Schools to close again.. Covid

Will there be any meaningful learning in most schools this month?

Yes, of course there will be. Why wouldn't there be?

That was certainly the clear intention but I'm not sure they'll avoid predicted grades though. Essentially January is a write-off in the context of proper progress with so many missing especially with mock exams looming.

They'll wait to see what ASTI say first, then offer up a token nod towards it.

We're over 30% of pupils out and 18% teachers out.

Where are you getting the national figure from?

About 40% of students missing in my school. Less than 20% staff missing.

0% interaction on teams from the missing students, so I don’t know if they are sick/contacts/waiting to see the lay of the land next week.

I had 8 of 26 Leaving Certs in for the last two days. I don't expect that is just about the two extra days - I presume it will continue over the next few weeks at least given the huge rate of infection around.

I think the two extra days would have been useful for schools to get some sense of what the absences would be and what could be done. The Dept of Ed waffled in an afterthought face-saving situation that some classes might be done on-line but there was no time given to schools to organise anything like this or decide that if this were to happen - which classes, what days, AM or PM? - which those two days might have facilitated.

I'm in a situation where there's little progress in-person (if teaching the entire class - as opposed to just covering the course - is your plan) and obviously none on-line. No issue there in one sense I suppose as opening schools was never an education-based decision anyway, but there will have to be an acknowledgement that this is in essence a school closure when state exams are up for debate in a few weeks.

A lot more senior kids missing in ours than junior, not entirely sure why.......more partying or just more able to make their own decisions?

45% absences in my daughters secondary school.

25% in my sons primary.

I have no idea of staff absence as that would be none of my business but of 16 class periods, my daughter had 4 classes (3 teachers) who were out.

If this was around when I was doing my leaving cert I certainly would have put forward the case to my parents that I'd study at home for those two days to see how the situation evolved.

Now I would have had to have a book in hand for the day, but they would have trusted me not to act the maggot.

I'd imagine alot of students/parents had similar conversations.

Plus there's also the argument if they knew xyz weren't going in and a decent % were going to be missing that the teacher wouldn't be able to move forward with fresh course material. So why engage in unnecessary risk.

The €350 a week offer could backfire. Plenty of teachers on 'hours' who'd find staying in bed relatively attractive at that payment.

As long as they have gone through the Garda vetting process and have their qualifications assessed by the Teaching Council of course. That'll take no time.

This is already happening, in subjects where there are acute teaching shortages. There is an unqualified rate, you could easily look this up. Generally they don't meet standards, don't know the curriculum and have very little behavioural management skills. There is the odd exception. If you have a degree in an in demand area you could already be doing this. Good luck to you. If you think the skill of teaching lies in having acquired knowledge you are in for a shock.

Hooefully next week will be the worst and things will improve after that!

Teachers have been working in a acute hiring crisis for years. Many teach over time, take classes after school, teach subject and prep for them without proper training so subjects don't have to be dropped mid cycle........you have a limuted understanding of the issues actually facing schools.

I can point to some of the issues in the HSE but I wouldn't presume to tell a rake of nurses what the issues are in their hospitals, I'd be more inclined to ask them what the issues are that they perceive.

Drop Garda vetting!!! do you actually understand the potential issues that could cause? Issues far far worse for children than missing a class here or there. Ffs some people have zero critical thinking skills 🤦

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The schools wont close now.

Its interesting to see since NPHET and govt didnt buckle to the unions media coverage online around covid has eased a fair bit. Probably the shot in the arm we all needed. If the schools had of delayed opening then we would still be in the throws of covid next winter. Fair play to all in getting them open and keeping them open.

Did many parents really want a delayed opening? Kids need school. Especially after the last 2 years. We just couldnt face into another period of remote learning.

Onwards and upwards from here. We will reach immunity soon enough.

You're right. But for some, once the kids are out of the house, there the concern for their education ends.

It's a bit like all the parents who took to boards to "call out" their kid's "crap teacher". How did it take them until now to figure that one out? The teacher was hardly all dynamic and dedicated in the classroom but decided "fcuk this" when we went online!

People don't believe this when I tell them - and I don't actually blame them because it's mad - but during lockdown 1 there was obviously no remote learning policy in schools. Myself and a couple of the other teachers in my school went onto zoom after a short while because we had seen how our yoga and gym teachers were using it. We were told to stop by our ETB because of child protection. We were not just told to stop, but we were told that if anything happened, like a random stranger getting into the group or whatever, it was 100% on us and the ETB would not be behind us at all.

We didn't even know that Teams existed at the time, which probably sounds like a cop out given where we are at now, but we honestly didn't know it existed at all.

Any restrictions on reopening would have snowballed back into full closure because it would have been based in the logic of restrictions = lower case numbers which is based in the now outdated zero Covid ideology.

Kids at home should be receiving decent remote support, that has been an issue since well before Christmas when any child who tested positive facing two weeks of school absence, so if decent remote support isn't forthcoming without direct instruction from the Department of Education there are more significant issues with the teachers in question than we would like.

As for the notion that reopening schools this week was undertaken for the sake of headlines about unions being defeated, that's complete nonsense. Just because a Cadre of people within the teaching profession didn't feel going back to work after Christmas was safe, the outcome didn't need to reflect their feelings, whinging shouldn't always be met with compliance.

Everyone has had to deal with varying degrees of crap over the last two years. For the next few weeks or even months the reality will be that at different times teachers and pupils will be absent, not necessarily because they're serious sick but because the spread of an increasingly weak illness still needs to be managed.

This is living with Covid.

We were quite lucky. During first lockdown, schools shut that Thursday and we were online with Teams on Monday, if we so wished. We had staff training the previous year on Teams and 365.

I agree and I don't believe a secondary teacher can either. They can do it better than primary I think, but it's still nowhere near the required standard. For many reasons. One in particular was that when I was at home teaching, as far as I knew everything was going grand and everyone heard everything I said. But do you ever hear the state of the lines on the radio stations? And even in the remote staff meetings we have - the internet drops for a couple of seconds and you're lost. There is no way my internet or their internet didn't drop while I was teaching them.