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

[Cantaloupeisland]

Seems the Times is the only paper running this. In the Mail we get "Tory backbenchers urge Boris Johnson take on teachers like the miners and channel Thatcher to FORCE unions to reopen schools." Mind you the article also claims England is 'lagging behind ' Scotland as they go back today.

They really are the biggest bunch of irresponsible thick as shit excuses for journalists going.

[noblegiraffe]

Given that there’s guidance that specifically says that schools cannot request to see a negative test before kids with symptoms are returned to school, I doubt there’s guidance that says that heads have to police that parents are following foreign holiday quarantine guidelines.

The ultimate responsibility for that will fall on the parents.

[mumsneedwine]

Well I'm up for being chased by police horses. Although I'm a bit slow so I'd probably just stop for a chat. And a stroke of the horses. I'm not sure the miners were being asked to go into an unsafe environment? Very weird rhetoric coming out of BJ on this.

[noblegiraffe]

That Daily Mail article is pretty funny in its moral outrage then actual references to the truth.

ENGLAND LAGS BEHIND SCOTLAND
(Scotland's schools are returning from today, because their holidays end earlier)

Unions have got one objective - to use their political muscle to damage Boris Johnson. 'It's a re-run of the Eighties except it's not the coal miners, it's the teaching unions.'
(The comments came after one union said ministers should have a plan B – such as a 'week-on, week-off' rota system for pupils – in case of further lockdowns and spikes in Covid-19 cases.)

But the funniest bit was:

“If teachers won't go in, be Maggie about it and say 'we will find alternatives'.”

Good luck with that!!!

[noblegiraffe]

The thing with the miners, is that they were on strike.

There was that thread yesterday about a parent worried about teacher strikes and was reassured to hear that unions aren’t threatening strikes and teachers hadn’t even been balloted.

It must be very confusing for parents.

[Piggywaspushed]

The teaching unions are hardly muscular.

[Hercwasonaroll]

My dad is convinced the unions are the source of all ill in the world. He also thinks all lives matter so I have to ignore him.

[Piggywaspushed]

It worries me that our post Brexit Tory party is so backward looking and old fashioned that they still bang on about miners. They need to watch it since those Northern constituencies they won are mining land.

[noblegiraffe]

Bigging up the power of the unions so that when Boris ‘breaks’ them and schools return in September he will look powerful and in control.

They must be worried about his public image.

We’ve not seen his baby wheeled out recently. Has he forgotten he’s got this one too?

[Saucery]

I’d love a Scargill at the head of my union. The reality is very different.

[phlebasconsidered]

As far as I can tell the report and research suggests airbourne transmission increases when the child is of a height to talk at a teacher's height level. As i'm 5 foot tall, this is all of my year 6. Do they magically begin transmitting the virus on their 11th birthday? Perhaps I should make a thing of it. Happy virus transmission day!

My head is totally risk happy. Off travelling now. Still insisting it's all back to normal in September. But then, she sits in an office all day meeting other very important people entirely via Google team.

[phlebasconsidered]

Unions are toothless now. I pay my dues but I have no hopeof any of them growing a pair.

[noblegiraffe]

My mum hates unions because she was taken out on strike by one back in the 70s and was out of work for weeks with no pay.

She therefore has a natural tendency to believe that the same thing is happening here, and it has taken a lot of conversations about what is actually going on in schools to convince her that a) the unions have no power and b) the government is incompetent and actually what the unions are saying is pretty reasonable.

She even said ‘I don’t understand why they wouldn’t allow masks/screens in classrooms then’ after I told her I was bubbling with 1200 kids.

But I’m sure after this article we’ll need another conversation. Teachers aren’t in school because it’s the holidays, Mum.

[DreamingofBrie]

The 14th Republic moved too fast and I missed it all!

I'm a bit slow, but here's a share token for The Times article, if anyone needs it:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a5975f16-db58-11ea-9bd5-8c0b68caf23e?shareToken

[DreamingofBrie]

That's annoying, it hasn't worked. Sorry.

[HedyPrism]

Place marking.
Do we think there will be any guidance today, or not?

[NeurotrashWarrior]

Thanks for the share token; it may have run out?

The story has been changed since this morning: first 3 paras (all I can see.)

[Piggywaspushed]

Yes, so if this research won't be published for a long time, why were they banging on about it yesterday??
How I long for a press conference!

[Mistressiggi]

And what happened to the coal industry after that strike was lost? Do they want to carry that comparison over to education?

[Piggywaspushed]

Nicola S doing briefing now but they are talking about the naughty Celtic footballer .

will continue watching.

[Piggywaspushed]

Possibly mistress because they can think of alternatives, it seems.

[Piggywaspushed]

Oh , Swinney making an emergency statement 'later'. Don't know when later is.

[Piggywaspushed]

EVENTUALLY a scientist says this :


Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: “My best guess is that an infected young child is more infectious but teenagers have many more close contacts and so are more likely to spread the virus.
“If you look at Sweden, that country kept its primary schools open but closed its secondary schools and higher education institutions. So maybe that was enough to suppress the R value a bit.”

No good,though, as it is in The Guardian..

[Piggywaspushed]

Reading this:

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/health-minister-warns-data-on-coronavirus-in-schools-is-incomplete-after-gavin-williamson-says-it-shows-little-evidence-of-transmission/ar-BB17OW19?ocid=spartanntp_edu

I do wonder whether schools and incomplete studies are just being used as a way to discredit - and then sack - Williamson.

[MsAwesomeDragon]

Thanks for the new thread. I'm just checking in to see what's going on. I'm a bit out of the loop as I'm mostly working in the "garden" at the minute (I'm power washing the paving slabs today).

I keep having the same conversations with my parents noble. They've bought into the rhetoric that teachers have done nothing during the pandemic, even though they were both teachers!!!! And they've definitely bought into "masks don't work" and "children don't spread it", so they're staying at home rather than having to wear masks when they go out, but are happy for me (and dd) to be in school having contact with so many pupils without anyone wearing masks.