The Twenty-third Republic - school attendance not great - half term to be renamed circuit break?

[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

You'll like this (short) thread:

Hygiene Theater Is a Huge Waste of Time www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4032602-Hygiene-Theater-Is-a-Huge-Waste-of-Time

I remember way back when I was at school ( back in O level days) we had massive allotments and a proper workshop with a machinery shop. Some of the kids learnt bricklaying, cultivation and basic mechanics. Plus they all left at 15 for apprenticeships! My ds would love that.

We are a big primary, 3 form entry. Head oversees 3 schools in the trust, Deputy is head most of the time. Phase leaders teach, but we are lowly. 1 hour of leadership time a week!

Iamnot - huge kudos to you for getting to 4 ops so quickly! I am just about to abandon negative numbers in woe!

Neither my head or deputy teach - emergencies only. I'm ass head, we all teach 9 days a fortnight. I get PPA once a fortnight too, so in class 4 days a week. When I was deputy I taught 4 days a week, when I was deputy and senco I taught 2 days a week. Don't want to be out full-time, like being out some of the time.

I'm ass head sorry @ohthegoats, couldn't resist.

@phlebasconsidered

Iamnot - huge kudos to you for getting to 4 ops so quickly! I am just about to abandon negative numbers in woe!

Hugs and support

Mine were alright with negatives. It threw them a little when we started to look a real world applications and I had to explain what an overdraft was but they did alright with it in the end.

I always try to get the number system, ordering, rounding, negative numbers, four operations and BIDMAS covered before half-term and then just keep recapping through morning reviews. It's the only way we get any real time to devote to fdp, geometry and algebra.

@phlebasconsidered

I remember way back when I was at school ( back in O level days) we had massive allotments and a proper workshop with a machinery shop. Some of the kids learnt bricklaying, cultivation and basic mechanics. Plus they all left at 15 for apprenticeships! My ds would love that.

We are a big primary, 3 form entry. Head oversees 3 schools in the trust, Deputy is head most of the time. Phase leaders teach, but we are lowly. 1 hour of leadership time a week!

Yes my school was like this and livestock too. Lambing time was interesting!

I remember that qualification was got rid of in the very late 90s, much to many's disappointment as it was a rural area and some kids really thrived and excelled on that course, going on to work in the industry.

Yerp, I'm a total ass head.

I'm struggling tonight with just how much I hate this government and anyone attached to it. I have moments of just wishing they'd all die in some big explosion.

I know what you mean. Whilst my thoughts aren't quite so violent, I've started to despair at the country that we've become. I just can't understand how so many people can accept being misled and manipulated in the way that the Government does it. The level of corruption today is unlike anything we've seen before and it's all just... ignored and forgotten.

I genuinely do believe that we are running headfirst into a time where 'truth' as a concept has lost all meaning and been replaced with something else.

I just cant see why they stopped shielding. Fine to stop the food parcels but putting people back at work when they knew it would rise by around oct. I actually think it seems they would have been safer in say jul to now. It almost seemed to happen when they declared that lots of shielding people hadnt been shielding properly.

Just had my first experience of teaching on Teams - I was isolating at home (with a daughter who SO does not have COVID, I should have rung her in with tonsillitis like every other fucker does) and my class were all in school. It was a double lesson lovely sixth form class so it went really well, though between that and driving 100 miles round trip for a test, I'm shattered.

Tomorrow I have to do the same thing for 6 lessons, including 3 bottom set year 10s. The worst thing is, when I am broadcasting my whole screen with a powerpoint, I cannot see the class whatsoever. I am worried it will be like teaching my most difficult classes blindfolded. There will be a cover teacher in the room. I really hope they are going to be on top of things, particularly as I'm probably going to be struggling with all the technology, before I even think about the content of the lesson.

I know I should be in bed, but I've poured myself a glass of wine and am just sat here dreading the morning. If my test comes back at any point in the day, I'm going to say to the cover teacher - just keep the buggers sat down, I'll be in in 5 minutes!

I should be in bed too, but remembered as I was going up the stairs...

FUCKING ASSEMBLY.

European Day of Language too, so actually needed to think about it. Boo.

DS woke me up and now I can't sleep. I'm thinking of phoning for a chat with a GP (if one will deign to return my call).

I've stood up to SLT twice today (the lower rungs, we have 7!) One is chasing us for mentoring booklets that we've not had chance to do because the session we're supposed to them in hasn't started yet. The other was via another teacher, claiming that a parent has contacted the school today because I hadn't set work for a self-isolater - no I haven't, it's a lesson I've picked up outside my specialism that I don't even have a GCSE in. The lesson was only this afternoon anyway so I highly doubt they have. I'm not doing either.

What I am doing however, is rushing between form and my classroom, streaming along with hundreds of students whole I do so, cleaning my room 6x a day, setting Teams lessons for the 350-odd kids who've been sent home which requires adapting everything, doing break duty every other day plus a 25 min bus duty, delivering a compulsory after school revision session both face-to-face and on Teams and trying and failing to get my books marked without taking them home. We have two mocks in a week's time, one of which is 30 X 5 extended responses. Oh, and learning walks in the offing.

There seems to be no consideration that all this is happening as the kids move around the school to each lesson not wearing masks and of we have to cover, we're in with them. One year groups are registering in my subject area and another directly above in the afternoon and they all stream out together through our 'work area' which is in fact just some desks recently vacated by another class.

I'm fucked off with it and it's affecting my family life.

@SaltyAndFresh totally with you. Feeling more and more stressed out with it all. Haven't even had to do live streaming or Teams lessons yet for isolators but know it's coming. DH and I are sleeping in fits and starts. Can't believe the levels of ignorance across all ranks of other staff about the paltry safety measures we have.

@Keepdistance - I am sure a lot of the measures taken to stop shielding and the like were based on finances. As people went back to work, the groups who were delivering shopping etc were then unavailable to continue volunteering in the same way. Which would have meant having to pay someone to, for example, deliver prescriptions.

My pil were shielding with the exception of one consultant agreed walk a day - so not really shielding even though they didn't go anywhere else at all.

Fil is still not going to supermarkets etc as the risk is too great to him. But mil is popping to the shops once or twice a week for thing they

*things they cannot get in their online shop. Although given photos locally of their nearest supermarket, there soon won't be any point as the shelves are being stripped bare again!

My parents were shielding. My dad has literally only left the house 5 times since march, and one of those was for my mum's birthday when we went to see them and sat out on the back lane behind their terraced house and had socially distanced quiz and cake in the rain. They're going on holiday today to somewhere really remote, so hopefully they can at least get out and about around the tiny village.

Salty your days sound horrendous!!! No wonder you're feeling stressed and anxious!! Please speak to your GP and ask for help. I know it would be better if your school would improve your working conditions, but the GP is a second choice. . You need to look after yourself, nobody else seems to be considering your wellbeing at all.

We have to get a bit selfish. Not in a “fuck everyone else” way, but in putting our own health needs first, physical and mental.
What will happen if we refuse to something? If it’s lose our job then we have to find another way round it. If it’s that we will feel guilty as we’ve always put ourselves out for that thing, or the thing has become untenable, then we need to discount that feeling.
There’s no prizes at the end of this. Apart from safeguarding our health as much as possible.

We have the whole of year 9 isolating for two weeks after a positive test in the year group. Head spoke to dfe and PHE who he said were very clear about the need for all students to isolate. A local primary has also had 2 year groups sent home. BRTUS still has my area completing free of outbreaks on the map though!

I am not sure that BRTUS map is useful anymore. It is too full so people dismiss it as containing small and resolved issues.

I do report everything I can though but they never added my own school!!

Morning all.

Wishing a speedy Friday!

Is the surveillance report late? I've just poured through it only to realise I was last weeks when I got to the school's part!

Morning. No test result yet.

Was kept busy yesterday, even though it was an unpaid day anyway, dealing with emails and setting work for isolators. Then of course creating cover for today which is fun when it can’t require IT access or textbooks.

Thankfully my chest seems to be easy rather than getting worse. After bowel surgery last year I have spent months on probiotics and eating prebiotics, trying different types of fibre v low fibre etc so really don’t to throw in antibiotics.

Resisting turning on my laptop till I’ve finished my coffee. Yesterday I turned it on to check one thing and then it was mid afternoon and I had cold coffee beside me and hadn’t eaten lol. Opening my work inboxes is like entering a wormhole.

As of yesterday I had 3 year 8’s to set isolation work for and decided to wait till this morning in case there were more and I will do it all in one block.

Definitely feeling a bit better. Will be gutted if it comes back positive. I’m setting good cover that can be done independently but unmarked QMAs are piling up where I’d planned to keep on top of marking them.

salty that sounds horrendous. That's not sustainable. I hope you manage to speak to your Gp. How are you feeling physically now?

Fingers crossed it's today Honey and negative.