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

landofthetree

Time to close all the schools bar LC.

Summer holidays from April to June.

Then reopen in July + August to finish this academic year. Two weeks off in Sep and make it up over Halloween and Easter 2022.

penny piper

combat14 wrote: »

absolute dismal reading tonight .. looks like the govt are going to relax restrictions a little bit but only because rules are being broken left right and centre anyway

Tánaiste tells TDs of ‘deteriorating’ Covid-19 situation and fears relaxing lockdown could make it worse

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/tanaiste-tells-tds-of-deterioratingcovid-19-situation-and-fears-relaxing-lockdown-could-make-it-worse-40236679.html

The problem is the vaccination programme ....no point in relaxing anything..I think it was a mistake to vaccinate the older/care home generation first. (because it's generally thought older people will adhere to the restrictions better}..maybe it would have been better to start with the working population....

beggars_bush

landofthetree wrote: »

Time to close all the schools bar LC.

Summer holidays from April to June.

Then reopen in July + August to finish this academic year. Two weeks off in Sep and make it up over Halloween and Easter 2022.

You must be a comedian

landofthetree

landofthetree wrote: »

Time to close all the schools bar LC.

Summer holidays from April to June.

Then reopen in July + August to finish this academic year. Two weeks off in Sep and make it up over Halloween and Easter 2022.

Why? Cases are stable if growing slowly, hospital admissions are falling still and we will be giving 250k vaccines a week from next month

wirelessdude01

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Why? Cases are stable if growing slowly, hospital admissions are falling still and we will be giving 250k vaccines a week from next month

Tanaiste told FG party tonight there was 9% growth in cases over past week. Even higher growth expected over the next week based on swab data.

combat14

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Tanaiste told FG party tonight there was 9% growth in cases over past week. Even higher growth expected over the next week based on swab data.

and we are still in a worse situation than when restrictions were eased in november last year despite months of lock down

this new uk variant is some dose no pun intended

landofthetree

beggars_bush wrote: »

You must be a comedian

I was the one who last August said they should change the academic year and plan ahead for schools closing in Jan and Feb.

They need to do the same for academic year 2021/22. Be ready to close in Jan and Feb and keep the schools open in June and July.

namloc1980

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Tanaiste told FG party tonight there was 9% growth in cases over past week. Even higher growth expected over the next week based on swab data.

The median age of which is 32 today so the chances of severe disease, hospitalisation and death are much reduced. At some point we have to stop basing our strategy just on the pure raw numbers of cases. Hospitalisation and ICU cases are going down as more vulnerable get jabs.

munster87

landofthetree wrote: »

I was the one who last August said they should change the academic year and plan ahead for schools closing in Jan and Feb.

They need to do the same for academic year 2021/22. Be ready to close in Jan and Feb and keep the schools open in June and July.

I was wondering who it was that said that last August.

km79

munster87 wrote: »

I was wondering who it was that said that last August.

wirelessdude01

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Tanaiste told FG party tonight there was 9% growth in cases over past week. Even higher growth expected over the next week based on swab data.

There is no divergence between swab and case data. And the rate of positive tests today was quite low

TTLF

hesaidshesaid wrote: »

Not to minimise your stress levels here TTLF, but to be honest most students do their best, most-focused work the week before the exam. Maybe even the night before. I appreciate that this isn’t the ideal way to work, that it’s not an ideal situation you’re in but I’d suggest just giving a certain amount of time per day to the prep. Practise your answers aloud, have some good phrases learned off. (I taught LC French so have some experience here.) It’s one part of one exam, not even one of your strongest subjects you say, so possibly you’re not planning to count it anyway? Either way, you only have whatever amount of days to go so my advice would be to just put your head down til then and then forget about it. Do your best and just move on. Everything you’ve written here over the past few months indicates that you have a high level of cop on. Don’t let this phase you. Best of luck!

I do understand this, and it's out of my control so I will be cramming for the most part until then. I am planning to count this subject because I do OL maths, which I won't be sitting.

I think I'm just frustrated based off how we never really had time to really go over this, and that my first ever "oral" in German, will be the real thing. Unlike in French where they've practiced Oral stuff since the JC.

Unfortunately some of my teachers also don't give a toss about anything but their class. For example, we're rushing through our Geography "Field study" and my teacher expects us to write up X things every night, but gives confusing instructions, so I have to figure out how best to approach that project because I'm aiming for a H1/2 in Geography since I love it.

Or in History, where we're doing some small tests apart of our assessment which I need to revise, or notes we must have in Business.

It's more finding the time to learn it with everything right now, and only having a week to fully learn everything. I did do some stuff tonight though. So hopefully all goes well.

Thanks anyway for the response, all I can do is my best at the end of the day, I just tend to be really really hard on myself in these situations and always tell myself "X" grade isn't good enough and I can do better. :rolleyes:

Cheers

Messi19

No testing under 16s in the walk-in centres speaks volumes

j@utis

landofthetree wrote: »

I was the one who last August said they should change the academic year and plan ahead for schools closing in Jan and Feb.

They need to do the same for academic year 2021/22. Be ready to close in Jan and Feb and keep the schools open in June and July.

It's impossible. Teachers will never give up their summer holidays for time off in winter months!!!

am_zarathustra

j@utis wrote: »

It's impossible. Teachers will never give up their summer holidays for time off in winter months!!!

Change the word teachers to parents and children there.

I haven't spoken to a single parent in my school who'd support this and I speak to a fair few every week.

Let kids enjoy their summer, run summer schools and July provision for SEN and DEIS and let kids be kids. I can't think of a worse thing than telling a 10 year old on a hot July day to go in their and do maths........summers were and are a massively important social experience for kids and a bondong time for families away from the worry about packed lunches, homework, permission slips etc

The transition back next year will need to be managed and started mid August for staff, like this year.

I hope there's lovely weather this summer for everyones sake but mostly the kids

tom1ie

landofthetree wrote: »

Time to close all the schools bar LC.

Summer holidays from April to June.

Then reopen in July + August to finish this academic year. Two weeks off in Sep and make it up over Halloween and Easter 2022.

Nope.

iguana

landofthetree wrote: »

I was the one who last August said they should change the academic year and plan ahead for schools closing in Jan and Feb.

Well that was a pretty silly thing to say as I think you'll find that a lot of parents actually want their children to have holidays. Being stuck at home for 2 months, not allowed to have social interactions, days out, time with extended family or normal childhood adventures is not a holiday.

PowerToWait

iguana wrote: »

Well that was a pretty silly thing to say as I think you'll find that a lot of parents actually want their children to have holidays. Being stuck at home for 2 months, not allowed to have social interactions, days out, time with extended family or normal childhood adventures is not a holiday.

Who cares about any of that when you get to piss off those slacking teachers? /s

penny piper

Messi19 wrote: »

No testing under 16s in the walk-in centres speaks volumes

What's the reason for that??? surely if they have a parent/guardian with them they can be tested....

Icyseanfitz

penny piper wrote: »

What's the reason for that??? surely if they have a parent/guardian with them they can be tested....

would be a nice way to increase the rate in the other age groups while making up to 16s look smaller and so "schools are safe"

DSN

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

would be a nice way to increase the rate in the other age groups while making up to 16s look smaller and so "schools are safe"

Really?!!

Maybe they think Jonny & Mary be dragging the whole brood up there twice a week to get tested 'in case' & sure make an outing out of it while they at it quick spin into Aldi & let them run around the playground.

Oh hang on - why not arrange to bring a couple of kids friends too make a playdate out of it.

JDD

DSN wrote: »

Really?!!

Maybe they think Jonny & Mary be dragging the whole brood up there twice a week to get tested 'in case' & sure make an outing out of it while they at it quick spin into Aldi & let them run around the playground.

Oh hang on - why not arrange to bring a couple of kids friends too make a playdate out of it.

We're down to 313 hospital cases and 75 in the ICU.

Half a million vulnerable people have had their first dose. We'll be grand when we open a bit on 5 April - there should be close to another 200k with their first dose by then. Yes, infections will go up, probably over the 2k a day mark, but it won't overwhelm the hospitals, so there's no need to close schools after the Easter holidays. As we ramp up vaccinations in April/May/June daily infections will reduce.

There's no choice but to open a bit on 5 April, as people are breaking the rules now anyway. Keeping all restrictions and god help us, closing the schools again will be counterproductive. I am not in the least bit disappointed in people that they are breaking the rules now - I am flabbergasted that we've managed to keep them up for so long. It has really brought comfort to me that we are a strong society. But we're human too, and really this is as far as anyone could have expected that we would adhere to this level of restrictions.

frank8211

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

would be a nice way to increase the rate in the other age groups while making up to 16s look smaller and so "schools are safe"

Thats a very good point.... the "schools are safe" lie must be kept going at all costs

Icyseanfitz

frank8211 wrote: »

Thats a very good point.... the "schools are safe" lie must be kept going at all costs

with all the obscuring of data and the complete lack of willingness to even admit that schools might add to transmission to any degree, it wouldnt surprise me in the slightest.

DSN

JDD wrote: »

We're down to 313 hospital cases and 75 in the ICU.

Half a million vulnerable people have had their first dose. We'll be grand when we open a bit on 5 April - there should be close to another 200k with their first dose by then. Yes, infections will go up, probably over the 2k a day mark, but it won't overwhelm the hospitals, so there's no need to close schools after the Easter holidays. As we ramp up vaccinations in April/May/June daily infections will reduce.

There's no choice but to open a bit on 5 April, as people are breaking the rules now anyway. Keeping all restrictions and god help us, closing the schools again will be counterproductive. I am not in the least bit disappointed in people that they are breaking the rules now - I am flabbergasted that we've managed to keep them up for so long. It has really brought comfort to me that we are a strong society. But we're human too, and really this is as far as anyone could have expected that we would adhere to this level of restrictions.

You know I was being sarcastic right lol

Richard tea

Icyseanfitz wrote: »

with all the obscuring of data and the complete lack of willingness to even admit that schools might add to transmission to any degree, it wouldnt surprise me in the slightest.

Has the government not stated that in school transmission is up from 2.4 % to 2.7% or a figure close to that?

https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/newsfeatures/covid19-updates/covid-19-schools-and-childcare-facilities-mass-testing-report-week-11-2021.pdf

The data presented in this report are the results of the close contact testing undertaken in
educational and childcare facilities following notification to Departments of Public Health of a
confirmed case of Covid-19 who had attended a facility during the infectious time period.

An average of 22 tests being completed for each school where contact tracing was carried out.

A detection rate of 2.7% from that contact tracing.

Compared to 9.6% in childcare.

It appears there is strong data to back up that schools are safer

km79

Might be an idea for the Department to inform schools if s and s will be operating as normal......if over 60s will continue to work from home.......

You know kind of important stuff to know before the Easter break !

beggars_bush

Deleted User wrote: »

https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/newsfeatures/covid19-updates/covid-19-schools-and-childcare-facilities-mass-testing-report-week-11-2021.pdf






An average of 22 tests being completed for each school where contact tracing was carried out.

A detection rate of 2.7% from that contact tracing.

Compared to 9.6% in childcare.

It appears there is strong data to back up that schools are safer

if they actually tested a higher % they would pick up far more positive cases
3000 is a very small sample size

beggars_bush

beggars_bush wrote: »

if they actually tested a higher % they would pick up far more positive cases
3000 is a very small sample size

3,000 is a very large sample size. But even if it wasn't, this isn't random testing, its close contact testing therefore more likely to return positives than random testing anyway. They tested 22 per school