Teachers get it handy!

[manfromdelmonte]

There aren't too many jobs where the employee will be expected to spend 5-6 hours in a small room with up to 30 and sometimes more pupils, with no social distancing, no PPE advised and little ventilation.

Cannot understand why they didn't go with a half day for schools for eg the first 3 weeks, just to make sure all covid regulations were working and any issues could have been sorted before a full opening

[delgany]

There aren't too many jobs where the employee will be expected to spend 5-6 hours in a small room with up to 30 and sometimes more pupils, with no social distancing, no PPE advised and little ventilation.

Cannot understand why they didn't go with a half day for schools for eg the first 3 weeks, just to make sure all covid regulations were working and any issues could have been sorted before a full opening

A gradual start was the plan for most schools, however , Minister Weird , was tapped up,  to make a change without consulting anyone outside of his Party .

For one thing , if risk assessments are adhered to , some schools will not open  full time. No school has an expert in risk assessment and few have attended any suitable training.

No Principal or Governors ( although indemified ) will be happy with the threat of being sued by a Union.

He should have enabled a gradual return to normal hours over a 3 -4 week period !

[marty34]

There aren't too many jobs where the employee will be expected to spend 5-6 hours in a small room with up to 30 and sometimes more pupils, with no social distancing, no PPE advised and little ventilation.

Cannot understand why they didn't go with a half day for schools for eg the first 3 weeks, just to make sure all covid regulations were working and any issues could have been sorted before a full opening

A gradual start was the plan for most schools, however , Minister Weird , was tapped up,  to make a change without consulting anyone outside of his Party .

For one thing , if risk assessments are adhered to , some schools will not open  full time. No school has an expert in risk assessment and few have attended any suitable training.

No Principal or Governors ( although indemified ) will be happy with the threat of being sued by a Union.

He should have enabled a gradual return to normal hours over a 3 -4 week period !

From what I can see all Weir, by doing this, wants to appease the transfer test kids/parents.

[delgany]

To put the situation in perspective, about 10 000 children do the GL /AQE test .
There are 345 000 children enrolled in the Education System in the North.

[Angelo]

It should be known that Teachers are the victims in all of this.

Aye.

Teachers, victims.

[JimStynes]

Strike?

[Farrandeelin]

It should be known that Teachers are the victims in all of this.

Aye.

Teachers, victims.

You obviously haven't read Bunker's posts.

[ONeill]

Will be interested to see how it goes in ICT classes. Are all PCs and Macs to be cleaned after every class?

[RadioGAAGAA]

From what I can see all Weir, by doing this, wants to appease the transfer test kids/parents.

That'll work well when there is a rake of them or their teachers down with the virus by the time of the tests.

[Jim Bob]

From what I can see all Weir, by doing this, wants to appease the transfer test kids/parents.

That'll work well when there is a rake of them or their teachers down with the virus by the time of the tests.

The problem is Sinn Fein have conceded the transfer debate to the unionists in exchange for justice being devolved therefore Weir has a free run at this...

[Smurfy123]

Not long now

[tbrick18]

Why does social distancing not apply to children when they are in school but does after 3pm?
They can pick this virus up from ones in their bubble just as easy as from anyone outside it.

Oh no, its better than that.

The school will keep them in a bubble in the classroom - then load them all onto the usual busses at the usual  service rate (i.e. "full to capacity").

So the "bubbles" is 100% ineffective.
The bus drivers are at significantly increased risk.
Anyone else on a normal service bus that carries school kids are at a significantly increased risk.
The parents are at significantly increased risk.
and finally the teachers are at significantly increased risk.

How, after 5 months to work on it, Peter Weir can conclude this is the course of action to take is beyond me. I'd love to see the reports that led him to this conclusion. I fully expect it all to come out in the inevitable court case when someone dies because of transmission via a school.

Might has well not have closed schools at all!

It smells of "a feck it, we'll try it and see how we get on as anything else is too much of a headache".
My wife is a PS teacher of a P1 class. She has 32 kids to teach. They were just about able to do the 1m social distancing with 15 kids in a class. Her head teacher has said that if any of the children in the class show any symptoms, the entire class and staff will be sent home to isolate. Now if my wife is sent home to isolate, does that not mean my whole family need to isolate? And what about the other schools my kids go to? If my kids are isolating due to my wife isolating, when should those other classes do?
In normal times when kids return to school in September there is usually a flu/vomiting/stomach bug that starts doing the rounds within a month. This time around, when that happens everyone will have to stay at home and isolate.
Schools will still be empty after a month and the the sub-teacher industry will also go into overdrive.

There's no risk free scenario, I agree, but this is the absolute most risky approach to take. Weir is not fit for purpose.

[tbrick18]

Timetables/scheduling.

I'd two different schedules sent to me in July from different schools for my own children. Throw in my own and it was almost impossible to manage it without me having to leave my work at times.

Say for example Belfast - I thought schools would have somehow managed to get together to work something that synced.

This is a failure of the dept of Ed and the Peter Weir.
The schools had to do their own thing as nothing was mandated from the central body. So every school had to work out what advice to follow for their setting and try to put something in place. A school is by it's nature only set up to control it's own environment. The Dept have responsibility for setting up a strategy for all schools to adhere to, and they couldnt do it.
You are a 100% right though. As of Sept, I'll have 3 kids in different year groups at secondary....and before the "f*ck it moment" of sending everyone back, they all had staggered start dates and different days in school. I have 2 in primary, which were running on a different schedule and 1 starting nursery and we've still no idea what's happening there.
Impossible for any family to manage all the difference schedules and try to go to work.

[tbrick18]

Will be interested to see how it goes in ICT classes. Are all PCs and Macs to be cleaned after every class?

Sure desks are the same. For secondary children that move to different rooms for different subjects, the desks would need cleaned down too.
Door handles?
Toilets?

[Milltown Row2]

In other news, the results are coming out this Thursday for the A level students

Going by the complete fcuk up in Scotland it seems that there may be similar issues here..

My kids are both waiting on results A level's and GCSE .. The teachers have put a huge amount of time into getting the 'correct' results based on previous tests like AS's and so on, but the problem in Scotland seems to be the that they don't have the same testing method as we do here for A level students? Are tests in Scotland carried out in lower 6th?