[PeteSpencer]

At least EZY and RYR are saying they will refund fares for flight/ holiday cancellations for a raft of reasons now . I’ve just re-booked my Madeira flights for the third time in stages bringing it to a full circle in a year to coincide with this year’s holiday.

EZY refused a refund twice: in fact I had to cough up £100 to take account of fare increases or else lose the lot.

I’m not holding my breath though as my destination , although in Europe is lumped firmly in the red zone by its close association with Brazil.

[Rob P]

R4 'More or Less' came to the same conclusion a couple of weeks ago, showing that the unions were using, inadvertantly or otherwise, spurious data to support their claim.

I'd trust More or Less over teachers playing at unions every time. I am afraid they haven't covered themselves in glory at all in the past year.

Rob P

[johnm]

Teacher's Unions may not have covered themselves in glory, but many teachers have.

[eltonioni]

Apparently there has been a rush for foreign holiday bookings. I do hope that the government will take measures to prevent people travelling to areas where there is still a high incidence of cases or where there is a lag in vaccinations - in the same way as there is a ban on incoming flights.

Non-essential travel from third countries with an infection rate of more than 25 per 100,000 is currently banned in most EU states.

We're planning to travel to Crete in June, Mallorca in October and Israel in December. The European mainland is no-go until 2022 so far as we're concerned, and even then it will probably be the Slovakian mountains instead of the Alps. Roll on the passport stamps

[Rob P]

Teacher's Unions may not have covered themselves in glory, but many teachers have.

There are few who would argue any different.

It just goes to prove the truth of the motto 'stick to what you are good at'

Rob P

[Paultheparaglider]

HMG has now published itsexit strategy A 68 page PDF

Just to save everyone downloading and reading a 68 page document, here is a brief summary:

[cjrpaterson]

"Data not dates", oh but here's lots of very specific dates with a caveat ("no sooner than") which the majority of people seem to have ignored.

[romille]

"Data not dates", oh but here's lots of very specific dates with a caveat ("no sooner than") which the majority of people seem to have ignored.

Well a great many people seem to be ignoring lockdown, so why would they pay attention to the route out of lockdown?

[eltonioni]

Let's hope they carry on being more and more precocious because our young people have been right royally screwed over and they will want their future back a bit sharpish.





Fully expecting that inheritance tax and pension breaks are going to go the way of the dodo to pay for all the excessive attention that's been given to boomers who weren't prepared to shield themselves unless everyone else did the same.

[Charles Hunt]

"Data not dates", oh but here's lots of very specific dates with a caveat ("no sooner than") which the majority of people seem to have ignored.

Perhaps Boris is learning to under-promise giving the option to over-deliver........

[skydriller]

Teacher's Unions may not have covered themselves in glory, but many teachers have.

There are few who would argue any different.

It just goes to prove the truth of the motto 'stick to what you are good at'

Rob P

I truely hope that is indeed the case wrt british teachers and that kids in the UK are getting a good education this year despite Covid restrictions.

I really wish I could be as positive about the sitiation here in France, I believe I have mentioned it on here before, but I have direct experience of only half of teachers even sending assignments to my kids last spring/summer, let alone doing anything resembling zoom/skype/teams - thank lord the schools have remained open here since September.

Regards, SD..

[Rob P]

I can't comment with any great insight, not being cursed with ankle biters.

From local news output, both BBC and ITV, there would seem to be some teachers who are doing amazing stuff and some others who are more intent on sharing their expertise in immunology and virology as reason why they shouldn't be doing what they are paid for.

I doubt John's 'many' translates to 'a majority'

Rob P

[PeteSpencer]

My granddaughter's teachers have been very active from the very first lockdown, supplying daily online material and more recently daily zoom-style lessons, which must take some organising, coping as well with children of key workers present in school at the same time.

I have been helping my daughter out via facetime with our grand-daughter as she has her hands full with 4 y o twin boys and I have actually learnt/been reminded of a load of English grammar......

I now view teaching profession in an entirely new light...............

[johnm]

My granddaughter's teachers have been very active from the very first lockdown, supplying daily online material and more recently daily zoom-style lessons, which must take some organising, coping as well with children of key workers present in school at the same time.

I have been helping my daughter out via facetime with our grand-daughter as she has her hands full with 4 y o twin boys and I have actually learnt/been reminded of a load of English grammar......

I now view teaching profession in an entirely new light...............

Similar to my own experience except that my daughter is one of the secondary school teachers as well..... Her workload has been enhanced somewhat by the fact that a colleague has been shielding, but in fairness said colleague has contributed as much as practicable while working from home...

[kanga]

<mere anecdote, possibly quite untypical >

an occasionally met fellow dogwalker is a teacher at our (very) local County Primary School (which all our children attended). I also voluteered there for a while after retirement, providing French conversation with a French teacher who left (for Spain!) at the end of her contact, and was not replaced.

She was yesterday describing her currently typical classroom activity:

a. about half her class of 30 are typically present, presumably because the children are 'vulnerable' or at least one parent self-assesses as a 'key worker'; but not always the same ones, nor can she predict which ones! Perhaps some parents are working part-time ..

b. she has to deliver the same material to those present and to the remote ones within the same session time; but this (for acoustic reasons) has to be done from different rooms, presumably requiring double the board time. She has 2 Teaching Assistants, who help mind one room while she is in the other

c. in general, the remote children have been cooperative, engaged and coping with the technology. She has, however, heard that some of her Secondary colleagues have been finding that some of their pupils have been less cooperative, including muting their microphones and videos and (new trick) changing their onscreen identities to 'Loading..' so that it appears that they are having technical difficulties while they might have walked away altogether

</>

It sounds as if it's quite (more than usually in that profession!) stressful; and, for her at least, full return would be easier. Equally full return while still observing still necessary hygiene precautions may be challenging. There will also, presumably, be challenges persuading parents still to be 'sensible' (distancing etc) at the school gate. Increased interaction by pupils of all ages within and between households seem to me to raise an obvious risk of further infection spread until nearly all adults, at least, have been vaccinated. Concerns about a full simultaneous return of all pupils to all schools, expressed both by teachers' organisations' and by Public Health authorities' representatives, seem reasonable to me. It is therefore unreasonable, I believe, for these to be dismissed as (if I correctly heard a quote from one of this morning's tabloids) 'obstructionism by militant teaching unions'