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.

There was a good challenge one of my kids got set a while back where you lay on the floor on your back with a toilet roll balanced on your forehead and you have to stand up without using your hands and without dropping the toilet roll.

Hello! Found you all. Finally got my head out of Teams.... just in time for bed!

I've got 17 reports left to write, which feels achievable, but I'm knackered. Have ignored my own dc all day apart from putting food on the table at appropriate times. My lessons are not going to be great tomorrow!

Yeah, we are doing them. Always do them in the summer term. It is indeed too early.

Thank you so much. Will be in contact in morning. Off to bed as been a v long day in school and then setting up for tomorrow's lesson out of school. Back in at 8am.

My primary head has just announced that he wants all classes back in by the end of the month. Three days a week with a bubble on for a week and off the next week. Plus some talk of teachers being in key worker bubbles and class bubbles... he's been amazing up until now, so not too sure what is going on and how this will work.

Finished my reports! Woo hoo!
Replied to most of the parent emails.
No idea what I am teaching tomorrow!
But hey, at least reports are done for another year

Goats - the PHE link is here:

www.gov.uk/government/news/weekly-covid-19-surveillance-report-published

It's updated every Thursday.

Hi everyone!

Have avoided mumsnet this week after my battering last week but saved to find you guys!

@BlessYourCottonSocks I’m written my UCAS references for my subject and next month will be collating all those subject details to write tutor references. We have vertical forms so will be writing 6. Still takes a while though!

@mumsneedwine My children’s sports day should have been this week. Their school organised a virtual sports day and each day uploaded a challenge for them to complete to earn house points. They loved it. I thought ‘great. So on top of my teaching, marking etc and home schooling them, I now have to find time to set up their challenge, time them, film them and upload it to their school page’. Bloody enthusiastic primary teachers! 😉

So some details are out this morning on BBC about the miraculous tutorial fund ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53100881

@mumsneedwine What meant to add on was if you would like the details of what they did I’ll dm you. Let me know!

Schools need to pay 25%. They’re determined we don’t get carried away and offer tutoring to all the kids that need it then.

Curious how they’re going to train these graduates and how many they’ve managed to recruit in which areas.

Am I missing something “Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said the government's decision not to include pre-schoolers "beggars belief". “

Do pre-schoolers need access to catch up tutoring?!?!

When did Boris and Gav actually announce this, did I miss it?

Also how will schools will be able to pay 25% of the costs. We can’t afford to pay the teachers we currently have and having to look at restructuring.

Thanks for the thread staff!

For effective tutoring of those who really need it, it needs to be experienced teachers. Unless it's targeted reading but even then you'd need some decent training.

The BBC report says that

“individual schools would be expected to pay 25% of the tutoring costs in the first year, or from their share of the £650m in extra funding being made available to them as part of this package.”

So, I’m further confused - is central GVT paying for 75% of the costs?!

Anyway, to repeat what others have said, no idea where we are going to get these graduates from... there is one uni in my LEA, which doesn’t offer many secondary subjects except perhaps art, drama and graphics! Oh, and it’s the other end of à the county and there’s no public transport to our school... 🤪

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said the government's decision not to include pre-schoolers "beggars belief".

From a bbc report on the funding - what are they counting as preschool? Reception classes or nursery?

I can't see the lack of preschool making any difference to long term progress at nursery level. They don't have to go to school. Reception have missed a lot of basics and play but they're going into y1 so will get the targeted funding. Y1 teachers will be aware of what they've missed out on and so take it more slowly.

Am I missing something?

Sure Start?!

How do they allocate the £650m?

I was confused by that too cheese!

So has the gov taken to announcing education news literally in the middle of the night??

I think ti is reprehensible that they are excluding sixth form colleges.

Cross post mrshercule

Clearly we aren't missing anything! Balderdash!

For example, Luton, a town with high poverty, and a large BAME population is an exclusively sixth form college town (unless you go to catholic school)

This is in The guardian . Note the usual 'do what you like' spiel :

A bit more has been coming from schools standards minister, Nick Gibb, who said schools in England will be able access the fund “at their discretion” to help children catch up on missed work.
Speaking on Sky News, he added that the government wants to ensure no pupils face any long-term detriment to their education as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
He said: “Schools have done a brilliant job in providing online lessons for children, providing them work while they’re at home.
“But nothing beats children being back in the classroom in terms of the quality of the education and we want to make sure that no child loses out, or has any long-term detriment to their education as a consequence of this crisis.
“So that’s why we’re allocating this huge sum of money, £650m to schools to use at their discretion, to ensure that every child can catch up over the course of the next academic year.”

It does look increasingly like there will eb no changes tp GCSEs and A Levels.

As this isn’t going to be offered to all pupils I am sure there will be issues with many parents disagreeing about who should have tutoring.

I am imagining one particular parent who will have already emailed the school to demand her DC are top on the list.

And :
Subsidised tutoring being offered through a new government programme from September is likely to cost state schools £12-an-hour in the scheme’s first year, compared with the £50-an-hour usually charged by the private providers involved.
The programme will come via an extra £650m provided to schools in England to help pupils catch up on teaching missed during the coronavirus lockdown since March, as part of a £1bn package.
Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, will announce the funding on Friday, which will also include a separate £350m in subsidies for a one-year national tutoring programme – as revealed by the Guardian – to help the most disadvantaged children in their education by offering low-cost tuition for schools to purchase.
“This package will make sure that every young person, no matter their age or where they live, gets the education, opportunities and outcomes they deserve, by spending it on measures proven to be effective, particularly for those who are most disadvantaged,” Williamson said
“The plan will be delivered throughout the next academic year, bringing long-term reform to the educational sector that will protect a generation of children from the effects of this pandemic

Are these tutors different from the private providers?

Just checking back in and wondering if the Gov have found a magic money tree? Given that school staff are paid an appalling rate for what they do, and how we scrabble around to find luxury items like pencils where is all the money coming from for tutors?