The Eight Republic - half term over - primaries under pressure- 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.

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

How old is the one who might read Of Mice and Men, is what I meant? I think 14 is minimum age for it. I actually don't approve of schools who have put it into year 9. It's very grown up in its themes...

@JimmyGrimble

Basically if we haven’t been zooming every day or on google classroom we’ve done chuff all. It’s chastening to see just how little regard these people have for us. I’m in tomorrow, nervous and a bit scared and I really don’t feel like going.

Or even if you have been doing Google Classroom.

Just had to listen to DH's smarmy head (private school) saying the reason the face to face contact for year 10/12 had been introduced is because 'maintained schools are providing online learning' Oh do fuck off to the far side of fuck mate. That is NOT why it is. It is to appease ASCL and show they are 'working with the unions'.

Will MN massive kick off when their year 10 and 12 'indie' charges aren't given face to face contact I wonder?? Because I am picking up on vibes that private school heads aren't necessarily planning to get older students in in any way (not that I blame them if they can get away with it: it all seems rather like lip service and it disrupts his precious live learning timetables!)

Sorry, clearly that rant should say AREN'T!

I read Of Mice and Men at school and remember not really enjoying it so have never reread.

I think I’ll get ds on lord of the flies next. Also want him to read 1984 but will reread it myself first. When he’s a bit older I want him to read handmaids tale. Excuse lack of capitalisation and punctuation. Fat morning fingers on phone.

Have been thinking about the teens I saw hanging out in a group yesterday. Thinking maybe they’ve got younger siblings back at school or just the parents have seen some are back at school and concluded it’s safe for kids to be together again. Yet another nail in the coffin of the bubble theory.

Good luck to those going in today.

I suspect the teens hanging out together have parents who have had to return to their workplaces, mainly.

Sorry, meant ds. He's 10. I thought m&m, then remembered glove full of Vaseline, the visit to the cathouse and jailbait! He liked curious incident, although not sure he finished it.

Lord of the flies is getting a try, although having done cw with a bottom.set on it once (comparison.with journey's end), the language is hard in places.

I'm working all day at home and Dh is doing the children. I've had the word mummy said / shouted/ cried every minute since 8:30.

Please send gin.

Lord of the flies is getting a try, although having done cw with a bottom.set on it once (comparison.with journey's end), the language is hard in places

I read LOTF with a year 8 class years ago, circa 1980. The word orgasm is in there somewhere, in a non-sexual context. It went right over their heads. Not so sure these days. :o

Just hidden the 11 weeks thread.

Its not as bitchy as some of the others but it does highlight just how little some posters know about teaching and education.

If it wouldn't get pulled immediately after the first few posts I would post about how few parents seem to be checking that their children are doing the work set by schools.

But I am sure that would be seen as goady by MNHQ.

Yeah, I think LOTF is maybe too hard. Perhaps don't make him run before he can walk?

It's a difficult age for good readers.

Has he read Coram Boy? Rooftoppers?

I loved The Chrysalids when I was 12 but a good 10 year old should be able to access it.

Reported in Tiems today that up to 25% of headteachers are thinking of quitting their jobs...

Have to say though, another Teacher Tapp survey. Is there a Times journalist on TT or is Laura McInerney on their payroll!?

Ds is 13 so should be ok for lotf.

At 10 I think he was still reading the HP series and then onto things like the hunger games soon after. Lately he hadn’t been reading which made me sad. English seem to have been doing a lot of extracts or poems rather than novels to get hooked into.

Sorry but off topic but it’s nice to be teaching ideas and critical thinking again even if it’s just with my own child now.

I think novel teaching stops in English around year 6 I lots of schools and it is so dull and piecemeal. We then expect hem to be bale to read one at GCSE suddenly. Everything is wrong witht he Eng curriculum!

A benefit of the middle school system is that they do still, many of them , do class readers right up to year 8. Although they have aterribel habit of not consulting an doing a GCSE set text!

I remember hating every single text we did at school because we had to painstakingly read it sooooo slowly in class, when I love to get sucked into books and race through them. I ended up losing the thread each lesson. It really put me off "literature"!

Oi! We still teach whole novels in ks3...

Ours read (counting): 8 novels and 3 plays by end of Yr 9 (and actually 2 more delivered via other subjects. Yes, amazing!) Then poetry and non-fiction is tied in to the schemes of the novel or play.

I think a lot more schools are doing this since curriculum review.

(And actually some of our kids tell us that it's the opposite and they haven't had a whole class novel for a couple of years in primary. I know this is true for two of our feeder primaries.)

I don’t recall him doing class novels at primary. I home ed’d him for a couple of years and when he went back it was all about sats. At secondary he hadn’t done any till now (last half term of year8 which is the end of ks3 in our school).

I just got him always reading books at home and as cat said chucking things at him and seeing what sticks. Primary readers were outgrown pretty early and I had to seek out stuff that would engage him.

Next year is bloody Christmas Carol and An Inspector Calls

What on earth are they doing in secondary English if not reading whole texts? (Mind blown!)

I LOVE A Christmas Carol. I think I have mentioned before when we got to the end of the book this year , a boy gave it a round of applause!

Lots of extracts dangling...

I think maybe this is a 3 tier/ two tier difference dangling.

Robert Westall and Nicholas Fisk - some great dystopias there. "Brother in the Land" is bloody wonderful. So is "A rag, a bone and a hank of hair".
My very dark did also loved Z for Zachariah. "Enders Game" is also good but the sequels are a bit shit and too obviously religious.

And "Room 13" is always loved by my year 6.

We always do class novels in UKS2. Over the past few years we have done Beowulf, Flood land, The Machine Gunners, The Explorers, Journey to Jo'burg, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, The Silver Swords, Skellig, Pig Heart Boy and Oranges in No Man's Land, off the top of my head.
Boys LOVE Beowulf and The Machine Gunners.

Texts don't change much ! I remember Machine Gunners on telly!

@phlebasconsidered

And "Room 13" is always loved by my year 6.

The one where the class go to Whitby? And the creepy room in their hotel?

I did '80 days around the world' with my Year 5. They were all gripped by it! Mind you, I read it to them as there were a fair few who wouldn't have been able to access it.