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

I can see that happening but I’m hoping if the school follows the rules and insists on a parent collecting them the parent can deal with their bs and discourage a repeat.

As I say though I’m not convinced that schools will follow the rules properly and fully expect coughing kids to be sent back to my class

As I say though I’m not convinced that schools will follow the rules properly and fully expect coughing kids to be sent back to my class

This happened to me just before we closed and I’m still cross about it. I think it will be a hill I’m prepared to die on. They simply are not coming back in if that is the case.

There are so many things about reopening that concern me-apart from the obvious disregard for any sort of staff safety.

Telling us to keep our distance when the size of our classrooms make that impossible.

Classes back to full capacity

No requirement for parents to show a negative test before returning a child to school

Bubbles-because, well because they’re not.

Parents sending in sick kids because it’s easier than keeping them at home

Fining the parents of children who have been shielding if they don’t return

I’m a bit concerned about my DD. She has a persistent recurring cough that is assumed to be an allergy but she has had it since well before this kicked off. If she is coughing in the classroom, which she may well do, then what? I guess some coughing kids will need an exemption??

@TheHoneyBadger

I can see that happening but I’m hoping if the school follows the rules and insists on a parent collecting them the parent can deal with their bs and discourage a repeat.

As I say though I’m not convinced that schools will follow the rules properly and fully expect coughing kids to be sent back to my class

Hopefully having to go for a test will be enough to put kids off pretending, or at least they won't repeat it once they have had one...

An exemption in her case is reasonable Noble and presumably most of her teachers know her well enough to know this about her.

The case I’m referring to is the child who I said, ‘you don’t sound well perhaps you should see the nurse’ (independent school privilege right there!) replied, ‘I can’t, I saw her earlier and she didn’t believe how bad I feel and said my cough was nothing’.

He continued to persistently cough, I made him go again anyway. He went, she sent him back to my class with a flea in his ear for presenting twice and the next day he was off with presumed Covid. (Back when tests weren’t available outside of a hospital).

Cases were very high in our area at that point and I spent the first week of lockdown with a tight chest and a cough which may or may not have been related to the incident...

Either way, a few months on I now know in the same situation I would not allow reentry to the lesson in those circumstances.

An exemption in her case is reasonable Noble

I hope so but then it starts to get more complicated doesn’t it? The isolation guidelines are a new persistent cough and schools are going to have to be medical gatekeepers allowing some coughs in and not others. We’ll need ‘cough cards’.

It’s so much easier when it’s clear cut.

Hopefully having to go for a test will be enough to put kids off pretending, or at least they won't repeat it once they have had one...

It won’t stop parent lying and saying they took them for a test and it was fine, when they didn’t even bother and just fancied a few days off, though.

I can see the shit really hitting the fan when schools are back up to full capacity and the vulnerable staff/pupils who have been forced back to school start getting very ill.

I predict that rather than shutting schools in the Autumn, they’ll tell us that masks are really important and we should always have been wearing them. Then, the guidance will be changed retrospectively to show this had always been their plan

@noblegiraffe

An exemption in her case is reasonable Noble

I hope so but then it starts to get more complicated doesn’t it? The isolation guidelines are a new persistent cough and schools are going to have to be medical gatekeepers allowing some coughs in and not others. We’ll need ‘cough cards’.

It’s so much easier when it’s clear cut.

Yes the ‘new persistent cough’.

I posted this back in March but on my day off (Weds before lockdown) I dropped my children off at school and popped into reception to enquire about a trip. I could hear the receptionist’s side on the conversation BEGGING a parent to collect their child who has had to be isolated from breakfast club as was coughing continuously.

@Appuskidu

Hopefully having to go for a test will be enough to put kids off pretending, or at least they won't repeat it once they have had one...

It won’t stop parent lying and saying they took them for a test and it was fine, when they didn’t even bother and just fancied a few days off, though.

I can see the shit really hitting the fan when schools are back up to full capacity and the vulnerable staff/pupils who have been forced back to school start getting very ill.

I predict that rather than shutting schools in the Autumn, they’ll tell us that masks are really important and we should always have been wearing them. Then, the guidance will be changed retrospectively to show this had always been their plan

This is so true I burst out laughing 😂

Any time I fancy a bit of extra time off I'll just stop taking my preventer inhaler for a few days. Sorted :P this whole thing is massively open to abuse from all angles

I've just told someone to fuck off. Presumably I'll be banned again!

I’ve told the same poster I hope their words don’t come back to bite them on the ass for mine or my children’s sake.

I've just reported all of their posts. Patronising fuckwit. Sorry I mean, "I don't think their posts were made with good intentions" in mumsnet moderator language.

I'm supposed to be planning the first few days back PSHE so I can stop panicking thinking about September.

That kitchen poster sounds remarkably familiar

Oh yes, been basically told I’m unreasonable for worrying about a 20 minute break.

I have no idea of who is who. I can't track name changes at all. That's how good I am at paying attention to detail. Never got a clue what's going on.

I worked in a few jobs before coming into teaching and had a break (as well as a lunch) time in all of them, except for one insurance company though there you could have as many as you wanted you just clocked in and out for them.
I often hear staff in shops being told it's their break time now, or when's my next break etc - I really don't think it's unusual. Oh and I had to phone a hospital last week and was asked to call back in half an hour as the nurse was on her break.
You could say, "I expect to be allowed to wear clothes at work" and some poster would be along saying bloody teachers, only job where you expect to be allowed to wear clothes, entitled so and so's, etc.

I've also worked in a few jobs before teaching - always allowed a loo break. Including in a hotel on reception. Still was allowed to pop to the loo (had to ask the accounts manager to step in, but still allowed).

Just been catching up on that thread. The kitchen one was definitely goading.

I looked at the first few pages of the Korea thread. A couple of things strike me.

1. we seem to have had a catastrophic failure of public health messaging. Probably not helped by the poor standard of science reporting in the media.
2. slightly linked to the previous point but why do a number of people think just cos we have very few cases now doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way. We didn’t have many when this started in Feb.
3. At home initially plans for returning in schools and work places were drawn up by heads/slt/managers but had to be signed off by local HSE/public health. Is that happening here?

TB will happen anyway but it might not be quite as bad if there was better public understanding of the risks. And that teachers would have more confidence if they knew that the return to school plans had at least been looked at by someone who had the skills to assess those risks.

Why must we always go for the worst of all possible worlds?

I can’t imagine there are many jobs where you are about to lead a meeting with large numbers of people in it but you needed the toilet and couldn’t go, but had to do the meeting anyway. We are essentially leading meetings like that 5 times a day.

Just reading on the stats thread about how one funeral of 250 people (who say there was social distancing) is bringing on a local
Lockdown when one person was infected. Doesn't sound positive

The news over the weekend saying that local authorities are being given the power to close shops, cancel local events and close open spaces, doesn’t mention closing numbers of schools across a region, does it?

Would that have to be a national decision? Or individual schools?

I suppose it depends on the scale and the areas. But it would have to if it was reaching levels of closure of other facilities.

I think schools are being white washed out of all reporting. And I think this is because we do need to get kids back in due to the safeguarding issues. They, on all sides, don't want any of it being commented on or reported or discussed.

It's shit but I can see why.

The way our head explained it was that the decisions made to close schools or bubbles were not exactly in her control/ wasn't as simplistic as reported in the press and in the guidance, and decisions would be made working along side the phe parts of the local authority.

However, im increasingly realising that the local authority I work for still retains a lot of the old lea structures. So I don't know if that makes a difference locally.