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The staffroom

Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.

The Twelfth Republic - push and glide to the summer break

999 replies

StaffAssociationRepresentative · 07/07/2020 09:15

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

OP posts:
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Piggywaspushed · 15/07/2020 15:27

I think the thing gav means is that every school needs to have a platform for online lessons : that is how I understood it.

noblegiraffe · 15/07/2020 15:38

Oak Oak Oak Oak Oak

I am so depressed at the thought of teachers doing two jobs for the price of one. Why do we always insist on reinventing the wheel.

Piggywaspushed · 15/07/2020 15:45

I think he means Oak and other stuff but it is about the school having the platform to teach the kids.eg Teams

I don't think we can just say 'do Oak' judging by that.

Plus my subject has no online provision and copyright buggers it royally so Sad

noblegiraffe · 15/07/2020 15:47

If we can’t say do Oak, then why are they currently plowing millions into it to get all the lessons up by September?

Appuskidu · 15/07/2020 15:49

I think having Oak is a brilliant idea-I’m glad they are investing in it.

MsAwesomeDragon · 15/07/2020 15:50

I've just had an email outlining our inset day for September. It looks very weird, with things like "safeguarding presentation over teams in departments" and "tutor team meeting over teams".

Then there's a programme of cpd on using Teams for assignments and for live lessons which consists of 5 sessions, each of which will be repeated every week for the first 3 weeks. By the end of September we are all expected to be familiar enough with the technology to be able to do live lessons immediately in the case of a local lockdown.

Any child in my classes that needs to self isolate will be directed to videos and worksheets from useful websites. If I am in the classroom all week I will certainly not be making my own videos as I have been. If the whole school needs to close then I'll switch to teaching live lessons via teams if I am told to, but I'd still prefer to send links to videos and worksheets. Oak could be my go to website if they have decent stuff ready to go on each topic I'll need.

DreamingofBrie · 15/07/2020 15:56

@noblegiraffe

Oak Oak Oak Oak Oak

I am so depressed at the thought of teachers doing two jobs for the price of one. Why do we always insist on reinventing the wheel.

Would you recommend Oak over Corbett or Dr Frost? Those two are my go-tos for tutorial videos.

Expectation here has evolved into us teaching most lessons live with recordings then made available.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 15/07/2020 16:01

With a different hat on, DNiece has long term health issues that meant she has missed a lot of school over the last 12 years. Some of that’s been covered by hospital school but having something like oak would have been really useful.

It’s never going to be as good as having the teacher in front of you but if it’s there better to use what’s useful rather than do twice the work. Not being live does have some advantages in terms of access.

This year is going to be difficult. But burning out all the teachers isn’t going to help.

noblegiraffe · 15/07/2020 16:09

Would you recommend Oak over Corbett or Dr Frost?

They are redoing all the Oak videos (for all subjects) that were put up over lockdown so I’m not sure what it will look like in September but the difference between Oak and say Corbett, is that it is structured teaching out of the box.

Corbett is great for linking to ‘watch this video , then do this sheet’ but it needs a teacher to put it all together - his videos and sheets are listed in alphabetical order not even grouped by difficulty.

Oak you can just say ‘work through the Y8 lessons on percentages’ (or whatever it will look like!)

My school has been using mathwatch, but again it needs a teacher to coordinate what the students are directed to.

I think what schools will still need to do with Oak is some way of collecting/monitoring work and giving individual feedback.

noblegiraffe · 15/07/2020 16:13

And thinking about my post, maths are obviously lucky to have all these free resources available - I don’t think it’s even remotely similar in other subjects.

I’ve been horrified at how little free stuff there is at primary when looking for my kids.

Piggywaspushed · 15/07/2020 16:14

I know noble but I did see a questionnaire thing that asked school to say what platform they had set up to provide structured learning for their pupils.

I am sure Oak may well be a valid response. But it still doesn't have a full curriculum and no sixth form, obviously, so schools will also need other things, I guess.

Piggywaspushed · 15/07/2020 16:16

I feel like my school ahs done no forward planning at all. If you asked them what Oak was, for example, they wouldn't know.

The training day is in person meetings and is about behaviour stuff and has no free time to arrange desks, plan stuff and we have not been told to prep for online learning.

Piggywaspushed · 15/07/2020 16:19

Maths was identified as being 'lucky' very early in the pandemic. It doesn't feel like other subject associations have done much to address this!!

MsAwesomeDragon · 15/07/2020 16:26

I was horrified by how few free resources the are for primary as well noble. I think I've been spoiled by getting used to having Corbett maths, etc available for maths. We've directed kids to his videos and worksheets for quite a few years to catch up when they've missed school due to illness etc.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 15/07/2020 16:29

There’s less free stuff around for primary these days than there used to be IMO. Charging for it has become big business over the last 10 years.

White rise has gone down well with people I’ve recommended it to but as you say it isn’t easy to find stuff for other subjects unless you are relying on parents to start putting their own curriculum together.

The easiest option seems to be to buy the appropriate CGP books.

noblegiraffe · 15/07/2020 16:30

my mate is currently co-ordinating a subject area for Oak, he’s not a Teach Firster, an edutwitter celebrity, a Tory voter, holding a sinister agenda about the curriculum or anything like that. They really do think it’s a good project to help teachers’ workload across the country and they want to be used as widely as possible.

And they are trying really hard to address all the criticisms, and basically working their arses off.

noblegiraffe · 15/07/2020 16:32

Yeah MsAwesome you kind of assume that everything is like maths and there are loads of teachers uploading free stuff and then you google primary and it’s ‘oh no, that’s Twinkl again’ and ‘I didn’t even realise that people actually charged for stuff on TES’.

Piggywaspushed · 15/07/2020 16:35

The TES charging is a scandal. So much of it is crap and a fair amount is plagiarised.

Piggywaspushed · 15/07/2020 16:38

There was along Twitter thread yesterday trying to disabuse some notions about Oak. I have no beef witht them at all per se , just doesn't offer me or my departments anything, unfortunately. Although they now have Stuart Pryke on board so the Eng content may improve and broaden.

I don't suppose the gov cares that media , drama, dance etc are all virtually unteachebale remotely.

NeurotrashWarrior · 15/07/2020 16:52

Sorry to bob on; I'll catch up Later.

Is it ridiculous that I'm thinking of asking a colleague to child mind my kids for the odd afternoon here and there so I can get on with a load of work over the summer hols?!

I guess we've saved in nursery fees.

NeurotrashWarrior · 15/07/2020 16:55

Masks... Germany. Children from y1 which is age 6-7 all wear masks in school.

Keepdistance · 15/07/2020 17:02

Primary
Ttr isnt too bad but as parent it doesnt let me select the TT to practise. If it had im sure dd would know them all as you would focus on 1/2.
Mathletics is good too but no explanations the i doesnt really help. Ideally we would have completed the year quickly and moved onto next year but no option. Plus if you already do it the teacher can still set it.
Cgp books are very good. (Mostly no explanation) but you can focus on where any issues are.
Headstart booklets are quite good.
Talk for writing the beginning of each is good but we havent finished one yet maybe as dd has more interest in the comprehension than writing and the first bit takes over 30min.
Bitesize dd likes a lot. They amuse her and she doesnt mind the short questions. She can voluntarily do it.
Oak she doesnt really like. We watched norman conquest 1 and the speech was quite slow it was all quite repetitive. With no skip 5s forward or back. We did learn it but felt it took longer than necessary. Although i guess the info was more directed at what you have to know maybe compared to bbc which is lots of info. Shes year 3 just 8.

The germany info seems like the info that kids are half as likely to get it. However i wouldnt expect many children to have antibodies anyway (schools shut) and they know people who dont get it badly dont keep them. With plasma normal weight short weight women are being rejected.

NeurotrashWarrior · 15/07/2020 17:13

With plasma normal weight short weight women are being rejected

What does that mean?

DreamingofBrie · 15/07/2020 17:23

@MsAwesomeDragon

I was horrified by how few free resources the are for primary as well noble. I think I've been spoiled by getting used to having Corbett maths, etc available for maths. We've directed kids to his videos and worksheets for quite a few years to catch up when they've missed school due to illness etc.
Agree, we are incredibly lucky to have all of this free stuff available in Maths. The Mathswatch videos are also good, but they had some problems with server speeds last term (understandable), so I tend not to link to them (especially as someone will always have forgotten their password!).

My dc primary have been using the White Rose resources for Maths and I really like them - lots of nice problem-solving type questions along with more foundation content. There is some nice free stuff on Teachit Primary, although I haven't looked at it for a while. My mum used to use Bond books with us, and I found the 10 minute test books as well as the longer papers good for my own dc.

By the way, our department made all of our KS5 Maths material suitable for remote teaching last year (chapter booklets to work through, following EdExcel syllabus and using Dr Frost presentation packs). If you want a link to them on TES (free!) just let me know.

I paid for my first ever TES resource last week.... End of Year quiz for the last day, which I adapted for Teams. Organised break out rooms on Teams. Whenever I sneaked into the rooms, the students were sharing screens and googling the answers (the ones that bothered joining!). Ah well, I tried!

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