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.

if you’ve opened to Y1 for example would you want them back in? We didn’t send straight away but thinking about it now

We planned bubbles according to how many parents said their kid would be coming back. There was no option to change your mind, it was in or out. Even then, the bubbles were planned between 10 and 15 children, and only between 4 and 8 of those in most groups have come back. SO, we could have had more children.

The impression I get from my child's teachers is that they are glad to have them back.

So us this free 6 months of internet part of the big summer of catch up?

Someone on a fb page local to me has posted a petition to get all children back to school with no social distancing - interestingly all the comments are negative about the idea. Mumsnet possibly not reflecting the general population!

I've had an interesting email from my union. Here they have declared that kids are back on a rota from the 29th, for 4 weeks. Which eats up the first week of our sumner holiday. Its being offered back in october.
But the union email says they are still in discussion with the gov about the extra week and at the moment it is aware that the Welsh government is not in a position to demand that we work that extra week. So watch this space!

That's very interesting. Here we have lost the last week of the summer, seemingly with agreement from the unions, but we know it is coming back to us at the end of the year.

I wonder if you leave before the end of the year will you get paid for holiday owed? I don’t think it’s appropriate to have time in lieu and set that precedent. It should be paid as overtime with a premium and be non compulsory imo.

Listening to LBC there have been a few callers not agreeing with the FSM in the summer. Where has the ' what about the vulnerable children?' Brigade gone?

Unpopular maybe but why would there be fsm over summer? To be on fsm no one in the house is working. That group are literally the only ones guaranteed to have had a pay rise with increased personal allowance and housing allowance on universal credit. It’s the working poor who will be more likely struggling on reduced pay.

I agree that the working poor will struggle but then as do people on UC. My mam and I volunteer and cook every summer at the church just so families can have meals. Listening to their stories it's a real struggle.Maybe now is time to change that.

I just want to chime in on the free school meals thing. My sister's kids get free school meals, and yes, they've had an increase in benefits but that's been completely eaten up by the extra costs of lockdown. Mainly the fact that the kids normally spend 3 nights a week eating at their dad's house, but he's not doing that at the minute because he's shielding, but he's also not giving any extra maintenance to make up for them being at home all the time. I know that's his fault rather than anyone else's fault, but it does mean that they've been incredibly grateful for the fsm vouchers. That won't stop just because it officially becomes the school holidays. I regularly send money for food during school holidays because those extra meals break an already fragile budget.

I would love to see fsm vouchers given for every school holiday. I see it first hand with my sister and her kids, but I also notice a few of the kids at school who come back in September noticeably thinner, then they slowly plump up again during term time.

Our local church has set up a food hub twice a week with fresh food as well. I hope it continues through the summer.
I wouldn't mind if they ended term a week earlier and started it a week earlier. Honour holidays that are already booked.

I would also love to see more people able to get fsm by raising the amount you can earn before being eligible. My sister works, but earns so little due to disability that she's under the threshold, yet some of her colleagues only work a couple of hours a week more than her and don't qualify. Their extra wages don't pay for the school meal prices though. Those working families are struggling massively.

Apparently, we don't deserve a box of chocolates/nice biscuits for the staff room (from a parent grateful for above-and-beyond support) as it's our paid job, according to some on here.
Nice.

Hey ho, I can't get worked up about that really. Some people say that every year, yet most people buy something for their child's primary school teacher regardless. It's not really something that happens in secondary schools anyway, so I don't expect to get any presents this year. Normally I would have had a couple of presents from my exam classes, but they didn't have a chance this year.

We’ve had loads of chocolates/biscuits/coffee/fancy teas so that’s not a general feeling amongst parents. Wrapped ones preferable and tends to be the parents who work in healthcare who send us those because they know about infection control.
Homemade staff cakes still appearing though 🤦‍♀️

@CallmeAngelina well that snotty person is too late with their comment. Our staffroom has already received fancy biscuits for staff who are in next week and according to the bursar a year 10 class has 'donated' money for soft fruit and bananas for the last two weeks of term.

#feelingappreciated #bashersjogon

I sent PPA biscuits in for my child's teacher last week when they finished on Friday lunchtime. Put two dettol wipes in a bag and stapled it to the paper bag I sent them in - card said 'give 'em a wipe!'

I do packed lunches. No way I could afford school dinners. Wrap, packet of supermarket crisps and some kind of granola bar or choc biscuit. Less than a pound a day. Poor old ds.

Even a chicken roll at our school is £2.30 and a drink a pound. I don’t really understand how anyone can afford it but you see some kids with a fivers worth of food everyday.

Agree the cut off point for fsm is too low but I’d also add the prices are too high. It would be way cheaper to get a meal deal in the coop than in our canteen and the kids are a captive market

My kids have school dinners but then I only feed them a sandwich in the evenings - usually we just don’t have time to sit together for a meal until too late or they need to eat in the car on the way somewhere

Apparently our great idea for getting year 10 in (which is so convoluted no one understands it) involves us teaching half a class whilst live streaming to the rest.

And they might only get one session in each subject.

It's like they have waited longer than any other school and then not paid any attention to what any other school has done that makes sense.

Sounds crap piggy.

Carrie makes sense but at our school lunch break is half an hour and ds wants to be socialising and playing. He couldn’t fit a proper sit down meal in and would likely just buy crap he can shove in blazer pockets. So even if I could afford it it would backfire

Apparently the reason we have such short breaks is because the old head thought the only way to deal with behaviour problems was to ensure they had as little time out of class as possible. I really hope the new head sees things differently. A proper lunch break would be so good

Yes, we had that. too! Get rid of poor behaviour by giving them no time in which to misbehave. Didn't work and we have never reflected on that.

Only teachers have to be reflexive practitioners. Not dfe or slt it seems.

Reflective

I have actually found a nicely balanced and thoughtful article : shame no one will read it!

www.bbc.co.uk/teach/teacher-support/online-learing-here-to-stay/zfccsk7