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

Agree with you here - I as a parent accept fully that there will be issues over the next few weeks - that classes may be sent home, that there may be early morning messages not to send your child to school today etc. Most parents will be very understanding of staffing issues in schools - these problems are way better than the problems home schooling young children creates.

Its controlled in that there are procedures in place - these procedures are the best that can be in the circumstances.

Schools are as controlled as factories, supermarkets, restaurants, pubs, coffee shops, hospitals, GPs surgeries etc - nowhere is safe from covid. There are many jobs that are mixing with large numbers of people and in the examples I have given the actual numbers of households mixing is very high.

Personal responsibility plays a huge role in the fight against covid - everyone needs to look at the steps they take to keep themselves safe - masks, hand sanitising, social distancing, taking vitamins, being healthy, hot shower when you get home etc. - no employer can guarantee you will not get covid in your workplace.

I can see from my own second class kids that been back in school is better for them. But that does not mean I am happy with how this has been handled. I now have little to no confidence in the government or their ability to follow the science and set clear consistent rules. Their planning is also terrible. 

They put all their eggs in the vaccine basket and that it would get us out of this. The vaccine has prevented a lot of serious illness and saved lives but it hasn’t stopped transmission it’s not the 95% silver bullet they manufactures initially said it was. Even talking into account needing boosters if it was 70 80 % effective it should have cut the R number to point where covid would have tailed off and we’d be out of it now. 

They out and out lied to us when they said schools were safe. We saw in December they were riddled with covid and spreading it fast. That lie will have consequences, when MM is appealing to parents to vaccinate their kids would you trust him when he says the vaccine is safe for kids? It’s to late to vaccinate 5 - 12’s they wouldn’t won’t get their second dose till the middle of February, they’ll be recovered by then. The next few months are going to be hard on kids. 

They didn’t put measures in place is (primary) schools like HEPA filters key they had the money to give us all €100 of our energy bills. 

We are blessed Omicron is mild, what if we had Delta++ variant which we more transmissible and more lethal? Would we be able cope, that is what they should have planned for. We’ve caught a break in Omicron but it’s not safe to say it’s coming to an end.

Tremendous stuff at last

Unions kicked into touch. No more restrictions from the CMO. Looking like we are eventually throwing off tue shackles and going to let her rip. Onwards and upwards. I'm sure Svare Byrne and variant Kenny are pushing the " the people will die " line. But leave them off. We will be out of this fully for paddys day. A proper freedom day celebration. Lets make a weekend of it!!

Why did they ask us to cancel all our plans over Christmas, when its now expected to bring it home from school on the first week of January ?

Yep because that has worked really well for the UK hasn't it!

Government been honest with us.

Having installed IR heaters so that classes can both be ventilated and heated at the same time.

High grade HEPA filters in each class.

Poper contact tracing

Regular use of antigen testing, you can get ones that collect saliva in a funnel for smaller kids

More subiture teaches to cover absence.

Pods, social distancing and hand hygiene are now all meaningless with regards to covid, certainly in a classroom. All that matters is cleaning the air. In the grand scheme of things it is not overly expensive to provide proper filtration with guidance on how to use it (hepa filters aren't a license to close windows etc) and FFP2 masks.

I absolutely want the kids back in school tomorrow, but I think it's shameful the Department haven't done anything more to make the buildings as safe as possible, and reduce risk of class closures or overall closures. I mean, just, why not???

Because of the hugely social nature of Christmas.

Spot on.

So , do teachers send their own children to school just for childcare ? What an insult to teachers to consider them child carers

Doesn't really matter what teachers think - that's the daily reality for working (and some non working) parents. And yes, teachers will send their own children to school so that they can work.

Which is grand so long as members of staff in your child's creche don't suddenly come down with Covid themselves. Which is exactly what has happened with my own son's creche. They were due to reopen today but rang me yesterday to say they can no longer take his pod group again until "sometime next week at the earliest, best case" because two members of staff are in isolation having contracted Covid over Christmas.

Which is exactly how schools are going to operate for the foreseeable.

Parents will have no idea from one day to the next whether their child will be able to go to creche or school, and if they are sent home/told not to come in, for how long that will be the case. Particularly hard in the case of schools where transport might be involved, you could send your child in only to get a call/text home to come and collect them because there's no teacher or supervisor available.

Schools are going to be officially open from tomorrow but I suspect the reality will ultimately be very different and extremely unpredictable.

I've an ever growing ignore list, click on their profile, top right there is a drop down to ignore them

Have you written to the dept of education and asked them? They're the ones saying it so they will be best positioned to respond. They are quick enough to reply to emails in fairness.

Sure no problem, stick your head in the sand 'cos you don't like the message!

FWIW I have nobody blocked/ ignored. I'll happily read all views. I only bother though to reply to ones that I deem worth the effort.

I am a teacher and I have junior certs, I am further ahead this year than I have ever been so it’s always that teachers are behind. The new Jc is very dumbed down anyway so they will be fine, they just need to be reassured of this fact !!

Where your issues may lie is the domino effect coming from siblings of your students who are in unmasked, packed to capacity classrooms who may test positive.

I do believe secondary schools are safer than primary, safer as in less possibility of transmission of Covid. They are safer for having cop on alone to mind themselves, particularly exam years.

It's still a balls though when project work is not being given any concession for the loss of school hours either by teacher or student over the next few weeks.

Someone has been busy, monitoring the movements of most of the teachers in the country over the past two weeks. Jesus lads, we have an expert tracker and tracer here - someone give him a job in the test centres. He'll have us all PCR tested by midnight!! 🤡