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

Great news oh!

Some posters elsewhere are getting annoyed that Jenny Harries told them teenage behaviour influences virus spread. Am I the only person who owns a teenager who has kept to the guidance for the entire time and doesn't seem to be either is some melted overweight heap or teetering on the edge of breakdown?

They don't seem to get that she was warning them that schools would close down again if teenagers brought it into a school or took it back out to more than just their family.

I suspect JH is secretly disappointed. I think she wanted all schools open long ago but the rest of society in complete lockdown.I thinks eh does have a slightly odd world view. But I agree that teenagers should be controlled better : have always agreed with this!

The classic 'they're not children!' has already been spouted. Ermmm. Yes, they are?

I'm slightly worried that quite a lot of parents when we do return will tell their DCs to ignore teachers if they tell them to keep apart at all.

I thought the bit in the guidelines reminding leaders that staff should still have a reasonable break was interesting. It suggested to me that they know this will be difficult and potentially a battleground. I am not Mrs Burgundy Book so am not sure what constitutes reasonable but you can bet it might be squeezed. I for one will be keeping a watchful eye on whether we are asked to do things in those breaks as well, such as clean our classrooms or supervise children outside of any agreed duty rota.

I am too old to be Mrs How High .

Someone on here will know the rules on breaks?

When we were told to work to rule by the union (ha! that went well!) we were told we had a right to a break as long as the children, certainly at lunchtime. When I worked on a supply contract I wasn’t paid for lunchtime. By employment law I think we’re entitled to at least a 20 (?) minute break since we work at least 5 hours

Well, that'll be it, then. 20 minute breaks all round!

An astonishing number of teachers at my school are not aware that lunchtime is unpaid. Our SLT are pretty good about not using us for anything at lunch these days but if you are receiving training or are pastoral middle management they play fairly fast and loose with it.

@Piggywaspushed interesting about breaks. If we do keyworker/vulnerable rota day we don't get a break.

Grea tnews goats and honey.

Talking to kids in school, it's been.interesting how pretty much all have found lockdown a bit boring but ok, and the massive differences between how much they've followed lockdown rules.

All the teachers I work with are entitled to an hour’s lunch break. None of them take it as they all do non-contact stuff in their classrooms. Might pop in the staffroom for 15 mins but often just eat a sandwich as they work. SLT encourage them not to do this all the time. Huge difference between doing that voluntarily and being expected to do it.
Support staff are not paid for morning break of 15 mins or lunch hour. Again, if there is something to do then they do it. I run a couple of lunchtime clubs in mine, because it adds to the school community and there is a lot of interest, whereas working patterns for parents mean after school clubs aren’t as popular.
I know staff who have taken on a lunchtime supervisor role and so work through with an unpaid 20 min break as per regulations. Their choice, but that wouldn’t suit me.

It feels to me like girls are being more complaint about everything than boys. That's not the case with the two boys I own, though.

This does seem to be partly parent facilitated as they seem to send their boys out more whereas girls arrange things themselves in their gardens.

Totally unscientific local survey of me on daily walks/staring out of the window suggests it’s the ones who always walked round in big, lairy groups that now walk around in big, lairy groups not social distancing.
Asked DS the other week if his friends were meeting up (we live 6 miles from the school) and he said not really. There’s certainly a lot of online chatting going on.
Early on in lockdown there was a group ahead of us and he muttered Well, THEY don’t live in the same household!.

Morning all. Haven’t been around for a while so catching up. Between live teaching and dealing with my own kids the days just blur. Did my first Teams Parents Evening last week (another Monday). Was so on edge that DS would meltdown during it but it was fine.

Fantastic news @ohthegoats. So please did you both.

Yes @Piggywaspushed. This academic year we were given lunch duties to do as my secondary has increased in numbers and there’s no where for pupils to go. In order to do this they cut meeting times down to ensure we would not be over our directed time. I think it’s 30 minutes for lunch and a 15 minute break. We aren’t paid for the breaks.

I'd disagree, Piggy.

I think boys are much more compliant as a whole, and many teenage boys are really, really bothered about rules and adult approval.

Almost all the work I'm getting in now is from boys. It's been consistently so all through.

My teen ds is totally sticking to the rules (mind, he wants lockdown forever - ASD). I was talking to a colleague the other day who said her (younger) teen ds is totally compliant but being made to feel like a loser by female friends who are breaking the rules.

I do think that in any community including schools, there's always a small but visible cohort of really badly behaved kids or adults and they are usually male - so the gang of 15 in the park visibly breaking the rules is male - but girls are quiet rule breakers too with a more social/influencing each other quality to it.

Really "good" boys are hard to be made to change their behaviour.

The boys I’ve seen in college haven’t been meeting up with friends - one mentioned get togethers with others but it transpired he meant on the PS4! Many of them haven’t left the house apart from these days in college.

Our T&C are mostly based on burgundy book but we do have lunchtime meetings - however after work meetings are very rare (one per half term, if that) which suits me better tbh. I doubt very much our working patterns will be any different in September. I assume they’ll “bubble” the whole college and we just carry on as normal until something happens and we have to stop.

It's girls around here. They've been in groups in fields all along. Uses to spot them on runs.

I'm going to Cornwall late tonight. It's going to rain all weekend, but I don't care. Just want a different view. I'm not taking a laptop. Going to try and finish a book.

@echt - well spotted!! Milligan is my absolute hero.

That's true dangling and certainly my boys are both complaint (as you know DS1 is a hermit!)

It is another unscientific survey based on sporty and very childish group of boys in my form who said they were 'playing out with friends', whereas non of the girls said that.

But , yes, agreed, boys when compliant re more compliant than girls who tend to be social animals .

And, yeah, lots of mentions of PS4s!

I'm so offended by the teenagers spreading covid outside school opinion! My dd has obeyed the rules to the letter as have her friends. She will not be safer in school at all, in fact dh and I were saying last night that we'd better start forcing her back into the world a bit or full time in September will be an awful shock. She has generally enjoyed lockdown, all the lack of social pressure has suited her, so going back will be majorly stressful I think ☹

Well, quite. And teachers and school staff.

I've not been anywhere, not even a shop and don't intend to for a long time.

So, if I catch it, it'll definitely be in school (or, at a push, a petrol pump handle). Thanks very much, TBs.

I have had to ring my doctors this morning for my dd she has been struggling with her mental health quite badly. She is 12.

She is not compliant at all, she thinks she is too cool for school.

Recently she has been meeting with friends outside. Another friends Mum let them inside which I was shocked about as she is so straight laced and is known for being a stickler- so I was shocked.

Were the doctors any help riga? I know it’s not easy to access help for youngsters.

Ds had a patch of saying he was depressed in year 7 and feeling pretty rubbish sometimes. It coincided with my Dad’s cancer dx though ds didn’t think it was connected. Luckily it seems to have passed for now at least. I have mental health problems myself that started young and he’s very similar to me in lots of ways so I do worry. I didn’t want to go down the labelling and medical route but obviously would if it was bad and long lasting enough.

Does she talk to you about it? I’m one who thinks boys are often easier. If a teenage girl decides she doesn’t like you or wants to make your life difficult you’re fucked. At least with boys if you can get them to laugh you can smooth things over. Girls grudges have staying power

I feel the same glee.

It is an interesting sociological study, if nothing else.

Yeah dangling the how do you know where you got it, brigade are annoying. They love to say teachers could have 'got it anywhere' (which let's face it will be the legal position).

I think I had it way back in March. If I did I got it from school because:

I have no friends other than teachers from my school
My DH is a teacher and likewise his social circle is other teachers
My DS attends a school
I hadn't been to a supermarket for a while and was already being very vigilant
I don't go to pubs
I drive to work and back
I had been to London but a good 2 1/2 weeks before

You would have to be really really obtuse to think I hadn't picked it up at school via students returning from various ski trips!

My unscientific study tells me that the boys who used to hang around the woods smoking weed, are still hanging around the woods smoking weed (I go there for my daily walk and decide my route based on where the smell is coming from). All the kids who have been in school tell me they've not met up with friends other than online, but then we're a large catchment area so they're pretty reliant on parents taking them to places. The girls seemed more likely to have been doing zoom meetups and the boys on PS4. I agree about the large visibly rule breaking groups usually being boys, while the girls quietly get on with breaking the rules in a less noticeable way.

My dds have both quite enjoyed lockdown as both of them get quite socially anxious. Neither of them are teens though, one is 20 and the other is 10. 10yo dd is happy playing Roblox on the laptop and messaging her friends (her friends want to do facetime as they aren't good at spelling etc, dd hates facetime as she doesn't like phones, photos or videos of herself). Since we've been allowed to meet up in gardens I've been arranging weekly meetups with her 2 best friends, purely because she's turning into a hermit and needs some social interaction in person again.

It would be more accurate to say ‘some families’ are engaging in behaviour likely to spread the virus. With the obvious exceptions of those older children who won’t listen to their parents. But then they probably never did.
Groups of girls have been meeting up in gardens and houses from my school. The TikTok no social distancing evidence is plain to see! It has caused rifts between Yr5 and 6 girls whose parents are sticking to the guidance and won’t let them take part.

I’d download some sort of app to my phone to show I’ve been nowhere but school and wide open spaces with no one else around. Just so I could sue the fuck out of the LEA when I get it .

Sorry to hear that, Riga. I hope she can get the help she needs.

DH surprised a couple of the local stoners in a clump of bushes the other week. He genuinely thought they were the deer that hang around. How he didn’t smell it I don’t know