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.

Complete silence from my school this morning on all email fronts - I think they're all in shock about the weekend. Nearly all the teachers live within walking distance of school, lots walk through that park.

I've written 3 reports now. Only 24 to go. FFS.

I'm sorry if my comment seems insensitive, ohthegoats, as this has happened so close to you, but is it not unbelievable that a school would encourage such blatant disregard for social distancing when on national TV especially?

@ohthegoats That must be really difficult for you! I hope that all your colleagues/pupils are ok!

Those random attacks like that are awful and scary. When you live nearby it must make it very real.

@Danglingmod - I've not seen anything about it cos I'm a news avoider. I don't live there, have no link to the town really, and I've never even heard of the school the teacher worked at. Everyone else at my school does though, but I'm home on the kitchen table.

I'm totally fine - for me it's still a 'thing that happened somewhere else' like most of the news!

The randomness of things like that is scary, true. Still much more likely to have a big car crash though, and I drive on motorways, over the speed limit, without concern all the time.

Its so awful, my daughter loved that park when she was younger until we moved up North.

On a slightly lighter note

www.tes.com/news/remote-learning-pupils-a-z-classroom-lockdown-styles?fbclid=IwAR28OB_W5FMIu1pTwpUsrYvB8twG89TC5axzJdtTEmA92_9BJWxHVHf3QvY

I would have loved online learning when I was a kid. But I was a massive geek and really shy.

There’s a kid who before lockdown was always out of lessons, would eat a worksheet rather than do it etc. I would have put money on him doing nothing over lockdown.

And yet when I log in to do my marking, there’s his work, reasonably well done. I continue to be baffled about how this has been achieved.

Gav says they are consulting with Ofqual about pushing exams back next year to give kids more time to learn.

If they could hurry up and decide before we plan the SOL for September that would be awesome.

I've had a completely pointless day. Hardly anything done at all. I SO hate writing reports. No one reads them, no one understands what I've written about subjects. Stupid.

Anyone recommend a visualiser for using at home to teach? The ones we bought before aren’t available any more. Preferably cheap and cheerful and on amazon!

A clamp stand from science and your phone seems to work well.

I’ll be genuinely surprised if I get a report from my kids’ primary. What’s the point? I know more about what they’ve been up to with schoolwork than they do!

80% of the best work I've received has been from either naughty (not proper naughty, just silly) boys or SEN children. I genuinely think they can concentrate better at home than amongst their peers (the first group) or anyone (the second group).

DS who is in Y10 has completely embraced remote learning. Was pretty focussed at school but could faff for England when getting ready for school and doing homework. Also struggled if other pupils were being disruptive. No such problems now. He is certainly doing more work than when he was in school

Three and a half days (I am so taking Friday as a half day!) to go here and not a peep from SQA about exams and assessment next year. Also, the vague outline of plans for August from school have just been blown out of the water by the council. I have literally no idea what I am supposed to be doing in the Autumn term! It's massively stressing me out. For the last few years I have managed to do no work at all in the summer holidays by using gained time to plan furiously. We didn't even have that this year as we started exam courses after Easter. AARRGGHHH.

Fuckweasel I was just reading John swinney is making a statement on education tomorrow. What's the bet they've decided everyone else needs 2m but not us? Or more likely I think there's a time frame for opening up more post August.

Remember a lot of what you’re marking is parental input. There’s no real way to compare effort when you’ve no way of knowing who is getting loads of support/pushing and battling from a parent and who’s working genuinely independently.

I know, Honey, my DD’s work is half hers half mine

Homework gives a false impression of a pupil’s ability, there’s always a kid who gets 100% on every homework then flunks the test. We stopped marking homework in my dept because it was a waste of our time.

We have stopped giving homework at my school. None of us learned anything from it.

Learn your times tables facts, do some reading.

I would say I don't think that is true of English always.

@Mistressiggi

Fuckweasel I was just reading John swinney is making a statement on education tomorrow. What's the bet they've decided everyone else needs 2m but not us? Or more likely I think there's a time frame for opening up more post August.

Our head has now decided that we'll just all be back in, business as normal in September, with the whole 1000+ pupil school back, so that's what he's planning for.

This bloody worries me.

I just wanted to shout out - I have marked every piece of work handed in. For the first time in my life I am fully up to date with my marking 😂 ( fighting the urge need to close the computer and not press refresh)

Blessyourcottosocks surely in that case there's nothing new to plan for? They can't pretend to have some form of safety if they do that. Well I suppose they could pull the chairs in the Staffroom apart and put some extra soap in the loos.