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.

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

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

Oh god. I was feeling bad for you guys in England, but we’ve just been shown our timetables for next year and it’s going to be horrendous.

We don’t have the bubbles in Scotland, but we do have social distancing. What my school have decided that means is that English and Maths can teach normal sized classes in the gym halls/canteen/theatre. They know the acoustics are going to be an issue, but we’ll get around that by just doing a Google Classroom audio meeting for the kids in the room. Yes, we know not all kids have technology, but we’ll do our best to get that sorted, I suppose. Oh, you want to have some kind of partition so that the two classes of 30 11 year olds can’t see each other while two lessons are going on? We’ll look into it, but we can’t promise anything.

Not to mention blatantly trying to actually make classes bigger than normal and actually bigger than our contracts allow. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Piggywaspushed

Sweden seems to be the new Denmark.

God murray. Maybe this is also Boris' Big Plan.

Murray that sounds horrific!!! I'll take our "plan" over that any day.

Have you seen my post over there about taking on public 'rooms'? It was off twitter, but really good on the realistic numbers. I'll find it again and post it here.

Ha! 😂 the Mrs May story!

@FrippEnos

Piggywaspushed

Sweden seems to be the new Denmark.

I don't know why we'd want to be Sweden, they had more new cases than us yesterday and they have a much smaller and more spread out population...

Thank you for the sympathy. I’m still raw over the week’s lost holiday from August that I’m apparently getting back in June 2021 (although that’s not even been confirmed yet) and now I’ve got to deal with this bullshit. 😭

Sweden : read and weep (and worry a bit)

www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/how-sweden-wasted-rare-opportunity-study-coronavirus-schools

www.insider.com/sweden-preschool-teacher-warning-of-school-outbreaks-2020-5

www.newsweek.com/swedish-parents-teachers-say-theyre-being-forced-risk-childrens-health-due-mandatory-class-1504035

What a utopian vision...

The Swedish apologist are always interesting because they really have no answer tot eh fact that even Sweden doesn't want 16- 19 year olds in classrooms, or university students.

Which brings us back to the childcare thing.

This is nice :

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3935482-IYHO-whos-been-amazing-during-covid-confinement?watched=1&msgid=97403038#97403038

What I found interesting in the Newsweek article was that two of the families had children who'd "had pneumonia" in March and were still recovering... Surely it's not normal for healthy teenagers to "get pneumonia"? I bet there's been more Covid there than they're testing for, too.

Also shocked that parents with a vulnerable family member are being threatened with social services if they keep children off school... When every other European country closed schools???!!!

Shocking reads about Sweden. We really have to hang onto the right to home educate even if you’d never do it yourself. The alternative is pretty fascist.

Thanks for the links piggy

It’s also illegal to home educate in Germany. Used to know a lot of German mums in one country I lived in. They would only be able to visit home during school holidays.

It’s the dark side of the left imo. The state has huge powers over individuals lives. One of the few things tories have been good for is fighting against labour attempts to change the “education otherwise” clause.

It’s probably the only reason the government has had to drop fines because parents could have de registered their kids if they hadn’t

Read part of an article in the Times via Twitter just now (paywall so couldn’t read it all) suggesting that summer is all about summer camps for music, activities and art to give working parents a ‘break’ (not sure that’s what people want, but hey) but the real ‘catch up’ begins in September.

Wtf are they going to do?! You know it’s going to be bloody awful. Extend the school day? Weekends?

I have The Times . It says nothing about what happens come September but does suggests it will be for the most disadvantaged.

NC for this.

On Wed a Y1 boy starts coughing.
Put in isolation has raised temp.
Parents take over an hour to answer phone and come and collect.
Child's temp was checked 3 times in this hour. Over the 37.5 that is in the guidance each time.
Parents upset that child had been kept in isolation.
We say get tested.
Parents ring later in day say symptoms have gone and the boy can come back to school on Thurs.
We say no and parents cross.
Parents book test the next morning (24hrs after symptoms). It will be posted. That will take 48hrs. They will then have to complete, post back and wait for result.
Meanwhile, PHE says keep the bubble open as there are no confirmed cases.

Need I say more...

Shitshow.

People on MN said parents wouldn't want to keep kids at home. Especially not now they have been away for so long and the importance of this return to their whole life chances has been so built up. Plus, of course, bosses are going to be pissed off.

Only briefly reading this but I note that Germany and Sweden have much more relaxed Ed systems eg Steiner etc and just more relaxed - most home ed people are fed up with the U.K. school factory approaches.

Exactly - the whole situation is a complete farce.
People are so mad keen to get their kids back in school that they WILL take risks with other people's health.
We've had so many parents over the years who have either not answered or, worse, deliberately switched their phones off (one memorable one was at a spa day. We tried calling straight after drop-off so parent wouldn't have arrived at said spa yet). Why would those sorts of people be any different with Covid? They will be more likely to have run out of holiday/good-will at work, so the stakes are higher for them now.
And I'm afraid we can't rely on SLT to protect us either. We've had a couple of cases on the staff where people have been ill and nothing done re: others until test results returned.

Purple, that's going to be an issue everywhere. Jeeze!

I know our slt are planning for a second wave.

Also, we can't have longer days due to intense cleaning. It won't work for the kids either.,

We have to readjust our perceptions.

Perceptions of progress and outcomes.

I have The Times . It says nothing about what happens come September but does suggests it will be for the most disadvantaged.

The frothers on MN won’t like that. The disadvantaged have already had their ‘fill’ according to some posts recently. I’m sure they wouldn’t want the disadvantaged actually catching up!

That is a real worry purple. Hope things turn out ok.

Parents book test the next morning (24hrs after symptoms). It will be posted. That will take 48hrs. They will then have to complete, post back and wait for result.Meanwhile, PHE says keep the bubble open as there are no confirmed cases

There’s probably nothing to stop the parents either not sending the test back or saying it was negative when it wasn’t