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

We had news crews in a couple of months back. It was considerably more socially distanced than usual in the bits of the department they were in and there were no masks hanging from 1 ear.

It was still much more realistic than when we had the documentary crew in for 2 weeks...

Lol at ‘I done sharing’.

About a week before schools closed I had a yr 8 - YEAR 8 - come into class, pick his nose and wipe it on the desk!!! I believe the tame words from my mouth were, "how dare you?" before taking him outside, explaining the many reasons why that wasn't on and making him clean it up.

Noooooo plasticboxes

To think I could’ve gone to my grave without knowing what a dirty moustache was ...

Haha he wasn't as bad as the others I've had over the years. The things I could say about snail trails of green snot; watching it inexorably progress towards an open mouth, and whoosh! it was gone. The competition between a couple of y2 boys to see who could wipe the longest snot trail on each other's jumper. The licking of tables, windows, bottoms of shoes, the eating of playdough, dirt from bottom of said shoes, unspeakable toilet items. The loudness of farts in an assembly with SIAMS inspector just to my left (not my fart, obv). The child's comment on the stinkiness of said fart reducing said SIAMS inspector to tears (bless her). The stripping off of ALL the clothes for PE and then bending over to play "willy tennis". Oh my eyes.

Willy tennis

On a positive note, got my money back today for my cancelled holiday!

@CallmeAngelina

Well, we did have a party on a hill planned in one thread, didn't we? None of you lightweights turned up! We should do another one before the weather turns - maybe we should have a bonfire campfire, and toast smores and maybe effigies of aged posters people we don't like.

Ah yes - our own SD Covid festival ...

@Piggywaspushed - good result

Good news Piggy

Hooray Piggy!! Hope you're going to blow it in bar, dancing on tables and living dangerously.

Hurray, piggy ! Was going to have a snack but after reading about snot trails, I don't think I will bother!

Hurrah for refunds!

My AIBU has consistently been 25/75 in favour of us, until just recently when it's dropped to 27/73 for some reason.
Is there a way to see who voted what?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/24/the-best-way-to-keep-schools-open-stop-coronavirus-entering-them-in-the-first-place

Here's a more balanced view from The Guardian.
Logged in to my school email for the first time in a while today. No news on the RA. We're meant to be having a Zoom to discuss it this week, during holiday, as Inset has been cut from 2 days to 1 day to get children back ASAP.

I keep seeing, and being pissed off by, this picture. Maybe primaries have this kind of space? There certainly isn’t room to stand between desks with arms outstretched in any school I’ve worked in.

It’s a deliberate look at all this space pose

I plan to go on another holiday now to a high risk country, drink at many lickable bars, and sack off quarantine when I return.

Piggy for PM!

@TheHoneyBadger

I keep seeing, and being pissed off by, this picture. Maybe primaries have this kind of space? There certainly isn’t room to stand between desks with arms outstretched in any school I’ve worked in.

It’s a deliberate look at all this space pose

My classroom is 6m by 8m and it's the biggest primary classroom I've worked in.

I think that picture highlights a major flaw. Boris isn't stood with hands outstretched between the desks. His outstretched arms are over two desks and covering where three children would sit. That's hardly showing distance.

Hooray piggy. glad you got the money back.

Primaries probably do have more space (although it depends on the school building). It isn't going to be enough for 30 children to SD though.

I think the only time I've had space to do that was in the US where there were large classrooms and a max of 16 kids in a class. And I don't think that's standard over there either.

I see James O brien is trending ontwitter as he said to a caller ' its on you if a child dies'
He was highlighting the difficult choice that has to be made. Maybe not the best comment but I understand his point.

www.nasuwt.org.uk/uploads/assets/uploaded/8e796a19-2983-4236-a1a1c41b836a2be3.pdf This is also mentioned in the Guardian article above. In Scotland, teachers can request a test if they feel they might have been exposed to infection, even without symptoms and presumably without being contacted through track and trace.

Alas, I think we are running out of test kits and will need to drive to a test centre.

Lovely see BoJo in a class full of children - oophs they weren't there

Found an actual sensible epidemiologist on Twitter:

Schools are workplaces and where loads of households mix. Pandemic messaging about schools that only talks about “risk to children” is dumbing this obvious fact down. Children’s best interest is in having healthy adults look after them. Acknowledging this is essential to trust

Consultant in Public Health Dr Nisreen Alwan, Univ Of Southampton (which, oddly, is where Alastair Munro is)

I think that picture highlights a major flaw. Boris isn't stood with hands outstretched between the desks. His outstretched arms are over two desks and covering where three children would sit. That's hardly showing distance.

This! Like he's saying 'look how many children will be packed into the space of 2m, look how many other kids they can reach out and touch!'