Dail Mail annoyed a lot of people with its teacher bashing today.
Also misrepresents the unions saying we are telling members not to do live lessons, NEU recently set up a hub where people can share best practice and resources.
2/ Seemed like a large part of the article was designed to make out as if many teachers aren't trying to provide quality education in difficult circumstances.
Also noted the picture shows he's using a premade resource, no issue with the resource but feels like he's over selling
15/ And which backbenchers are calling for quickly getting schools fully open but without suggesting what additional measures are needed to make them safer than our disasterous December en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID_Rec…
16/ And now, due to the amount of media speculation whipped up by his associates, Halfon will now be asking an Urgent Question on when schools go back.
Will they debate additional safety measures, rota etc?
No they will offer a false binary choice.
17/ This is how the political narrative is manipulated, a small hydra like group speaking the same message from many mouths, a narrow group pretending to be a broad cross section, the "will of the people"
18/ Update: Invictus the online initiative from the Mail story, which is basically a Tory Party outfit, is also a private tutoring company, the free lessons appear to be a business promotion.
19/ Isn't this a conflict of interest, Tory initiative attacks teachers and unions whilst also promoting a private tutoring company sponsored by the Secretary of State?
The promotion and influence of astroturfing lobbyists with Tory links, lockdown skeptic MPs, smells rotten.
20/ 🧵Update: ONS Occupational Deaths Survey came out, the headline statistic today was "teachers at no greater risk" No mention of support staff as usual.
The headline should be reassuring, but as always the devils in the details.
23/ Times today says only 3% of primary schools had outbreaks, only problem is many outbreaks weren't officially classed as outbreaks.
I know heads that were told after multiple cases was told to stop contacting PHE
24/ So how did the Urgent Question go?
Williamson didn't attend, and it appears there will be no attempt to improve inadequete measures we had in December.
Ignoring transmission in schools means lockdown 4 is a possibility?
🧵Oh what a suprise, Together Declaration are part of this network, and members of the Exec like UsForThem founder Kingsley accused anyone who said they were a hard right political project of smears and defamation
2/ Founded as anti-lockdown but going straight into anti-vax talking points, Together then switched to anti Ulez, anti net zero heading towards climate change denial
3/ They have been one of the main groups peddling nonsense about the WHO pandemic treaty, starting two years ago with Farage then becoming the leading face of a new astroturf group
While much of the media claims the inquiry is accomplishing nothing, its slowly revealed the gov knew transmission occurs in schools and causes harm to a not insignificant number of children
2/ The bill gives the Secretary of State the power to add to the list of interests that can access your childrens data through secondary legislation avoiding parliamentary scrutiny
3/ The Bill also permits 14-18 year olds to be targeted with political marketing
3/ More and more evidence emerges of the long term harms caused by covid, but the UK govs preferred paedatricians continue to peddle claims that with enough infections children will develop lasting immunity
Said this would occur after 1 infection, what is it now? 5? 7? 10?🤷♂️
🧵Cass Review
Not had a chance to read the whole thing yet, but have had time to look through the main points
What positives can be taken from it? The time spent on waiting lists was identified as a major issue, all children's services are massively underfunded at the moment
2/ I would like to think that this will lead to an investment in all children's support services like CAHMS, more pastoral support in schools etc
That would be a positive outcome, regardless of what else is included in the review, unfortunately real terms cuts are the reality
3/ What matters is how government interprets the review and what it chooses to implement, additional funding for children isn't going to be prioritised over tax cuts to appease RW papers
Imagine if the billions from last round of tax cuts had instead been invested in children