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.

Yeah, in science, the ones with poor English skills tend to really struggle. There is just so much specialist language that even if they can read every day English to, say, a KS2 level, there are so many key words they just get thrown by.

However, if they can manage to substitute numbers into an equation, they can usually pick up quite a few marks on the physics paper.

I’d say the only advantage at our school for KW children is the social aspect. We have been very clear from the beginning that the work set by the class teacher is to be done at home and can’t be accessed at school. As the majority are only in part time this has been ok with parents. I suppose if any child was in the wrap around care and school 8 - 6 every day then provision would have been made for them to do it in school, but it hasn’t been an issue afaik.
Pretty much the same with the children in after June 1st. They will be set work that is the same as the work set for those at home. That’s the ‘sitting at your desk’ bit. They’ll get lots of outside time, some of it Break, some of it PE and some of it extension activities based on the set work. Those extension activities will be shared with parents doing the work at home and it’s up to them how they access that.

I'm not sure key worker children will be at a big educational advantage- are they being explicitly taught at many schools?

I don't mean now, I mean if 'blended learning' goes on for a really long time into the future. Then it would have to be content teaching in school and 'home learning' at home. But some children would get teaching at school every day/ week- and in small classes- which is surely going to be better for them?

But some children would get teaching at school every day/ week- and in small classes- which is surely going to be better for them?

Not in our hub. It's four different schools so four different staff bodies. They also don't need to attend every day. You're trying to plan a general activity that most of them can make an attempt at, rather than proper teaching.

Behaviour in ours is also so bad that the good ones (who, to make a grossly unfair but true generalisation, are the KW children) are more or less ignored while we try to placate and reason with the EBD crew.

Educationally Kw kids better off than those with no support maybe but considerably worse of than those at home with support from parents and access to resources I’d say.

Ah, I see what you're saying.

Because we're only inviting Y10 in for 1 half day a week, any key worker children have to stay in the "keyworker" bubble- so they won't get to access any more teaching than other students. In some ways, they may be worse off. If they wanted to access the teaching, they wouldn't be allowed in on the other days as it's mixing bubbles.

We're also currently using the secondary school in our MAT for the primary key worker children- this is good for them as lots of space and they can access IT/sport facilities ect, plus a big playground/field for them- but I guess this will have to stop when we get Y10 back in, and they will be stuck in one classroom all day :(

If we end up on part time timetables for a really long time, but key worker children can go full time throughout, surely they are going to end up having a huge educational advantage.

I don't think so. In our school the KW children do their home learning tasks in the morning, then art/DT/own choice play in the afternoons. And that's it.

Some of our SEND children who are in school are having a lovely time. It really suits them. Year 5 children playing with year 2 children because that's what suits them developmentally. It's good for them in that way.

Also SEND - those children have been given work by class teachers and the SENCO that are about their IEP targets. On Tuesday I could move a child on to his next target, so that's cool.

You have all missed my point. I know there is no particular advantage to being in school as we have it set up right now.

However, say (extreme example) we ended up with all the children on a week on/ week off rota for 18 months and the official plan was that when children were in school they were taught properly. Say, the time in school was then supposed to be focused on accelerated learning of new content.

Then- in that paradigm which is totally different to now- the children in school all the time would be getting double to very focused teaching.

Yes Sansa-I put a fair bit of effort into giving lots of verbal examples as to how they could write their answer. Eg. This shows the relationship between... as the level of x increases the rate of y... etc. Bad examples but just because they’ve understood and got the right results doesn’t mean they have a clue how to construct sentences to express their findings.

I do a lot of walking around saying things like, so you could say, or you could word it like, whilst they’re writing something up. Oh and massive over kill on using, reusing, keywords and asking and what do we call that? Or what’s a more scientific way of saying that and getting them as a class to come up with stuff.

Ahh. I quite missed teaching for a minute there

If anyone wants the fight I can see another ready to kick off just been reading this fullfact.org/health/covid-19-in-children/

@TheHoneyBadger I totally get what you mean- I tried to give mine lots of writing frames and stuff and got them to copy down model answers from the board- because some of them could learn a model answer off by heart and figure out roughly which question to apply it to in the exam. And we tried to learn a few key words each week as homework. But it is really tough for them.

In my other Y11 set, which was borderline foundation/higher I had a few dyslexic boys who just couldn't cope with the way higher questions were phrased, even though their maths ability was similar to a grade 6/7 student. I really don't like the way a lot of Science GCSE questions rely on reading comprehension as much as scientific knowledge.

@reefedsail with respect, I think it's you who has misunderstood. What you are describing should happen in any school as it would involve mixing bubbles. Keyworker children will have to stay in their own bubble, and it's unlikely they will get focused teaching.

Oh I see reefedsail.

I don't know. I don't think we'll be in this model for much longer. They're clearly desperate to get us all back.

The Scottish guidance on re-opening schools is out.

In a nutshell, we are to open to all students in August on a rotation basis (to be decided at a local level) and we will follow a 'blended model of in-school and in-home learning'. Physical distancing is to be adhered to for all except the very youngest in the ELC (pre-5). In-home learning materials will be provided to 'support and augment' in-school learning by Education Scotland.

Sounds reasonably sensible to me! We are to go back to school in June to prepare classrooms (though I am on the vulnerable list, nothing said about this really).

That's so much better than England

Keyworker children will have to stay in their own bubble, and it's unlikely they will get focused teaching.

Not in my school. The keyworker children are going back into their year group bubbles as their year groups return.

In a nutshell, we are to open to all students in August on a rotation basis (to be decided at a local level) and we will follow a 'blended model of in-school and in-home learning'. Physical distancing is to be adhered to for all except the very youngest in the ELC (pre-5). In-home learning materials will be provided to 'support and augment' in-school learning by Education Scotland.

I'm talking about ^ this plan.

Sansa frankly I can’t cope sometimes. I’ll look at a question and think what the hell are they asking for? Maybe scientists have a peculiar way of phrasing questions 😆Half the battle for me as a non specialist helping a kid answer a q is working out what the question is actually aiming at. I’m from social science and humanities background.

@SansaSnark
However, if they can manage to substitute numbers into an equation, they can usually pick up quite a few marks on the physics paper.

That’s absolutely what I’ve found - but they’re wedded to the idea that ‘physics is too hard’ and think they’ll do better on biology with all the wordy explanations!

In that situation kw kids would be doing the same work twice and having no time to do the at home bit. In reality teachers would be having to manage to do both simultaneously for them I guess? Who knows

I find biology a nightmare with low ability. Too many words, too many complex processes to describe. Physics is hard imo but if they get it they get it and some just click with it (not me)

I'm quite happy with the plan for Scottish schools too. Good that the new entrants in Primary and S1 will get some kind of transition. It seems balanced and sensible to allow local authorities to make decisions that reflect the nature of their schools.

@reefedsail As you're in Scotland, the DfE advice doesn't apply, but it is pretty clear about not mixing students between bubbles. I would have thought something similar will come out in Scotland, or it will defeat the point of having bubbles. If Scotland are going to be mixing bubbles, I actually think that's worse than a lot of what's being planned in reality in England- social distancing and good hygiene can only do so much to stop the spread.

@TheHoneyBadger Some of them are just deliberately hard, IMO, with unusual things put in deliberately to throw the kids (sorry, to test their application of the material). I think the exams favour students with lots of cultural capital and strong literacy skills and I don't think that's what science should necessarily be about.

I find the box the command word and underline the scientific content technique works well sometimes- if they can at least figure out from the chunk of info that the question is asking them about the carbon cycle or whatever, it gives them a starting point.

@CarrieBlue I agree, a lot of them have a barrier about physics/maths being hard, but actually if you can get them over that, there's often a lot of easy marks to pick up in physics (and chemistry)- whereas in biology they will sometimes write a lovely 6 mark answer to the wrong question :( or just be too vague and get no marks even though they are along the right lines.

So reps meeting focused heavily on primaries - I think they think secondaries aren’t gearing up for start of June.

Key points were that social distancing is not going to happen in schools and that is why access to testing and track and trace systems need to be secure and robust. That schools will try best to minimise contact and if any staff feel their health and safety is being put at risk to raise it (eg if being asked to be in close proximity to others).

Staffing - each case taken on individual basis eg vulnerable, childcare etc... they said they would support heads and individual teachers with this where necessary.

They are still adamant that the five tests should be met. And that each individual school should use the NEU checklist and should not open unless they can say yes to things on there. Emphasises that heads and governors ultimately sign off risk assessment so it falls on their shoulders.

Most reps felt the don’t engage with planning was bad and that we wanted to be involved in discussions about safety and logistics but happy not to spend time planning lessons/admin until decisions made and agreed.

Primaries were all doing things differently. One didn’t open because they decided that they could provide online learning AND open up to wider year groups and didn’t agree youngest should come back so instead they were opening up spaces for key workers etc and working on getting more of their vulnerable in where they could.

Others were blanket opening on 1st in various different guides others were pushing back dates to have more time - some for all and some for different year groups.

Big emphasis on the guidance saying “if it is safe...” “if is is feasible...” and encouraging heads and individual schools to feel empowered to make their own decisions.

Lots of reference to the 1944 (?) health and safety act and one school (the one not opening) had used that to help make their decisions.