The Eleventh Republic - countdown to summer holidays

[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

Oh, I'm so sorry, Why Not. This is just the hardest thing ever.

I cannot believe how anxious I am, too. My dh is clinically extremely vulnerable and I keep veering between kicking myself for not resigning in May and thinking I'm being OTT and it will all be fine.

Extreme stress makes it really hard to trust one's own judgement.

I wanted to resign at Easter but DHs job is under threat of redundancy, so we decided as our schools were being so careful, we could take the risk.
This new advice has just taken all that away.

Yes, it feels like it has.

My dh is medically retired and we can just about live on his (small) pension, but I'm not happy about not building my own up. I had ten years of not working when ds was small (SEN and no wrap around care would take him).

That sounds hard Dangling, and I completely empathise with your pension concerns!
It's bad enough that parents on MN think we are worthless workshy Marxists, but for the government to think so little of our lives as well is just awful. Cannon fodder.

That sounds really hard WhyNotMe40 and dangling.

@WhyNotMe40 I hope the appointment goes well xxxx. Is anyone allowed to go with him?

My DH will go with him

I haven't posted on MN for ages but felt compelled to join in this supportive thread. I
'm a 1:1 TA and Forest school leader with a shielding DH. Worried about how September is going to work - my 1:1 will not be keeping 1cm distant from me let alone 1m, and I cover PPA with Forest school, so I see all the children over a fortnight. Some bubble! I'm another one wondering if I can actually go back to work at all. Currently WFH doing all manner of things but DH is terrified at the thought of the potential for infection. Also DD is going into Y9 at a 1200 child school - packed to the gills there, how can she SD at all?

we decided as our schools were being so careful, we could take the risk

Yep-and that looks like it’s all going out of the window in September.

I guess we need to see what the unions suggest. I can’t see if being popular with some parents though. Or the DM.

I’m sorry, WhyNot and plasticboxes, it’s just shit, isn’t it. A country like ours with all the scientific knowledge at our disposal and we are still just shrugging our shoulders and sending people into situations they didn’t choose and shouldn’t have to risk.

Meanwhile, in libraries:

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/uk-libraries-are-set-to-reopen-–-but-not-as-we-know-them/ar-BB16c78s?ocid=spartanntp_edu

I'm friendly with our local librarian (as my children devour books we are normally there frequently!) They are opening on an appointment basis only - you reserve your books and book a collection time. You also have to book a return time and leave them bagged up so they can go into quarantine.
I'm really looking forward to it as I've spent a fortune on actually buying books for them recently, and also run out if6 bookshelf space!

Sounds shit. I've got mates who are saying things like 'we're just going to have to live with this, so need to get on with it. If people want to go to the pub etc, then they should be able to... I won't, but it's fine that people can'

Yeah, easy to say when you have the privilege of staying at home to work and choosing not to go to the pub.

cannot see why Oak would need to do this

No, me neither. Not their responsibility. And if it's being used by children in emergency situations where schools are closed on and off, or whatever, then could it be manipulated to judge other schools? Hmm.. stealth takeover of curriculum, I tell you. EVERYONE MUST USE BOOKLETS.

What I know about workbooks now, and booklets etc now, is that children can't learn from them the whole time. It's boring.

Lol at ‘space marshals’. Not all customers are sweet little old ladies who are going to do as they are told by a minimum wage ‘frontline officer’.
And quarantining books that have been ‘browsed’? Not. A. Chance. By lunchtime in a busy library all the shelves will be empty and buckets full of ‘browsed’ books will be chucked in the stock room. And who is going to follow users around to see what books they touch and whip them off the shelves?
It’s just another example of total pie-in-the-sky nonsense that could only work in a perfect world full of perfect people.

I wouldn’t use a library for a gold clock with Coronavirus going around. In fact, if Coronavirus could design the perfect public service to help it in its quest for total spread it would design a library (after designing a school).

Many of our libraries were refurbished to include a public toilet too, which staff have to clean if they get noticeably dirty during the day. 🤢

Talking about libraries and spending a fortune on books, if you’ve been buying books from Amazon, please consider switching to www.hive.co.uk/ as a percentage of the cost goes to an independent book shop of your choice instead of Jeff Bezos.

The delivery isn’t as quick, but within a week.

Thanks noble - I discovered them only a couple of weeks ago, but yes it's a brilliant idea :)

@MrsHerculePoirot

You could add the Kahoot! app to Teams - if you go to your team space and look for it by clicking the drop down on the top bar. I've got it. You can then log onto your Kahoot! account via Teams and assign a quiz - can set a start and end date/time on it. My class tried it once and found it was a bit laggy, but it gets rid of the issues with students not being able to log on at a specific time.

What I normally do if I'm using Forms is to create a quiz, then drop a link to the quiz into the specific OneNote page for that lesson. I distribute the page to their OneNotes the day before, but then they do the work during lesson time, not beforehand.

Plastic I wouldn't think Forest School would run under the bubble system. Shouldn't, anyway, but then I read on here about a Head who "doesn't believe" in distancing and so isnt doing it on a personal level.

Really sorry about your dad why My dad was dx with cancer a couple of years ago and we didn’t know how bad it was or if he’d have long. I’ve often thought of what if that was now and sending ds into school and me to work meant him potentially never seeing his favourite grandchild again. Horrible quandary I can totally empathise with.

Luckily he had chemo and other treatment and whilst it’s not cured it’s under control and he has finished all chemo.

Sorry for the me me me bit but I have been released from Science and I’m so happy. Will be teaching humanities

I'd love to teach secondary humanities. If I could just teach humanities and English in primary I'd love it too.

Have nothing new to add (on holiday!) but don't want to lose the new thread

Yay for holiday mistress

I will miss the practicals with year 7 - time flies when you’re trying to build parallel circuits with knackered gear and running round the room checking why so and so can’t get their bulbs to light up but that’s about it. Won’t miss being bullied by hod or the evil marking policy or having 40 Mark tests (and marking them and recording marks on database and setting and marking intervention) every 3 weeks.

My planning, preparation and marking time should come back to within the land of sanity. So relieved never to have to sit in that department staff room ever again

Just seen this re care home testing. If that’s not a priority I dread to think how it will be for schools.