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.

So, any predictions about what the great catch up plan will be? Online? Summer camp?

Surely, if they want ex teachers to come back to staff it, they should have set up a registering system by now to gauge numbers?!

I take it you mean Turing?

He wasn't a teacher!

The obsession with STEM I guess...

I have always liked Tanya Byron but , my goodness, this si emotive hyperbole :

The delay in getting children and adolescents back to schools is a "national disaster" that is putting their mental health at risk, say leading psychologists.

The psychologists make no mention of school staff(I guess it isn't their remit to be fair) and other adults in their letter , and also claim children don't spread the virus...

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were national disasters; earthquakes and famines are national disasters.

Sorry, to be clear this is a letter in The ST today from eminent child psychologists (who you would think would know about projection) being reported on by BBC News.

44 male secondary teachers have died of COVID. I think that was the number.

And no lockdown at all precipitating 500k deaths would have been a national disaster.

I take it you mean Turing?

He wasn't a teacher!

The obsession with STEM I guess...

Yes! Halfon suggested it. First thought is the Enigma code not schools.

I do have a STEM obsession though 🙈

Nightingale made sense because of the field hospital tents at the Crimea. Let's face it , the army isn't coming in to help us repurpose conference centres...

You might have seen this on twitter this morning twitter.com/johntomsett/status/1271864608500916226?s=09 all about how a school is planning returning. He's divided it into 3 scenarios and I think he's asking each dept to come up with 3 planning ideas (could be wrong but that's the way I read it)
Should all schools be doing this? If it was done now, would summer holidays be a bit calmer for us all?

Does anyone know anyone who would be able to give me some training on using MSTeams properly for teaching? I'd pay for it at this stage. I dont want a course to do myself, I want someone to share screen and talk me through it 1-1.

Nice to hear of a head showing leadership and being open. wistful sigh

mine goes more for the ostrich approach.

Seen this? WTAF :

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-government-set-u-turn-reopening-all-pupils

Hopefully, parents will begin to see what we are up against and focus their ire appropriately.

Piggywaspushed

I doubt it.

It will be another round of "why isn't my child back in school" from the idiots on the boards.

I doubt it.

All the frothing I see on here suggests that many parents just want social distancing dropped in schools and everyone back to normal.

I really feel this will come to a crunch point. As it stands-we have all available teachers in class, but can still only open to KW and one year group. That’s us at capacity- until we are back to 30 to a class AND shielding/vulnerable staff are told to return.

I want to know what the parents who things back to normal immediately think should happen with those vulnerable/shielded staff?

Sorry-some words are missing in that last paragraph-hope the meaning remains!

I want to know what the parents who things back to normal immediately think should happen with those vulnerable/shielded staff?

I think a proportion of those parents would say just make them redundant.

Y’know, cos there’s so many healthy, qualified teachers waiting in the wings to take over.

piggy our head goes for the ostrich approach as well. Could not care less about the views of the staff but "his door is always open" and there's a suggestion box for ideas (all ideas and criticism are ignored, or he patronisingly explains why his way is actually far better than your suggested tweak). I love the school, don't rate the head, but most of the time we can pretty much ignore him and do our own thing (is that a good thing or a bad thing?)

Someone asked what percentage of pupils are coming in. We've got 85% of year 12 coming in, and 70% of year 10. Of course the approx 30% of year 10 who are not coming in are the 30% of year 10 who are not doing any work at home 🤷 but what can we do?

Alas I can see some head teachers putting vulnerable/shielding teachers under a lot of pressure. Just like the private industry sector I feel that some older expensive staff will be ‘managed’ out.

My head was saying that most shielding letters on our staff run out at the end of June/early July. What happens then? Will the government send out another?

We have two members of staff in the department living with extremely vulnerable people who have both asked to continue to work from home for the foreseeable. One (a nice, agreeable young woman) got a thoughtful, supportive message from the principal. The other, a slightly bolshy guy who has already had time off sick this year (through stress caused by poor management) basically got “do what the fuck you want” in return 😂 Our principal would also paint himself as a “my door’s always open” sort of guy...

Not sure appu. I think they have already changed the criteria with less conditions requiring shielding than originally.

That’s the thing, once shielding runs out then businesses will want staff back it.

I know of one headteacher, local to me, who is known to hire young staff so she can work them to the ground on promises of promotion only for them to burn out or get out after 4 years. I bet she is already turning on the pressure as every child every day matters.

Names for equivalent of 'Nightingale' schools.
Raikes or Ruskin?

What about naming it after the teacher in Dead Poets society? The inspirational one who got sacked