The Sixth Republic - Will we or won’t we? That is the question! #solidarity

[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’m not at all surprised. The government wants to get some sort of child care provision up and running so people can get back to work. I just hope they don’t expect us to staff the summer holidays too.

I'm surprised that the fact the briefing yesterday told us schools should open when then there's effective track and trace up and running has just been ignored

They were saying on lbc that it may have been a mic drop moment. A frosty briefing and possibly showing discord between the Scientists and the government. A few also mentioned it on the news this morning.

Good teachers, those for whom education is a vocation, understand that-and will, I am confident, accept some personal risk is necessary for this to happen.

Unlike MPs and journalists who can sit at home and savage other people who they deem lazy, from their own safe offices.

Oh the irony of the daily fail publishing the union meeting as "callous teachers plotting" on Thank A Teacher Day.

Is that why they won't release 'the Science' then because the modelling is all based on test track trace being up and running?

I know pink. Twisted that conversation and them some.

It's a job. One that takes up far more of my time than I'm paid for, but it's just a job.

I'm taking the morning off and going swimming in a friend's pool. We'll sit in her garden, the kids will swim in bleach. That's the best way to thank this teacher!

Had my parliamentary post this morning from my MP.

I just nearly posted this on AIBU (some might recognise 95% of the wording...) but didn’t, because, what’s the point?! MNHQ clearly don’t give a shit about us, and how much shit we are getting - after all, they’re getting lots of hits and propping up their slashed advertising revenue.

Oooooh, can I table a motion @StaffAssociationRepresentative?

Let’s post this instead of flowers today!

Damn. Post THIS. Not nothing.

That new statesman article is really good.

For Interest, as I know there has been some debate about whether half days are allowed.

Priti Patel on LBC, quoted in the guardian: Patel says she would be [confident to send her child in on 1st June]. Children’s education is vital, she says. She says this does not amount to rushing back to a full school day.

Very disappointed with MNHQs response on that thread. Shows what their personal views are. After all, that OP came back to partake in the discussion in good faith, oh wait, they didn’t....

A half day means you can avoid the issue of breaks for staff and allow time for proper cleaning as well as ppa and setting work for home

Bloody jam packed day mind you

DreamingofBrie: Very useful thank you. I'm so glad to have found those workbooks and revision guides and to have had them stamped as 'good' by maths teachers on here. (Have used them this morning to relearn quite a few things myself.)

This is the thing, I'm not a maths teacher and I haven't studied maths since GCSE (considerably more than 20 years ago) but I am rolling up my sleeves, looking at online resources, looking at resources I bought before (in awareness I might need to support my child in their education in areas I wasn't great in), asking for help and advice from maths teachers. I accept that the work sent isn't tailor made for ds and what he has and hasn't mastered so it's going to take some input from me.

I've always understood I can't assume everything will come from school and, as someone who is not wealthy, I likely won't be able to outsource that additional support to professional tutors. That may possibly be because as a teacher I have close up experience of the limitations of schools, it may be that I home educated for a couple of ds's primary years so we could travel, or it may just be common sense that I can't outsource the entirety of my child's development from 4-19 to government funded learning factories.

Sorry - bit of a long rant and no doubt preaching to the choir but I'm stunned by people's disgust and horror at having to invest in their children's learning during a pandemic. I get they are working but what I'm doing is not taking more than an hour or two a few times a week.

Off to read the comments on that nice Guardian article.

I'm rating those cgp books too actually!

I know some primary schools bought those for the whole school to use as part of their home learning.

I rate the white rose maths too.

I've been so confused by the multiplication methods they do at the moment; I'm hardcore strategy trained and it's completely different in y2.

White rose this week has explained how and why where my own maths coordinator couldn't this week!

I was a bit to read of one poster's (admittedly useless) dh telling her it wasn't their responsibility to make their reluctant son so his home learning! Not sure whose responsibility he thought it was. Or who will lose out more in life over it.

"The minute one of these clowns says “guided by the best science” - that shyster’s get out clause - you know they’re winging it. If we are, just tell the truth.

"It still walks and quacks like fucking ‘herd immunity’ as far as I can see, so that means Dominic is still running things. As for the scientists, don’t get me started. Scientists are like taxis - you can always find one that will take you where you want to go."

"Having confirmed themselves as everything we already knew (second rate, unimaginative, floundering), the Government are now very transparently positioning the people who they want to carry the can for their ineptitude.

Now it's the teachers' turn."

"Children spend 13 years at school. What is the educational level of the average school leaver? 6 weeks loss of schooling is neither here nor there.
Our educational system is long overdue for a fundamental review, with complete emphasis on the educational needs of children and no concern for the economic or childminder needs of big business."

Just a few gems from there. Oh to have these discussions intelligently on mumsnet.

Honey we can have them in the staffroom...just not elsewhere on here ..

Remember that 'Teachers Urged to Sabotage Lessons' headline in the DM?

I've had an email back from the Independent Press Standards Organisation.

Some excerpts:

*We have read your complaint carefully, and have decided that it does not raise a possible breach of the Editors’ Code.

*Many complainants said that the article breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) because teachers had not been asked to “sabotage” classes. Many complainants were members of the National Education Union (NEU), the union the article reported on, and said they had not been told to “sabotage” classes. We noted that "sabotage" was clearly the publication's characterisation of the advice offered by the union, which can be found on its website and was linked to in the article. The article explained the basis for describing this advice as “sabotage”; it included several quotes from the union website, such as that “'Teachers should not live-stream lessons from their homes, nor engage in any video-calling unless in exceptional circumstances, with the parent” and that 'Online lessons are not desirable for primary children as the teacher-pupil interaction is not easily replicated.” It also included the views of parents, who were upset that the union had advised teachers to minimise online classes. Whilst complainants may not agree with the publication’s characterisation, where the article had provided its reasoning for such a description, we did not find it to be misleading in the way complainants suggested, and there was no possible breach of Clause 1 on this point.

*Many complainants also said that the article was misleading because it said teachers had been urged to “sabotage” classes, when in fact many teachers are working more than ever, including through holiday periods in order to teach the children of key workers. Some complainants said it had also omitted to mention the full context of the guidance issued by the union, and had taken selective quotes. We should note that newspapers have the right to choose which pieces of information they publish, as long as this does not lead to a breach of the Code. In this case, failing to mention the extra work that teachers are doing, or reporting on all the advice that had been given to teachers by all unions did not make the article inaccurate or misleading, where it was reporting on the advice given to teachers specifically by the NEU. In light of this, these points did not raise any possible breach of Clause 1.

There were more clauses that people complained under, and the responses, but I think the above were the most common.

Molly that is atrocious.

complete emphasis on the educational needs of children and no concern for the economic or childminder needs of big business - imagine that! Actually teaching and educating for the purpose of teaching and educating. How lush would that be instead of being prison guards, social workers, social engineers, abuse takers, hiders of unemployment levels, whipping boys, being expected to turn water into wine etc.