Covid 19 -

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by Polyal

Has anyone heard any rumblings about NSW schools going back next term?

My Wife is a High School Teacher(& Head Teacher of her Dept) & has been told to expect to be "Online Teaching" Only for at a Minimum Term 2 & possibly Term 3 as well...

i guess only Time will tell.

[Franco Cozzo]

We should host an AFF national drinks night post COVID-19.

We might be able to get cheap tickets for the Ruby Princess after their legal dramas have ended

[FairmontGS]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

Alex Jones is my spirit animal

He's very entertaining if you keep the right perspective. I love how he goes completely off.

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

I found a 300g porterhouse and chips at a pub in Christchurch for $19 NZD - great deal! That's $34 at my local.

I'd like to go back but maybe fly across and hire something like an SS Commodore and drive across the country instead, I don't mind the cruise ship but you're limited to a couple hours off the ship before you gotta get back on and NZ has some sweet terrain to haul *** across.

The boots are because I only own two pairs of shoes and the boots are the multi tool - formal? collared shirt, suit, tie and shine up the boots

That's where we should have been heading as we speak, P&O had a 6 night one way from Adelaide to Auckland leaving on the 6/4. Our plans had us another 5 nights travelling down to the south island and then fly back.
Got a 7 night out of Adelaide booked for 30/11 on Princess but not sure we could even consider it regardless of the state of play by then anyway, still getting bombarded with discount cruise emails though, optimistic buggers considering their recent antics.

[LG17]

Originally Posted by hayseed

My Wife is a High School Teacher(& Head Teacher of her Dept) & has been told to expect to be "Online Teaching" Only for at a Minimum Term 2 & possibly Term 3 as well...

i guess only Time will tell.

Qld has been told 6-8 weeks at the absolute minimum.

[Yellow_Festiva]

I think most of term 2 is a write off for schooling.

Which will pose its own problems. Sure parents my be able to take a few weeks off in a time of crisis to stay home and babysit but for en entire term?

If they have to also be at work and are expected to be at work it's going to be a disaster.

This year I'm working as a casual teacher and watched over the implementation of online classes before my work dried up.

Early indications are that it will be a disaster unless parents are right next to their children and following the classes full time.

Kindy to year 8 will need near full time supervision - very few year 9-12 students will have the dedication and ability to try follow their lessons unless their have an adult over their shoulder.

I have a daughter in Kindy, and I'm qualified to teach kindy to year 12. The amount of work parents have to do with these online classes is also a factor. I've had to record my daughter reading and singing songs, take pictures of her working as well as her work (all of which needs to be uploaded), allow her to listen to teacher feedback etc.

There are parents who are not tech savvy and have no clue how to select the right video resolution for uploading a video online or to manipulate a picture to be saved as a PDF.

Not all families have 'devices' and stable home internet.

What about the children of new migrants that don't have a good grasp of English - if at all?

I don't know the answers - either way will be a disaster.

[Work Horse]

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

I think most of term 2 is a write off for schooling.

Which will pose its own problems. Sure parents my be able to take a few weeks off in a time of crisis to stay home and babysit but for en entire term?

If they have to also be at work and are expected to be at work it's going to be a disaster.

This year I'm working as a casual teacher and watched over the implementation of online classes before my work dried up.

Early indications are that it will be a disaster unless parents are right next to their children and following the classes full time.

Kindy to year 8 will need near full time supervision - very few year 9-12 students will have the dedication and ability to try follow their lessons unless their have an adult over their shoulder.

I have a daughter in Kindy, and I'm qualified to teach kindy to year 12. The amount of work parents have to do with these online classes is also a factor. I've had to record my daughter reading and singing songs, take pictures of her working as well as her work (all of which needs to be uploaded), allow her to listen to teacher feedback etc.

There are parents who are not tech savvy and have no clue how to select the right video resolution for uploading a video online or to manipulate a picture to be saved as a PDF.

Not all families have 'devices' and stable home internet.

What about the children of new migrants that don't have a good grasp of English - if at all?

I don't know the answers - either way will be a disaster.

Is that glass half full or half empty Yellow?

My wife is a leading teacher at a Primary School for new arrivals.
She has just posted out lessons for all students in various languages.
The show must go on, things will be different and challanging for teaching.
It is not a disaster IMHO
Just another problem to be overcome.

[guzzis3]

Originally Posted by xxx000

Can i genuinely ask what is 'little pharma' then?

I have this bathtub...

[cheap]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

Is that glass half full or half empty Yellow?

My wife is a leading teacher at a Primary School for new arrivals.
She has just posted out lessons for all students in various languages.
The show must go on, things will be different and challanging for teaching.
It is not a disaster IMHO
Just another problem to be overcome.

They're implementing online schooling as quickly as they can. There will be a loss of 3-6 months schooling, but younger high school kids with 5 years left of schooling these months will be caught up.

I feel for the older kids especially this year 12's and there will need to be some dispensation/relaxation for university entrances - who knows maybe C19 will resent the foreign student intake with more places for Australian kids attending Australian universities.

[FTE217]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

Is that glass half full or half empty Yellow?

My wife is a leading teacher at a Primary School for new arrivals.
She has just posted out lessons for all students in various languages.
The show must go on, things will be different and challanging for teaching.
It is not a disaster IMHO
Just another problem to be overcome.

further to the above that I agree with.
My 14yr old daughter is coping fine working online.
I've seen a few of her class's it works better than I expected and I'm sure as times goes by will improve.
My wifes works at a leading Gov school here in Sydney, all online now and has been told expect Term 3 will be as such.
The main concerns as mentioned by cheap, the Yr12 students, felle for them and are stressing and don't blame them.
Hard to adjust for their final year.

[Polyal]

I can only go on my experience, but we have 4 in primary school Kindy to 6 and while you can delegate tasks they all still need near constant supervision to make sure they are on the right path.

If I am meant to be WFH and administering that I am stuffed, my wife has been doing it for the last two weeks and its difficult doing it full time. She is off to work next week so thankfully its holidays but when T2 starts I sincerely hope kids can go to school still.

Our school still had ~40% students going, Id say we will send them back from T2 if its open.

[Bossxr8]

Let's hope this happens.


https://www.goauto.com.au/news/gener...-03/82281.html

Opportunity for Aussie manufacturing as pandemic highlights over-reliance on imports


3 Apr 2020


By HAITHAM RAZAGUI


AUSTRALIAN manufacturers that serve the local automotive sector have labelled global supply chain bottlenecks caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as a “wake-up call” that highlights an over-reliance on imported goods and the related risk to national sovereignty in times of crisis.

General manager of Melbourne-based Sneddon & Kingston Plastics, Blair Sinsheimer, told GoAuto he was conscious of how much it had cost global vehicle manufacturers to stop or slow production when the COVID-19 outbreak stymied component supplies out of China.

“When we were a Tier 2 supplier to Ford and Holden, we were always reminded about the costs of the production line stopping if we didn’t supply, so I can just imagine how many automotive manufacturers around the planet have not been operating properly since early January because they were not able to get product out of China,” he said.

“Any money they would have saved by outsourcing to low-cost countries has probably been ****ed up the wall, to say it bluntly.”

Mr Sinsheimer – who oversaw Sneddon & Kingston’s diversification away from reliance on engineered plastics for the local automotive sector toward rigid food packaging and medical products – predicted that the effects of COVID-19 on global trade would result in a “big review” once the pandemic had blown over.

“People are really going to be looking at the globalisation model and asking themselves if it’s really worth it,” he said. “This will be a time to reflect on that and to look for opportunities in the future.”

Ty Hermans, managing director of Brisbane-based product commercialisation specialist and plastics manufacturer Evolve Group – which supplies the majority of plastics used by nearby Century Batteries and produces off-road recovery equipment under the Tred brand – also told GoAuto that a recent trend of companies looking to “reshore” production to Australia had accelerated as a result of COVID-19.

“With COVID-19, clearly there are people looking at reshoring and are now realising very quickly how important it is to have manufacturing here on home shores rather than relying on overseas,” he said.

“As we’re seeing now, when the **** hits the fan, we get left behind very quickly because of our lack of buying power and our heavy reliance on imported goods.”

Mr Hermans said a “silver lining” of COVID-19 was the potential for Australia to come out of the crisis with a stronger and more stable manufacturing sector.

“People are calling us saying that not only do we need to reshore now because of the crisis, we need to reshore now to protect our sovereignty going forward because we’re way too reliant on overseas,” he said.

He added that the trade war between the United States and China had also sparked interest in reshoring, as well as an uptick in enquiry from sectors such as baby and healthcare products for which a ‘Made in Australia’ badge increased their desirability and value in Asian markets enough to offset the increased costs of Australian production.

Mr Sinsheimer agreed that “people are starting to realise the risks” of over-reliance on imports and was optimistic about the ability of Australian manufacturing to capitalise on its reputation for quality and reliability.

“I think Australia has a reputation for being a reliable source in terms of manufacturing,” he said.

“We’ve always had good manufacturers here – unfortunately not as many as we had in the past – but on a global basis I think we still do have some of the best manufacturers on the planet.”

Although both Sneddon & Kingston and Evolve Group produce plastic products for a diverse range of industries and shared similar stories of tooling delays caused by COVID-19 impacts in China, Mr Sinsheimer and Mr Hermans had differing views on how Australian manufacturing could be sustained and prosper.

In Mr Sinsheimer’s opinion, securing Australia’s supply chains would require government efforts – including the return of protectionism – to encourage more local manufacturing.

“It has to be government incentive driven because unfortunately the way the world is, this will be forgotten before too long and I think this is a wake-up call for a lot of places and will definitely change peoples’ attitude to offshore sourcing,” he said.

“But like all things in life, the end user needs to be willing to pay accordingly and in Australia we have very high wages. This is where the government needs to lead the way by protecting the industry, making it expensive to bring things in from overseas.”

On the other hand, Mr Hermans was wary of protectionism and said it was already more cost-effective to make plastic injection-moulded products in Australia than China, without tariffs.

“You’ve got to be careful with tariffs and things like that,” he said. “There are more than a billion people in China and we’ve got 25 million here, so I know where I’d rather have no tariffs, and that’s on China so we can export more there.”

Mr Hermans was critical of using government funding to support industries that would otherwise never be viable in Australia, such as car manufacturing.

"You’ve got to look at industries that make sense, that are right-sized for this type of country, the type of workforce and skillset we’ve got, focus on the stuff we can do really well at and make sure we’re always innovating,” he said.

“As long as you’re at that cutting edge you’ll be fine, but some industries don’t make sense in Australia so we shouldn’t be using taxpayers’ money to breathe life into them.”

[DOC]

Originally Posted by Work Horse

Is that glass half full or half empty Yellow?

My wife is a leading teacher at a Primary School for new arrivals.
She has just posted out lessons for all students in various languages.
The show must go on, things will be different and challanging for teaching.
It is not a disaster IMHO
Just another problem to be overcome.

Sounds Good my daughter is also a primary teacher, last week I also donated and set up 4 complete websites for them and between a few teachers they already have next term ready to roll out with a few kinks to sort.

So yes all go ahead full steam with many people coming in double time to get the job done, a great effort by all. Tell chicken little the sky is not falling just yet.

[MercuryT]

Yeah I agree could be a disaster if months go on and children stay home.

There is a major flow on effect even to those without kids to look After. Plenty of workers at my office will need to stay home - so whilst I can still go to work, it's near impossible for me to do my job without supporting staff.

Challenging times for all no doubt.

[BENT_8]

I think we should wait until mid term 2 before we start claiming a victory in the move to online learning, it'll be a novelty to begin with but something tells me by week 5 all those kiddies left to their own devices will be less than enthusiastic about the idea of rolling out of bed and doing their lessons without supervision.
A lot will depend on the demographic the child comes from.

[Citroënbender]

And the stream of education prior; can’t imagine Montessori or Steiner students falling flat in this situation.

[falcon_bandit]

As per article posted earlier...... Elderly, sick & vulnerable isolate, and the rest allowed to go back to work, enjoy their lives, pay their bills, kids go back to school. The restrictions are too damaging, and I'm starting to feel that everybody has been forced to panic, rather than think for themselves

[Citroënbender]

People will push back. I expected that to start from about today, not sure it is happening in Sydney yet - didn’t see enough diversity in my travels to gauge.

I do love the fact of every day on the roads being Sunday.

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by falcon_bandit

Elderly, sick & vulnerable isolate, and the rest allowed to go back to work, enjoy their lives, pay their bills, kids go back to school

Isn't that the UK model which brought them to where they are now?

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

And the stream of education prior; can’t imagine Montessori or Steiner students falling flat in this situation.

Agreed and this is what I referred to pages ago, the better engaged and resourced will go on whilst the have nots will be disadvantaged through no fault of their own.
The belief that every parent has the ability to fill the shoes of a professional who spent 4yrs at Uni is wishful thinking at best, then throw in multiple age brackets and teaching levels and the question being asked gets bigger.
It's one thing to setup a system, another to have it function as intended.
Btw, that's not chicken little stuff, that's just the reality of the situation, teachers don't last long these days due to struggles with student engagement, but COVID19 comes along and suddenly kids are keen to learn..at home...under the guidance of the very reason they have no respect for Teachers..

[.:4:.]

I was speaking to my 10 year old yesterday over some app thing and was asking about how he is currently schooled etc. He didnt have too many good answers, but he got his cousin in on the chat so i asked her. She is in year 8 and tells me they log in, the teacher sees that. So i asked isnt it stupid easy to open a new tab and cheat. She told me if they open a new tab the teacher gets notified and can get up them. Now my kids school sent out an email with guidelines as to when to log in and out. If not adhered to the parents get called. Yeah its the parents responsibility to enforce it now, and deadbeats probably wont. But it appears to atleast be a system. I asked my ex neice (i guess thats the term as im not with her aunty) is she finding it hard to stay motivated not having a teacher up front keeping her on track. I asked my son the same. They both like school so neither have an issue doing the right thing. And both are sort of lucky as my kids nana is stay at home, and his cousins mum is a teacher doing the other end of remote learning so in the same room cracking the whip. So that makes me feel a tad better that there wont be a generation of unintelligent people.

[Franco Cozzo]

Car meet in Brisbane on the COVID-19 ****list

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-...rally/12123486

State disaster coordinator deputy commissioner Steve Gollschewski said officers saw appalling behaviour.

"We saw at least 150 vehicles on our estimation gathered in that area and everyone was breaching the social-distancing rules that we have in this state," Mr Gollschewski said.

Good work guys

[CyberWasp]

It is good to see that the very people we are all doing this for are practicing social distancing....

[Citroënbender]

Surely that picture is Spain or Italy, though? Way too monocultural looking for Australia.

[buggerlugs]

Originally Posted by FairmontGS

He's very entertaining if you keep the right perspective. I love how he goes completely off.

Especially in Male Toilets

[wodahs]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Surely that picture is Spain or Italy, though? Way too monocultural looking for Australia.

nah their the ones that got off the ruby princess
pic was as they were waiting for the first bus to arrive

[Tickford.]

Originally Posted by wodahs

nah their the ones that got off the ruby princess

Careful, our resident Professor, Tassie f100, would probably get worked up enough to post about your bad grammar there.

[wodahs]

Originally Posted by Tickford.

Careful, our resident Professor, Tassie f100, would probably get worked up enough to post about your bad grammar there.

at my age i dont have a granma no more good or bad

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Surely that picture is Spain or Italy, though? Way too monocultural looking for Australia.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/v...17-p54atc.html

[Franco Cozzo]

Pappa Boris Johnson is in intensive care:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52192604

If he dies, China has a lot to answer for as they've effectively killed a leader of a foreign nation.