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

Has anyone got any plans for testing KS3 when they go back in in order to inform setting? I have a student ( tutoring) who is in the very bottom set but she has come on in leaps and bounds during lockdown ( she had ADHD so has benefited from a much quieter environment and has young adult family members who have been encouraging her into a 9-5 study day while they have been working.)
I think she really needs to move into the next set ( still aiming for foundation level) in order to capitalise on this but am concerned that school may not realise this until it is too late to move sets.

This is maths by the way.

We're teaching all ks3 in form groups. Even in maths who are normally the only subject allowed to set in KS3

@MrsHamlet

We're teaching all ks3 in form groups. Even in maths who are normally the only subject allowed to set in KS3

Same here.

We'll be testing our ks3 after half term (ks4 are the priority for being tested before half term). We'll make set changes at Christmas. I think we'll have more set changes to make than normal, as different kids responded very differently over lockdown. Some of my hardest workers at school lost motivation at home, while some of the laziest at school did loads of work at home and really thrived.

Preach rafa!

@CallmeAngelina

I remember, many years ago, working as a student in M&S on the till, and a small child sneezing directly at me. I felt the spray in my face. A few days later I went down with mumps.

I've caught mumps (while pregnant) and glandular fever, both presumably at school. I don't fancy my chances with this one.

“I’m so worried about children’s mental health!”

“Oh yeah, it’s awful that you can’t get a kid to be seen by CAMHS in our area unless they’ve made a suicide attempt, funding is shocking”

“Er, I mean I want my kids to go back to school because they miss their friends”

Should I start a thread about how I worry for my son’s MH when he RETURNS to school?

Being at home he can run and play and burn off his nervous energy as much as he wants (he’s taken to going on the treadmill when he feels the urge). I highly doubt he’ll have his TA this year and he’ll be in a classroom from 7.30-5.30 (wraparound now in a classroom) every day. He’ll feel trapped and I know it’ll make him miserable and no doubt he’ll be spending a lot of time in the headteacher’s office for his ‘behaviour’.

No doubt if I'd posted on MN at the time, I would have been blasted off the thread with people saying there was "no evidence" I'd caught mumps from that child.

In primary schools, kids have to stay off if they have impetigo or conjunctivitis : but Covid doesn't spread. Oh no!

Someone has posted an anti-Joe Wicks thread. How could they?!!

Aw, noble, they've finally broken you! Dissing Joe!

I am SO tempted to post a link to all the moaning nurses threads. There have been loads.

Big difference is most posters show kindness.

Teachers are expected to be tough. But told off when tough.

Schrodingers profession.

Thank you for all your comments about testing KS3. It has helped.

All those posters thinking they could upset me by saying they hoped I didn’t teach their children when what they really should have been saying was ‘Joe Wicks isn’t all that’

@noblegiraffe

Someone has posted an anti-Joe Wicks thread. How could they?!!

Did you listen to Joe's Desert Island Discs? I really warmed to him.

Blimey that was a long catch up.

To whoever suggested antibody testing because many may have had it back in March: it’s useless because the antibodies are only around for a short while (some say 50 days others a little longer). The immunity is likely through the T cells remembering how to produce the antibodies. So by the time I managed to source an antibody test privately it was too late anyway so I’m still clueless.

And yes I am also worried about behaviour. I have tons of year 8s and in my experience they are shite at sitting still for long periods and staying on task. Generally a huge relief when they get broken up into more sets and options in year 9. I tend to do lots of switching up the seating plan which isn’t allowed now. I cannot imagine the noise of a whole corridor of year 8s being taught in the same group and room all day with classroom doors open.

Now I think of it that may be why they’ve assigned the block at the arse end of nowhere to year 8

It’s going to be like lord of the flies over there

From the class lists I've seen KS3 is banded for timetabling but seems mixed ability in the sets - they are in the same class for everything. KS4 also seems to be banded (same class for all core subjects so can't be set as many students wouldn't normally be in same English, maths and science sets), some movement for options.

I need to stop looking at the rest of Mumsnet it just makes me stressed.

Has anyone not heard from their head? I'm a LSA but we have no inset and i feel like i dont actually have a clue what im doing when we go back - am i in class? How am i doing interventions - will i have a set area to use (normally we have to fight over limited space which i raise every year and get told there is plenty of space )

On top of that i feel im being forced back to situations i dont feel comfotable with outside of work and being made to feel im over reacting.

eitak I rarely hear from my head. Maybe once or twice since May.

I noted that our RA doesn't mention TAs.

Our TAs are expected to work as normal. I wouldn't be coming back for that shit wage.

I've made a decision.

I'm not going to read any thread about teachers on MN apart from this one. (Obv.)

I honestly think it's starting to negatively impact on my mental health. Reading the hate is something I know I shouldn't do but can't help. Feels like if I read enough shit about my profession, I will start to believe it. At a time when we are least empowered or armed with solutions.

It made me wonder if that's what the parent WhatsApps are like (I know they have them!!! I'm on one myself as a parent!!) I teach Y2 so I suspect they used to be all about missing jumpers / trips / that cow, MrsLuckiest who took a star off their child when they smacked another in the face....
Christ knows what this term's will be about.

BUT
Then I remembered that the majority of parents I work in RL with are actually really appreciative & supportive on the whole. And would be horrified at the vitriol on here. Which is extreme and getting more so. If these people hate teachers so much, why send your child to be in their care & educated by them for hours every day???! Just proves how stupid & pig-ignorant they are.

I shall rise above the bullshit like a fabulous swan swimming gracefully on a calm lake. While peddling frantically through the silt and shit below....or some analogy like that.
for us all. And probably too muchas well....