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
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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.

MrsHerculePoirot

I was champing at the bit to populate my class notebooks, but had to wait for IT to create all of the class teams. They did it over Easter but I think it took the systems about 10 days to upload the lot!

The important thing is not to jump the gun - I was so impatient I nearly went ahead and created all of my class notebooks manually, but if you do this, you won't be able to use Assignments to distribute pages. Once the class is created in Teams, there will be a "Class Notebook" option on the top bar in the class space. Click on that, then it takes you step by step through creating the notebook.

I have wondered how to order my sections, so now I've got the content library, the collaboration space (not yet used but I think it's more useful for other subjects), then I had two sections that I added called "Classwork" and "Homework". With hindsight, I'd probabl call them "Summer Term 1", "Summer Term 2" etc. and just keep the classwork and homework together.

Hope it goes well once all the classes are loaded. I didn't like it much at first, but marking is really easy and far preferable to lugging 28 A4 exercise books around!

@MsAwesomeDragon LTB

Lol, Nobel, is it worth c+p the predictions across as a list for this thread?! We can play bingo.

Hilarious how quickly the concern for vulnerable children has disappeared now it looks like they might get extra support. They've now turned into 'the ones with hopeless parents'

I'm guessing they claim to cover it in phase but given it has to be given 5% of curriculum time minimum I'm not buying it. No wonder they can't guarantee me much of my specialist subject given they're not delivering it to years 9, 10 and 11.

I've contacted the local SACRE as a parent and without naming the school to enquire if this is acceptable. SACRE set regional curriculum for RE as it's not a National Curriculum subject. Website seems to make clear that it has to be covered in it's own timetabled slot. I don't think claiming to do 'some ethics' in phase fits with that.

Grr. I need a new job. Every school I've worked at did mandatory GCSE shortcourse (so they got a qualification out of something they had to do anyway) and there are really good syllabus' to pick from - I like OCR religion and ethics but there are others that are good. It's also pretty easy, if well taught, to get excellent grades that bump up the schools results.

Think I hate my school.

@Cantaloupeisland

Hilarious how quickly the concern for vulnerable children has disappeared now it looks like they might get extra support. They've now turned into 'the ones with hopeless parents'

Ha! Like the endless hopeless parents on mn who claim not to be able to get their kids to do any work at all?

25hrs a week of curriculum - 5% is at least one hour a week. That's how I've always seen that interpreted. This LEA was famous for being utterly shit and I was warned when I moved back here - maybe MATs here have taken over where the shitty council left off. I started out and trained in an excellent LEA so I have seen how massive the range is.

Sorry but this has really pissed me off - that's my specialty subject that I invested a years pgce training in and they just write if off? According to ds what they do get in years 7 and 8 is preachy stuff that I thought was ditched in the 90's.

Sorry. Will sit on my hands till the annoyance passes so I don't keep derailing.

It is annoying honey as, as much as I don't like teaching RE (sorry my specialism is very much elsewhere!) I think it's actually really important.

As you say, as it helps understand POV and diversity. And all our pop cultures and understanding of history relies very much on understanding RE. Eg from watching the Simpson's to understanding roman carvings to knowing why single sex women's toilets are important if you are a Muslim (sorry, couldn't help myself, but Dh who is in planning for buildings hadn't realised this in a conversation today!)

I was forced to read most of the bible at school but actually I am very glad I did as I have a contextual understanding of what out culture was built on.

Been in with y10 today. Surreal , they all said they have been waking up at lunch time.

Come out to the news that Bojo says we can all be back full time by September.

Do you think we should be worried by the bit I've underlined from what was quoted this morning? Nick Gibb 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"

What does he mean by long term reform ???

Also the headlines earlier said Boris says it's his ambition for every pupil to return to school in the autumn on a 5 day a week basis!

Been in with y10 today. Surreal , they all said they have been waking up at lunch time.

A friend has reported the same with her two, younger than that though.

Not too far away from here was the secondary school where they trialled starting the day later. Not sure what happened longer term!

My year 10s said they hadn't been waking up until the afternoon as well

Boris has been noted for that word ambition before....

Ooh they're clever.

Get ready for the threads not spotting the lack of commitment in that word...

@StrawberryJam200

Do you think we should be worried by the bit I've underlined from what was quoted this morning? Nick Gibb 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"

What does he mean by long term reform ???

Also the headlines earlier said Boris says it's his ambition for every pupil to return to school in the autumn on a 5 day a week basis!

My ambition is to win the lottery by September. About as meaningful a statement with regards to reality as Boris'.

Thanks Neuro. It's a really good one for uni prep as well because it's all about having to compare and contrast and insert your own view but very much in lower case compared to the topic and the beliefs of others. Much of the exam is mini essays with simple formulas which sounds shallow but encourages a way of thinking and viewing things even if you disagree with them. And things like poverty and weath, war, euthanasia, abortion etc are really interesting and really important to look in terms of forming your own politics and values and beliefs.

Anyway I said I'd shut up and I will lol

Can't wait to see what Gav has to say at 5pm, although I usually end up shouting at him!

Oh he's such a wet dishclout.

Not sure if I will win the lottery by September but I think I would like to go part-time. I doubt my Head will allow that for 20/21 but certainly 21/22 I would like to drop to three days a week. Maybe do a bit of tutoring instead

Very good for critical thinking too Honey.

I'm so glad we were made to do a history methodology unit for a level, 50% of the mark. Not only did it find it easier than wading through dates and random monarchs, the debates and learning we did around 'what is truth,' propaganda, hierarchy of sources, points of view, schools of history etc has really stood the test of time.

Had a good old Facebook argument using all of that with regards to conspiracy theories around wearing face masks and Microsoft owning the WHO. (Eg; memes aren't reliable primary sources of info.)

That reminds me of a 'Comparative Epistemologies' unit I did at Uni Neuro. Much of it felt way over my head a lot of the time but a lot of it has stuck and rises up to help me... frame and analyse things I guess? This is the kind of thing I used the RE slot for - yes I had to do and this is what Christians/Muslims believe and make sure it stuck in their heads but I made sure the bulk of the space was used for a more social sciences approach. I'm an anthropologist which is pretty subversive in comparison to the purpose of state education and I snuck in as much as I could to the kids heads

I miss doing something I find meaningful. No offence intended at all to Science teachers it's just not my thing. I went into teaching to add to the person rather than just to add knowledge. If they force me to still do nothing but science I'm going to have to find a way to make it my own. At least if they gave me all year 7 I could become a master of the bridge between primary and the expectations of secondary school science.

If they still make me teach ks4 I'm going to be so gutted and don't know what I'll do.

Hopefully my ambition will be more successful than Boris' - can't help but think I've as much chance of winning the lottery as we have of all kids being able to safely return to school full time in September.

Staff part time is a soul saver imo. I still feel like I'm losing my mind half the time but if I work like crazy all week I can at least have my weekend free as a bird.

@Staff I'm the same. I wanted to step back this year but Covid.... I don't even want to watch it. Anyway I'm still working :)

His voice is like nails down a blackboard to me (pun intended)

@Piggywaspushed snap

Checking in for the Big Gav shitshow