The Twentieth Republic - all back and its time to bubble bubble ...

[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, especially if you have not used the hand gel. Close the door quietly on your way out and put your mask on.

Well done goats, great story.

I have my bag packed and clothes out for my 1st day of new job. Feeling quite excited. Team effort this evening to set up our new printer, so I actually have a copy of my timetable. DS is stressing that he hasn't finished reading the book new Y7s were set to finish and do the quiz on before they start on Friday. He is very able and the world's worst procrastinator. Deeply frustrating.

@SaltyAndFresh

Speaking of Wales, Kirsty Williams still hasn't committed to allowing keyworker children into school if using childcare means mixing bubbles. If there's a local lockdown I could still find my kids excluded from school because I have to go to work.

But that's ok, Salty - because aren't they assuring us that the schools are going to be the very last things shut down in the event of any lockdowns? People will be told not to see people in their houses, or even in their gardens, but we'll be able to carry on in class.

We had a reassuring chat from a senior ofsted inspector at work today. Feel much more relaxed about the fact that we are massively overdue ofsted in a pandemic. Still don't know how I'm going to teach most topics but still

Lovely story, goats!

I’m teaching Y7 tomorrow and will spend the whole time thinking of my own Y7 DS and comparing him to them. It has made me see Y7 on their first day in a new light!

@hedgehogger1

We had a reassuring chat from a senior ofsted inspector at work today. Feel much more relaxed about the fact that we are massively overdue ofsted in a pandemic. Still don't know how I'm going to teach most topics but still

We’re overdue too and I feel very ignorant because when I last had an ofsted they still observed and graded teachers for lessons so it was my job to have shit hot lesson plans to hand them and the schools job to suddenly find the money to paint the whole school in 24 hours and find a way to disappear nightmare kids.

Apparently all very different now and I really need someone to ofsted ready me.

I’m only 44 btw

Jeez Honey I think I’ve been Ofsteded three times since those days. It’s v different now, less stressful for teachers in terms of observations but you need to be shit hot at observing your school’s marking policy.

ohthegoats

that is great

Arjun is a little hero 🏆

Arjun sounds great. Oh crikey we're overdue an Ofsted too and I'd forgotten until now.....

My first day tmrw, will only have contact with some sixth formers (Let's hope last year's Y11 have been improved by a pandemic), and a few Y7s.

So glad my kids don't start until Fri otherwise I'd be stressing this evening!

@noblegiraffe

Jeez Honey I think I’ve been Ofsteded three times since those days. It’s v different now, less stressful for teachers in terms of observations but you need to be shit hot at observing your school’s marking policy.

Tbh I think I’d prefer the observation noble. At least you and your school were graded separately so you could be excellent even if they were shite. That was back when I wrote all of my own schemes of work and resources though and was young and childless.

I’m told a lot of it is data based now and allegedly they’ve already decided the schools mark before they’ve come but obviously don’t know if that’s teacher bias/defence mechanism.

I do know that I need to get up to speed on knowing the megs, cegs etc of every child because apparently knowing they’ve underachieved for years but you know you can get them up to a-c because you’ve got to know them and how to counter their blocks counts for shit. I need to know and regurgitate the data.

I struggle because to me it seems so meaningless. I really don’t believe sats predict your gcse grades at all. I’d kill to get cats back on my register because I found them so much more indicative of what that kid was going to need from me be it word frames and massive input or extension tasks to infinity.

@ohthegoats - the little boys sounds fabulous and what a lovely day for you both. A nice antidote to some of the shitty rhetoric that gets spouted so often.

I am back on Monday, so still a couple of days for me. Slightly frustrated that I wanted some information from Go for my students to get a head start but apparently access for our school has been temporarily suspended. Not helpful at all as I'm not required for inset days so hoping I can get sorted before my year group is back next week. They're also in the middle of switching some of the software the school uses over so I'm never entirely sure if I am missing messages or not. Might be 'newbie' optimism but if that fails I shall use the time to crack on with my degree work. I think we are allowed in our staff room as apparently that's where all the info I need will be available. But I'm screwed if not. And there's no hope of SD in there either.

Sats tell me how good year 6 teachers were at teaching to test and getting kids to lay a shit ton of knowledge and strategy to short/medium term memory. Cats told me if I throw you an entirely new curve ball what’s likely to happen and will I need to give you a huge field to run with it from a-z or am I going to have to draw you a hopscotch grid to get you from a-b.

Sorry if I’m not making sense but a) I’m knackered and have drunk wine and b) I’m quite used to my sense and other people’s sense being quite different.

personally I found cats far more indicative of the child in front of me and sats more indicative of their previous school and teacher

mini obviously different everywhere but we have max number allowed in department staffroom and have submitted when our frees are that we would like to work in that area.

Hod will look at that info and draw up a rota with preference given to our pregnant department member.

You’re hod should, ideally, be able to help you but not all hods are created equal sadly. We’re only allowed 2 in our pigeon hole of a department staffroom.

Checking in .

Oh and go seems to go offline whilst they’re adding everything and reappear when teachers, kids, classlists etc have been translated to their so keep checking. Kids are back tomorrow and go has just gone operational for us albeit still not having proper proper timetables on.

My new thing for this year is Seneca. Never used it before but it does look handy for homework and revision of topics. Sadly my new dept did not like google classroom during lockdown whereas I was pretty impressed and me and the head IT guy were all for let’s do homework and quizzes and coursework planning on here.

Apologies for too many posts. Bit manic from two days of inset and being the human filing cabinet of whole staff stuff.

Hopefully I can store some subject specific stuff soon but picking out important logistics and letting not vital today stuff go on the back boiler has been my focus this week. I find September inset a bit like being bombarded by info grenades that make your head spin.

Arjun sounds lovely, goats, I smiled reading your post!

We've been sent a 55 page risk assessment to read before we return to school next week. I couldn't face it this evening.

I'm in quite a good place with my KS3 prep now so looking at KS5. My A-Level pupils told me I was mad when I said I liked doing past papers as a form of relaxation, but does anyone else find it relaxing? I have done a few pages of lovely lovely algebra the past few days, using my favourite fountain pen (and realised just how rusty I am).

@Augustbreeze

Arjun sounds great. Oh crikey we're overdue an Ofsted too and I'd forgotten until now.....

My first day tmrw, will only have contact with some sixth formers (Let's hope last year's Y11 have been improved by a pandemic), and a few Y7s.

So glad my kids don't start until Fri otherwise I'd be stressing this evening!

So are we but I think they don't start until January. My birthday is in February and I've had two ofsted inspections on the day so my money is on then.

Aah Macbeth. Totally relevant in global pandemics

(Hope the image attaches so I’m not just grinning into the void!)

Good luck to everyone who’s in tomorrow, on congratulations on getting through it to those who’ve already started teaching.

My school has a pretty robust risk assessment, lots of soap (I can’t believe some schools haven’t that is so bloody stressful.) and our head has told us to stay the feck away from each other even if we’ve really missed each other. She is really trying to keep us as safe as the students which is a huge relief.

And Ds is starting year 7 tomorrow so I can’t sleep. He’s too small to be out in the wild on his own!

So loads of conversations in the media and on places like this have been all about how schools need to make sure they are ready, etc. but that doesn't seem to apply anywhere else:

Testing - we're all getting tested too much and now there are significant delays in getting results and people being sent upto a hundred miles away for a test. Did no-one prepare for an increased demand?

Trains - they are still running their significantly reduced Covid-19 timetable so they are now overcrowded with some carriages having standing room only. Was there no expectation that demand for the services would increase when schools open?

First day with kids in yesterday 😬 no social distancing 😬 not even adults 😬 no one way system 😬 no extra soap 😬 cleaner on holiday for three weeks so we need to give things a wipe ourselves 😬 no general risk assessment seen not even for me as CEV 😬 didn’t sleep a wink last night 😢

@DreamingofBrie

Arjun sounds lovely, goats, I smiled reading your post!

We've been sent a 55 page risk assessment to read before we return to school next week. I couldn't face it this evening.

I'm in quite a good place with my KS3 prep now so looking at KS5. My A-Level pupils told me I was mad when I said I liked doing past papers as a form of relaxation, but does anyone else find it relaxing? I have done a few pages of lovely lovely algebra the past few days, using my favourite fountain pen (and realised just how rusty I am).

I like doing maths problems (particularly calculus) and find them relaxing and interesting at the same time. I'm not actually a maths teacher... I also enjoy doing chemistry questions - maths-based and mechanisms. I am a chemistry teacher :)

It was lovely to read about Arjun.

First day back with our children today, and the weather is shit! I had plans to be outside, and you just know some of them are going to turn up without a coat.

Good luck to everyone in today