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.

@Ickabog

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

None of mine brought a coat yesterday and it was throwing it down by the afternoon 😂

We had some very soggy parents waiting for the staggered pick ups.

Place marking thanks for new thread

2 days of inset done, but as the new head has moved so many teachers and TAs round, it was still carnage in the classrooms as almost no-one was ready. Head has also insisted on individual folders for work, and fancy laminated books which teachers had to write children's names on, using correct cursive handwriting, 8 books per child plus 3 folders. All need to be done by tomorrow. Plus all display boards to be re-backed in house style, all boards to be changed every half term, all staff also responsible for another board in school.
No soap in classroom dispensers, no paper towels, only the sanitiser I'd brought, no wipes except ditto. Corridors are 1m metre wide and and have tape down the middle. Can't use the staff room. Can't use the ICT room. Break and lunch rotas, eat with children every day, I then have 15 minutes break during which I have to eat, change, acquire gear for afternoon activities. Parents on phone to office constantly asking questions which are answered in long letter sent by head JUST READ IT FFS. Office staff already at stress level. No SD among staff that I could see as Head says "there's not much point".
Good luck today everyone.

Morning!

Just to cheer us all up, the BBC has eventually helped us out. Have look about 2/3 of the way down!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/53919867

Place marking. My kids first day at school today. Staggered start for breakfast club. First drop off at 7.30, second at 7.40 and then I need to drive 4 miles to make it to my morning duty at 8.

The fun begins!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/53919867

Back to school claims you should ignore - one of them is this:

Claim: There are no cases of teachers infected by pupils

It isn't true to say that no teacher has been recorded as catching Covid from children.
Public Health England investigated all the outbreaks in schools in June, when schools were below 5% capacity.
Most were due to staff passing on the virus to each other or pupils.
But in six of the 30 outbreaks, pupil-to-staff transmission was found to be the likely source.
It is correct to say children's risk of being admitted to hospital with coronavirus or dying from it is low.

Good luck everyone. Pupils back today in our special school. I have a good day planned but feel very sick (nauseous). I’m not the nervous type (when it comes to school stuff) but I guess it’s just that. Haven’t been sick.
Very little support from HT on Covid-19 measures. Haphazard adherence to guidance. She doesn’t really believe in it. And she has an office that she’ll stay in mostly.
Yesterday felt very odd with no social distancing but lots of table wiping and directions not to use certain resources.

@Piggywaspushed We must have read the same article, had the same thought and posted at the same time!

ha!

I noted , in this case, the BBC doesn't seem to know where this rumours started : that it was reported in MSM and started by one of the government's pet scientists!

@Piggywaspushed

ha!

I noted , in this case, the BBC doesn't seem to know where this rumours started : that it was reported in MSM and started by one of the government's pet scientists!

Now that is interesting! (And sinister)

It is bizarrely reassuring to hear that most of your schools are laughing in the face of a pandemic with their risk assessments, since all we see on the news are spic and span, ultra prepared schools!

unfortunately was a few times definitely v mild food poisoning so having to miss first 2 days. I feel terrible about it.

Weird and unsettling dream last night. Messed up the new lesson timings so in the wrong place with the wrong children (twice!!) Teaching my Y8s in the Art classroom and not having a lesson ready (nor a whiteboard!) so having to wing it. Ugh!

I had a few of my class lists cone through yesterday and I've asked for a specific set, whom I love to teach. I had a paranoia moment though that some of them would open their timetables and go "oh no, not Mrs Brie again!"

@Piggywaspushed

It is bizarrely reassuring to hear that most of your schools are laughing in the face of a pandemic with their risk assessments, since all we see on the news are spic and span, ultra prepared schools!

I find it very hard to believe any of those places are genuine. I've yet to see a single classroom with thirty pupils/students or even the seats and tables for them.

We've got an extremely well-written risk assessment and clear structures but there were certainly issues yesterday that now need correcting. Nothing is going to be perfect right out of the gate.

@TaxTheRatFarms that door is awesome!
@ohthegoats lovely lovely Arjun!
@TheHoneyBadger I really like Seneca. It's the only self marking English I've ever found so I use it for revision homeworks.
@Iamnotthe1 our DHT has managed to get one extra carriage on one train by getting the local mps involved. It still won't be enough capacity.

I find it very hard to believe any of those places are genuine. I've yet to see a single classroom with thirty pupils/students or even the seats and tables for them.

I've noticed this, they all seem to have about 15 - 20 pupils. Which is a lot for the size of the rooms, but nowhere near the 30 or more that we know is the norm.

Also is anyone else getting annoyed by all the secondary schools they're visiting, which only have year 7s back? It's lovely that they have a day to themselves, but once again it's misleading media.

They obviously hand pick schools carefully to show in the media. None of the schools in my local MAT look like anything they are showing

Someone on another thread said that one of the pics of their schools was a jumbo classroom and the other rooms were much smaller.

That one I posted from the Daily Mail with bin bags in it was obviously staged and fake. The video of Boris with a couple of kids while the rest of the class were shoved out of the way was also staged.

Let’s hope some secondary children who have back today with hundreds of others, manage to sneak a few photos into social media of the reality!

Good luck everyone-we have all children back today.

All the furniture looks quite new and modern. That also doesn’t fit with a lot of our schools!

Oh good mrshamlet. I’d never heard of it but had a quick play around from student view and it looks good for topic revision. Not sure what it’s like from teacher perspective hopefully straightforward to add groups etc.

Checking in briefly, good luck to those teaching today

Ds is awake, showered, uniformed and equipped and just leaving with his mate who comes here before school. Phew. Was so worried I wouldn’t be able to get him up.

I’m going to do my planning for tomorrow and Monday later but first I’m back in bed with a coffee.

Good luck to everyone having their first teaching day

Hancock giving me the rage on the Today programme. ‘Moonshot’ sounds vague and faintly pornographic, for a start.
I might have to switch back to Radio 3 for the school run, to save my blood pressure. Even the section on the rise in Hen Harriers had me saying “Not good news for the VOLES, though, is it, eh?. But no one ever thinks of the VOLES! Typical.”

My DS(15) had his first day back yesterday, he was very tired and emotional when he got home. He has been home most of the time in lockdown and not out socialising that much, so think it was quite a shock to his system.