The fourteenth republic - watching Scotland and ever changing DfE guidelines

[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

Good Luck to all my Scottish colleagues today! Been thinking of you past few weeks.

Anyone just seen the thread about schools transmitting? From a teacher and everyone is questioning it and arguing she could have picked it up anywhere and it's not school. Seriously why are people so blind?!

Also, regarding mental health itll be down to teachers along with catching them up and all the other things we need to watch put for. As an LSA, I know I'll be doing lots of emotional support if needed however when our children came back for last 2 days they didn't want to talk about lockdown, they just wanted school to be normal and talk to their friends.

Is it acceptable to tell my stepmother that she's a poisonous bitch the next time she trots out some Daily Mail fuelled tripe which paints teachers as the root of all social ills? I have started referring to myself as a work-shy leftie, which I know annoys her, but I am sick to death of being told that I've been on holiday since March. Rage!

Sending best wishes to all my Scottish colleagues today.

Despairing at the BBC and the way they report things, and show schools with half classes, or children sitting at socially-distanced lunch. Also despairing at my DM-reading parents who tell me to "buck up" and say how pleased they are that I'm not in a union.......

DH (shielder) incandescent about school return and it's causing major rucks about me going back and DD too....

I wonder if teens over will be banned from sharing pictures of crowded corridors and classrooms on social media like they seemed to be in that school in Georgia.

I would imagine many of them won’t be impressed or feel safe and want to share the reality of schools rather then the BBC stock photos of 8 smiling SD children to a class.

Is that something that secondary heads would police?

Yes, along with the so-called "stock" photos of empty classrooms, 2m stickers everywhere and obedient little primary kids (did the BBC lose their entire normal library of school images in a fire or something??), I'm enraged by the Headteachers who keep being asked by journalists "Do you feel confident you can keep the children socially distanced?" and they wang on about staggered starts and breaks and they NEVER say "No, we can't and we're not actually being asked to. It's class sizes and corridors as normal."

I feel your pain mrs : my DH (also a teacher!) has been telling me I am 'stealing a living' since late March. LOL Bantz.

Appuskidu

the irony of that picture is at least the girl that took it wasn't in school for the resulting outbreak.

@plasticboxesrock My DP are the same.."We've got to get back to normal" ,"Kids don't pass it on, don't be ridiculous", "It's going now anyway.. burnt itself out". They read the Times and tell me it's a neutral paper

Appuskidu

At the moment the plan where I work is not to use the corridors for change over.

Sorry, neuro of course it's not released because it's not finished. What are the going to do if the bit of the study done in the autumn term changes everything!?

I can't stand that Viner.

There is hazard tape around my desk at school. Apparently this is to make me feel safe. I despair.

@NeurotrashWarrior

There's just been a professor on R4 stating that schools have very little transmission and the biggest risk is staff bringing it in.

For me that's the issue though; it's the level of local infection that could affect the schools ability to keep going. And he skirted around the teen query completely, citing mental health and weighing up risks etc.

Christ the spin at the moment.

Do you think teachers will be expected to martyr themselves by living apart from their families and only setting foot outside to go to work? I don't see footballers throwong their hotels open for us. I've made a point of enjoying the freedom of this summer and am intent on the beach or bike rides every weekend in term time, until the next lockdown.

@FrippEnos

Appuskidu

At the moment the plan where I work is not to use the corridors for change over.

Are they going for apparition or the floo network instead?

In all seriousness, how will that work? Do your classes have external doors?

@FrippEnos am I being spectacularly dense here? If you're not using the corridors, how are you getting about?

Appuskidu and MrsHamlet

Lining up out side in designated areas in classes.
Dropped off and collected by teachers at the start and end of lessons.
Walking around the outside of the school and using fire exits and only using corridors when absolutely necessary.
Plus a one-way system.

The thing is, there is no point trying to re-educate MN . Anyone can start a thread and (sod it, I'll name them ) Marshabradyo, morelistneinglesschatting,lauriemarlow and a few others will turn up unpicking the OP, talking about them in the third person,adopting an informed tone and UsForThem spaffing everywhere.

The gov's whole policy at the moment is about reassuring parents , not teachers.

And (sorry primary colleagues) I am fED UP of all the emphasis being on 'cute' little kids who make for better copy, better pictures and more convenient evidence. It was the same at the beginning, too, which got year 10 and 12 parents righty very riled.

I am not going to post in the transmission thread in the hope it will die. The OP got some things wrong and that hasn't helped.

I am back to ignoring!

Ahhh, that makes sense. Maybe still consider apparition for KS4 though .

It’s staggering that on my BBC app, there is one headline saying schools in England are safe and the one underneath says that France are bringing in masks for some outside attraction spaces!

What must we look like to the rest of the world?

@MrsHamlet

There is hazard tape around my desk at school. Apparently this is to make me feel safe. I despair.

Similar here! Only no longer ‘our’ desks but a hot desking of sorts as we go to the pupils and they stay where they are and we go straight to our little taped box and stay there. Not exactly sure that the mental health of young people will be magically solved by sitting at the same desk all day everyday etc. but it helps the mental health of their parents, eh!?

To be accurate, I suppose it's the desk formerly belonging to MrsHamlet. Year 10 thought it highly amusing that to write on the board I would have to come out of my box, and were moved to wonder about the magic virus repelling properties of tape. Autistic Dennis was furious about it because "that's ridiculous, Miss". We agreed on that at least, even if we'll never agree that the curtains are blue because they show the misery and sadness of the room (they are blue because they were picked to match the desks, actually. Not by me. And the blue desks are long gone)

Thinking of it children don’t vote and most teachers are assumed to vote left. Conservatives could pick up a lot of swing voters by posturing as the ones who saved hard working parents from the big bad teachers and unions.

Even from low earning households stuck on zero hours contracts.

Piggywaspushed

I had the ultimate teacher put down yesterday, as a gob shite parent was very happy that I didn't teach her children.

I can honestly say, not as I happy as I am to not have to teach a child with a parent like her.

I've just read the "I'm a teacher and I'm scared" thread. Wow. I feel like a need a shower after some of that.

@ Appuskidu LOL at the Floo network for lesson changeover. If only! I think "accio hand gel" would be handy too....

Can't help but be wrily amused by the fact that the minister wheeled out to say schools are absolutely safe this morning was the Care Minister. Because we all trust her.

Well with all the lies currently being spouted by the (mouthpiece for the govt) press, I wonder just what could possibly be in tomorrow's guidelines. Obviously not be going to be any further safety measures. Unless it's "school staff to sleep overnight at school so they can babysit children whose parents need to go to work."

dangling there are genuinely posters on here who believe we should go and stay in hotels.