Thirteenth Republic - School’s out for summer, no more pencils no more books!

[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

othercar, I was the last female HOY in my school, 'stepped down' about 4 years ago. There hasn't been one since. When I started it was 50:50. Now they are all male, with female and male assistant HOYs and female non teaching support workers. We also have a HOF model. Only two of those are female (and one of those is my faculty which only has two men in in, both of whom are as highly or higher paid than the HOF) but nearly all lower paid Subject leads are female and get one free a fortnight to do their job. Ithas become so decision amking in our school is made by men in their 30s - 50s who do very little teaching (and often this has been the case since they were in their early 30s) and all the enactment and admin of these decisions at day to day level is done by women. We only have two female SLT as well and they are in charge of the more 'feminine' aspects of leadership.

It sucks, but there is no way of making them acknowledge that this is not meritocratic or somehow the fault of the female staff. Our SLEs (who are really taken advantage of) are mainly female. I don't think this is even unconscious bias!

Looking at what you posted noble , I don't see this myself :

The report predicts that the long-term economic consequence of school closures so far will be felt from 2030, when a quarter of the workforce will have lower skills and see its earning potential reduced by 3 per cent, with negative consequences for the economic growth rate.

Why is this necessarily true? I'd like to see the evidence? My biggest concern is Ofqual playing silly buggers so risking next year's year 11 having lower GCSE outcomes which will affect them when it comes to progression and recruitment but I am not sure they will actually have lower skills. that is a bigger risk at FE level I would have thought where in more vocational subjects, workplace skills are definitely taught. We can't measure ourselves against so many countries here, because so few have this terminal exam model. Does anyone know what they are doing with next year's exams and examined content in Ireland?

Maybe I am just too optimistic that the time out of formal school hasn't done lasting damage to all that many students.

Seen this one?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3976416-Im-an-experienced-highly-qualified-Early-Years-Educator-and-at-work-today-at-a-creche-I-spent-approx-3-hours-deep-cleaning-as-per-current-regs-I-think-this-is-neither-sustainable-nor-desirable-AIBU

All slt at my school are women. First school for me that has been that way. My phase is 50:50 male female.

Christ phleb. Fancy moving to a labour strong hold up north? I feel you'd be so much happier! I'm telling myself that if I catch this fucker, I'm not going back before I'm fully well. That does help me a lot.

I find it offensive when people dismiss people's concerns. It's also very bad for mh. I feel so much happier knowing that my head has listened to me, "got my back."

The positive thread is dismissive. There's a difference between being realistic with encouraging positive news, about which I'm delighted, but remaining realistic.

Then there's positive with your fingers in your ears and head in the sand.

Several nhs peeps round here are saying the NHS's worst kept secret is that the vaccine will be ready to roll in Nov. It's two parts, a month apart. Which is great. In theory. Realistically, the effects on the wider issues of SD and managing testing, chaos, funding etc within schools is going to remain for a long time after though, even if that goes ahead. Plus they still don't know how long it lasts.

Don't get me started on males in teaching.

There are some good ones who do graft and aren't chasing ego massaging ladder climbing but they're few and far between.

One absolute star I know has gone part time after his first child was born. It annoys me that my in-laws couldn't comprehend bil, a teacher, doing that, but absolutely that it should be sil, also a teacher. Interestingly she went back full time, and chased management roles, after a short period of part time, gaining some puzzlement from the in laws, and they split up not long after. I do looking back wonder if she could see the sexism. Her mother is a head teacher.

Regarding ppe.

NHS employed SALT at ours are to wear ppe. As teaching staff aren't, including ECV and CV, my head is very annoyed and refusing them to do so. Not quite sure how that's going to work out...

I do wonder if there will be a policy change over the summer.

And it isn't just the age old built in excuses of women taking career breaks or going part time. I have never worked part time and never been promoted above top of middle leadership.

@NeurotrashWarrior

Regarding ppe.

NHS employed SALT at ours are to wear ppe. As teaching staff aren't, including ECV and CV, my head is very annoyed and refusing them to do so. Not quite sure how that's going to work out...

I do wonder if there will be a policy change over the summer.

Interesting. The LEA have said that Ed Psychs won’t be coming into schools at all during the autumn term. All assessments and training will be done remotely until at least spring 2021.

Yes, we are back business as normal?!

I have worked with some appalling men over the years, but they seem to get away with much more than.women. And even a shit male often has better classroom management (if not results) cos the boys automatically respect the male. Although that could just be the area I'm in. Ds is primary and prefers the male teachers, but by far his best so far has been female. Wonder if certain subjects attract certain types of male too. Mine appears to attract lazy drifters.

I do think many boys (and definitely girls) see right through the drifters and wastrels by end of year 12.

Some of the worst classroom management I have seen was a young male teacher. But there is an assumption men are better at it (usually with dreadful inconsistencies and matey matey stuff!) and that's why the new wave of HOYs are male, rather than the old model of 'mother hens'. I sued to do all the behaviour management training in my school but not any more. Nearly all behaviour gurus are male, too. In fact, nearly all edu gurus are!

In other news 'staffroom' is being slagged off by an older alleged teacher on another thread! and

We are doom-mongers, pompous, and batshit!

I do find the positive news thread interesting. People are told off for pissing on their chips but merrily all wander off together with missionary zeal to subvert any 'negative' threads and can't see the irony. Is there an opposite of pissing on chips?

To be fair, said geriatric then got told off for TB.

Ooh, which thread?! ?

Primary school male teachers mostly just want to be heads, and definitely think it will be easy to get there. I dont understand going in to teaching to be a head. Headship isn't teaching, and as a management job on a reasonable salary it's very multi-specialist, which you're not trained for throught the system. You need loads more skills to be a manager as a head teacher, than a manager in say local government or the civil service. I'm thinking soft negotiation, emotional literacy etc. I'm not sure why it's the aim of young PGCE or BEd students at all. When I see them say that, I cant help pissing on their fireworks in my head - "you might be crap at it... or hate it.. "

I'm trying to think of other motivators. What about wanting to make education better? To do that you still need to have been a teacher, so explains why PGCE, but surely when you get into it, it's clear that the way to make education better as things currently stand, is to somehow get into the DfE. Most school staff are just rule takers. We are just the messengers for what is usually bad news, while trying to make the best of the bad news for the sake of children or education.

Deputy roles are good for being able to make small changes, having some influence in a school etc, but bad for workload usually.

doom-mongers, pompous, and batshit!

I resemble that comment. Will take realistic, knowledgeable, and batshit.

It was aimed at you after all goats!

Appu, ours are based at the school as we are an sen school. I'm not entirely sure of the contracts etc. They actually may be employed by us via nhs? I'm not sure!

Just seen that comment. Oh

Tedious.

They'll happily listen to someone in the nhs stating the reality. It's contempt for teachers again.

Is it? I haven't looked on those threads today. Nice.

Kitchen trying to lure teachers onto another thread with ridiculous statements because they weren’t getting any traction on the schools reopening one. Obsessed.

Damn. I bit.

But bloody hell, that thread! It's full of Pollyannas.

If I had been beginning to feel a little better about life, I'd be wanting to string myself up after seeing people like that out and about.

Several nhs peeps round here are saying the NHS's worst kept secret is that the vaccine will be ready to roll in Nov.

It’s not a secret, it’s a schedule. That’s how clinical trials work - they have clearly defined end points. Everyone working on it will know when it is expected to end, the database is locked, checked, and then the data is unblinded and the statisticians start the work of analysing the data to see whether the vaccine is any better than the placebo (in this case a meningitis vaccine).

If the vaccine clears its Phase III trial, then it could be ready to roll out in November is what people should be saying. The trial being successful isn’t a given though, and eyebrows should be raised about anyone suggesting that they have inside knowledge about whether the vaccine works due to the trial being double blinded - they shouldn’t know which patients have had the vaccine.

Was the positive thread the one I cut and pasted the Daily Mash article in to? Is that the pompous post? Cant go and look in there, heads in sand.