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

Oh yes I hope our school uses Oak. It's designed for blended learning. My SLT are unique dickheads with a tiny tt

Most of our kids don't have the right technology. We did videos that could be played on a phone, but they were a full time job - I can't do those on top of normal class learning.

I just don't like Oak. Doesn't suit our children at all.

Our supply of laptops arrived on the last Friday of term. Most were still there the following Wednesday. The ones we funded from God knows what pot went out ages before that. It's all crap.

that would only be fine if your school was following their curriculum and a kid could get the same coverage from home

Yes. Michael Tidd finally put his tin foil hat on a couple of weeks ago and realised that this is almost like we're being expected to all do the Oak curriculum.

The issue with Oak is that unless the school aliogns its curriculum entirely to the Oak one, then it simply doesn't 'fit' as a replacement education for those children who are out of school for a couple of weeks. So for example, we might be reading a particular book and working on it in school, whereas Oak has selected something entirely different as a base text for the year group at that point. I did look at what would be needed to harmonise our entire curriculum to Oak at one point, and realised it would so downgrade our in-school offer in terms of texts, curriculum material etc that it wasn't worth it.

@ohthegoats

Most of our kids don't have the right technology. We did videos that could be played on a phone, but they were a full time job - I can't do those on top of normal class learning.

I just don't like Oak. Doesn't suit our children at all.

Exactly. I did recorded videos, audio files and coverted powerpoints but doing them did become an all day job.

I have a horrible feeling that, in order to keep the children at home in line with the children at school, we'll end up changing what we are doing in the classroom to make the remote delivery easier and less time consuming.

I think Oak is an arse cover tbh. I'll direct kids at home to it cus I haven't got time to do anything else.

White Rose are doing videos of their stuff so I'll link to those where possible too.

@cantkeepawayforever
I did look at what would be needed to harmonise our entire curriculum to Oak at one point, and realised it would so downgrade our in-school offer in terms of texts, curriculum material etc that it wasn't worth it.

Very this!

It also flies in the face of every movement there has been to individualise and personalise education.

We looked at which of our schemes of work best suited online delivery. But only in KS3 and I am kept well away from them!!
I was quite impressed by some of the resources I made - but I was down to ten lessons a week once my year 11 and 13 were out of the equation. With a "full" timetable (not 26 periods though) I won't be able to keep that up. Especially if we're in school as well.

But Herc, the coverage is supposed to be the same so that, when the child returns, they can just slot back in. Unless you are teaching their programme of study, it becomes useless for you.

Maths is pretty skills based so I'll just find the "expanding brackets" lesson for example and link that home.

It's pretty shit for subjects like English if you're doing different texts. History and different time periods etc.

Online stuff for English is always pretty shit. We're used to it!

@Hercwasonaroll

Maths is pretty skills based so I'll just find the "expanding brackets" lesson for example and link that home.

It's pretty shit for subjects like English if you're doing different texts. History and different time periods etc.

It's particularly poor for primary / KS3 because there aren't any 'set texts', and so to move to Oak we would have to ditch texts we know work brilliantly with our cohorts, fit in with our topics, match the objectives we want to teach ... and pick up something which would be comparatively second rate.

I did look at what would be needed to harmonise our entire curriculum to Oak at one point, and realised it would so downgrade our in-school offer in terms of texts, curriculum material etc that it wasn't worth it.

Yep, same. Our cohort is very international, vocabulary is a key issue, the majority of them will not have spoken English in conversation since March. Our own made videos are obviously produced with that in mind. They really struggled listening to White Rose stuff, although I thought that was really clear compared to some other stuff. NCETM were good too.

I'm still going to link to White Rose. Plan is to print off the work sheets too.

Is that because English is about discussing, interpreting rather than here's a skill we can show you? (I'm really ignorant of English teaching sorry!). I mostly observe STEM, it's showing.

All this discussion about remote learning has made me livid all over again that we are expending an entire training day talking about a new (non covid related) behaviour system.

Bitchy comment of the year coming but PE staff are living the dream this year. No fixtures, no after school clubs and no marking.

We're doing Romans next term. We've got a knowledge organiser which which part of the Romans we need to cover, but I've done a stand alone two weeks of history/reading/writing lessons about legionaries - not on our KO, but still Romans. We could call it 'enrichment' I guess. But I'd done it before in another school, so just recorded the powerpoints into video lessons while I was on a roll with it all back in June.

True herc but their lessons (along with drama , music and dance) are royally fucked.

Ours are doing outdoor normal lessons....

Drama is fucked

@Piggywaspushed

All this discussion about remote learning has made me livid all over again that we are expending an entire training day talking about a new (non covid related) behaviour system.

😂 Ridiculous!

As an SLT, we decided to put any significant changes we had planned on hold until we, as a school, were in a better place to deliver them properly. I guess that will depend on how long all this lasts though.

@Hercwasonaroll don't get me started about PE 😡
A "typical" lesson for me might be to read a bit of Macbeth round the class and then discuss what we've noticed about the changing relationships, and then get into the detail of how Shakespeare shows that at word level, and then why, and then someone will say "that's like in that scene when..." My lesson planning is often "Macbeth Act 3 scene 2".
There are lots of skills but it's much less "from the front" teaching. Except A level language when I have to teach grammar and they get very upset that there is more than one kind of verb.
What I love about my job is that I see all kinds of subjects all the time, and what works in one won't work quite as well in another. It's fascinating. I think I have a really privileged position, and I love it.

Computing is fucked. No KS3 in a computer room AT ALL unless we go to the non Covid timetable

I’m always telling ds to be a pe teacher. You’re allowed to wear tracksuits to work and I’m sure having a whistle and the ball covers behaviour management Apologies to any pe teachers.

Mixed feelings about double lessons it does make the day go quicker overall and limit changeover disruption but yes it’s a long time to the bell. I’ve done supply in schools who do doubles and as I recall bad behaviour would either burn itself out or escalate to removal and at some point everyone just settled down and got on with it. Supply is a special world of its own though oh and from what I saw it’s not easy to write good cover for a double

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/19/italy-at-a-crossroads-as-fears-grow-of-covid-19-second-wave

Wonder what Italy will do with their schools.