Probably because their population is 84,000, rather easier to manage than the 66,000,000 population of the UK. If you multiply their figures by 800 they are probably not much different from the UK average and I am sure there are some small UK towns that have done even better. A lot of it is down to chance and bad luck.
how can they remortgage them if they have no income? not to mention living on the money raised, increasing their debt and incurring several hundred pounds (at least) of fees to arrange this.
The same could be said for all workers, key or otherwise, who have kept working through the pandemic but how many actually want to, or feel they have to, leave their jobs?
Get the mortgage while they still have a job and include enough in the loan to make the repayments. People only need to survive for about a year till there's a vaccine.
Well a lot of the teachers and education support do - see the return to work thread. They are worried that the Govt is forcing them back to work with no protection whatever. They are not even allowed to wear PPE if they bring it themselves. As to the children, the Tinies can't social distance or observe hygiene measures and many of the the teens won't.Unlike key workers treating the sick, caring for the old and providing access to food etc, teachers, though desirable, are not essential workers, Home education is not a life threatening emergency
Yes. It’s the not being allowed to wear PPE that is behind my decision not to go back to teaching this term.
Unless you are going to wear full medical PPE isn't it the children who need to wear a mask to protect you - I don't think there is much chance of that happening.
All our schools here are opening and everyone, including kindergarten kids age 5 and all staff must wear a mask.
It’s not even that. Yes you can trace school kids in a way you can’t shop customers etc. But if containment is the goal, despite protection being the headline, how does more than 2000 teens per school spreading it amongst themselves rapidly, then their families and other contacts including on buses, trains and shops (and then each of these contacts onward transmissions) contain it in any way shape or form?I see your point but it is wrong.
A school no matter how many time the classes change through out the day is still the same pupils in the same building each and every day. It is not comparable to a pub shop or train station, a collection of random strangers interacting and spreading an infection, that would be much harder to trace.
The concern is containment not safety.
Not sure the contract terms are the problem.Even if it has ended, if you go on Universal Credit they will almost certainly tell you to try to get it renewed or to take another school job. There will probably be some of those available because of school staff who have managed to afford to leave theirs for the same reasons as you, understandably, want to leave if you can't work from home. Do you have any other health conditions apart from T2 you could use in your arguments?
It’s all about risk *reduction* - you obviously can’t negate it entirely. I would (if I went back to teaching part time) wear the same masks that I do in my ambulance job: a type 2R fluid repellant surgical mask. We only wear the full-on FFP3 masks for suspected/confirmed Covid patients. I would require the same level of harm reduction in any workplace. I’m not requiring the schools I work in to provide them, I have my own. But to be forbidden to use some protective equipment that would mitigate my risk as someone with an autoimmune disease is wrong.
When they tried to re-open the schools in June Boris pronounced that suddenly the virus could only spread at under 1 metre distance instead of 2 metres. Perhaps the virus had heard that UK wanted to open schools and kindly obliged by reducing it's spread capacity? Is it also possible that Boris has forbidden masks in schools because, though teachers might (possibly) be expected to bring their own, the Govt would be expected to provide them for all children. Possibly even more than one a day, every day. The Govt was unable to provide enough soon enough even for health care workers, early on in the pandemic. Perhaps they don't want to have to provide them for children as well especially if we have a second wave and there are shortages again. So they declare that schools don't need them. Let's hope that many parents rebel and refuse to send their children back unless schools can be made safe.
I can only hope that Union have some useful advice soon. Of course the problem is as is quoted as nauseam we are living in unprecedented times. We are trying to resolve problems arising from Coronavirus with legislation and procedures precovid(apart from some new laws).
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. Maybe I will step out the shower and it will all just be a dream
