The Fifth Republic - safe space? Solidarity Comrades!

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff. 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.

In the other staffroom, there is rhubarb & ginger gin, along with tea and coffee.

I have no idea how this 'face to face' stuff will work with my rather niche subject.

Again I can see the conversation : 'You didn't do any of the online work Mrs Piggy set because you are lazy/want to be back at school/ can't work at home without a teacher/ aren't very able? Ah well, bless. Never mind. I'll signpost you here to some non existent websites and revision sources.'

Again, Heads will be righteously angry militant if they have planned timetables and then advice comes out.

That said I am not sure Geoff Barton knows what the government thinks or wants.

On another tack, I don't want to be a hero. As a lifelong pacifist I have no intention to fight any battles against invisible armies of anything. Teachers as heroes narratives sounds like the god awful advertising. Who are they going to attract into teaching now? Young (or even older) people with martyr complexes who see teaching as heroic are easily disillusioned.

suitable : there has been research into this The correlation is huge. Anxious parents are the single biggest influence on children's anxiety levels, especially very young children. Sadly/ frustratingly, it is especially anxious mothers.

Schools are going to be so different. You're right that the projecting anxiety will be worse than schools being 2m apart.

I don't know how you can do a pgce in Sept.... Will there be any whole class teaching? Or will you learn how to teach during a pandemic?

I'm still holding out hope that somehow loads of people have had covid and are asymptomatic so perhaps it isn't as bad as they think.

We've had another keep calm and set online work as we won't be opening soon email.

Hello everyone, this is my first post here. I’m on the SLT of a primary school. I woke up this morning to a delightful email from a parent threatening that if their N and Y1 children do not go back full time on June 1st in their normal classrooms with their normal teachers they will go to OFSTED to complain.

Between that and my thoughts on the guidance published last night, I managed a very successful run this morning. I was pounding the pavement!

So I guess today I will await the EYFS guidance. We were already planning full time spaces but wanted to keep group size to around 8 as we have seen in other countries. As we have nursery classes as well as reception, we were thinking we could only accommodate these. 15 just feels like too many right now.

Just accidentally saw the Fail's front cover : who is that hugging that child? that's not allowed.

You see it on all the threads- my child is so anxious etc, then the mother will talk about how they have anxiety. See it in school a lot too. A 6th former of mine, years ago, had a very ...invested....parent. she was a mess. Went to uni(a long way away) and flourished.

Hello everyone, this is my first post here. I’m on the SLT of a primary school. I woke up this morning to a delightful email from a parent threatening that if their N and Y1 children do not go back full time on June 1st in their normal classrooms with their normal teachers they will go to OFSTED to complain

Nice!

Presume Y1 won’t be back then?!

2 good tweets this morning
Anxiety and depression actually down since lockdown
And this blog

Morning! I was hoping that the R would fall and things wouldn’t need to be as drastic in Sept, but obviously not.

This is fantastic :

achemicalorthodoxy.wordpress.com/2020/05/14/i-want-to-go-back-to-school/

Where's that from oxana?

Oh let them go go Ofsted. Just reply and tell them you will be ensuring whatever plans in place are safe for both the staff and pupils and whilst the guidance from the government indeed sets out a range of details, it is not statutory so is not necessarily going to be adopted in full due to a range of variables.

Then say something like whilst you can appreciate this may be a difficult time for everyone and emotions are heightened, you will always do what is in the best interest of the children and of course parents are free to discuss schools with Ofsted as they see fit.

I then end with something like

I hope you and your family are staying safe during this unsettling time.

Can you tell I've had a few already too?!

I'm expecting a range of complaints.

Aaaah well!

Anyone here work for an Oasis academy?

Steve Chalke, founder of the Oasis trust which has 35 primary schools, says opposition to reopening is "rather middle class"

Piggy isn't it just!

I think parents expect schools as normal. Such a hard balance for everyone at the moment. Media spin is creating a horrible atmosphere against teachers which parents will take on board.

Lots of opposition where I live.Def not a middle class area.

The graphs were tweeted by someone who is a professor in epidemiology at ucl and is a wellcome trust Research fellow

I listened to that interview where he said concerns about schools opening were 'middle class' and had a shout at the radio.

We all agree that some children are much better off being at school than at home all the time, but they won't be if it's dangerous. And, while many of those children will be entitled to be in school now anyway, why can't the focus be on widening the net to include those teachers may be worried about, academically or otherwise, and doing more to get those in who could be but aren't. I don't see why suddenly having YR Y1 and Y6 in won't miss a lot of needy children in other years.

I would quite like to pick my most 6 behind Y10s and have a morning with them (assuming they's come) maybe once a week. I do understand that in some areas most or all rather than a minority of the students would be considered disadvantaged but in some areas couldn't some quite useful work be done by carefully targeting particular students? Why has is got to be one size fits all? Oh, I know, it's because it's for childcare, not need, at least in primaries, and in secondary it's about laying the ground for not adjusting GCSEs next year.

Overall what's going to be needed is support for these students whenever we do reopen, and no one wants to spend the money that's going to take, particularly in the current economic environment.

and a teacher drowning a puppy or something.
Damn, last time I did that I forgot to take a photo

Did any hear the Naswut in radio 5 I missed it?

Apparently Gav has set up a meeting with Chris Witty and the union heads later today.

Will Gav himself actually be there??

I am not expecting Whitty to back teachers. He is employed by the government and basically does their bidding. I rather expect him to throw out some soothing statistics and the unions to roll over.

Thats my worry too Phlebas.

I’ve been taking a break from mumsnet, so please excuse my absence from the staff room...

However, have you seen this? Nursery & primary teachers have higher exposure than care workers!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52637008

That will be so depressing, phlebas.

I can’t see the unions rolling over easily in this one -there are loads of them, 9 I think?-but I don’t know what they can actually do? Presume it’s too late to strike, so do they just tell us not to go in I’m not sure teachers will be able to risk being sacked.

I had hoped the NAHT would be more proactive-if they advised their heads not to reopen, that would be more effective. Heads seem to want the teachers to solve the problem for them.