The Nineteenth Republic - DfE guidance issued August Bank Holiday Weekend!

[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.

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

@NeurotrashWarrior - during lockdown we were coming home from schools, straight in to the upstairs bathroom, stripped and bathed (no shower) in turn, fresh clothes or PJs on for the rest of the day. But I was only working one day in however many weeks and not doing this every single day. It's only since that I have thought the bath water might have ended up being covid soup if there is a surface transmission but I guess hot water and bubble bath took care of that.

I quite see that when we return to school, I might do every other day baths because my bank balance won't cope with the increased day time electricity required to heat the water tank so often. But we shall all have a strip wash and clean clothes on the other days. There are 6 of us though so it's quite easy to get a whole load of washing on most days. DH will continue to shower daily and fresh clothes as he's very recently had a positive case at work from a resident who has not been anywhere in years!! No one else has appeared as symptomatic so it does concern us.

I figured we have been out and about, shopping or in parks and maintaining social distancing and using face coverings but have not been bathing every day and have (touches wood) been fine so far - we always wash hands as soon as we come in. But if the infection rate in our area increases, there are local lockdowns and bubbles in school have cases, even if not directly any of ours, then we will go back to daily baths.

Lol, back at them Nobel!

Thanks mini, normally we got in so late it was all about getting dinner on and ds2 would be screaming for a feed. He's older now and not so bothered. I might get all changed into jammies, change again if dinner ends up all over. And just quarantine clothes. We are on a water meter and also ds2's skin doesn't like too much bathing.

Ooh noble was that more or less hurtful than when they said Joe wasn't a hero? That's the benchmark now I think.

I've got inset tomorrow, then year 7 in on Wednesday, my form will be with me all day as we're treating it as their induction day. So we'll have tours of the school, photos taken for Sims, practice fire drill, fingerprints taken for lunch system, etc. I might even have time to learn their names, it normally takes me weeks to get to know them all.

Then we've got y8/9 in on Thursday, but I don't teach any of them, so I'll have all day free. Then y10/11 in on Friday, so I will actually need to teach them, but only one lesson, p5. Then all in at the same time next week. I quite like the 3 days with only one or two yeargroups in, it feels like a more gentle lead in to the chaos. I'll have to provide remote learning for my year 13 class for this week, but nobody else gets anything for the 2 days school is open and they aren't in.

Very sad moment to set the alarm this morning when I got up for an early start tomorrow. I'm properly onto late nights and lie ins and tomorrow is going to hurt!

Luckily we have 2x inset then 2x additional prep days before our kids go back next Mon. And my own y11 will go back that Mon too.

Luckily, I've had a toddler to keep me in the 6am routine.

Ooh noble was that more or less hurtful than when they said Joe wasn't a hero? That's the benchmark now I think.

People being mean about Joe is definitely worse.

Although that thread was a bit of an eye-opener. Some people are just determined to be awful.

@NeurotrashWarrior - I also suffer with eczema so even the thought of daily baths shrivels my skin lol.

I also considered that if/when their extra curricular clubs return, we won't have time to bathe in between coming home from school and going out again. So a good wash would have to be enough.

The more I see, the more I hope transmission is respiratory rather than from surface contact, but I haven't seen enough evidence to rule it out completely in terms of returning to absolute normal.

My trolley is good. It’s basically my portable office, canteen etc.

I’m in Tuesday, Wednesday for inset then teaching Friday. Ds is in on Thursday but not Friday as we’re staggering return a bit (for 2 days). Year 7s will be in both days. All year groups back in full from Monday.

I don’t even know where I’m meant to go tomorrow or whether I need a mask. Hoping department heads will leave details of what room they’re in at reception. We’re staying in department teams in a classroom and streaming the whole school stuff.

I will be using Thursday to plan my lessons for Friday once I’ve actually seen the resources and know whether we’re allowed textbooks or handouts or wtaf.

Anxiety rising here. I just don't want to sit in a room all morning tomorrow with 40 people. We will be wearing masks but still.

DH and I both now at the irritable and grumpy stage. Poor DS.

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/29/coronavirus-parents-undecided-children-return-to-school

This was a good read of only from the pov of knowing there are some really caring teenagers out there (worried about their vulnerable family members) and parents (worried about school staff).

Interesting numbers in that article - about 1 in 5 may not send kids back.

I wonder how many we will have not turn up this week.

I know, I thought that too.

There are children I'm hoping not to see (ECV) and some I'm worried we won't.

Yes, there are kids I'm worried won't come in. They won't be the concerned families, they'll be the families where education isn't valued. Yet others I hope don't come in, but I think they probably will. Those are the ones who really value education, but have a member of the household who is ecv. I'm very worried about them, tbh.

Out of interest, have others planned for remote learning? I've done my planning assuming in-class learning.

During lockdown we planned for whole year groups and split the workload across the department.

Now we're going back as normal so each year class will start with different topics (to spread out resources). If we suddenly end up in tier 2 local lockdown/providing learning for the isolating kids, it's going to be a hell of a lot of work.

Our kids are predominately from surrounding villages on the one side and run down housing estates close to town on the other. I don’t think either demographic are likely to keep kids home in significant numbers so I’m expecting close to full attendance. I could be wrong.

People coming to work for us are taken in by the leafy village school that still has fields surface. Apparently intakes like ours are favourites for county lines as some kids have money to buy stuff and other kids are keen to make money and easily recruited.

Sorry random boring on. Trying to take my mind off of tomorrow

I’m trying to plan as if for remote learning, and then if we’re all in the class together that’s a bonus!

First lesson will include making sure they know their way around Google Classroom and can upload pictures of their work without making a huge fuss and posting it upside down.

Yay! Thread deleted. I dobbed in the one about the dodgy Facebook teacher who dared to have a life drink after school hours.

Well done echt

Well done echt!

H*oneyBadger
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We're just outside a city border. The head describes us as 'county funding, city problems'.

About 20% of our year 10s stayed away in June (about half because of family health issues, half because their parents didn't see the point of 3 hours a week).

It will be interesting to see who isn't in.

@Mistressiggi what’s attendance like in Scotland?

Well done @echt that was just a load of bollocks

Anyone else keep having their eye caught by the teacher sex games thread in active? I keep reminding myself not to click that one! Maths teacher me can’t cope.

I have just had a look at the guidance published on 28th August and they have tweaked the wording in Systems of Control section. In the grey box listing Prevention measures, Point 2 originally stated 'Use of face coverings in schools' (I have a photo of the section to prove it, and that was from the second version of the 28th publication) to 'Where recommended, use of face coverings in schools'. That now fits better with the sentence "Numbers 1 to 5 must be in place in all schools, all the time'