The Teachers’s Republic Refuge - solidarity comrades!

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

So continuing on from our boycott/flowers we need to continue to defend our profession. This is teacher/school staff chat - if you do not fall into that category please start you own thread elsewhere.

#solidarity

Articlein the Guradian says children are just as infectious as adults and not to open schools, according to a German study.

Funny piggy. It’s the first time I’ve ventured out of the staff room in ages to be fair so I may have a lower viral load of teacher bashing than you therefore more immune

I know I’ve been sticking to threads I’m on more than normal so just to plug a thread you might have missed - this blog from Becky Allen about which bits of remote learning are and aren’t learning and why is really interesting: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_staffroom/3895438-Becky-Allen-calls-for-centralised-primary-teaching

honey

I not going to AIBU because it is raining heavily now and I don’t want to get my hair wet.

But I will gives Becky Allan a read. I wander if someone will propose centralised secondary teaching (and do the marking)

I’m finding trying to imagine them as those usually oh so perfect makeup and matching shoes and handbag, dropping them off in the Range Rover at the school gates before swinging by Costa mums now finding themselves with two inch root growth picking Cheerios out of their hair, trying to draw on their eyebrows and swigging vodka before their 10am zoom meeting with Clive helps me.

Good job I’m not an English teacher reading that back

To be honest and it’s probably not a popular view, I think we’d be better off saying education is closed full stop than attempting online learning and the massive inequality from technology access, parental resources eg time, ability etc.

It's not a popular view here but I can see why you are suggesting it and it's a valid point to make and discuss. I don't agree because I don't think that pupils with GCSEs next year who are not currently disadvantaged should be disadvantaged because other children are.

Let the ones who are not disadvantaged learn now (and those that are disadvantaged and will engage with education) and that will give the teachers more time to help the disadvantaged children when they are eventually back at school.

If it doesn't work that way then everybody is going to be disadvantaged when the schools go back and the teachers will be meeting themselves coming back trying to accommodate everybody and it'll be the pupils with the parents most able to fight their corner who will be the ones who benefit whereas the ones who are disadvantaged and/or have parents who can't help or parents who don't give a shit about education will suffer even more as not all the children who have been struggling are the ones that you'd automatically think of when identifying them for additional support or interventions.

Looking at a list we have of who is engaging and who isn't engaging with home learning has some that colleagues and I are surprised about. Some we thought would engage well are doing nothing and others who would thought would struggle have stepped up to the plate in ways we couldn't have predicted - and so have their parents.

Agree exam groups but really 6 weeks of summer term for ks3 and below? Is it really such a loss? We used to spend 3 years on ks3 but it has been mangled into 2 and 3 years are spent on gcse where we previously had 2.

And where is this extra time we’ll be able to spend with the disadvantaged aka not the rare privileged ones? There’s no extra time available.

And where is this extra time we’ll be able to spend with the disadvantaged aka not the rare privileged ones? There’s no extra time available.

Intervention groups with TAs - they both happen in our local primary and in the high school.

But it would be 5 months without any academic work. I forget how to teach over the 6 week holiday! It’s not necessarily about making progress but even standing still would be good.

And giving the kids something to do that isn’t playing fortnite till their brains drip out of their ears and reminding them that they might be at home by themselves but they are still part of a community is important too.

What would we be saying about education if we said ‘let’s just sack it off for half a year, no worries’.

@noblegiraffe I absolutely agree with your comment about what impression we would give about the value of education.

It's really difficult at the moment but my Y10s (for example) would never catch up if I didn't bother teach from Easter to September. They'd be 2 terms work behind, and the new GCSEs are really tight.

Some of them will be. Some of them are doing nothing, as far as I can see, but I'm doing my best, at least.

I can see the forseeable future being tough for all, though.

Who you gonna call?!

The Germans or the Swiss?!

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52470838

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/30/coronavirus-scientists-caution-against-reopening-schools?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

I haven’t seen a ta this school year despite having more than usual numbers of major sen in my groups because we are coping with cuts. When we do see a ta in secondary they are there for a specific student not to run groups or do intervention. Maybe it’s different for others.

I think it would say more about the seriousness of an international pandemic than the value of education and yes we’d have to take that gap in learning into account for several years to come.

If education hadn’t already been on it’s knees from underfunding, recruitment and retention, overcrowding etc it would perhaps be different. As in countries like Denmark

Forget masks... I'm going to be a cat if we have to cover our faces.

Enjoyed catching up today-hello all!
I was reading about a new study from China that shows children catch Covid-19 as much as adults do and can be spreaders. Might be useful when the next I want schools to fully re-open now! thread inevitably appears!

In the paper, published in the British journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the researchers said: 'Notably, the rate of infection in children younger than 10 years (7.4 per cent) was similar to the population average (6.6 per cent).
'There was no significant association between the probability of infection and age of the index case.'
This meant that children were as likely as adults to both catch the virus and to spread it.
The researchers added: 'Analyses of how cases are detected, and use of data on individuals exposed but not infected, indicate that infection rates in young children are not lower than the population average (even if rates of clinical disease are).'

I have a class of 36 year 6's and no TA either - we lost them all in UKS2 last year. Apparently we can solve any problems with "quality first teaching".

I do interventions myself at lunchtimes and after school. I bloody hate it and I would kill for a TA.

Me too phleb. I seriously miss tas in groups where there are several kids way out of the differentiate-able range who previously would have had someone able to do the practical with them whilst I ran round the room firefighting everyone else’s issues with understanding, safety, progress etc. And trying to teach a child with five words of English science in a mixed ability group of 30 has been interesting.

Didn’t realise primary had lost them too. Often felt quite jealous of primary teachers having static tas.

At current school we also no longer have a reprographics dept that teachers can use so every single bit of printing, collating etc is down to individual teachers.

There are not enough labs for the number of classes and not enough sets of textbooks for one between 2 use. Maybe my school is unusual in terms of how much it’s struggling hence having a different perspective?

It turns out that science isn’t very good at turning around fast answers during global pandemics.

Everyone: Is it safe to open schools?
Science: Yes. No. Maybe. Don’t know. Come back to me again once you’ve opened schools and we’ve seen what happens.

In the example I gave the ta wasn’t obliged to do this and some didn’t but the good ones would and we’re on the ball and I made sure I thanked them and went and gave the group (max 3 kids) my full attention for 5 minutes once I’d got the rest of the class on task and shut down any unsafe behaviour.

I also miss that little bit of adult eye contact and interaction.

Madeleine, I want that mask if we end up wearing them! Might buy one at the same time I purchase the "WTF" teacher stamp I've been coveting for years .

I’ve given myself minor palpitations thinking about supervising a roomful of kids with bunson burners. Is there any toffee vodka left?

@Appuskidu I only know re Scotland, our education minister certainly said that but then the first minister seemed to back track a bit to leave the way clear for an earlier reopening if possible - I do not think we will be back though, there are two months left exactly of term so if it happens it would be for a short period. The education minister is being interviewed on STV tonight so I am watching with interest.

You're not wrong there noble

And don't forget :

scientists: we know all the answers about this, even though they are the answers for a different disease in a different country a few years back and/or the answers to questions about children when we had locked all the children away

Much like sachas inspired thread perhaps we need to collate all these scientific studies together and present in an OP!

The only one anyone (even the media) ever quote as if it is true is that effing Viner report.