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

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/newslondon/grammar-school-belfast-royal-academy-to-ban-pupils-not-wearing-face-masks-from-classroom/ar-BB17Pvo4?ocid=spartanntp_edu

@Piggywaspushed@ Thanks - makes such a mockery of this whole situation. Why do kids need to wear masks anywhere if they transmit negligible amounts of cv!

U4T must be in MELTDOWN of FROTH

Aw mother you didn’t put a vote on!

Hiptight that quote from me leaves the important bit out, that there has been a big investment here into achieving the kind of improvement we were then told we shouldn't have!
I find the pupils who have had their results raised higher than their own teachers estimated them at to be the really strange ones.

It does say this :

The Department for Education is due to issue detailed guidance on the use of face coverings and other PPE in school settings later this week.
A spokesperson said: "Any specific public health advice will be followed regarding the use of PPE and face coverings for teachers and pupils. Detailed guidance on the reopening of schools will be issued this week and will include advice on the use of PPE and face coverings.

'Later this week...' eh?

Piggy that's an interesting link! In NI the attitude towards schools ime tends to be a bit more "traditional" in that if the head of a grammar school says something, parents don't immediately rush to post about it on the Usforthem page.

Ha ha @noblegiraffe. Wonder if I can change it retrospectively?

@Piggywaspushed My children have driven me wild today! My daughter wanted to go to a ‘swim’ (paddling pool) pastry at her friend’s house and I said no. Fed up of being ‘mean mum’ for following them rules’.

that quote from me leaves the important bit out

Sorry Mistressiggi I wasn’t trying to distort. I’m not doubting what you say, it’s just that many schools would presumably say exactly the same thing. Some of their predictions will be legitimate, some will be unintentionally over-optimistic (understandably, it’s human nature) and others will be deliberately inflated, and it’s just not possible to know which is which.

Detailed guidance on the reopening of schools will be issued this week and will include advice on the use of PPE and face coverings.

Do we think the advice is, ‘no-you can't!’??

Doesn’t sound like I missed much.

Appreciate it may be an unpopular view but gcse and a level results are kind of Monopoly money in my mind as in you must not pass go etc. They matter if you’re continuing on to the next course on the expensive menu.

If you manage 5 GCSEs at a-c in whatever the numerical equivalent is then you can continue or take 5 years out and return whenever. Once you have a levels no one cares (beyond maths and English) about your GCSEs. Once you have a degree no one cares about prior education.

Certainly no one will be going ooh you’re the 2020 cohort.

I’m obviously not typical for my profession but I hope very much that ds doesn’t want to go to uni at at 18. It’s madness imo how we shovel them onwards into massive debt for qualifications that have nowhere near the value and associated opportunities that they had 30 years ago

From a parent and teacher perspective I hope we see massive investment in paid apprenticeships. Not to come out with a level one in childcare but actual proper practical qualifications that say yes this person is qualified to do a tangible, monetarily rewarded thing.

Oh Honey I wish that too! My awkward, Aspergers boy is unlikely to get many gcse but he can construct anything, he really wants a water company/ rivers authority job. He already knows so much about our local area and the rivers and water within it. If they could have him from 16 it would change his life. If he has to stay on a bit of him will give up. His only outdoor / nature based learning option post 16 was an agricultural college but they have now closed to under 18's.

I reckon the guidance will say that individual heads can decide about masks...?

@MrsDanvers123 - re school buses and face coverings, certainly where I am as soon as the wearing of them was instigated on public transport, pupils were told they would have to wear them on school transport, especially buses. They have to remove them before they enter the school building.

Updated guidance has come out on school transport, does talk about face coverings on dedicated school transport as SD can’t be maintained!

The letter/email i've just had for my two kids for September in secondary suggests masks for the bus. Which given that they'll be on a coach with years 7-13, out of their bubbles, is not for them but for the poor driver. If they can find one!
No clear guidance for primary buses. We have 1 coach and 1 minibus carrying farm and hamlet kids to school all around the houses and farms.

I actually don't give a fuck what my head says. If I have to sort orderly queuing and force all the kids into a mask before they get on the bus, I am wearing a mask to do bus duty.

How the hell is the bubbled seating on a bus going to work on the first day given their first journey is from home?

Oh that's a definite change of tone re masks. Perhaps it will even be left to individual teachers?

Noble Those Scottish figures are so interesting. Like you say, was everyone hyper aware of bias so swung the other way? Perhaps a fairer outcome would be grades could only be adjusted by one grade either way.

Honey I think you're right about qualifications being a passport to the next level. It will be those that have nothing at the next level that would be disadvantaged at least in the short term. Say 2022/3 and applying for a job with just GCSEs. I hope it doesn't matter but devaluing their grades isn't fair.

That (the sentence piggy quotes) does sound like a change in masks is due, perhaps a big one otherwise they wouldn't have signalled it really?

Not facetious Mother, very good and horrible description of reality.

I'd enjoy as much as you safely can. Cut back the week before you're actually back.

Look after your bladder too, I was told elderly ex teachers have a lot of issues as a result of not going when they need to.

Over 1000 cases again today for the second time in 3 days...

I would be mildly amused if they did make masks mandatory in schools-just to see the reaction of certain people

Just marking place , bit of trepidation awaiting ds a level results on Thursday 😬