Just Thoughtless

 Yesterday teachers were cross. I know that some people will argue that teachers are always cross but those people were probably little wotsits at school and still remember the practised pretend cross face that every teacher presented them with that was aimed to get them to do some work and stop kicking Johnny under the table. Teachers are often cross with the government, though because it’s hard work when your profession is the political ball they use to prove their worth. If you are a politician, playing a game you are not very good at but you still want to win, then cheating is the only option and so school goal posts get moved frequently. This works for the politicians because everyone knows something about school. Everyone has been and there are millions of parents whose children experience school. 

Yesterday, however, teachers were not the victims of a game of political ball, where new cheating rules were implemented but the thoughtlessness of a government that is trying to ‘wing it’ without a brain.

Nobody thought that the virus would still be hanging around. Sorry, I’m wrong about that - Typhoid Mary on Twitter has predicted much worse but scientists, statisticians and doctors all thought that lockdown would have brought us to zero transmission and that life would be going back to normal quite soon. However, we don’t have zero transmission. We currently have the transmission rate under control, still bumbling around just under R=1 but around 1000 people a day are still testing positive for the virus. They do seem to be less sick with it, hospital admissions and deaths are all slowly and steadily falling but it is still a worry that it could get out of control and start up again. Government had to finally face this idea with the knowledge that all schools will be back in September. 

Matt Hancock is so aware of how precarious the situation is, his PR advisors allowed him to be photographed sitting on a fence for the Times by Jack Hill.

We are still in the ‘no one knows’ territory and anyone who thinks they do is just guessing. 

Schools in Scotland went back a couple of weeks ago and schools in Leicester went back last week and it became clear that there were bits of advice the government should have given schools that they forgot. They hadn’t bothered to say who needed to self isolate if someone in a school tested positive or told schools how they should make sure kids don’t fall further behind when they are quarantined. These bits of guidance were important.

However, if they had just thought about the timing of when they issued this they could have avoided making millions of teachers cross. School leaders shouldn’t be surprised though, if they had watched what has been happening in Leicester (still in partial lockdown with no extended help for the businesses there and finding out about changes as an aside to other announcements), or remembered that over a month ago the Prime Minister said that he would give more guidance on seeing our families but never has, or even remembered the beginning of the pandemic where we went from ‘everything is fine to stay in and lock your doors’ during a Prime Ministerial broadcast, then they will have realised that timing isn’t a strong point. The timing is just thoughtless.

Many school leaders will have been working hard to get their buildings and staff ready for reopening on the 1st of September. Some will have left it to the last minute but most will have finished and pushed their overheating laptop to one side and decided to spend the bank holiday weekend with their neglected families, only to be confronted with more guidance to read. Getting angry teachers to comment in the press will have ensured that no one (in our overly connected digital world) could keep their laptop off.  

It may sound as thought I’m defending the government. That I’m taking a, well it’s an unprecedented global pandemic they can’t be expected to do things before they realise that it’s a problem, stance. And I suppose I am but really would it have been so wrong to send it out on Monday night? 

‘Dear headteachers,’ it could have said, ‘Thank you for all your hard work so far. We know that you are ready to reopen your schools and can’t wait to get your pupils back in your buildings. To help you, further, as we go forward, here is some extra guidance. We know that some of you will have already thought about and planned for these things because you are teachers and you plan in your sleep (what sleep?) but just in case....Good luck. We are all keeping our fingers crossed. We’ve got Matt Hancock sitting on the fence with the pigeons, so it’s all going to be fine.’