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

Guidance for the additional funding for tutoring has been published this morning

I suppose they realised they have to blame us for spread because blaming teenagers wasn't a good plan.

Maybe Clav is feeling hurt that we called out the DFE shit shower, if her DH is part of that!

Maybe a certain poster will be saying that one of those students in Scotland who caught the virus at a house party must have had a parent who was a teacher and that is why they got the virus.

Are any other secondary teachers teaching in their room with students coming to them? I am, but counterintuitively year groups are blocked for form time only. I need to leg it from the other side of school to my classroom, sort any mess left by the form that been in there and then I stay put. It removes most of the hassle of being nomadic but does nothing to prevent congestion in the corridors.

Nope. We're all over the place with no movement time. But SLT will be "out and about" so that's reassuring. Not.

Have caught up with the last few pages of the thread but may have missed quite a lot.
Went to visit my mum in hospital yesterday. Each ward is only allowing one visitor per time slot for the whole ward. It certainly cuts down on the numbers entering the hospital. I bet it means that some people don't have any visitors at all. 😥 Had to queue to get in, was given hand sanitizer at the door and had to put on mask, gloves and apron. Mum is in good spirits but hasn't seen the oncology team yet, so fingers crossed.
I would like to say I can't believe that they are setting us up to take the blame for outbreaks, but nothing is too low for this government. I am not just going to work and come home again. I work to live, not the other way round. I also don't have my timetable yet, so finding it difficult to get started.
Sorry about the length!

Glad your mum is in good spirits tadjenny

Work to live is definitely the way forward.

Placemarking. I can't believe we're at nearly 600 posts already before I found you this morning!

I’m glad you got to see your mum, jenny. So many things we took for granted before are now either impossible or restricted

I want to know on what basis the ‘not leaving the building to buy lunch like every office worker in the town is allowed to do’ has appeared in RAs. I thought our SLT and Govs might have got the wrong end of the stick with it, but having seen others say it is in their RAs I’m now wondering exactly why it’s there.

I'm 99% certain it's in ours so we're around to supervise. I've never done lunchtime supervision because I need a break. I don't intend to start now, and if that makes me not a team player, so be it.

Ours did mention staggered staff breaks, but my timetable doesn’t reflect that. I’m taking that hour for a walk and a butty in my car so they can go whistle for unpaid cover (or paid cover, come to that).

@MrsHamlet

I'm 99% certain it's in ours so we're around to supervise. I've never done lunchtime supervision because I need a break. I don't intend to start now, and if that makes me not a team player, so be it.

We’re not having a choice. It’s been factored into our directed hours to do lunchtime duty ... and before school ... and break time ...

I think in the local Primaries teachers will eat their lunch with their class as they are not using the dining hall so eating a packed lunch in clsssrooms

@neurotrashwarrior I guess another advantage of an SEN school (beside the small groups) is that your students are unlikely to be attending house parties etc. Hopefully this makes it less likely they'll have it in the first place...

Argh... I hate directed hours. Our HT loves to tell us we're well under but once you count the "Not directed but actually compulsory unless you're a chosen one" events, that's far from true.

Presumably, given that your directed hours are swallowed up by doctors every day, there'll be no time left for parents evenings, team planning and compulsory CPD. Of course that won't be the case because you'll be expected to do all that on top.

@MrsHamlet

Nope. We're all over the place with no movement time. But SLT will be "out and about" so that's reassuring. Not.

We have the same plan. 😫

@SaltyAndFresh

Presumably, given that your directed hours are swallowed up by doctors every day, there'll be no time left for parents evenings, team planning and compulsory CPD. Of course that won't be the case because you'll be expected to do all that on top.

We aren’t having meetings - my worry is that I’m going to be swamped by endless emails instead.

Or things like instead of doing a training session that would use dt hours they send you an email linking you to 4 hours worth of safeguarding, prevent, allergy training etc that has to be completed online in our own time by a deadline but doesn’t count as dt. Grr

Just had the back to work questionnaire to inform the much awaited ra. The people recognised as having a slightly higher risk list is tiny. Obesity is not included and respiratory disorders have to be very severe. Pregnancy only counts if you also have significant heart disease.

Think that means my being obese and asthmatic is seen as no risk at all. I’ve got a horrible feeling that the 2 paragraphs about handwashing and distancing and ppe for first aiders is, in fact, the risk assessment.

Can someone confirm that previously asthma defined you as vulnerable?

@TheHoneyBadger I’m not asthmatic but my friend is and she had to shield. It was dependent on medication type. But yes, all asthmatics were in the vulnerable category.

@TheHoneyBadger

Or things like instead of doing a training session that would use dt hours they send you an email linking you to 4 hours worth of safeguarding, prevent, allergy training etc that has to be completed online in our own time by a deadline but doesn’t count as dt. Grr

Just had the back to work questionnaire to inform the much awaited ra. The people recognised as having a slightly higher risk list is tiny. Obesity is not included and respiratory disorders have to be very severe. Pregnancy only counts if you also have significant heart disease.

Think that means my being obese and asthmatic is seen as no risk at all. I’ve got a horrible feeling that the 2 paragraphs about handwashing and distancing and ppe for first aiders is, in fact, the risk assessment.

Can someone confirm that previously asthma defined you as vulnerable?

I think it was if asthma got you a free flu jab. I think that is if you are on at least 2 inhalers normally - preventor and reliever.

Guy who blamed us getting in both barrels on Twitter!

twitter.com/ShamezLadhani/with_replies

Can someone confirm that previously asthma defined you as vulnerable?
Didn’t it depend on the type of medication you were taking to keep it under control? So your standard Brown preventer once or twice daily plus occasional Blue reliever wasn’t seen as a risk factor.
I know we have 2 members of staff who weren’t in school at all for the first 6 weeks but then had to come in later and that is the type of asthma they have.
WRT to obesity - that was BMI over 40 iirc.

You can get a free flu jab if you have any kind of asthma. Ateast I can in my GPs. I don't take regular medication for mine.