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

They arent finding that those groups make enough antibodies i assume. (Overweight men who were very ill making the most i think.)

Oak seem to have brought Eng Lit on board which is great. And I think it all is Stuart Pryke.

I think the problem my school will have with it is its beauty : that you don't need a teacher there for students to access it remotely because the teacher is an Oak teacher. Our school is a bit obsessed with US doing all the hard yards!

Any resources I've ever seen for Media are bloody terrible - whoever has the brass neck to charge for some of them ought to be ashamed of themselves. Really shows the benefit of an experienced teacher in my mind - I could churn out better stuff than that in 10 minutes. I'm sure most of them are by people who've been teaching it for two years and think they're the bee's knees (because kids love Media no matter how crap the teacher is!).

There's some decent Film stuff on the Eduqas facebook group but again I HATE the way most people format their powerpoints and handouts (and often get the distinct impression the subject knowledge is patchy at best) so I end up redoing loads of it. Certainly nothing I could just "grab and go" for remote learning. And nowhere to direct students without substantial input from me.

There's a niche out there somewhere for me and Piggy if we could but be arsed...

Hey maybe MN could set up its own version of Oak..... "Twelfth Republic Minority Subjects Inc."?? 😉

It's not so much that I cba. I absolutely agree about the subject knowledge bit ! It's more my own imposter syndrome about techy stuff. Ian Moreno Melgar would do a good job but even he can't get round copyright!

I love White Rose, and the NCETM lessons were good too. We've ended up using them in combo with Bitesize for maths, and done our own stuff for the others - often linking to Bitesize, because that's what engages our children.

We have to teach ours to use Teams in the first week back - or at least keep showing them how to log in. They assume that we all know how to use Teams to teach with, which we don't.

Also been told to NOT prepare anything in advance, which I've chosen to ignore. If I'm the ill one, I don't want to be stressing about videos for kids.

Our risk assessment says 'washing hands every hour' for each class. HAHA. So each hour long lesson is going to be actually about 40 minutes long.

Ooooh! Subject of masks in school came up in work conversation today. Nothing from the powers that be but now they're to be worn in shops, people are openly discussing their thoughts in what staff and students should do.

Since the DT dept was busy making visors for hospitals at the beginning of this, what's the likelihood of the Home Ec department getting the sewing machines out??

Piggy and GravityFalls suggest it to Tutor2u. They pay quite well. I don't think they've branched out to Media/Film yet but who knows?

I’m wondering if our tech department could knock out visors for staff.

Is there anyone else who hasn’t been into school at all over lockdown?

Oh, various staff were back in today, all the new ones who haven't beeen in for ages were wearing masks.. for the first 10 minutes, then they gave up. Just too uncomfortable.

It has been suggested that we wear visors if dealing with a child 1-1. Especially some of the children who need 1-1.

@noblegiraffe - love the socially distanced fake perv pap pic.

Me, I haven't been in. Contemplating going in on Friday to tidy a room up.

Me I haven’t been in once.

@DreamingofBrie I’d love your TES link please for KS5.

I also loved the white rose stuff - we use it a lot at my school And lockdown has resulted in them massively moving forward with thing. I like their one year plan for Y11 broken down into aiming for grades as a rough plan/idea.

Just been informed I’m to do a whole lunch duty a week along with some others. I only work three days a week. I can say which day and indoors our outdoors but they can’t guarantee... no mention of what this will replace as I’m already one period more timetabled than last year....🙄 haven’t replied yet as didn’t want to be angry on the email. My role has not changed from last year when I didn’t have to do it and just worded with the undertone of ‘this is what you ARE doing’. I’m on lead practitioner scale but am sure 52.2 of STPCD say I can’t be made to anyway. FFS.

KS5 maths - the Edexcel PowerPoints are all worked through on this YouTube channel
m.youtube.com/channel/UCyyRmnmtgVy5Sm7_UiCLFgQ

Isn't it odd, the variation? I've been in full hours (although part-time) since June 22nd, and every week for one or two days at least, up until then.
This week, it's almost been as normal. We've had half classes in, and been doing all the usual end-of-year clean up tasks - book sorting, displays down, backing boards for next term, sending work home etc... Kids have been helping/amusing themselves with light-hearted, fun independent tasks we've set them.

Apparently, there's a mass end-of-year party planned for all the Year 6s on the common on Friday afternoon. Hey ho. So much for our attempts to keep them vaguely safe. Still, if they all catch the virus, at least they won't be bringing it back into school for another 6 weeks.

Yes it’s variable - we’re secondary and I fall into CV category and have had primary DC at home. Also know my school have generally been great.

@Piggywaspushed

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

Absolutely right - I no longer buy anything from there. A colleague got something recently that was just stuff typed up from the exam board and the number of people selling the same/similar subject checklists is a disgrace.

I buy stuff from tutor2u.

We could go in whenever we wanted. I wasn't on the rota for the first 2 weeks of lockdown, but partner had just had his first biopsies, so had been in hospital so we weren't sure what that meant at the time. After that I was in 2 days a week usually, sometimes 3 - sometimes with kids, mostly not. I've done prep for SEND kids and that sort of stuff. Then I wasn't in from 1st June until 23rd because partner's surgery was going on then. Since 23rd I've been in 4 days a week.

Teams question - do you use all the features during a lesson or session? Or do you just share your screen and do a PPT or whatever? And, does it automatically do the sound of something you show online - say I wanted to watch a youtube video with them, would it work so they could hear the sound if I just shared my screen?

And, another one - I can do quizes now, which is great - I can get some work 'handed in' via that, but for anything longer can they just submit it via the lesson? Say a piece of writing on a word doc?

Another one - if I want to share a video lesson to the whole class, but only meet individual groups to go through the work afterwards, how do I do that? Through channels in the class 'Team'? Can everyone in the Team see what goes on in the channel even if they aren't part of it?

So...inset plan for first day back is all staff to meet in the main hall and have face to face training together for 3 hrs.

What do you think? Any of your schools doing similar?

Yeag, pretty much. No surprise for me, given my SLT's cavalier approach throughout

You guys have inset plans

At least I'm not the only one. Might set the union rep on it. So many staff in our place (inc the head) aren't following the risk assessment. Prevailing attitude seems to be "case numbers are low so stop fussing".

We have inset plans because head is in denial and is planning for things to be as normal.

@SquashedFlyBiscuits mine is, and I've already complained about it. There would be room to spread out fairly well in the hall, but prob not 2m, and why should we all be in a room breathing the same air unnecessarily?

We're having instruction zones at the front of the classroom to keep our distance but will still have to spray the tables down and the kids will wipe down. No group work, every one facing forward. Really miserable for MFL. Zoned outdoor areas, one way, only packed lunches.