Sarah Mitchell slaps down NSW teacher union head for vaccination excuse
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell has slapped down excuses from a private school teacher union claiming members haven’t had enough time to be vaccinated.
Education
Don't miss out on the headlines from Education. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Education Minister Sarah Mitchell has slapped down excuses from the head of the private school teacher union who claimed schools should not reopen a week earlier than originally planned because teachers have not had the chance to be vaccinated.
Acting secretary of the state’s Independent Education Union Carol Matthews appeared on breakfast radio and television on Thursday with a litany of excuses about why students should not be brought back a week earlier than previously planned — and claiming they did not have enough time to get jabbed.
But Ms Mitchell slapped that assertion down on Thursday saying teachers had known for weeks vaccinations would be mandatory and had months to get access to a vaccine.
“We’ve made it very clear to all staff in all settings when we announced our back to school plan at the end of August, that you would need to be vaccinated, that mandatory vaccines would be in place for our school staff,” she said in response to Ms Matthews’ comments.
“There is no reason why any teacher cannot be double vaccinated by the eighth of November, they have literally had weeks to be able to do that.”
Under Department of Education guidelines for the staggered return to school, staff on school grounds returning on October 18 must have had two jabs and all teachers and all staff working in any school in NSW be fully vaccinated by November 8.
Kindergarten, Year 1 and Year 12 students will return to school first on October 18. A week later, Year 2, Year 6 and Year 11 students would go back to class and the remaining grades return on November 1.
Despite the slap down from the Education Minister, Independent Education Union acting secretary Carol Mathews maintained that it was still too early to reopen schools, telling The Daily Telegraph teachers should not be forced to have Astra Zeneca.
“It shouldn’t be the case just because you’re a teacher, just because everyone else in your age group is recommended to have Pfizer, then you have to have something else,” she said.
“It is one thing to choose to have it, it is another thing to have it if you’re subject to a mandate.”
She also said there were issues with physical distancing and maintained schools were not comparable to a pub.
“A typical classroom if you took a four square metre approach could only fit 12 students — that is obviously not going to happen,” she said.
Jubilant parents welcomed the end of homeschooling on social media on Wednesday night, but some po-faced teachers took to social media to complain about the extra work involved.
“As a teacher, I find this news very frustrating. Planning of lesson sequences now has to be changed. As a science teacher I know I’ll be handcuffed and unable to do practical lessons due to shared equipment,” one teacher wrote on Twitter.
Upper house MP Mark Latham said teachers who were worried about not having enough time to prepare lessons, they should end their holidays early and get to work for the benefit of the children.
“I would expect the average teacher would be hungry to get back into the classroom to do the job they’ve been trained to do — they were not trained to sit on Skype and Zoom, they have to interact with students,” he said.
He said the government should bring schools into line with pubs and restaurants, which will reopen on October 11.
But Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Thursday remained firm that was when schools would return.
“So this is a safe way of resuming schools but the staggered approach will remain in place,” she said.
But Bondi Junction mumCandice Meisels said it was frustrating her daughter Abby who is in Year 1 will be allowed to return to school ahead of her sisters Chloe who is in Year 5 and Hannah in Year 3.
“I don’t understand the point of them staggering the year groups — they are going to be exposed to all of the other kids in any case.”
Top Chemistry teachers reveal their Band 6 HSC exam strategy
HSC Chemistry is considered one of the most challenging of the ‘standard’ subjects. Last year almost a third of Knox Grammar’s students scored in the top band. Here’s how they did it.
How to survive those prickly HSC Biology exam questions
Spanning eight topics over 240 hours, the Year 11 and 12 Biology course is often described as one of the HSC’s most ‘content-heavy’ subjects. Here are the tricks you need to ace it.