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

@Ickabog

I think many of us suspected that teachers / teaching staff would be blamed. However, seeing it stated so clearly is still depressing.

I think it’s cos usually you get blamed after the fact. This time they are very clearly blaming you before.

Has anyone had any information about marking policy in their school. I have a friend who has been told - pupils had in their books, which are quarantined for 72 hours. Teacher marks them, back into quarantine for 72 hours and then handed back to the kids.
So basically they can’t really mark books.

I suppose we'll be expected to mark them at the weekend so students aren't without their books for 72 hours (in fact I think our marking policy is as normal. Kids won't be carrying their own as they're all moving around to their classrooms )

I literally know nothing about marking from our school yet. Don’t have a timetable. Have heard there will be staggered lunch breaks but don’t know how those will be timed or fit with lessons etc.

All a big mystery

@Enoughnowstop

I'm going to have to have a gun sling belt carrying my antiviral

‘I’ve got a pen and a refillable sanitizer bottle on a lanyard and. thought that was organised but I am now off to google ‘gun slinger belt’ to see what I can come up with....a chequered face mask would complete the look!

Gavin and Boris are apparently going to be touring schools this week as part of their Back to School campaign.

Pity the poor sods who have to host them without punching them in the face.

Of course they're touring schools this week when they are empty.

And I bet they wear masks

Am a being stupid or overlooking something?
You can only get a test if you are symptomatic.
Kids are mostly asymptomatic.
Teachers, adults, will be the ones who mostly get symptomatic in a school outbreak.
More teachers are found positive than kids....

We have the 72 hours thing. No one can tell me why 72, and when I raised the issue of the books, I was told to make them work on paper and hand it in - which wasn't really the point I was going for!
As it happens, "bubbles" mean that I'm now only seeing my classes once a week for a double instead of 5 singles ... and they're being taught by someone else the rest of the time. It's a mess.
We all have laptop, so technically could record our lessons - but only if we sit at our desks to teach, which has been verboten as long as I can remember.

if things are broadly safe in the community to the extent that no one in power is concerned about the potential risk impact of schools opening, why are we unable to attend routine medical appointments still? If we are still protecting the NHS, surely the best way to do that would be to reduce risks in the community, not increase them? Are health professionals concerned about the potential impact of schools opening or do they see it differently? I get that health and education services are not the same thing but I am struggling to understand why it is OK to put teachers in front of hundreds of students every day when doctors are still offered the protection of a PC screen. Am I missing something?

Re: recording lessons, how is that managed? What hardware/software are people using?
And I sure as hell have no intention of opening myself up to potential criticism via lesson observations by who-knows-who? Would be like constant Ofsted inspections for every lesson. Can you imagine the parent WhatsApp slating?

@WhyNotMe40

That's the elephant in the room no one talks about...

We have that with the books. We have also been told we have to mark- its our job. They are obsessed with marking at my place. It will be a nightmare.

I think 72 hours is the time the virus survives on paper/card. I’ve got it in an e-mail somewhere can check if you like.

@noblegiraffe

Gavin and Boris are apparently going to be touring schools this week as part of their Back to School campaign.

Pity the poor sods who have to host them without punching them in the face.

I would have to go sick as I wouldn’t be able to control myself!

As the books are handed back out will they be protected by a magical force field do they don’t get reinfected by the virus-riddled teacher?

Yeah the quarantine is pointless because you still have to get the book back to the kid once the 72 hours are up.

That one will be binned fairly quickly I reckon.

In fairness, it would be very difficult to teach without seeing first-hand what they've produced. Assessment for learning is such an integral part of the job.
But I've no idea how to manage it.
Or anything much else at all. I have lots of time this week that I can devote to school preparation, but no guidance from anywhere as to what I'm actually preparing for? Are we teaching normal curriculum? Revising last term?

I would have to go sick as I wouldn’t be able to control myself!

Gove visited my school once. We weren’t told about the visit in advance because then we’d have prepared with placards. And rotten tomatoes.

Are you able to use glue? We have been told no glue stick sharing also.

Apparently they will all have their own along with a calculator. A letter went out.
Never laughed so much.

Book marking simply isn’t possible, is it? 72 hours to be able to mark, 72 hours to give the book back...except we can’t hand them back in case which means we probably never collected them in the first place....6 days and three million pairs of plastic gloves per subject for marking. They can mark their own and as will mark online submissions for everything else. Don’t care what the policy is!

We've been advised to make our own decisions about marking based on our own assessment of the risks. They are encouraging electronic marking where possible, with some suggestion of quarantining assessments before they are marked. So some teachers in my school will be marking completely as normal with no quarantine, while others (like me) will be asking pupils to take photos of their homework and submit it online. Yet others will probably abandon homework.

You can’t hand out paper without 72 hour quarantine? So no glue sticks required, surely?!

This gets better and better. The bigger will actually have to write things. It’ll be like the olden days.

Bigger = buggers

I am actually too scared to check my work emails to see if I've had a risk assessment or marking guidelines or anything yet.
I'm also bricking it about how I'm actually going to work! Due to having a whirlwind 4 yo at home I try not to bring work home. But with no staffroom, workroom, school laptop or classroom, how am I going to plan and just do stuff?
Also - how am I going to keep behaviour good and check work if I have to stay behind my line and not circulate? The computers take ages to switch user and we are supposed to sanitise when we come in.
I'm really not looking forward to it.