The Eighteenth Republic - More U Turns On The Horizon? - INSET Days and travel problems

[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.

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Do not give ‘The Every twat for Themselves mob’ the staffroom password as a number of them are operating in an alternative reality.

No DfE muppets allowed

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

Latest shambles : government has removed paragraph about bubbles late last night!

FFS.

I've been awake since 4.45, got to sleep at about 2...

I’m thinking about driving over to Tim Horton’s for a French vanilla latte. That’s my cryptonite.

I haven’t slept very well. Think it’s a side effect of the antidepressants. I’m only on day 5 and yesterday spent the day in a weird light headed state. That’ll be fun next week!

Well BBC are reporting the new, but not new, guidance so parents will under the impression while bubbles will be sent home but they’ve also written an article on a South Korean report on how children can spread the virus - tide turning?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53946420

Like this summary:

twitter.com/ljhill85/status/1299431464807923712

Just been reading the four tier system for local lockdowns. It's a shower of shit from beginning to end...

Use weekends to prepare the school in between the bubbles... (so staff have to work the weekends?!)... Send whole year groups home to make social distancing easier (erm, classrooms will be as full)... Provide high quality home learning for year groups at home (oh, good, because I might not be teaching Yr 8 & 10 in school so will have frees, good)... Consider splitting the year groups in school across more classrooms to help social distancing (oh, OK, so I won't get any frees because I'll have of the year 7 and 9 classes instead)... Oh fuck it... I see the govt plan is literally to give every single teacher a nervous breakdown so...they can blame us for it all going tits up...

No, I can't sleep either. I have worked one full day in school and one full day at home all summer. I haven't slept since March. I have never been so exhausted in my life. Fuck Tuesday.

Per week, I meant. I've worked two days per week. This is more than normal. On no sleep. I'm so tired.

It literally makes no sense to send whole year groups home and then spread the others around the building : this means different teachers and can't be done for many options either.

The DfE know nothing about timetabling, teaching, staffing. It's beyond incompetent. Arguably the only thing that makes sense is to send year groups home and then remote teach them, but that doesn't work unless there is time! It wasn't too bad in the summer but I certainly don't fancy a whole day online remote teaching.

And yet the guidance also mentions wellbeing.

They could have done these rotas from the get go.

mrsH when I met Kylie Minogue I said 'are you who I think you are?' to which she said 'I think I probably am'.

I also met Ledley King and told him we had the same surname as him (putting!). He said 'I don't think we're related'

I also met Ed Miliband at a cricket camp , straight after his dumping and just went up to him and said 'Ed Miliband'.

I need to practise my celebrity meet and greet...

They are just making shit up based on, ooh, this might minimise the spread a little bit. No idea about how timetables and staffing work, subject specialism, anything. I'm so, so angry.

And now reading about numbers in France, Spain and Germany. We must only be a week or so behind again. Wth were we thinking letting foreign holidays happen this summer? Surely it's contributed?

Bloody hell, because DS plays a brass instrument, I just read the music bit. Any music teachers on here? Mayhem.

@Piggywaspushed

Latest shambles : government has removed paragraph about bubbles late last night!

FFS.

Wtf!!!!

Yeah, and now they have announced they didn't mean it.

I was looking at nobles difference checker. It's bizarre how much they tinker with connectives. Also notable is they changed the word outbreak to pandemic each time.

How did this slip through the propaganda?!

Coronavirus: Children's role in spread puzzles scientists www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53946420

I go to bed and all hell breaks loose!!

Changing the guidance they just released is a new low even for them. How are schools supposed to actually implement anything and communicate it to parents / carers, when it all changes so quickly?

Wel it's very confusing as this is still on the bbc app from 6 hours ago:

Coronavirus case could mean all year group out of school www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53954642

*A single confirmed case of coronavirus in a school in England could mean sending home an entire year group, according to new government guidance.

It says a confirmed case could mean all the pupils in the same "bubble" having to isolate for 14 days.

In areas with a local lockdown, secondary pupils could be put on a rota of two weeks in and out of school.

Paul Whiteman, leader of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "Keeping schools open has to be the priority, but you don't need a crystal ball to see that there will almost inevitably be some disruption in some areas in the coming weeks."

He said that heads had been asking for weeks for this "Plan B" for what happens in the event of an outbreak - and "another late night publication is fairly typical of what we've become used to".*

And what happens to primary pupils?

Is this just for secondary?

Interesting thread going on in the Corona forum:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4008720-isn-t-it-glaringly-obvious-that-the-biggest-risk-with-reopening-schools-is-to-the-parents?pg=3

This is good though (she says through gritted teeth not wanting to praise any of the guidance. It's not been organised by the dfe though!). Though there wasn't that much on offer during lock down as it's very hard to tailor to pupils.

SEND
Oak National Academy specialist content for pupils with SEND. This covers communication and language, numeracy, creative arts, independent living, occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech and language therapy. Their provision for next academic year will include an expanded range of content for the specialist sector.

@NeurotrashWarrior - it's all well and good providing work for send students but how are they going to access it? particularly mainstream send students are likely to be more academically capable but need support to access their education.

And moving on...
U4T are actively encouraging lying about symptoms to avoid either testing or quarantining and to avoid popping bubbles, so there are going to be a lot more ear aches this year...

Alexander Armstrong was getting icecream out if the freezer next to me in Waitrose. I recognised him and said 'Oh hiya? How are you?', he replied 'Good thanks'.

It was at that point I realised who he was, and that he wasn't my mate. Smiled awkwardly and ran away.

U4T are actively encouraging lying about symptoms to avoid either testing or quarantining and to avoid popping bubbles, so there are going to be a lot more ear aches this year...

Yeah who cares if vulnerable children / staff and families catch it, anything to get their kids back to school. Do you have proof, before they try to deny it?

That sort of thing should be prosecuted. Fined. Something!

@ohthegoats

Alexander Armstrong was getting icecream out if the freezer next to me in Waitrose. I recognised him and said 'Oh hiya? How are you?', he replied 'Good thanks'.

It was at that point I realised who he was, and that he wasn't my mate. Smiled awkwardly and ran away.

Pha ha ha ha!!!

Isn't it time for... 🐶

Prof Carl Heneghan, a Oxford University epidemiologist and practising GP, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme schools and families faced "significant disruption", with cold and flu cases meaning more pupils will have to self-isolate until they can be tested.
"If your child has any symptoms they're going to have to stay off school. In the past there's been a tendency to say, you can have some Calpol, maybe you can go in. But there's going to have to be a sea-change in how parents behave with their children," he said.

Yup, can see this happening.