School Staff Rooms

[strawberrisc]

Following on from the thread about shorter lunchtimes, do any other school staff find that hardly anyone uses the staffroom anymore for socialising?

When I started over 11 years ago the staff room was so busy at break and lunch and it was lovely for teachers, TAs and support staff to get to know each other. Now there just isn't the time. The only people who actually sit down in there are supply teachers.

In my job I get a 15 minute break but prefer to work through and have a lunch duty every day for 30 mins followed by a 15 minute break.

In my experience of secondary schools the central staff room is hardly used. But each department has a smaller staffroom/workroom. So there is a science staffroom, a maths staff room, a humanities staff room etc. And these are used.
I loved our department staff room. We would eat together, socialise, share stories and advice, play games. It really helped my mental health and relationships with colleagues.

We used to have fun times in the staff room, but now pretty much only the TAs use it. Pressure of work means I and most other teachers just work through break and lunchtime in our classrooms.

, do any other school staff find that hardly anyone uses the staffroom anymore for socialising?

Fortunately not the case at my school. We are an infant school. Our staff room is always full at morning break and lunch tome. We have a lengthy lunch and everyone takes a minimum of 30-40 minutes for lunch.
Our staff room is too small, too cramped and not overly pleasant really. However, some those breaks it is full and everyone is chatting, laughing and relaxing for the time they're there. There are very few people who don't come in, and it is restricted to staff and trainees, and official professional visitors to the school. Due to space restrictions work experience students and volunteers, including parent helpers, use a different space.

It's the only school I've worked in where it is used all the time and is a vibrant happy and sociable space.

It makes a huge difference to our staff morale.

None of us get paid for lunch duty...we volunteer and get a free school dinner...if we didn't volunteer there wouldn't be enough cover at lunchtimes

That is such a step backwards from the success of the strikes in the 80s . I presume you are secondary?

How is this forced volunteering sold to you? In a ‘we know we can’t ask you to do this, but please help as we simply cannot afford an alternative’ or just a ‘this is expected’?

Has it always been like this or is it down to the recent cuts?

For those who are still having fun in their staff rooms, long may it continue but bear in mind it only takes a change of HT to change everything for the worse.

In the last secondary school I worked in the headteacher decided the well used staff room was a poor use of space as departments had their own office break rooms and turned it into a classroom. The remaining staff room was tiny, about 4 meters x 4 meters with no windows! We used to get supply teachers (as mysteriously this school had many staff off with stress) coming in and asking us where the main staffroom was!

Current school has a well used staff room, but it’s a huge school and I’m at the other end so I don’t make it down often. It is used though!

Our staff room is sort of busy at break time. But only used by departments that are based close to it as we're a very spread out site. We get a cup of tea made for us and can buy snacks!

At lunch time it's only really used by science technicians and occasionally office staff.

For those who are still having fun in their staff rooms, long may it continue but bear in mind it only takes a change of HT to change everything for the worse

Agree. I live in fear of our HT leaving, he's very much about staff MH and taking care of us, heaps on praise and is seldom negative.

I also agree with a PP that new build schools don't always have staff rooms. A local academy school which was built only a few years ago doesn't have any staff space! Staff are expected to eat in the canteen with pupils. Officially it is to provide more cohesive relationships shops and stop separation between pupils and teachers....but like another PP I strongly suspect it's to stop teachers speaking to each other and having a moan

I'm surprised how many of you talk about TAs and HLTAs sometimes being the only people in the staff room. In our school they're the busiest people at break and lunch!

The other day a TA was telling me that they never get in the staff room because the teachers will suddenly say 'For the next lesson I need a large hadron collider, three bottles of uranium and some sparklers' and they are rushing round trying to find it.

OK, it's 'a bottle of green paint, some new paint brushes and some material to add texture' but it might as well be the uranium for all the chance you have of finding it in a school these days'

Holidayshopping it was sold to us as we need people to volunteer for lunch duty even just once a week as we don't have enough cover (we have no extra midday staff)....it was mainly teachers who volunteered (I thinkk) so their TAs didn't have too as they know how rubbish our pay is, however back in September I didn't have a teacher and I'm too nice for my own good and ended up with a lunch duty (I'm the only TA that volunteers).
We are a small SEN school with both primary and secondary I work in the secondary bit..it's always been like this but we are still a new school

My current school nobody goes into the main staff room, other than the office staff and supply teachers. Everybody else eats their lunch in departmental offices or in their classroom. I teach maths and as one of the biggest departments we actually have quite a lot of fun at lunchtime and break. We have cake for birthdays, talk about all sorts of stuff and play silly tricks on each other fairly regularly (toblerone-gate goes down in history as the funniest prank, although it was controvertial at the time). I'm very glad we all like each other and we all make time to sit and eat together, even if we do have our laptops in front of us as we do it.

In my last school (I left 13 years ago and it is now closed) absolutely every teacher was in the main staff room at least once a day. We needed to talk to each other to feel like a team, us against the kids. There were biscuits in the staffroom every break, and we were all encouraged to take that time to get to know each other. I do sometimes miss the contact with teachers from other departments.

Where i were at school the staff room, well smoke room you could simply get lung cancer just by going in there it was so thick every teacher smoked.

We were asked by the headmaster to nip to the shops to get him his fags even in lesson time!. The shop staff know who they were for our age never matter there!

Oui staffroom is usually quite busy, and is far too small for everyone! It's a largish secondary French state school. We start at 7.55 and people are there from half past 7. We get newspapers delivered and club together to stock the 'chocolate locker'. We also have pot luck style lunches where everyone brings something to share. Staff morale is generally high and the atmosphere is supportive, if not particularly welcoming to newcomers at first...I had to steel myself to go in at first, but it was worth the effort.

Ours varies. Break times are usually packed, helped by the fact there are often cakes and biscuits - every week we have a rota for Cake Friday. Lunch times tend to have waves of busy-ness.
But it's a very sociable staff (large primary school with quite a lot of males). Staff meetings are full of banter and good humour, and we also have lots of social meet-ups (pub drinks, dog walks, theatre trips, comedy nights, cookery sessions at people's houses etc).
Very low staff turnover, as the HT doesn't believe in unnecessary paperwork. Why would anyone leave?!

My most recent school had a small staffroom in the admin block, most staff would stay local in their staffrooms cum workrooms. It was a good rapport within the department. We had staggered 30 minute lunches over 90 mins depending on the year group you were teaching that lesson, so the flow of people varied. It was a good department. Shame about the teaching by data takeover from above.

In secondaries it does depend very much on your proximity to a shared space.

@OhDearGodLookAtThisMess

Very low staff turnover, as the HT doesn't believe in unnecessary paperwork.

OhDearGod where do I sign up? 😀

I’m a Headteacher and to me, staff being in the staff room is really, really important. It’s time for them to bond which ensures better teamwork. They can also let off steam, offer support and just relax for a bit and have a laugh. It’s so important that it is actually a target for one of my new TAs on probation to go to the staff room for her lunch. I also encourage my Senior staff to be there, to set a good example, and also, to try and dissipate any issues that maybe raised by staff, before they grow legs.

I would also never expect teachers to do a lunch duty unless there was a dire emergency, and I wasn’t able to cover it myself. TAs would absolutely not be expected to not have a lunch break as their breaks are unpaid and they would be working for no pay.

I can’t imagine a school without a staffroom. It would have a seriously detrimental effect on staff. Small groups of staff breaking off to eat their lunch in classrooms is never good for moral.

Have you got any job vacancies Pud2 ?

@Pud2 you sound like an amazing HT I LOVE that eating lunch in the staff room is a target! When I started in my current school first thing I was told was "eat lunch in the staff room, not in the refectory with the pupils, you won't regret it"

Definitely an important target. The TA had been in the school for 3 months and I’d noticed she went out at lunch every day so wasn’t becoming part of the team and often didn’t know what was going on. Good to see her mixing better since she got her target! We are a one form entry primary so I’m sure it’s very different in much bigger schools.