The Tenth Republic - what is the new normal?

[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.

We've been for a drive and a walk. Loads of people not following guidelines. Rambling groups out together not keeping any sort if distance. Drove through a big fish town's high street - no SD going on there either. We just discussed this as the Cummings impact.

Most of it will be taken by the tutoring agencies

It will be so very interesting see who ‘owns’ the tutoring companies and will be making a nice tidy profit.

Big fish town? No, a normal town. Weird additional word in there!

I noticed the same goats, haven't been anywhere except school for weeks (before Cummings) but ventured to the other side of town this week to get medicine and it was ridiculous, I was literally the only one trying to SD. Then went on a massive walk today and there was loads of big groups of walkers and cyclists, wild campers everywhere.

All SD seems to be forgotten in the supermarket I’ve just visited - staff squeezing past me. Letting capped amount of shoppers in but all at the same time so 30 people in aisle 1 😬 not fun

My local Waitrose was fine. Still no kids. 2 masks in total though.

Wasn't a joke, the Gp in the group acknowledged it wasn't strictly legal yet but by the time the bbq was arranged pubs would probably be open.

@Appuskidu

Most of it will be taken by the tutoring agencies

It will be so very interesting see who ‘owns’ the tutoring companies and will be making a nice tidy profit.

Wouldn’t it just!?

I must say, I’ve not been hugely impressed by private tutors recently (the ones who have never been teachers) because we had a few who sent letters to us on students who were going to re-sit A Level exams and all of them were claiming that although they hadn’t tested their tutees or marked any work/papers, they were ‘convinced’ they were of a certain grade and would implore us to put forward their predictions to the exam boards.
Our exams officer weeks and weeks back invited the students to come in and sit a 2 hour paper under his supervision and we would mark it to put forward a grade to the exam boards. One walked out after 15 minutes and the others were Us and Es.

I do not trust these independent private tutor companies to properly tutor, disadvantaged children as a result.

Should say I've not been precious about the rules, it was just interesting. Traffic is only a few % beneath normal too.

I am VERY precious (aka correct) about the rules. Hence why my NDNs with their now THIRD set of visitors today are pissing me off so much!!

And they have started a firepit now. Bastards.

The thing about the tutors is that if it doesn't work there is still enough wriggle room to blame the teachers.

Had a nice day then came on here. Some of the posts make me embarrassed to be human. Can't believe how petty and jealous and resentful any people on mn. The 'can we get rid of the term keyworker' thread is hideous.

Anyway - I need to shake that off and not venture out there again.

My bubble friend (I'm a single adult household so am now allowed to bubble with another household and we are legally allowed into each others houses and even to stay over etc - just laying that out in case anyone thinks I'm rule flouting) came over for a few drinks and a good chinwag and I've taken the dog for a nice walk. Can't let vile mn'ers who lack any shred of empathy ruin that for me.

I personally doubt we'll see much tutor uptake if heads aren't convinced it will genuinely add value and it's going to cost them 25% of every lesson. They'll have better things to spend the money on that will actually their PP students imo. The person who manages PP budget in my school has their shit together, knows who those kids are and knows what will or won't benefit them. Doubt they'll be convinced by unqualifed tutors who kids have to access online from home.

Sorry missing words a plenty. Did say I had a few drinks.

Sunday Times today trying to shorten our summer holidays again. Twatface Adonis wants it.

Does any other country in the world whine about summer holiday length??

Had 12 weeks in the States. The kids got a bit fed up by week 9/10 but other than that, it was fine. Nobody wittered on about learning loss either.

Also, talk of Gav going in a reshuffle. Six educations Secs since 2014 if that happens : another sign that the Tories think of educations as a minor concern.

The ST says it is because Gav is too soft on the unions! Ermmm, no, just incompetent.

Also buried in The ST : one short paragraph saying the gov plans to recue all SD in schools to get all children back.

Just schools is the implication. So , virtually every other employee will be afforded protective laws.

Just schools with no SD. That's not fair, teachers deserve just as much health and safety consideration as every other worker in the country. And the families of the children deserve to be kept relatively safe as well!

There is a vocal subset of (largely metropolitan, middle class) parents who want that to happen awesome. I think the government ignore those who don't want to take that kind of risk at their peril.

Issues over school transport remain intractable unless SD goes altogether : so that bus drivers and minibus drivers affected , too.

I genuinely think some people think a teacher can just pin herself to a wall in a classroom and never go anywhere near any child ever.

I am increasingly noticing that the work my year 12s are doing remotely is so much better than I expected : it's good when they are given the time to do it (one of my live lessons is independent learning ). Much better than the actual poxy live lesson.

It ahs made me think about flipped learning (which I used to sneer at) combined with Google Classroom submissions. I may carry that forward.

I'm thinking about recording some of the key stuff and providing vids for revision. Good for kids to watch over and over, good for parents to see how things are done.

My year 12 are producing some fantastic work as well. It's a bit of a mixed bag though, some are working brilliantly but others are not coping at all.

Flipped learning is making more and more sense to me. They can watch a video of me explaining things and do the easier questions for homework, then do the harder questions in the classroom where I'm available to help.

I'm noticing more teachers (or people claiming to be teachers) saying they too want to get back to work without any social distancing. They are entitled to that opinion obviously, but I wonder how many are in their 20s (and white!) with no particular reason to fear getting the virus. It is wrong to try to impose it on all their colleagues while other workers don't have to.

See, to me, they are the ones that should be accused of endangering people, not the more cautious ones : but those who express doubts and concerns are apparently directly endangering young people in various ways.

My SLT are all very gung ho (it feels): all white, yes, but none particularly young.