The Ninth Republic - stand by for the return of Year 10

[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.

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

If you come with a stick to beat us with then please do so elsewhere and not in the staffroom.

There are plenty of teachers not in Year 6 who couldn't complete one of their grammar tests. It really isn't all stuff that they need to know. As a keen writer myself, I do find it miserable the amount of STUFF they are expected to fill their heads with when actually you just want them to be imaginative and have fun with their learning.

In my old school (where I had more influence), I decided that we'd teach no grammar at all in year 3 - by which I mean, nothing more than capital letters and full stops on sentences, and to think about why commas are used. They all love ? and ! anyway.

Never mentioned fronted adverbials, conjunctions blah blah. Dull as shit.

Now I have to refer to that stuff all the time.
"are you using that as a preposition or a blah blah zzzzzz?"

Nah - we used the white rose resources and made our own lesson videos to fit perfectly with the Power Maths books - they bought them a Power Maths book each. They've all been collected, so hopefulyl some kids are doing the work. I then record a 'marking' video with explanation using my visualiser.

I have to ask my year 4 DD what all the bits of grammar are called. I didn't learn any of it at school! Still managed to get GCSEs in Latin and french though weirdly

My year 1 DD used to do loads of writing and now hates it. I don't know if it's anything to do with grammar though?

God I hate power maths! And so do all of my lower ability kids.

Interesting. I've never used it before, never used any textbook or workbook. We're not doing any of the problem solving etc, just focusing on basic fluency.

Why do they hate it?

Bearing in mind we swapped over to it, and the mastery approach this year, with a y6 class who were used to ability set maths classes in upper primary. And that we were expected to use it in it's entirety daily rather than dipping in and out.

Starting every maths lesson the same way seemed repetitive even though it's bright and colourful. It seemed to reinforce the 'oh no, not maths' for a few that didn't like it.

It's written for the English curriculum, which in several areas is harder (occasionally a lot harder) than the Wales curriculum. Eg some fractions in y6 aren't covered until year 8. So a big step up. So there was a lot that some of my poorer ability couldn't access without help. But the whole thing seems set up to deliver to the whole class so they couldn't do what others were doing.

They were introduced to several more ways of doing things than they were used to and didn't always find them useful. The lower ability pupils sometimes found the wide range of strategies a bit overwhelming.

The higher ability pupils missed the setting of our groups as we went back to mixed ability. And assumed that all starting off with the textbook was slow and doing the same as everyone else was holding them back. They also took time to adjust to the fact that they wouldn't be ploughing through pages and pages of questions or moving on to other areas to the rest of the class as an indication of how well they were doing. There were still areas they needed to think longer about and to ask questions to be able to solve. And they rarely saw the point in the use of the manipulatives, even when just on the page shown visually.

I found I was ending up not being able to use it with the whole class, as intended. Instead I often needed to have materials to support the use of power maths and other things (like nrich) to supplement it when they had completed their practice book pages.

Next year I'll be starting (eventually) with a group that hasn't had setting and has used it and become used to the strategies so that may be very different.

The lower ability pupils sometimes found the wide range of strategies a bit overwhelming.

Yep, that has been a thing with white rose too. Normally we use white rose for medium term planning/overview, then use the unit tests, but dont have to use the materials or whatever, we can find our own stuff. Haven't used power maths other than this work book. I've added bits of discussion and stuff from classroom secrets, hamilton trust, nrich, twinkl mastery etc too. And also just made stuff up old skool.

I (shhh) am not sure if mastery suits British kids in the same way it suits 'Shangapore' in terms of culture around learning.

Can I get a primary job in Wales if I don't speak Welsh? Would I need to teach Welsh?

We use Maths No Problem and have found it to be really good for low attainers.

Big outlay though.

Feeling depressed at the number of threads now suggesting we either change the school year to run differently or just repeat this whole year.
Lurking lecturer popping back up to say WE'RE BLOODY SICK OF IT TOO, completely sympathise.
No we are not going to take two years at once/take no 1st years this year/start the year in January.

Used Matheson problem books sometimes in old job. V expensive. Liked it though.

Oh I dunno I had a fairly nice timetable this year. I could do it again. Maybe not the bottom set year 9, but at least I'd have the advantage they wouldn't realise they were doing the exact same work again. I'll keep the half year 11 as year 12, to replace the year 13 that would prob laugh in my face if I told them to come back

@ohthegoats :)

You don't need to speak Welsh, but would have to pick up year group specific language pretty quickly (lots of courses for this usually on offer to be fair) as incidental use of basic commands and language is expected in whatever you're teaching, not just the actual welsh lessons or helpwr heddiw (daily practice) sessions.

If I have to teach the class I've had this year again I'll quit! Apart from the fact that we had completed nearly 2 terms of topics and maths/english/science and I can't pull new plans for all of that out of the air.... they have been particularly challenging.

Not fair for them to be prevented from moving up to high school either.

Just wanted to say a quick thank you for the continued support. I didn’t reply last night as I turned off my phone to stop my wandering figures clicking on my ‘Im on’ threads.

I used to read the Feminist boards religiously but during this lockdown period have been scouring the covid boards for info like any other parent and can’t help get sucked into the education threads. It seems on mumsnet I can’t be a teacher and a parent.

Seen the news today? Big academy chief (& also Ofsted inspector) has announced 2m distancing can not allow for full time schooling, offering up alternate buildings is a ‘red herring’ and there isn’t 250,000 teachers waiting to be re-employed. Wonder what the teacher haters will think about that?

I'm trying to stay off mn more. (Often fail) And SM. I think it's starting to reach damaging levels.

We'd need the army to step up and teach. Isn't that what happened at nightingale?

Also, how will children be transported to these places? It would have to be v local to the school.

Just re-reds my post.

Meant ‘aren’t’. Really should not post half asleep!

Case in point ... 🙈

Interesting article appeared overnight. Here are academy heads (normally very in favour with Tory governments) looking for solutions, expressing concerns, sounding frustrated, and then a bland statement of nothing form the dfE:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53014105

My hunch is the Big Plan is 'Nightingale' schools...

This article links to motherrunner's post above.

My DH says even with 1m he can fit 8 students in his rom (it's one per desk isn't it?) so the head who says reducing SD doesn't solve it is correct.

There are some huge classrooms in my school, but still only 15 desks. Has anyone even wondered where the stockpile of desks is?

I prefer Third Space to White Rose. I agree that the mastery approach often confuses a lot of my LA pupils. I do old fashioned teaching then and instead of persisting with mastery just teach them the method to follow step by step. Not every child will "understand" fractions. Some just want to know the steps for adding them and will never "see" it. My own son included who is doing the same fractions now in year 8 as he did in year 6. And he still can't see it. So i've written down the steps again and now he can.

I'm in agreement that focusing on the grammar in writing kills it. Although weirdly my LA boys in parti ular enjoy grammar questions. They like the right / wrong aspect. What kills me every year is producing reams of in depth, extended writing knowing that they just won't write as much again for years. My secondary colleagues are always shocked at just how much year 6 write. Before lockdown I was preparing to be moderated and tobe a moderator. I'd begun to sort my classes writing and we already had swathes of text types by March.

Solidarity to history teachers who are now getting it in the neck. That was my past life in secondary. I do wish people would look atwhat is being taught before shouting.

Nightingale schools - nightingale had the army medics on standby. Fine in theory.

We'd need more staff. And toilets and cleaners. (Apparently a big issue for our school has been toilets.)

I suspect all those SEND children not in sen schools will suffer here. Their tla's will be used elsewhere.

Also, the bbc gets used to drop ideas in.

We saw it early on before announcements.

So I think it will be some sort of nightingale school type idea.

Actually thinking about round me; there are a number of church halls which would be very suitable including one with lots of smaller function rooms. It's the cleaning and tech and toilets though.

Back to ohps!