The Sixteenth Republic - waiting on the GCSE results show!

[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

Will the DfE and Ofqual now listen to people who are ringing alarm bells about next year??!

My DS is going into Y11, what do you think the solution for GCSEs for 2021 should be @Piggywaspushed?

@RigaBalsam

From the Guardian
Families across Scotland have been breaching quarantine rules by sending their children back to school within days of returning from holidays in countries on the quarantine lists.

Do you have a link for that before it gets buried?

Damn it. We moderated down before sending off to try avoiding having them changed. Should have gone high :P

Just seen this on bbc:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53804740
Headline: Coronavirus: Poor pupils facing 'two-year catch up after lockdown'

Only to find that the 'two years' in the headline is based entirely on the opinion of one exec headteacher. Surely that's extremely irresponsible journalism.

@hedgehogger1

Damn it. We moderated down before sending off to try avoiding having them changed. Should have gone high :P

Snap.

@Iamnotthe1

Just seen this on bbc: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53804740 Headline: Coronavirus: Poor pupils facing 'two-year catch up after lockdown'

Only to find that the 'two years' in the headline is based entirely on the opinion of one exec headteacher. Surely that's extremely irresponsible journalism.

Its more 'research' than they have done for many of their headlines.

What a mess! I haven’t read the whole thread (still lowing through all the new scheme I’m supposed to have finished for next week).

Does anyone else feel that this is a way to push it all on to us. ‘Well Mrs. Shouty, I know you think Archibald should have gotten a 9 but Mrs. Sausage boy rank him 15th in the class. Why don’t you take it up with her’

Cue many parental e-mails. My relationship with my Yr11 class was not the best because of a group of vexatious parents. I am dreading Thursday.

@BelleSausage

What a mess! I haven’t read the whole thread (still lowing through all the new scheme I’m supposed to have finished for next week).

Does anyone else feel that this is a way to push it all on to us. ‘Well Mrs. Shouty, I know you think Archibald should have gotten a 9 but Mrs. Sausage boy rank him 15th in the class. Why don’t you take it up with her’

Cue many parental e-mails. My relationship with my Yr11 class was not the best because of a group of vexatious parents. I am dreading Thursday.

I really hope schools do not do this and instead advise teachers not to respond to parents or students but to pass upwards instead. My school set up an Exams type email address we could refer parents and students to. This was before this afternoon’s announcement though and so as not to compromise appeals. Fingers crossed SLT and Exams Officers still follow this route.

We've just had the "pass on any emails" email.

I just have no words right now. All the stress and upset I have witnessed these last few days. How on earth could it ever have got this far

ineed no idea! Kenneth Baker was arguing for teacher assessments again last week : but that was before the shitshow!

I certainly think there should be more changes to curriculum and exam content in many subjects.

I'm not checking my email until 2nd September. I've done the very best I can to produce an acceptable set of grades on the evidence I have.

I note all the outbreaks involving teens in Scotland that are being blamed on house parties. These parents FFS. There was an interview with a parent, incandescent because her son now ahs to isolate fro two weeks because he was sat next to a party goer in class. He said his son had been following all the rules , only for this to happen. Pretty sure he was livid with the parents but some of our MNers would no doubt blame us.

@Piggywaspushed

I agree. English is a mess. It just doesn’t work without the coursework. I know why they got rid of it but there are other ways to ensure centres are doing it properly. I can’t believe I’m saying this but I actually miss controlled assessments. At least we could go deeper into the Shakespeare plays.

I think the reforms had completely the opposite effect to what Gove intended. We rush through everything because there is so much. When we did the coursework the kids went deeper into the concepts.

They get to A-level Lit having never done a big piece of English coursework. It’s insane.

Reading University has already announced that it can't guarantee everyone a place now....

My normally utterly unflappable friend, who is responsible for a small university's admissions, has just admitted to stress in a text to me, that's very telling!

I bet the parents of the party goers will be complaining if the teachers don't provide adequate work for them whilst they have to self isolate.

Thing is it would have been relatively easy to check CAGs externally. They could have adapted the system used for KS1 and KS2 teacher assessed data in primaries, where big changes in the percentages are a red flag for external moderation.

If a school’s CAGs seem unrealistically high, they could have done something like choose a random sample of students and asked the school to provide evidence.

Yes to all that belle.

When I started teaching we had 100% coursework. Bliss!!

I don't miss speaking and listening, though, and wish they would get rid of the pointless speaking thing that takes bloody weeks to get through.

I would hate to work uni admissions right now. They all deserve a stiff drink and a pay rise!

In lighter news, it turns out that when asked in December, 23% of teachers said a freezing classroom was worse to teach in than a boiling one, but when asked in the heatwave last week only 6% of teachers did.

@AugustBreeze

Reading University has already announced that it can't guarantee everyone a place now....

My normally utterly unflappable friend, who is responsible for a small university's admissions, has just admitted to stress in a text to me, that's very telling!

What about the people who have already accepted places?

Wow big day for you all!
It was so nice to get all those mentions this morning when I was on my way to work, you are stars
Only taught 100 students today, none in masks, and I'm just staying away from staff as much as possible. It was ok. Quite a few teenagers now (not in my area) testing positive.

I envisage next year's exams being even more of a shit show than this. In some areas some children will have missed a term of work and then if/when schools are disrupted they are going to miss even more and if they are in an area where remote learning is inaccessible due to the lack of the promised laptops, it would not be realistic to sit the exam but they probably won't have sufficient work to be assessed to cover the subject content.

I am consistent noble. I know I answered the same both times!

On WIWIKAU (and a little bit on here) people are already starting to moan about CAGs and teacher bias. Mainly it centres around their belief that Bertrand was going to work so much harder at some unspecified point in early May. And it invariably is Bertrand and not Belinda.