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.

Our SLT are mainly parents of older children. Two have young kids ( one babies) , but they are both men so draw your own conclusions . Our head has no kids.

It's a sobering thought to think who might have to die before the Government (and some parents) realise just what they've thrown us into.

God, I wasn't depressed earlier but I am a bit now. Still working on my assignment so can't even watch a bit of TV. But definitely getting some wine and some dinner now to keep me going.

Big hugs to everyone else also feeling a bit down or meh today.

Hi everyone. I had a weekend off of mn but have read and caught up. Sorry to those who are feeling particularly down.

I’m a bit puzzled as to how schools can demand live lessons from your own home especially where you are caring for children. It’s a bit much to expect us to open a window into our homes.

I’m another who’d be clueless. I would need to be able to switch between them seeing me and slides for example. Genuinely wouldn’t have a clue. Are they at least giving training and is there any safeguarding to prevent kids from recording and/or taking screenshots to share elsewhere?

Teachers like control, routines and planning. We can't plan, have no routines and can't plan for an unknown future. we also tend to like people and thrive on adrenalin.

I am very much a control freak so don't like it when things don't go my way. I have a proper sulk for a while about everyone else's short sightedness I am known for always being proven to have been right , mind! I am Cassandra...

@Piggywaspushed I know the feeling

#solidarity

Piggywaspushed

I have always enjoyed the contradiction that is teaching, I know where and when, but the how changes from class to class and sometimes moment to moment.

Just watching the BBC's news now. Is it me or are they pro kids going back to school? with all their harping on about Denmark?

Just watching the BBC's news now. Is it me or are they pro kids going back to school? with all their harping on about Denmark?

It’s not just you.

I don’t think the BBC app even mentioned the BMA agreeing it was too soon for schools to go back.

I've mostly had a weekend off from all this school shit. Just had to record my lessons for tomorrow though, so had to check school email. Union rep emails!

The comparison with Denmark is OK, so long as we can also compare our management of COVID with Denmark. Not sure the Tories want us to do that.

My local Tory party keeps FB and tweeting BBC news stories which I think says it all. I always used to support the BBC but now, as we don't use it for TV and their reporting is so shocking, I am glad we made the decision to not pay the licence fee.

@WhyNotMe40 I’ve just read your post on the end of the last thread.
Sending you a virtual hug. It is pants. My baby squidge of a boy is also starting reception in September and I feel so sad it will not be the innocent beginning my older children had.

My SLT all have primary or preschool aged children. That's good in terms of their understanding of people's situations.

I was thinking about this the other day: how varied home situations can be by department, etc, meaning that what we can do - from home or in going back in to school - is also so varied. For eg, in my department, we are all childless or with much older children (Uni upwards) so we are working like trojans at home: devising good lessons, detailed marking/responses to every piece of work from every child, improving our MTPs, extra subject specific CPD etc etc.

BUT 60 % of us are also shielded/living with shielded/vulnerable groups. So when we are expected back in school - and if we are allowed to stay wfh - we can't really offer as great an in school offer as now!

I've been musing on this demand for live lessons over the weekend. I used to work in industry before I became a teacher, and when I changed to flexible working, the company gave me a laptop, mobile and sent someone round to my house to sort out my broadband. Whilst I think it's not unreasonable to expect us to train/upskill on delivering remote learning effectively (which doesn't necessarily mean only live lessons, but techniques such as recording to Youtube, audio over Powerpoint etc.), I'm not sure in how many other professions we would be expected to provide our own equipment as well. I will add that my school has provided us with the equipment and access to software, to be able to teach remotely.

I'm finding this very difficult to talk to friends who aren't teachers about. Of course equipment such as school laptops, chrome books etc. should go to the children in order to help them with online learning first, but where does that leave the teachers who don't have the equipment?

I can do lessons at home, but that doesn't matter when half the kids don't access them.

I've so enjoyed my weekend off this shit, that I'm wondering if it's time to hand in my notice and find something else to do. It's going to be awful for a few years isn't it, not sure I've got the strength/arseness for it to be honest.

I can do lessons at home, but that doesn't matter when half the kids don't access them.

That's one of the sticking points, isn't it. When does it stop being our fault?

when I changed to flexible working, the company gave me a laptop, mobile and sent someone round to my house to sort out my broadband

Yep, I had a 'work from home' career before I was a teacher too. I'm not ever phoning a parent from my home mobile. I've only phoned them when I'm in school. So even if I'm at home for the next few weeks, I'm going to go in to school to do any phoning that needs to happen. Email is different obv.

It's the assumption that you have even got anywhere you want to film lessons that gets me a bit. Why should kids get to see my living room? Also, definitely there is a thing with having to learn all this stuff myself. I've been doing online lessons via youtube and the school website since the seond week of closure - before the easter holidays. I spent all that time learning how to do it myself, no one else in the school has bothered. Then last Thursday we had MS Teams training. After 8 weeks. It's mad.

I think it's a bigger problem than is recognised. I have a school laptop and dh has a work one but the kids don't have one. So we have struggled because we suddenly had 4 people needing 2 laptops. When I go back and dh goes back - the kids are laptop less. We will need to get another one. Which will be hard on our income as dh is self employed and i"'m the main earner.

And we are well off! Compared to others in my class.

When does it stop being our fault?

Never! It's always a teacher's fault. As a comparison with other careers, it's interesting how critical we are of each other (and that some jobs exist JUST to be critical and judge other people's ability to do their job), and how critical everyone else is of the profession.

Like I say, I'm looking to get out. It was a 5 year plan (we're one year in to it with no ideas!), but this will put everything back won't it.

phlebas - also, people seem to think that a tablet will do the job, but it really doesn't. They are only OK for watching stuff for kids, unless they have been properly trained to use them for learning.

My first school was an Apple school. I got given an ipad in 2009 to do all my planning on. I lasted a week until they bought me a Macbook. I ended up with a Mac desktop too.

See, we have to use our own mobiles to phone parents in normal circs, because even in school, there isn't a private or a spare phone anywhere. You just have to press 141 before you dial so it withholds the number.

And no-one has a school provided laptop that I know of in any school!

There is also a huge variety of live lessons going on. DH's consist of pre prepped maths tasks. He checks the kids are there at the beginning. they dot he work. if they gets stuck they type an answer.

That doesn't need him there just to appease fee paying parents tbh.

In the other hand, I think my unnarrated ppts do the job. the quality and quantity of work I get back suggest so anyway...

If I have to do live teaching, and his school is due to go 100% live and my DS has his school work (will ignore DS1 as he doesn't do work but does suck wifi!) where are we even all supposed to sit!!??

I have a school laptop, and a visualiser. I almost didn't bring the visualiser home because we'd pretty much been told no videos. But I did, and I'm so glad I did because after a week of remote learning we were suddenly told videos were ok. My work laptop doesn't have a webcam, so the visualiser is how I'm doing videos for the kids. I'm happy doing videos using the visualiser actually, as they don't get to see me or my house, just the exercise book I'm writing in.

The problem for us is definitely the number of kids who are sharing devices in order to access any web based lessons. We can't sort out equipment and better broadband for all of our families!! That's really not school's job.

Oh we have laptops. And a desk top in my classroom. On Friday I brought home my visualiser too from my desk top/whiteboard, so that should help with lesson stuff. Although I've just had to order the right cables from Amazon. Our ICT is good. And my head is generally ace.

I've never worked at a school that didn't provide laptops. We even provide them for PGCE students etc.

Wow! That's astonishing. How often do they replace them? Must be a huge chunk of the budget.

DH used to be a school network manager then adviser for the LEA. He thinks most schools in our county stopped buying teachers laptops over a decade ago when it just became standard for people to own their own anyway.

We have a lot of very recently arrived children - it's a high turnover school. Also high EAL. So, we'll have kids following lessons on parents phones, using 4g only, in a language that no one in their household speaks. Yay!

That's why I've videod myself too - I think it helps with their understanding if they can see my facial expressions.

We've just bought work books for next term. Then am reducing videos to 10 mins max. Hopefully they'll be able to follow those, then do work - I'll use the visualiser to go through the work and also write in the answers so they can mark.

It's been a learning curve!