The Seventeenth Republic - The Pick Your Grade Show continues as we edge towards INSET days.

[StaffAssociationRepresentative]

You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement. Baiters, haters, goaders 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 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
Do not give ‘The Every twat for Themselves mob’ the staffroom password as a number of them are operating in an alternative reality.

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 goad us then that is not allowed in the staffroom. Close the door quietly on your way out

Re the masks though, what counts as ‘widespread transmission’. Being diabetic I should be wearing the medical grade ones if that is the case!

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/22/keir-starmer-tells-boris-johnson-your-chaos-puts-schools-return-at-risk

Interesting that the vote on the masks thread is 80% in favour of masks in secondary. You4me aren’t the popular vote despite the thread flooding.

And this was the reason for the "no ifs, no buts" tweet. Boris spent months using PMQs to try to say that Kier wouldn't support school openings or say they were safe. He suggested that Kier was just flip-flopping rather than taking a stance.

That tweet was what enables him to write articles like this slamming the Government and is what will allow him to highlight every weakness in Boris in relation to schools once PMQs resume.

@noblegiraffe

Interesting that the vote on the masks thread is 80% in favour of masks in secondary. You4me aren’t the popular vote despite the thread flooding.

What is the name of that thread- think it's the only one I haven't been on!

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4002135-Head-recommending-wearing-masks-in-school

every twat for themselves as peaked - once the crazies got involved the sensible ones thought oh no ...

I agree with everyone saying it's ok to magpie stuff from the internet or from teachers at the school. Really check that they are appropriate for your class, tweak them if you need to, you don't need to start from scratch every time (I made a lot of my own resources in my pgce year and they were crap tbh).
Our last student teacher worked 16 hours a week in a supermarket as well as doing the teacher training, went out partying every weekend, and on top of that he didn't listen to any advice given by the experienced teachers in the department. You HAVE to be better than that. We wanted to fail him but were over ruled by the schools direct people, and he's gone on to a full time job this past year 🤷

Going back to the talk about wellbeing. It's not great at my school, but they do seem to be trying. They did in fact review marking policies, and reduce the amount of homework we were expected to set and mark!!! So that was a huge win 2 years ago. Then they took one of our frees away that same year as a cost cutting thing, so I'm not sure I actually gained anything from the reduction in marking policy.
We do have (in normal times) weekly lunchtime/after school opt in well being sessions. There's a staff craft club, a meditation session, music groups, staff sports groups. There are almost as many staff lunchtime clubs as there are pupil lunchtime clubs. I'm in the choir and the craft group, and really look forward to those lunchtimes when I'm away from my department and the kids can't find me 😁

It's virtually essential to magpie stuff off the internet if you are in primary. You will drown under the workload otherwise and there is no point in re-inventing the wheel for most stuff when perfectly good stuff already exists.

Depending on your school - it's OK to just teach stuff. You do not need a WOW and engaging starter activity to enthuse children about learning column addition. You can save the WOW stuff for times when it might genuinely affect children's interest and learning about a topic.

If you're ever tempted to make a card sort, ask yourself why. I have a (possibly irrational) hatred of the wretched things!

Hi everyone. I wondered why you'd gone quiet and then realised there was another thread! I'm quite worried about no staffroom to offload in - I'm very extrovert and not seeing other adults in lockdown was horrendous for me. Plus I learned so much on placement in the staffroom.

I'm quite worried about no staffroom too Hedy. We only ever use departmental offices for our staffroom, but in my department there are 11 of us, who normally all just about fit into the office for lunch (can't work in there at lunchtime as not enough space for that), now there's only space for 4 people if they are at 2m distance. So we can go in to use the fridge, sink, microwave and printer, but that's it. I'm going to start my own gang in one of the classrooms, but then we'll be accused of being cliquey due to being the only few people allowed in that room. I actually can't do this in wet weather (I live in Cumbria, it's wet most of the time!) As we're expected to "loosely supervise" our forms in our classrooms if they can't go outside. I NEED to be able to talk to other staff!!! I will go loopy if I can't have a moan about the child who goes out of his way to destroy my lessons. Or celebrate that 11x5 have coped with doing Pythagoras theorem, or a million other things we chat to each other about every day.

I don’t ever go in the staffroom but not being able to offload to whoever’s in the office will be a loss.

Worse is that we no longer have a maths block, it’s now Y9 block. I won’t even be able to find my favourite colleagues for a chat as who knows where they’ll be teaching at any given time.

My classroom, which is now mine only in name, will be a year 9 form room. This fills me with horror. Luckily, I'll still have my (shared) office - but it's always been a place where staff can come and offload, but we're limited to 2 people in there, so they won't be able to. I just don't like it.

@MrsHamlet

My classroom, which is now mine only in name, will be a year 9 form room. This fills me with horror. Luckily, I'll still have my (shared) office - but it's always been a place where staff can come and offload, but we're limited to 2 people in there, so they won't be able to. I just don't like it.

I dread the thought of the state of my classroom, and ours are only in year group blocks for registration. This means I'll have to leg it across school to tidy up before I can teach the kids I just registered.

Here comes the ramping up of 'safe to go back' stories

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8654577/UKs-Chief-Medical-Officers-tell-parents-children-return-classrooms-month.html

@MrsHamlet

My classroom, which is now mine only in name, will be a year 9 form room. This fills me with horror. Luckily, I'll still have my (shared) office - but it's always been a place where staff can come and offload, but we're limited to 2 people in there, so they won't be able to. I just don't like it.

Mine’s going to be a Y8 form room. We were told we had to remove everything from our desks, so I spent some of the time I was in before summer with the Y10s locking everything away in cupboards at the back. I’m really not looking forward to having no base at all.

I’m going to try and claim some random corner in the science department as my own.

Has anyone bought a trundle trolly type thing? I’m wondering if it’s worth the investment. Being a nomad is going to be seriously annoying.

Cantaloupeisland

I am expecting many unions/teachers getting in the way of schools opening stories as well.

Sunday Telegraph to report:

“Social media influencers to communicate the safe back to schools message directly to pupils.” Eyes peeled.

And also “some of the country’s biggest teaching unions have privately welcomed Mr Williamson clinging onto his post”
Er - how many teaching unions are there and why are they insinuating that they want Williamson to stay? Kiss of death?

The lead article on the BBC website at the moment is that 'missing school is worse than getting the virus for children' and the main photo they are using is of 2 Primary school children queuing 2m apart and both wearing masks! They also use their standard SD classroom photo.

The loss of staffrooms/dept offices will be tricky especially with classrooms not being free. Nomad life isn't that bad BUT I did have a base in the dept office to shove stuff.

I've said this before but leave books in classrooms if you have the same groups in the same place. Add a few blank books to the pile for paper or new books. Carry as little as possible. You really don't need the extra stuff. Pen, board pen, visualiser go. I had a tray with that plus a couple of rulers, pencils and school paperwork like slips for detention. Drop off sheets in the morning, pop them on top of your pile of books to keep them safe.

Ideally SLT will agree how classrooms are to be left and everyone will abide. Normally nomad life is encroaching on other people's rooms, this time no one has a room.

I'm anticipating the release of a free room timetable that staff can use to sit in and plan. Means I'll have to take my laptop in but it's something.

Just when you think you have seen it all!

One of the worst TB posters has just said she has been made redundant and her dh is self employed so they can't afford to isolate....... makes even less sense that she's an U4T bot.

I bought a shopping trolley a few years ago and love it. I'm primary but ppa. I found using cloth bags inside it the easiest thing to separate various things as it's tall so things can stack. Iirc it was only about £15. I've seen other staff use a small suitcase on wheels but the shopping trolley is easier as can stand in the corner of the classroom.

Becoming nomadic was really hard after the first maternity leave; I did find it a bit lonely.

We've had the well-being thing at our school; attempts at cake baking competitions etc when it's workload and being listened to that is the key. Actually, the virus has tested that and they've shown that they can meet that need. We were loosing a lot of people to mh sickness or just leaving before things were tackled. It's not perfect yet but they're trying.

Unfortunately, the way teaching is now, which seems to essentially be pandering to what ever ofsted say and the latest trends in highlighters for marking or some new piece of policy paper that isn't actually required by ofsted but looks like the school are onit, well-being and workload gets trampled on.

The latest Ofsted looking at workload and well-being triggered our sea change ffs. The irony.

@Iamnotthe1

And this was the reason for the "no ifs, no buts" tweet. Boris spent months using PMQs to try to say that Kier wouldn't support school openings or say they were safe. He suggested that Kier was just flip-flopping rather than taking a stance.

That tweet was what enables him to write articles like this slamming the Government and is what will allow him to highlight every weakness in Boris in relation to schools once PMQs resume.

Or that tweet was Starmer’s way to start breaking from the teaching unions. It’s what Blair would have done. I’ll hold my judgement and see what happens, I’m not convinced he cares anymore than Johnson at the moment.

@Hercwasonaroll

The loss of staffrooms/dept offices will be tricky especially with classrooms not being free. Nomad life isn't that bad BUT I did have a base in the dept office to shove stuff.

I've said this before but leave books in classrooms if you have the same groups in the same place. Add a few blank books to the pile for paper or new books. Carry as little as possible. You really don't need the extra stuff. Pen, board pen, visualiser go. I had a tray with that plus a couple of rulers, pencils and school paperwork like slips for detention. Drop off sheets in the morning, pop them on top of your pile of books to keep them safe.

Ideally SLT will agree how classrooms are to be left and everyone will abide. Normally nomad life is encroaching on other people's rooms, this time no one has a room.

I'm anticipating the release of a free room timetable that staff can use to sit in and plan. Means I'll have to take my laptop in but it's something.

Excellent advice here @Hercwasonaroll.

I am not timetabled at all in my classroom and as we were not allowed into wider parts of the school during lockdown and over the summer, I have the inset day to clear out my classroom. We don’t have a Staffroom, we have work rooms but only 2 people allowed in at one time. I’m also hoping for a free classroom timetable otherwise I’ll be in my car.

I’ve bought a trolley and a huge flask. I’m starting to have anxiety dreams about how I will cope with my one 20 minute break a day, let alone contesting any illnesses. I think I’ll have a breakdown before catching Covid though.

Anyway today’s news sent I be contradictory. Main headline is ‘schools safe to return’ and second headline ‘WHO advises masks for over 12’.