The Third Republic - solidarity comrades!

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. Baiters and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are not staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

You can play here only if you are a member of one the following groups-

-ABBA - anti bashers and baiting association
-SWAB - school workers against bashers
-SWOT - school workers opposing teacherbashers
-STARS - schoolworkers together against ranting + slurs

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes and the ability to sniff out where the toffee vodka is hidden.

I can see two days, one day break, two days working really well. I think - given how we have been running remote learning - we could use the Wednesday to mark remote learning for the Th/F group & set remote learning for the M/T group, then the Th/F group has the same lessons as the M/T group but does their main remote learning the following M/T, marked on Wednesday and so on.

Wednesdays could be a day when both groups are encouraged to do 'non Maths / English' project work and things like PE / ICT.

Sorry to butt in again - my DS school, and another local primary school, are sending home work packs while those in school (him and one other some days!) do the pack relatively independently in school.

That's pretty much exactly what we do - those children in school (an increasing number) do the same Home Learning activities as those at home, with the staff in school acting as their 'parents' for that period of the day to support their work.

Then the rest of the day they do other things - PE, craft etc.

I can't imagine teaching in a classroom but still having to set online lessons for students at home. I'm having to convert all my lessons from Smart files to PowerPoint at the moment, in order for inking to work on my laptop. Finding resources which can be done electronically whilst still providing variety. And the feedback! Every question when I'm teaching online. Can't imagine doing that whilst in the classroom all day too!

Anyway, it's the bank holiday. Hope everyone is enjoying the good weather .

The only problem I guess would be that KW children would presumably still need to come in every day? Including Wednesdays. So they would do everything twice and would take up daily places in the ‘half sized’ classes. That would only be a problem if you had quite a few of them in the class though.

I can see that working really well in a primary school classroom.

I'm not quite sure how well it would work in secondary, where we would have timetabling issues in being able to let all the pupils have at least one lesson of all their subjects. A logistical nightmare, but it seems like the best solution I've heard yet. I'm very glad I wouldn't be in charge of figuring out how we could organise things.

I'm in an odd situation, in that I only work one day.. I wonder if that day will have to change..I have another non-teaching job for 2 days which I've had for more than 20 years so I can't really change the days on that one..
I've already been told that I should be only checking and replying to emails and setting and marking work on the one day that I should be in school. But it's impossible. Creating 2 weeks worth of work on GC takes at least a whole day! And I'm on the rota too, so I can't check, mark and reply to stuff at the same time as physically being in school with our KW kids. Tricky, innit !

MsAwesome I think in secondary it would have to be much like primary for now - one teacher, one class, self study packs for each subject provided by a subject lead, each student has a named tray of equipment for the 2 days they are in, and each class has a staggered start, staggered lunch and staggered end to allow them to essentially a little unit with little contact with others. Packed lunch in the classroom.
Maybe core subjects could also be taught via a PowerPoint prepared by a subject specialist but delivered by whoever was that class's hub teacher.

I know I am being a bit 'I can't' and foot stampy but I cannot prepare a pack of work for a student in my subject to get on with without access to specialist materials and staff! I think most secondary teachers would say the same. But there are certain options subjects (expressive arts spring to mind but also media, design subjects etc ) that just might end up being scrapped at this rate

If this is genuinely the way it will be they might as well stay at home and get input from me remotely...

If you had enough KW children (to the point where they were taking up e.g. 5 spaces in each class) you could put them in a group of their own. Especially if they were children of nurses/doctors/HCPs as they're more likely to be carrying it.

Otherwise I think they'd need to just accept a little boredom... differentiation is a good point though- do we group by ability? Try and allocate days based on parents' jobs?...

Fan of the lemon gin btw. Still to find toffee!

In 'my' model of...

Mon, Tues for shift one of children where they learn things that are then built on with home based work for the rest of the week.
Wed - Teacher PPA and time preparing/setting and responding to completed online work previously set as well as allowing for a deep clean of classrooms.
Thurs - Shift 2 of the other half of the class comes in and does the same. Their online work is then for Mon-Wed.

I would imagine key worker children could be in one of the shifts, then with TAs for the other days they are needed to be in school for a mixture of time playing and having support to complete the online work. Some of our key worker children are not in all day every day already, although a lot are.

(Primary obv)

I agree with you piggy. That way of working would be far less educational than the remote learning they are all doing now. It would be horrendous!! They would be attempting to do work that's not at the right level for them (because they can't be in the right sets for every subject as they can be so different), without even seeing a video explaining what they have to do. And then I have to possibly help them with geography, history, RE, etc most of which I haven't done since I was at school myself, and some of the subjects they do I have never done.

That's not to anyone's benefit.

Wed - Teacher PPA and time preparing/setting and responding to completed online work previously set as well as allowing for a deep clean of classrooms.

Imagine if we could do this from home Also- staff meeting, conducted online obviously.

Have no idea about our secondary specialists I'm afraid :(

Piggy - I know it wouldn't be great and worse educationally than we have now. Certainly in science it would be colour in and label the carbon cycle, put the labels in the right places, complete the word equations using the pattern above, write a method for making a cup of tea, type work.

Mon, Tues for shift one of children where they learn things that are then built on with home based work for the rest of the week.
Wed - Teacher PPA and time preparing/setting and responding to completed online work previously set as well as allowing for a deep clean of classrooms.
Thurs - Shift 2 of the other half of the class comes in and does the same. Their online work is then for Mon-Wed.

I would imagine key worker children could be in one of the shifts, then with TAs for the other days they are needed to be in school for a mixture of time playing and having support to complete the online work. Some of our key worker children are not in all day every day already, although a lot are.

That's perfect in my mind. We see all the kids, so safeguarding gets ticked, parents know which days they've got childcare. We have the Wednesday to prepare (at home or wherever), then kids are only doing 2 days learning not with a teacher.

What are the issues with it?

Just trying to imagine that it's a great way of doing things, so therefore won't be considered even slightly by the DfE, LA or SLT!! I can suggest to my SLT so long as I've addressed the issues in advance.

Will get back to you about the secondary switch after bedtime..

If you had enough KW children (to the point where they were taking up e.g. 5 spaces in each class) you could put them in a group of their own. Especially if they were children of nurses/doctors/HCPs as they're more likely to be carrying it

Staff could pull straws for that group!

I would be more than happy for my secondary-aged child to continue with remote learning and would much rather that than some attempt at coming in two days a week to be with unfamiliar staff and pupils. It’s the completely rammed travel on public transport to school that bothers me as much as school itself!

Would that mean that secondary staff could stay at home for the most part with their own primary aged children (obviously, they’d go in on a part time or phased basis with all other children)?

The schools will need to take into account how many teachers children will need to be in all week as well. I know that will boost the numbers at my sons school straight away. He hasnt been going in currently as I just, like many, struggle to work at home but if I need to be physically in then so will he.

Yes, teachers kids would bump up the numbers in dds school. I think there are 4 of them in her class, but I'm not sure that's typical of the school as a whole. Dd would stay at home with dh or dd1 (20, so perfectly responsible to keep dd2 safe, no education happening though lol) on any days she wasn't due to be back.

The idea of 2 days, deep clean, 2 days is interesting but means that half the school have to be in at one time. So wouldn't that mean groups of 15+? Are classrooms big enough to hold this number of children in a socially distanced way?

In my current KS2 primary class I currently have 5 in each day (a mix of SEN/ vulnerable/ key workers). I have 3 others who could come in, and another 2 who would need to if schools returned. If children start coming in for 2 days, I would expect most, if not all, of those who are allowed to be in to do so. That's 10 children. We've been forced to cut our TA numbers over the last few years, so my year group doesn't have a TA. I don't see how we can even do half the class in, because it's not half the class, it's more than that.

If key workers children were all put in one group this would be mixed age range ( maybe 4 to 11 year olds?) so wouldn't this mean they'd be at a disadvantage if others were in a year group of their peers and the person taking that group wouldn't really be able to teach as such.

I don't think it would be the full 2m, no , Educating. But definitely separated from each other by enough that they wouldn't have to touch.

I would have keyworkers' children in for their group's 2 days, then complete the remote work + do some other childcare related playing (exactly as they do at the moment) in the unused sections of the school (hall, ICT room, field etc) which none of the other classes would use.

For secondary, I would concentrate on Y10, Y12 and bring them in on a similar type of rota, aiming to give A level students 1 lesson per day of each subject (so 2 lessons over the 2 days they are in) and GCSE students 1 lesson per week of each of their subjects.

If you had sufficiently small classes at A-level, they could come in for 4 days, as their classes might not need to be split.

That would work regarding space but not regarding the mixed ages. It would mean 1 teacher trying to teach the equivalent of 6 different classes at once. Of course you could add a TA which might help a bit but still pretty difficult to provide the same quality as the lessons in the other groups.