Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Todd_is_God]

Whilst that is useful for refuting VT's claims that teachers have been doing nothing for the past 20 weeks and therefore now should work Monday - Saturday, it's not useful as a comparison versus what is normal.

You wouldn't normally be doing that.

[stumigoo]

It's really not.
My subject is one which sees classes daily and requires daily lessons, rather than the one-per-week subjects which can assign a week long task.
During lockdown my mornings were spent getting my own kids to do their assigned work for that day (or previous days' work if their mother hadn't put any pressure on them). During this I'd be dealing with questions sent by my own pupils, many of which would need a written solution which had to be scanned and uploaded. By the afternoon I'd be fielding more questions and starting to mark the work which had been submitted. Given that some households may only have one PC, I set a submit time of 5pm, although would send apologetic messages saying it would be handed in later. The evening would be spent reviewing how each class had coped and using this to prepare the following days lessons. This would mean typing out the full lesson. adding in diagrams or scanned scribblings (and trying to anticipate the kind of questions that might be asked) and then uploading all the pdf versions with a Google Doc for them to put their work onto - and set it all to be posted at 9am the following day. Add in the compiling lists of non-engaging pupils and communicating this to SMT, there were a number of days where a midnight finish was not unknown.
My only real free time was Friday evening and Saturday (where I refused to look at anything related to education).
Despite being in the Sheilding category, I am absolutely prepared to start back in a full school. Really not wanting to work from home again - and the pupils will be of the same opinion.

Pandarilla, and others were responding to the claim that teachers work six hours over and above the school day (every day) during a normal week, not the work that had been done during lockdown.

[pandarilla]

It's really not.

My subject is one which sees classes daily and requires daily lessons, rather than the one-per-week subjects which can assign a week long task.

During lockdown my mornings were spent getting my own kids to do their assigned work for that day (or previous days' work if their mother hadn't put any pressure on them). During this I'd be dealing with questions sent by my own pupils, many of which would need a written solution which had to be scanned and uploaded. By the afternoon I'd be fielding more questions and starting to mark the work which had been submitted. Given that some households may only have one PC, I set a submit time of 5pm, although would send apologetic messages saying it would be handed in later. The evening would be spent reviewing how each class had coped and using this to prepare the following days lessons. This would mean typing out the full lesson. adding in diagrams or scanned scribblings (and trying to anticipate the kind of questions that might be asked) and then uploading all the pdf versions with a Google Doc for them to put their work onto - and set it all to be posted at 9am the following day. Add in the compiling lists of non-engaging pupils and communicating this to SMT, there were a number of days where a midnight finish was not unknown.

My only real free time was Friday evening and Saturday (where I refused to look at anything related to education).

Despite being in the Sheilding category, I am absolutely prepared to start back in a full school. Really not wanting to work from home again - and the pupils will be of the same opinion.

You've jumped into a conversation late, mate.

 

The claim was 6 hours 'after' the end of the school day (before lockdown).

 

In terms of lockdown hours there was a huge disparity. I'd say the average for teachers in secondary was 3-4 hours actual work per day (some folk can sit in front of a laptop and time will fly by but in terms of actual solid work).

 

Guidance and management did much more, obviously, and so did normal teachers who decided to volunteer for some of the extra tasks that were available.

 

And then there's the shifts in the hubs.

 

You're absolutely right that English and maths had more to do, but it wasn't really too do with constant tasks (unless you chose to do that). It was more that many parents (understandably) focused much more on those two subjects, and so history teachers like me were getting much less work in (for s1 and s2 it was penny numbers, and more like 30-50% from s3 onwards).

 

 

 

[Gordon EF]

People's failure to understand distributions and apply them to real life examples has to be one of the biggest failings of education in the UK recently.

The fact that a teacher might put in somewhere approaching 6 hours 'overtime' a night for a limited period of time or the fact that some teachers might do this regularly in no way means that 30-40 hours of extra work per week is anywhere approaching commonplace for the profession.

In the same way that a few teachers doing absolutely f**k all extra work doesn't mean that's common or average either.

Given that teaching unions (which are very unlikely to be an unbiased source) are reporting around 10 which presumably comes from self reporting (which, again, if anything you'd expect to tend a little bit towards exaggeration) and would suggest that around 10 is a reasonable estimate for the average.

[Jacksgranda]

4 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

She's still alive so there.

^^^ I'm not Gerry McCann type post

[Jacksgranda]

2 hours ago, Thereisalight.. said:

Ayr Advertiser actually

i haven’t actually watched the news in days. Social Media is bombarded with it. It’s  hard to avoid it. Just felt it was crazy that people (Ayrshire folk but so be it) would be so open to another lockdown knowing the implications the first one had

Aye, people didn't die. How could people be so heartless as to support another lockdown after that.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 hour ago, Todd_is_God said:

Particularly now, when the stress & workload is probably at the lowest it has been in their entire career.

Can you evidence this in anyway or is this just more opinionated claptrap, Todd?

 

[vikingTON]

6 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

Aye, people didn't die. How could people be so heartless as to support another lockdown after that.

Lots of people did die m8 in spite of your beloved lockdown. 

 

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

I think all government policy should be based on Facebook and polls in local rags IMO.

That can't be any worse than Dominic Cummings' current output.

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, Jacksgranda said:

Aye, people didn't die. How could people be so heartless as to support another lockdown after that.

The average age of a coronavirus victim in Scotland being older than the average life expectancy should be enough to ensure a second lockdown doesn't happen, and that, should the need arise, more targetted restrictions could be put in place instead.

It's very hard to judge the general public's understanding of this.

It's quite clear the majority here understand the relative risk, as the debate over lockdown(s) generally now focuses on the need to protect the most vulnerable without shutting everything down, and the ways in which this can or cannot realistically be achieved etc etc.

On the flip side, you have the examples on facebook and twitter who seem oblivious to the data, and still believe absolutely everyone is equally likely to end up on a ventilator.

[Todd_is_God]

13 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Can you evidence this in anyway or is this just more opinionated claptrap, Todd?

There are more hospital beds available in Scotland now than at any point in recent years. A&E visits are down. Routine procedures have only just started back up in places.

Even without considering the position 3 months ago as a baseline, working in a hospital right now must be relatively pleasant compared to the level of stress and workload NHS staff are normally under.

I don't really know why you seem so upset by that.

Edited July 24, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Melanius Mullarkey]

2 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

There are more hospital beds available in Scotland now than at any point in recent years. A&E visits are down. Routine procedures have only just started back up in places.

I don't really know why you seem so upset by that.

Where is your evidence that stress levels are at their lowest amongst NHS staff?

Or are you yet again drawing another correlation between two variables which have little connection?

 

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Where is your evidence that stress levels are at their lowest amongst NHS staff?

Where is yours that they are not?

[Todd_is_God]

It is encouraging that, despite the uptick in recorded infections over the last 2 weeks, the SG's estimates still believe the total number of infections / infective people in Scotland is coming down, and is on path to be less than 100 the day following the review on 20th August

Edited July 24, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Melanius Mullarkey]

44 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Where is yours that they are not?

Ah, the old classic.

Ill put you down as a zero evidencer. 

Good day.

[John MacLean]

38 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Where is yours that they are not?

He's not suggesting that they are though unless I've missed that post.  

He's pointing out that you have taken information and then from that information extrapolated that stress levels of NHS workers are probably at their lowest of their careers without actually providing any verifiable facts to support your supposition. 

It's what you've been guilty of on this thread from the very beginning. Interpreting statistics to fit your pre-existing narrative. After yesterday's exchange it's quite helpful that you've provided such a clear example of that.   

[welshbairn]

58 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Routine procedures have only just started back up in places.

And they have a huge backlog to deal with.

[Todd_is_God]

3 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

And they have a huge backlog to deal with.

And I'm sure once they start getting into the meat of that backlog stress levels will return to a normal level.

That doesn't change the fact that, right now, the NHS as a whole has a relatively low workload.

[Todd_is_God]

11 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Ah, the old classic.

Ill put you down as a zero evidencer. 

Good day.

Likewise.

You can f**k off with your "my unsubstantiated opinion is better than yours" approach.

[Miguel Sanchez]

7 hours ago, MixuFruit said:

Whole families walking the dug, a real feast for the eyes, something for everyone.

Not sure if this makes you sound more like a paedophile or a beastiality-er

5 hours ago, eez-eh said:

I can’t be the only one who gets the impression that there’s many people who milk the fact they work for the NHS. Probably the likes of receptionists and so on who don’t actually treat any patients, who’ve kidded themselves into believing that going into their work is the equivalent of going over the top at the Somme.

Back when shops were really limiting the amount of people in at once, Maw Sanchez asked in Iceland what the deal was with queueing for NHS staff and they said to go to the front and show your work ID and you'd be let in. She said she'd never dream of it. Absolutely dreadful behaviour, but I'm sure plenty of people have milked it.