Sunday, 13 December 2020

Threatening Head Teachers?

It seems not unreasonable for the National Association of Head Teachers to request that all teaching, in areas of England, where mass testing for Covid-19 is being advocated, should be carried out online in the last week of term before Christmas (https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/dec/13/heads-call-for-all-lessons-to-go-online-for-schools-in-mass-virus-testing-areas). The areas being talked about include London, Essex and Kent. I appreciate that the education of children is already being severely disrupted and online teaching is easier in some homes (because of equipmemt) than others. I also understand that children are less likely to have a life-threatening infection with Sars-CoV-2 than are adults. Children, can and do, get infected. Adults, however, likely to be exposed to increased risks of infection include teachers, support workers in schools, drivers of school buses and the parents/ grandparents the children are returning to. Threatening head teachers, who want to take their teaching online for that week, with prosecution is, in my view, wholly inappropriate. It is also a directive from ministers, who are considerably better protected than the people they are trying to strongarm.

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Birder's Bonus 241

Noted a Curlew ( Numenius arquata ) on the Loughor estuary at Bynea.