The Twelfth Republic - push and glide to the summer break

[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

Racing not raving. I wish I were!

I noticed Boris Johnson is always very careful to say people should wear face coverings when they meet people 'they wouldn't usually meet' which seems to be a built in exemption clause for schools.

@Piggywaspushed

I noticed Boris Johnson is always very careful to say people should wear face coverings when they meet people 'they wouldn't usually meet' which seems to be a built in exemption clause for schools.

Oh yes, definitely!

At the moment ours have gone with key stage breakfast/after.
So realistically most families will be exposed to at least 2 of the 3 of those bubbles.
And they are charging for whole week even if people dont need that.

I wonder though if especially with wfh do some year 5/6 walk home.
Some people may choose not to commit as im not silure we got money back for during lockdown. And others may think maybe swimming lessons etc might start up again or scouts even if online.
They are designating outsife bits though.
I think the other issue with the clubs is contaminationofthe classrooms by other students.
Our school are already now back to uniform top half from saying non uniform.
Imo
If schools have responsibility then they should be able to make the choices.

I think if they started sept with masks they can go back from that but from noneit is either closed or part time etc.
Plus obviously time off for most kids while doing the covid test over the course of the term. Reducing other flu etc is almost as necessary.
On fb in oz they were saying it was straight back to getting colds when they restarted.
If is so odd where masks are necessary for hair cutting etc but not kids when they are least likely to seem ill.

No idea about that 11th August guidance. I’ve also googled extensively and am usually quite good at finding stuff. Everyone seems quite adamant about it though 🤷‍♀️

Is Bitesize continuing too? Into next academic year. As i prefer it to Oak.

Secondary here. Our year groups will stay in zones and we’ll move around, carrying everything with us. They are putting Perspex screens on the front of teachers desks and it’s up to us whether we want to stay behind them.

Normal timetable and length day but staggered lunches and break. Breakfast club carrying on for pp students. They’ve noticed that department staff rooms are tiny without enough desks for staff so some people will be told they have to work/be elsewhere and not have access to their department.

Year 7 likely to stay in one room all day long. Year 8s likely to move to sets for maths. More movement for the older year groups but within their year groups zone of the school.

@thehoneybadger - with the exception of screens and info about staff rooms, the student set up for your school is the same as ours. Each year group bubble will also have a room for additional provision for our send students who are less easily managed in the mainstream classroom. Each year has a group of students who will be taught with LSA support rather than sending LSA's in and out of classrooms.

Wow, secondaries are a whole other nightmare.

Secondary here also! Our school has gone for zones too, so it’s either a popular idea or we all work at the same school!

I do interventions with various year groups so it’s going to be interesting to see how that goes.

DS1 is starting secondary in September, so I’m worried about him settling in. Luckily his new school have been fantastic at getting information out to us and doing lots of stuff virtually. He’s looking forward to it, which is the main thing!

The potential lack of wraparound care is a bit of a nightmare. Ds2 is still in primary, and it’s usually a mad dash as they don’t open breakfast club until 7:45 and I have a 40 minute drive to work.. Any changes might leave us a bit up the creek.

Hong Kong is suspending all schools, just a week before the summer holidays start.

Reuters.

We've had our plan for September's full return to school. We finished earlier in the week and I can't get my head around it at the moment. It's making me quite anxious, especially when I try and figure out how it will work with sorting out my own dc drop off and pick up from school. Similar plans to what's already on here, earlier starts and ends (increase in staff supervision needed), zoning of areas, no morning break and minimising the use of the staff room.

We’re having zones too!

Had my finalised directed time allocation through. Daily before school, morning break and lunch duty required. Means I have a 20 minute break each day but as as PP commented it’s legal. Trying to stay positive!

There is an interesting thread running on people WFH not wanting to return to their offices. There are a range of reasons (for example, H and S) but it is interesting that many of them love WFH and seem content to stay that way forever when their kiddiwinks return to school! They seem happy to sacrifice 'Us'for 'Them' as it were to keep a newly found serenity and worklife balance whilst ours goes down the tubes.

I am noting two things : how many of them work in places where 25% capacity will be common to maintain SD and don't realise (or perhaps care?) this is not a luxury afforded to many workers , including us! And, also, how some of the GFs we are used to have revealed via that thread that they work in very safe WFH jobs! Well, we knew that anyway....

It does stress me out that there is a general feeling that everything else can stay safe and cosseted, so long as their children are out of the house.

And, yet, as many have pointed out Boris wants people at work so that they support the economy by visiting coffee shops, sandwich bars, cafes etc and teachers are just about the least likely workers to do this!

I need a WFH job : not sure what though!

It's astounding piggy. And that they don't equate it with a service like the nhs.

You could work for twinkl? They've done well out of this!

They're opening everything up because we are on holiday for 6 weeks. That will take school infection rates out of the equation. I do Hope rates continue to decrease so that we are at a better starting position in sept; I really don't know if they will or not.

I don't expect holiday clubs etc to be included in educational data either which is frustrating. Much wider bubbles too as a child will go one week and not the next etc so different mixes of cohorts week on week.

I wonder if all the transition days will impact anything either. All children are going into school at my sons school next week, one day each, split up obviously into groups but still more bubbles. And also, if anyone caught it at school, would it be classed as an educational setting? They couldn't prove it was at school easily.

It's all gone quiet on the great summer catch up, or have I missed something?

Don't think so. Instead Halfon and co are busy concluding that we are all biased and that the teacher assessed results will be a shitshow (because bias doesn't work its way through any other assessment system natch).

We haven’t worked out what to do about tas yet apparently. Bit pointless them being in the room if they can’t go near the student they’re there to support and there’s no room at the front for another adult 2m from teacher and children.

Taking small groups elsewhere seems a good idea but would be hard on tas who didn’t sign up for that/haven’t worked like that before?

I am so annoyed about this discussion of how the CAG are biased (before they've even been released!), not because there won't be suboptimal outcomes (as there are in any exam system) but because it will be stressing out year 13s who've already had enough to deal with this year...and it's not like there was any credible alternative. And at least they get to retake promptly this year should they wish, although I can't see where the examiners are coming from to mark and the invigilation looks like an utter nightmare!

It's mad to discuss it now. BBC even reported it as if something could be changed.

The whole unconscious bias thing needs discussing across society. teachers are actually less likely than average to 'fail' unconscious bias tests, I read.

But the whole system militates against some groups. That's a much bigger issue than some CAGs.

I feel like it 's become the new 'growth mindset'. People parrot it who don't know anything at all about it. I give you my HOD who keeps referring to'subconscious bias'.

And. let's face it, some bias is entirely conscious in society and in Tory governments

We’re well practiced in positive discrimination if anything. Eg going more slowly through the warning system with a child who has behaviour problems, praising good behaviour/work in the unmotivated. It’s the good kids and ones who work hard who get very little much of the time.

This from TES - the cost of following the Dfe 60 pages of guidance!

While putting an exact cost on these additional measures is difficult to do across schools of different sizes and locations, it seems few schools have managed to absorb the enhanced hygiene measures into their existing provisions.

According to Sian Churchill, business manager from Ysgol Penrhyn Dewi, the St Davids Peninsular all-age school in Pembrokeshire, the cost for their 600-pupil all-through school will come to over £17,000 for the autumn term.

“Just in terms of cleaning (staff and consumables) for our three sites, there’ll be an additional cost of approximately £1,150 per week,” she says.

“In addition to cleaning supplies, to date we have spent approximately £5,400 on signage, staff and other items required for school recovery, which is approximately £385 per week."

Mark Unwin, headteacher at Handforth Grange Primary School, put the estimated extra cost at around £12,000 in a Twitter post, while another school leader at a school in the south of England, puts the cost for the autumn term at around £13,000, which is a 30 per cent increase in cleaning costs and a 60 per cent increase in equipment.

Nicola Forster, headteacher at North Primary in Southall, has also seen costs increase.

“We’re spending a fortune on anti-bac, and even more lidded bins for masks now,” she explains.

“We are two-form entry and we’ve employed a full-time first aider and an additional unqualified teacher so that we can have four staff per year group. We’d already bought signage and distancing rugs for June, but will need new signage for gates.”

Fiona Wilcox, school business manager at The Burgate School and Sixth Form, tells a similar story.

“Obviously things like sanitisers, an extra cleaner, various cleaning supplies mean we have increased our budget for next year,” she explains.

“To put a figure on it is very difficult but we’re also looking at hand-washing stations and if you hire them they’re about £100 per week or if you have some plumbed in you’re talking about £300-400 to get some troughs put up.

I can believe that.

From Sept we have been told that wewill be required to do a daily morning duty, break duty and a lunch time duty meaning I will have a single 20 minute break from 8am-4pm. I will be circulating around the school to different year groups’s ‘zones’ all whilst carrying books/equipment for the day as I’ll no longer have a classroom base.

The ‘enhanced cleaning’ will come in the form of a packet of antibacterial wipes in the each classroom for us to wipe down any surfaces we as teachers have touched.

It al seems like my daily working life will be exhausting for no extra safety protection.

StaffAssociationRepresentative, I think you'll find that you need a more "can do" attitude.

Has anyone else heard nothing at all from their school? No timetable, RA or even this-is-roughly-how-it-will-work?