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.

Where can I find the PHE outbreak data? Why doesn't this stuff just pop up on google?

Was awful. Worst time in my career.

Thank you for the ideas - love them. Planning tutor time of stupid games via Teams. Dog will play a part as is now my full time TA.

I have been in the Key Worker group today - yrs 4&5.
The fuckers keep coming up close to me - bless 'em, they step back when I give them "the look," but I'm afraid I have created a barrier of furniture between me and them now.
I've made a joke of it and they understand but sorry. Needs must.

Flipping heck I have been glued to computer all day marking online exams and writing reports. Hardly had time to pee. So much for the luxury of home working !

Aaw, one of the year 2s in our KW group just can't stay away. She's an ace little nutter in general, but just doens't get it. She drives everyone insane, but I think she's great. Ideally she wouldn't be stroking my hand the whole time, but...

Thank god the tenth republic started. I have just been reading that horrendous thread and wanting to tear out my eyeballs. Let's get rid of social distancing totally in schools. As long as there is distancing everywhere else. Fuck the teachers and staff- no, fuck you, you bunch of utter wankers.

mumsneedwine I hate sports day with a passion. But I like the sound of your one. "Snowballs" can be made easily with kitchen towel and sellotape. Snowball fight!!!

My reports deadline was last Friday. My first time doing them - but never have I been so pleased to have a small class!

@Phineyj oooh I like that. Think my sports day is going to be epic !

Yay! A new thread! Thanks staff

I was in with year 12 today, and they were excellent with social distancing in the classroom (I was the one who kept forgetting! ), but the second they left my classroom they walked together as a bunch up to the bus bay 🤦

It was lovely to see them, but school really doesn't look like normal. Not in the slightest! Fire exits that are normally closed at all times are currently propped open so we can have a one way system. The head spotted me on my way in and shouted across the car park "I thought you weren't coming in", and asked if I'd let his secretary know I was going to be there. I've always said I would be there, it was never a question, other than if his plan was wildly unsafe (which it kind of is, but I'm there anyway, because I'm very compliant 🤷)

mumsneedwine

Have a look at the tv show taskmaster, there are all sorts of silly activities that you could adapt.

We've got reports too and anyone else doing UCAS references? I turned my email off today and refused to check in til about 4pm otherwise I spend hours dealing with ridiculous queries from KS3 kids who think I'm either faster or easier than Google. And the emails that say I don't get the next bit or similar..

What bit? I've set lessons for roughly 800 kids...I don't know what 'bit' you're on!

@FrippEnos we have been doing taskmaster every week since lockdown. It's been fantastic (& we are on the leaderboard 😊). Kept me sane at times. Think it should be on the curriculum permanently

I keep getting 'I can't find my book' WTF, you haven't left the house for 3 months!!

Well, this is the thing awesome. they now think SD is just a thing for school, it seems. Silly us.

It's EXACTLY what Jenny Harries doesn't want. I think she'd have them all in schools and never let them go home!

I'm still getting emails from some kids sending me answers to random pages from the booklet of activities we sent home with them for the first week or so. So that's approx 30 emails they've had from me, with new work in each email, and they haven't opened a single one of them. But they're fobbing me off with these random answers which may or may not match a random page in a booklet I lost weeks ago. They seem to think they'll still get a decent engagement grade on their report - they will be sorely disappointed.

We've got reports too and anyone else doing UCAS references?

Starting next week after finishing marking their latest assessments. They’ve started to trickle in far too slowly now 25% are physically back on school site. Sigh.

Night all!

It seems so piggy, it's just us silly teachers insisting on this 2m rule (although I don't think I managed 2m at all times).

MsAwesomeDragon

I know what you mean, I have pupils just starting to hand in week 2s work.

As for the yr 10s some are going to have a shock if they keep handing in the quality of work that they are at the moment.

Does anyone else find the same children still manage to be attention seeking in live lessons, even if they can't speak? And that the boys still dominate? It hasn't resolved the issue of quite girls and dominant boys for me : in fact, it heightens it.

I thought remote learning but not live was better for quiet ones (boys and girls) but by adopting full on live lessons we are playing to the must worry most about the idle ones narrative.

£1 billion for catch-up reports the Telegraph. Specially trained graduates will be delivering the tutoring to the most disadvantaged kids, in all subjects.

There could be summer camps, but unions will not let teachers work over the summer as they ‘need a break’. Not mentioning that we’d need to be paid, presumably to piss off readers of the Telegraph.

Only 1 in 10 FSM kids did more than 4 hours of work a day compared to nearly 1 in 5 better-off kids. Which sounds like a big gap until you remember that nearly 1 in 5 is less than 20% so it’s 10% of disadvantaged kids and under 20% of better-off kids which isn’t huge numbers of either.

MumsNeedWine

One of the challenges our school set before Easter was a "keepy-uppy with a toilet roll" challenge (I think they could also use a ball if they preferred), to be done by yourself or with family members and to be videoed and sent to the head. Would that work?

You’re doing UCAS references already? Bloody hell we don’t write those till Oct/Nov. What’s the point in doing them now? We don’t touch references until the kids have finished their personal statements.

@mumsneedwine if you dm me your email I can send you the slides I've made from the info on the National Sports at Home Week 2020 that I've made for my y6. It suggests lots of PE type tasks and asks them to choose something to work on for the week and to make a record of what they have done.

On the plus point here, I've only got 21 kids wanting to come back and that means I only need to be in class for 3 days with my groups of 7. And the press has reported that it will be up to schools whether they decide to stay open for the additional 4th week that the Welsh Ed Minister declared we would be staying open for...without consulting with schools...or unions...or wanting to rewrite teacher terms and conditions...or deploying the emergency powers they may have to make it happen.

So it's likely we will now finish at the normal week rather than doing an extra.