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.

If it’s a chat and a discussion how is it better/worth the risk when I am already having 3 google meet live lessons a week with my year 12.

What they need is practical work, collaboration, devising. To finish learning how to work together physically. I don’t need to see them to know that and even if I did since there’s no way they can be allowed to work in this way at the moment what’s the point.

So is Gav planning for us to be teaching over the six weeks?!

Or at least have us planning 6 weeks worth of work for exam classes, so pretty much a new lesson every day (30 lessons per class, could have 3-6 separate classes, so well over 100 lessons) and if that work has to be personalised for each according to him, that could be a thousand different pieces of work/lesson. All the while we are in school with kw and v children and teaching remotely.
Wow.
It shouldn’t do but it never ceases to amaze me just how little most actually know about teaching and why it is scandalous teachers have not been consulted at Cabinet level on this.

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet

Jacob Rees-Mogg shut down by Commons speaker after calling for MPs to return within weeks to 'set an example'

gav can get to fuck. Any sane teacher will be turning off their work laptop and not answering any emails during the unpaid summer non contracted time. If Gav thinks kids work over the 6 weeks of summer Gav is a twat.

Gav is just spewing any old shit to try and make sense of the bollocks that was said. Gav doesn't know why year 10 and 12 groups would benefit from brief 'face to face' contact with their teachers let alone how it would be any more beneficial than a 1:1 phone or skype call.

Gav is irrelevant

In fact the government is irrelevant and I wish we could ignore them. They're not the ones with the duty of care and subsequent liability, they're not the ones with any knowledge of education settings and they're not the ones who will be deciding on the 1st of June whether any schools will be opening.

Hopefully we, our unions and our HTs can grasp that and move on accordingly.

Imagine thinkng Boris Johnson was well placed to make decisions about the safety of reception classes in eg. northumberland? I'm not convinced I'd trust him to go to the shops with a list and come back with anything resembling what I'd requested or to have any explanation other than ah, well, yes, you see, clearly, some people, ahh, some people think you should shop in, you know, a list like fashion but, err, yes, I think it's clear, I think everyone understands that, err, umm, yes, obviously, well yes, everyone must do shopping in their own way and obviously, err, yes, so long as you try to do the shopping properly then, ahhh, yes, obviously, that's what we can do.

I am not kidding

Blimey, I've just been over and had a look at the Homeschooling thread. No wonder some parents are getting militant about schools reopening as soon as possible. There's a worrying number who've given up completely because their kids throw paddies. But they're naively hopeful that "they won't fall too far behind." But of course, when if they do, it will all be our fault.

They're the ones I was referencing earlier when I said they parents were saying their kids must go back to school because they can't make their kids do the work and teachers can. Some magical belief that when even they can't make their own children do work with 1:1 attention instruction us shit, lazy, worthless teachers can 'make' them and 29 other kids of varying levels of ability, sen, attachment disorder, trauma, behaviour problems, etc etc crammed into a room together learn.

Bless

It seems we are simultaneously shit yet imbued with god like powers to educate children whose own parents can't deal with them one on one. We're bizarre creatures really. Shit yet essential, able to teach kids en masse that parents can't engage individually yet utterly worthless and replaceable with any old graduate whose strapped for cash.

We're like those hindu gods and goddesses with multiple arms and legs and faces seeing in all directions. We are feared and hated yet the masses want to sacrifice their children to us daily for fear of what they will become if they aren't exposed to our demonic/divine powers.

The contradictory messaging is enough to make anyone a bit daft and fantastical. I'm veering towards surreal or very dark humour to cope with it tonight.

Gav is a lying bastard who is coming out with shit about " working with unions and teachers leaders" ...

The NEU post a response every fucking day saying the gov is not responding to any of their emails, concerns, questions. Every teaching union and the BMA have written statements to say opening the schools is reckless and mad.

But Gav is pretending all is splendid. He must be thick. Does he not realise what a twat he'll look when HTs don't open schools they can't staff and the unions tell members that it is not safe.

I'm veering towards a bottle of whisky.

Gav is relying on the, 'I'd volunteer to go in for free over summer', 'I feel I need to show I desperately miss my students and love them more than my own safety of that of my family to prove my worth as a human being/teacher' type sentiments to override union guidance. Not sure I'd confidently bet money on whether Gav is right or wrong in his reading of that.

Teachers have complacently put up with endless shit this century.

Do you have a bottle of whiskey CallmeA?

I survived my PGCE course on hot whiskeys at collaborative planning nights at the flats of several of us students in Brighton. Fond memories despite being at breaking point repeatedly.

Thank God there were a few of us who were sane and normalish and supported each other like mad albeit in a rather drunken haphazard manner.

I was on a religious studies pgce course and there quite a few as you'd expect bizarre types but thankfully a core of about 5 of us who were not religious but basically social scientists with a different agenda. We kind of clung to each other and forcibly prevented each other from quitting

Good morning!

Wtf summer hols?!

#solidarity

Bbc report on "how Denmark opened its schools..."

They only have class sizes of 20 normally, have massive schools and what looked like a huge lovely playground filled with rocks and tree trunks. There's no way all kids are in. Omitted to say that in the younger year groups it's much smaller groups.

Oh and only 550 deaths.

Long time lurker (secondary teacher), waves

I would normally expect my y12s to have a break over the summer (and suggest they do a bit of review work in the last week ready to return). I can't see why, when they have been working hard through lockdown, it should be any different this year, they need a break just like me!

I would love to see them again, and if the class was smaller they could socially distance, but I don't think with social distancing there is much we could do in school that they couldn't do at home. Although if we could choose students to come in a couple of times before the summer there are 4/5 I'd invite in just for a little extra support in a very small group.

Oh and they start school age 6/7.

Flags I suppose that's how I'd interpreted that, basically a very small tutor group and only perhaps max two sessions per group over the 6 weeks?

That's how I read the suggestions for year 10 and 12 too Neuro. Morning

neuro every example they ever give is also a private international school.

Notwithstanding, most ordinary Danish schools are all through schools so they have a large secondary on the same site , which is lying fallow, so they are using those spaces too.

But some Secondary schools seem to be planning to open as normally as possible for Y10.

Stand by for another day of Mumsnet bingo phrases

I come from a family of teachers ....

my friends are teachers ....

I know some teachers ...

paid for holidays .....

furlough them ....

zoom lessons ....

sack them if they refuse .....

the unions are not engaging .....

gov / DfE is following the science

children dont spread the virus

The only reason my y12 BTEC class need to be in college is to do practical work, which they won’t be able to do anyway. So it’s pointless. I can have a lovely chat with my A levels for ten minutes each I guess, but that’s also mostly pointless.

We have three teachers in our department though - one had a timetable with only y13 and now has no teaching at all (the luck of the draw! It happens to one of us every now and then), one is living with someone shielding (and doesn’t have a y12 A level class anyway) and me, who’s a single parent with two school aged kids I don’t want to send to school. My DP will look after them for me but that’s an imposition on him, and it just seems unfair that I might have to go in when nobody else will. It’s all going to be a mess, isn’t it?

I was just saying to DP, I’d fucking love to be furloughed at this point. If I’m working full time for 100% salary and could be legitimately doing 0 for 80%, I’m effectively working for 20% pay, and a shitload of grief.

Bbc report on "how Denmark opened its schools..."

I complained to the bbc about that article last night.

We are following their lead...?!