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

Yeah, it's that ' at risk of being moderated down' as if somehow you wouldnt receive your trophy! That bothers me and the general public really just don't get how biddable schools are!

@BelleSausage I was tested Tuesday. No COVID symptoms but asked to by the ZOE app. Possibly because I'm in a very high COVID area. Still not got the results. Phoned yesterday. If this was term time and I needed it to get back to work it would be shit.

[quote hedgehogger1]@BelleSausage I was tested Tuesday. No COVID symptoms but asked to by the ZOE app. Possibly because I'm in a very high COVID area. Still not got the results. Phoned yesterday. If this was term time and I needed it to get back to work it would be shit. [/quote]
This is what confuses me. As I understand it, we still aren't anywhere near our per day testing capacity so why is this happening? Is this yet another example of the Government lying in order to cover up their inadequacy?

@hedgehogger1 At a centre or postal? There seems to be a big difference in timescales here between the 2. Test centre 24 hours ish. Postal up to a week.

Postal but when I phoned them they said that was meant to be 72 hours. I've been carrying on as normal as I was symptomless so it best not magically turn up as positive :p

Within the education premises, stringent infection control measures between staff need to be reinforced, including use of common staff rooms and cross-covering staff across bubbles

Say PHE, who also say staff need to be ' more vigilant' outside the classroom'. Nice bit of teacher blaming must cancel rave next week. Can't do link to whole ES article but it does mention 6 child to adult transmissions.

And yet , I still have a training day coming up with a full meeting!

Say PHE, who also say staff need to be ' more vigilant' outside the classroom'.

This is going to lead to an increased pressure for staff to remain in their own homes when not at school. If/when a bubble or school is shut down, staff will be blamed: "Teacher actions outside of school brought the virus into the school environment."

Imagine your HT was one of those and you had to phone and say you were at the pub on Saturday night and were now self isolating. My HT is very approachable and even the thought of it makes my insides curdle.

Well, if I have to stop going to illegal raves and licking gate latches then I’m going to be

So everyone else is allowed - nay, encouraged - to get back to normal, but teachers have to "do our bit" (vomit) by going from work to home via nowhere and no one. How about no?

But cafes, pubs and restaurants are safe we keep being told. So why can’t we use them if we want to, just like everyone else?
But schools are safe we keep being told. So why should going into a cafe or shop at lunchtime be specifically singled out as unsafe? Are we, in fact, taking the virus out with us on our clothes? Assuming we are handwashing, that is, because of course we are.
Were frontline NHS staff told to bring their own food from home and not go out and buy it on shift?

I’m not currently going into pubs, restaurants etc. However, if I deem a risk mine to take, within guidelines, then I will be taking it. Exactly the same as everyone else who doesn’t work in a school.

@MrsHamlet

So everyone else is allowed - nay, encouraged - to get back to normal, but teachers have to "do our bit" (vomit) by going from work to home via nowhere and no one. How about no?

Hang on - is this real?!

I’m not sure I understand the logic with any of this. I’m in a bubble with my year group all day. My dd is in one with hers. We’re mixing at home though. I’m going out to restaurants, shops and on holiday and using public transport, all of which is fine. Am I missing something? Also I have nowhere to eat lunch if there is no staff room.

I've read the report, I understand it as saying spread is unlikely from student-to-student but more likely for student-to-staff and staff-to-student. It only has useful information on primary schools with social distancing, and I don't think it can be extrapolated to secondary at all.

I am going to be more careful in September for 2 reasons: I don't want to spread it to anyone vulnerable and if I catch it I want to be able to prove I got it from school...

I think we are all going to be so knackered from face to face teaching all over the school, minimal breaks and virtual work for those kids self isolating there is little chance teachers will be brining the virus in from anywhere else

and if I catch it I want to be able to prove I got it from school...

No matter how careful you are people still won't believe it's from school. They're more likely to believe it came from your postman licking your post, than the bubble of 200+ students where you teach.

People on MN might not believe it, but people in my real life will. I’ll make sure of that, should I get it.

Lurked on these lovely threads that provide us with a safe haven for a while but the comments about the expectation to go from home to work and back home again have made me delurk to write my own comment.

In our risk assessment it says teachers should try not to leave the premises at lunch and if they do they must not attend shops as this may bring the virus into school... Erm how enforceable is this?! Also how else do they think I'm getting food and petrol etc if not going to shops?! Am I safe before and after school hours but not during! Mental.

They can’t direct you to do/not do anything in lunchtime as it’s unpaid and therefore your own time.

It’d be the same as telling you you can’t go to the shop after school.

ClockSpanner they are saying shops aren’t safe! I can’t get my head round that, after telling everyone they are safe 😱😱
Either they think the virus is floating around shops and the precautions they say are adequate (masks, hand washing) are not adequate at all, or they are saying schools aren’t safe and you could be bringing the virus out with you from there to shops.

Why are office workers safe to go to Pret but teachers aren’t?

My postman keeps missing my house out. Perhaps to save me.

@noblegiraffe

They can’t direct you to do/not do anything in lunchtime as it’s unpaid and therefore your own time.

It’d be the same as telling you you can’t go to the shop after school.

They are ‘advising ‘ it in my RA. They know full well they can’t ban it, but they’ve stuck it in there anyway. Quite what they’d do if you walked in with a paper bag from the local bakery, I’m not sure.

Welcome delurker.

I am not being told what to do outside of my directed hours. Wonder if we’ll get shit from people for going to the shop or the pub though? We’re perhaps being set up for massive social pressure and obviously to take the fall for infections.

@Ickabog

and if I catch it I want to be able to prove I got it from school...

No matter how careful you are people still won't believe it's from school. They're more likely to believe it came from your postman licking your post, than the bubble of 200+ students where you teach.

Closer to bubble of 1800+ (I'm a secondary teacher so teach across bubbles).

I've befriended my postman during lockdown. We had a wave and a window chat every day.
I love my job. I'm good at my job. I know that what I do is important, not so much because of squishing Shakespeare into reluctant teenage brains, but all the other bits, including supporting colleagues. But it's a job. It pays the bills. I am not intending to leave, but I'm also not prepared to let it be the only thing I do. I'm not afraid of dying of Covid, but I am afraid of being a link in a chain in which someone's parent dies.