The Seventh Republic - the debate rages on but for some it is half term!

[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.

If you are fed up with cakes and biscuits there is now a cheeseboard on offer

Beawillwaysbetopdog what is the thread?

Watched s video of a local primary school classrooms on YouTube. The head said they look very clinical.

IHC -

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3922461-Aibu-Returning-to-school

73% said she was being unreasonable :)

Right I’m going in with my fighting ring on!

I've been sent dd's home learning for next week. It is of a lower quality than before half term. I completely understand why, as all the staff will be involved in preparing for opening the doors to more pupils on Monday. But it does mean I will be doing more planning of work for dd myself (maybe going along with the BBC stuff actually), and I can understand why parents who aren't teachers will be upset by it. It's definitely not the teachers fault, though, not even the school's fault, it's because of government decisions in the middle of a pandemic.

I did a survey with my classes to see what they like/don't like about remote learning. It was really interesting to see that none of them want video live lessons, they like the videos I'm sending them but want to keep them as being accessible any time, not just lesson time. They don't want to be able to see/hear the other members of the class. About half of my year 12 said they think they're learning more at home than they do at school because they have to think harder!!

@MsAwesomeDragon my year 12s said the same thing. Working harder and learning how to learn - with me there if they need anything. I miss them though.

I totally get their frustration, just wish they'd place the blame at the door of the government, seeing as, you know, they make the decisions.

That's interesting awesome. I keep asking if anyone in my place is going to survey student or parent opinion...

We are surveying parents and students at the moment. They'd better say they like what our dept is providing because we've planned the whole half term already

I surveyed my y12. They said they liked the videos (just links to YouTube, I watch carefully and make a few written notes for them explaining why the video is appropriate/what to focus on - I only record my own video if I can't find a suitable one, which is very unusual), past exam questions and online quizzes. A few commented that it felt like a normal lesson in terms of work set (note I am doing no live teaching, it is all via Google classroom).

About half of my year 12 said they think they're learning more at home than they do at school because they have to think harder!!

I reckon I learnt far more that stuck when I followed the letts study guides for gcse donkeys years ago (early 90s so no internet!) when revising.

I was so diligent and actually read the how to bit at the front which explained how to learn and how to break the study into 45 min chunks, with a break and various other tips. I'm still in admiration of how I worked out how much time I had and how to structure the day and really stuck to it, as well as the study tips. I can see having the videos to refer to would be better than a live lesson.

Learning how to learn independently is a really important skill that seems to get forgotten about.

Actually it's a key part of how you teach children with autism.

Predictably there is now a thread complaining that a TA is being used to staff a child's bubble.

It's particularly irritating as a thread, because their child is not 'returning to school', they are joining the long-running keyworker childcare, as they are not in one of the returning year groups.

Why the OP in that thread thought there would be a teacher teaching her daughter, under the circumstances, I don't know...

So the R hasn't gone down one little bit then....

Nope. We're very close to 1, but fuck it. Open the schools up widely and send 'em all in.

Do staff not exist in schools? He talked about young children being less at risk but fuck us!

In our school some bubbles will be 2 TAs rather than a teacher as we dont have enough teachers plus they have to do work for the other children.

Literally read someone today saying open schools as normal and open workplaces with lots of safety measures and social distancing. I couldn't be bothered to point out that schools are sodding workplaces.

The only y12 who wanted live lessons in my survey are the lazy ones who want to sit passively and feel like they’re learning something. The diligent self-starters strongly did not want them at all! Also not one student said they weren’t getting enough work. 2/3 said it was too much, so I’m not sure where all these kids twiddling their thumbs and longing for more to do are located - if I was setting less I’d be ensuring we don’t finish the course!

My lazy ones haven't bothered to fill in my survey. So nobody wants live lessons from my year 12. I've got a lot of diligent self starters on that class, and they are genuinely doing as well as they would in lessons at school. I know this because I've set and marked assignments, obviously. The ones I am worried about are the ones I was worried about when we were at school as well. The diligent ones, who are handing work in, are finding that they get more done because I am available to give individual feedback wherever they need it, whereas at school they tend not to ask because they can see I'm busy with the more passive students, trying to get them to do some work.

This is my experience exactly! I honestly feel like my “best” students are barely at a disadvantage at all, and may in fact actually be doing better (although I’ll qualify this by saying I think they’ve benefited from real lessons for the rest of the year, so I’m not saying they’d always do well with no real life teacher input!)

I honestly believe this, too. But by "best" students, it's not really about ability. I've had some astonishingly good work from my most able, but also some incredible progress from the very weakest. The linking factor has been a) their own huge efforts and amazing growing independence and b) careful setting of manageable tasks AND lots of meaningful, individualised feedback from our dept.

No mention of risks to staff or community spread at all in that briefing and no journalists picked up on it.

It's almost like school staff are in some sort of no man's land in between children and adults in other jobs. and for all primary comrades!

That's it dangling. My best students aren't the most intelligent really. I've had one really surprising student who has showed a huge amount of independence during lockdown, where at school he seems like one of the weakest in the group. He's doing brilliantly at home without distractions!!!

@IHateCoronavirus - a fighting ring! I want one!

Just wait until next weeks threads on how the mean and nasty teacher wouldn’t let mummy into the classroom for a peak.

Yes, I've had that too. A large number of (not "naughty" exactly but "distractable") year 7 and 8 boys who are doing so much better work away from their peers. There should be some research on this.