking mainly of Y7-10. How effective can remote learning be? Will they revisit/revise work from the summer term next September, or do they carry on in September as normal? Once they are prised from the xbox pale and pasty in September it will be a shock to get back to formal learning. Concerned parent here.

Of course they’re all working really hard at the moment, on no, that’s right, they’re in the first of their 2 week Easter break

You might take the time to have kids, see all the records and bits and pieces the Teachers create for the kids x 30 or thereabouts and have a think where all that time comes from.   As a parent of two, I’d also wonder how long it’d take me to recover from dealing with 30 of the little tikes every day.

we all know what they do but people don’t take the piss.

Lazy, gold plated pensions and they don’t care about anything as they can’t be sacked. I even seen one NHS worker having a cup of tea.

Deleted just in case it wasn’t obvious it was a joke…

Remote learning can be really effective if the parents take an interest making sure the kids do the work and have understood it. Many of you parents are at home with your kids, take an interest, you might learn soemthing too.

A-A

Feel free to send your kids to school, I’ll be on holiday!

What attitude will that be then,

Can’t imagine, no smiley so those of us not in the know might have taken that at face value especially given some of your previous posts.

Yep aware some teachers are off as they are vulnerable, care for others who are vulnerable, plenty who aren’t in these catrgories as well.

Educator

Point 1 – fair comment, I’d want negotiation about such a big contract change.

Point 2 – fair enough for the kids, they do need a break, 6 weeks in one stint is a bit long though, be better spreading the weeks out.

Point 3 – I expect a lot of people will be working extra hours, those lucky enough to still have a job, those recovering from the financial effects of furlough. There will be a lot needing doing to get society back on its feet and as teachers are such key workers I’d expect them to muck in.

indeed they are often in for significant parts of it for in service training, induction of new teachers etc etc.

TJ what a load of guff, some of the senior teachers are in and most teachers do some work in the holiday periods but to suggest most work significant parts of yhe holidays shows your lack of understanding. Your second point though is pretty spot on, chances of getting kids into school in meaningful numbers is nil given pre-booked holidays etc.

Many of you parents are at home with your kids, take an interest, you might learn soemthing too.

It’s true. We did spelling today.

I’m learning that teachers are even shitter at anything IT related than I’d imagined.

“Remote learning can be really effective if the parents take an interest making sure the kids do the work and have understood it. Many of you parents are at home with your kids, take an interest, you might learn soemthing too.”

Thanks, I certainly take an interest. My question was mainly about how schools are likely to deal with it, not my personal situation.

Back in my day even projectors and TV’s would befuddle most teachers 😀

I’m learning that teachers are even shitter at anything IT related than I’d imagined.

What with no training and being asked on a Thursday to be educating all students at home by Monday (I’m only exaggerating slightly, this is more or less what the Government expected)?

I actually think (based on my knowledge of local schools in Somerset) that schools are doing an amazing job. They have adapted to a completely different way of working with no warning and little or no resource.

The feedback we have had from parents and the local community in general has been really positive. With many of our vulnerable families they have not heard from their social workers, Virtual Schools (children looked after) or other external support but they are getting regular contact from us. As above, we are open over Easter for children of key workers and vulnerable children. We have also been warned that we may have to continue staffing school over the summer holiday; which we will do as we have a key role in supporting our community and it is the right thing to do.

What’s this rubbish in the press about them thinking about opening schools up again, because it’s shown to not make much difference as kids aren’t badly effected. True, but what about spreading it to all the parents and school staff who may well die from it, or pass it on.

Am I stupid or is this a really bad idea?

What with no training and being asked on a Thursday to be educating all students at home by Monday

I missed the smiley! They’re all doing a great job, to be fair. 😀

They’re certainly not losing their famed sense of humour either. 😉

Just got in from work and gone for a walk, saw a police patrol driving round the bottom end of the local park, walked to the top of the park and the evening weed dealing **** hang out was full of the towns popping and farting exhaust chav mobiles all there having a MaxPower get together!
Rang local police to instruct them to drive round and go to the top car park instead for a bustomatic on them all.

Chav idiots.

It’s non-contactual work – do you do that?

Ha ha ha, is that a real question? Spent much time in the private sector?

I’ll bow out at this point, it seems I’ve managed to massively derail the busiest thread on STW.

Suffice to say the Teachers and Partners of Teachers of STW don’t think it’s a good idea to extend the school term past it’s usual end. Noted.

Jesus, No.10 can’t even do social distancing for the TV
C4 News just now had a clip showing a bloke delivering flowers to No.10.
Door opens, out leans a police officer (or security guard) and the guy delivering the flowers passes them directly to him.

Suffice to say the Teachers and Partners of Teachers of STW don’t think it’s a good idea to extend the school term past it’s usual end. Noted.

I think it’s more that you think any opposition from teachers to your idea is “flaky”. But yeah, I’m out.

I liked this thread when it had more scientific content.

Bitching about teachers doesn’t help any of us.

Easter holidays provide a natural break in the war and time to take stock on whether things can be lifted. Looking an my predictions l, Spain and Italy are looking like they have reached peak COVID and that informs on the U.K. position. But…. here is the kicker… forward projection assumes that things do not change appreciably before the fire is over.

I cannot see a return to school next term. The U.K. epidemic will be declining by summer half-term, at which point it’s only “half a term to go” and the risk of a mass increase in mixing will be seen as too great.

And I have ALWAYS had A-A down as an all-round good guy and credit to the teaching profession. Since nobody asked. I have immense respect for anyone that takes that vocation.

I cannot see a return to school next term. The U.K. epidemic will be declining by summer half-term, at which point it’s only “half a term to go” and the risk of a mass increase in mixing will be seen as too great.

I’ve been saying this since day 1.

On the thornier subject of school timetables – I can see that there might be a need for some initial extra workload/changing of school holidays during 2020. Perhaps even a return to school a month earlier than normal in order to catch up, or a modification/reduction of the Autumn mid-term break. That surely shouldn’t need a review of teachers contracts etc

Anybody know the provenance of the IHME (Seattle)?

They are predicting the UK will be the worst hit in Europe with 40% of the dead (3,000 a day at peak, 66,000 by August, peak in 10 days) apparently due to dicking about with ‘herd immunity’… 😱

Or so it says here: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/uk-will-be-europes-worst-hit-by-coronavirus-study-predicts

Hoping @TiRed can cast some light (esp. wrt predictions…) as that’s some pretty **** scary shit…

We’re both teachers with a 6yo only child at home who needs help with his work, keeping him occupied, getting him online for his school hangouts classes, all the while setting work, (I’ve done 5h of video classes today) so it’s been great fun juggling all that. Can’t wait to go for a ride…
Oh.

I’m learning that teachers are even shitter at anything IT related than I’d imagined.

Genuine lol remembering when our teacher would roll in the TV/VCR trolley to watch Look and Read and spend the entire class fiddling with the cables to no avail

http://covid19.healthdata.org/united-kingdom

To see arrogant tossers trolling out the ignorant and defamatory tropes has hit a nerve.

I can see where you got your username from. 😃

I’ve just realised who Dominic Raab reminds me of (seen here with the rest of the cabinet).

@scotroutes: it’s not really any less scary in graphs and infographics.

I was wondering if they were ‘legit’ or click bait. My confirmation bias says if it’s passed the guardian it’s reasonably reliable but, you know, confirmation bias….

@metalheart I was going to ask exactly the same thing.

@TiRed why do you think the imhe data is so significantly different to all other studies so far?

@metalheart – the graphs at least show that they’ve already massively overestimated for yesterday and today.

The problem with deaths reported yesterday and today is we don’t actually know when they died. Or if they represent the true total number for the day (see the variation you’ve already reported for Scottish deaths outside of hospital for starters)…

ETA: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/04/why-what-we-think-we-know-about-the-uks-coronavirus-death-toll-is-wrong

I was quite disturbed when I found the wife playing scrabble with herself today

i just think it might be a good idea if you move into the garden shed for a while… pic.twitter.com/8ttGctreG5

— forest fr1ends (@forest_fr1ends) April 7, 2020

read the words

https://twitter.com/funnypenny/status/1247603978680090629/photo/1

FINAL predictions are VERY sensitive to model assumptions during the ascending part of the curve. That has to be factored into ANY future prediction. It is still rather early for the UK, slightly early for Spain, although I can call Italy. My model uses forward information to inform on the UK trends.

I have just this evening added a final prediction statistic to the plots. For Italy this number is likely to be robust:

Italy 33000 (29400 to 37400) deaths

Spain will be worse. I think that is all I want to say tonight.

How effective can remote learning be? Will they revisit/revise work from the summer term next September, or do they carry on in September as normal?

Remote learning will be shit, many are doing nothing, some are doing some and others are drowning in an attempt to do it all. A quarter of parents think we arent setting enough, another quarter think we arecsetting to much and the other half havent looked. Much like homework in general it will widen the gap between free school meal /pp kids and the rest.

Mostly I am expecting to pretty much take up where we left off. For current year 10’s its going to be hard to get the course completed, maybe exams could be pushed back into the holidays next summer but it is going to be the same for all.

it will widen the gap between free school meal /pp kids and the rest

Exactly this… entirely possible to teach remotely, but can’t do the parenting gap filling and social care that teachers in schools with a deprived intake perform on a daily basis in more normal times. Most people have no idea what many teachers do beyond what their own kids require of them.

Some kids won’t just fall behind while schools are shut, they will fall through the cracks completely. Hearing the efforts that some staff are going to in terms of contacting kids and parents with issues at the end of the last term was very telling, and they can simply can’t help in the way the normally do when seeing the kids every day.

Once they are prised from the xbox pale and pasty in September it will be a shock to get back to formal learning. Concerned parent here.

Maybe a concerned parent could take action with regards to the pale and pasty Xbox scenario 😉