The Fifteenth Republic - A Level and GCSE Results storm coming!

[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

Genuinely shocked by the Times story . The headline comes from The Times having got its hands on the exact PHE report that Gav and co said would prove that schools were safe. Apparently, the report does indeed say exactly this for younger children but is quite robust in tis findings that older children need different treatment. there were clusters suggesting it was spread at school. How DARE our education secretly deliberately spin that and put communities (and a professions) at increased risk?

The leak also said it wasn't properly analysed yet : so not allowed to be used by the data led 'get em back' brigade because it's not finished, or peer assessed.

Us 4 Them won't care because their WHOLE focus is primary.

We are off to do socially distanced camping today, so hopefully I will be able to forget the teacher bashing for a bit.
We are even taking our own camping loo, and doing flannels instead of showers, so hopefully that will mollify those who think teachers should live in a cupboard....

Surprised nothings been leaked as usual. Except perhaps Gav saying it's safe

Can anyone remember the us or Canadian study that divided rates of infections (and transmission?) into three age stages and recommended halving classes of 20 to 10?

It sounds like it fits with what's been leaked to the times.

I feel for our Scottish colleagues going back in the thick of this.

Wishing all well today

@NeurotrashWarrior

The thing is the body adapts to any long term loss of oxygen by making more blood cells. Hence why Olympic runners go and train at higher altitudes. But that's 24 hours a day!

I had slightly lower Oxygen for sometime as asthma firstly wasn't diagnosed (I cough) and secondly it wasn't well managed for a while. That did cause issues but we are talking 24 hours a day, about 20% reduction in lung capacity or more.

Even if these people are sleeping in a mask (not) it's not going to have any impact imo. And from what I understand, it doesn't anyway.

If the mask was causing a drop in oxygen levels the body has a number of ways it will compensate to try and bring it back up - hence a lot of symptoms of asthma.

I can’t imagine what you’d be doing in a cotton mask in Tesco in order to drop your oxygen levels out of the normal range.

Oh god yes temporarily forgot that Scottish schools were back! Keeping all my fingers crossed for you

So are they going to accept the CAGs for cohorts of 15, did I understand that right? My class of 12 doing one MFL should be fine then, but we had 19 doing the other so our grades for them will be ignored. We will see next week I suppose. 😟

There's a letter in The Times where a paediatrician ( these people are never our allies) opines that test and trace and Longfield's call for routine testing is a waste of time because 'children don't spread it' and a waste of money that should be spent on solving the issues of knife crime....

Oh , wait, I thought that was the police and social care that were meant to do that?

I can’t imagine what you’d be doing in a cotton mask in Tesco in order to drop your oxygen levels out of the normal range.

No you wouldn't!

People who find the winter air affects their asthma are advised to use face coverings outside in the winter anyway!!!

Pile of bollocks.

I have only just remembered that my A Level class was not only small(8) but the board will have no prior data as we swapped boards last year!

If my grades don't stand ,I'd love to know why....I am optimistic they will, as the students' prior data even suggests they should have done a bit better (am presuming they work this out statistically subject by subject for likely outcomes).

BBC at Kelso High School just now which only ahs 600 students. It will be interesting when some of the mammoth high schools return. The school I went to in the West had 2000 students.

That study was San Francisco : I can't remember who posted it but do remember that.

BBC not covering the Times story AT ALL but does splash the Mail the other day

Shallow breathing through panic/anxiety could lower your oxygen level,but that’s a psychological reaction to the mask not a physiological one.
Still unpleasant and for some people not easy to overcome, but neither is the anxiety attached to a global pandemic seeping into every aspect of your life.

It actually makes me really sad that fellow teachers could have such a desire to be unpleasant and unsupportive about their profession. God help us all if they are SLT,although most appear not to be.

I'm viewed as unsupportive by my DCs' primary I'm afraid. The HT blanked my DH yesterday! I live in Wales where all children went back for a day a week or thereabouts, but work in England. The LA excluded the children of parents who needed to use childcare (a handful of schools that I know of didn't) - some of them even had to go to leisure centres. None of them could mix with their friends. Clearly I can't have this going forward so I strongly challenged it and and now they have to rethink. I really hate being seen as that parent in difficult times, but it's surely obvious that you can't just keep keyworker children out of the classroom, especially if they're not getting any time at all with a teacher. As a secondary teacher (not science) who is being thrown in with no protection, I won't accept that primary teachers in Wales can't teach my DCs because of my job when the next wave hits.

Anyway, I'm pleased with that Times article. Even the point about 10 year olds being more susceptible is made, something which had been completely ignored in the media wrt schools.

Annoying man in Scottish gov says he isn't bothered that older children may be more susceptible because 'they understand and follow the rules better'. Oh right : come and look out of my front window sometime, pal.

@SaltyAndFresh

What do you mean by excluded them? As in they put them in a leisure centre because you're a keyworker?

@Piggywaspushed

BBC not covering the Times story AT ALL but does splash the Mail the other day

I noticed that on the main page in the ‘today’s papers’. Site shows the picture of the front page but the headline focuses on the McDonald’s lawsuit.

We are even taking our own camping loo, and doing flannels instead of showers, so hopefully that will mollify those who think teachers should live in a cupboard....

Don't even try to mollify them. Do whatever you are comfortable with - no one gives a shiny shit for your wellbeing so enjoy your camping trip exactly as you see fit.

On that point, I'm determined not to martyr themselves to the job in September. I intend to continue doing everything anyone else can, keeping a social distance and wearing a mask where required, until any lockdown. I read on here of NHS staff staying home apart from work. I feel that if I'm good enough to take the risk at work, it's fine for me to be out and about.

not to martyr myself

@Hercwasonaroll yes that was the plan, until I withdrew then from childcare (DH had to use his annual leave by there's precious little of that left).

I am actually REALLY worried about universities.

I had that exact conversation last night: on September 7th, I will be in front of 90+ 15-18 year olds all day. None of the rooms will give any of us "social distance", and none of them are well ventilated. I won't be able to go to the loo between 8.30 and 12.45 and I'm expected to supervise in my lunch break too "to help out". Okay - that's my job. I'm doing my bit. But I'm not spending my previous free time locked away out of some sort of moral obligation.

@SaltyAndFresh That is an outrage. I had no idea that was happening in Wales. Wow. Annoyed on your behalf.

Have the government "gagged" the rest of the press from talking about the timed article. Or are secondary school kids not newsworthy enough

I'm seeing my friends and family now while I'm relatively safe. I'll be staying away from them come September. I will be going out to attractions and for meals though.

I’m still desperate to see my mum. Her nursing home still won’t allow visitors. I can’t possibly in good conscience go and see her when I return to work, especially seeing the comments on the ‘parents won’t test’ thread in AIBU.