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

As of the 22nd October it will be illegal for a school not to provide immediate online learning for children isolating for COVID reasons.

What about if they don't have a device to watch online stuff on?
What if they don't have a printer?
What if they don't have paper and pencil?
What if they don't have a parent who speaks English to help?
What if we have to post stuff - not 'immediate'?

See - it's Oak basically designing the curriculum for the whole country. #tinfoilhatgettingmoreelaborate

To be fair, if those things apply those are also the parents least likely to sue...

Keepdistance - insomnia and racing heart are signs you are under or over medicated for thyroid. Pm me if you want. I take a shitload of thyroid meds and have done since age 23 (I am 50 now) so like daddy pig I am a bit of an expert. They should NOT be letting you go without - that in itself can lead to heart problems.

Gp's are shit with thyroid issues in my experience. They get about a week on it. Took me ten years to get sorted by a first class endo after 4 years at Addenbrookes every 6 months. And even now I still have to patiently explain to my gp why i'm taking the amount of meds I am. Thyroid is a "women's thing".

And I can't talk about school today. Had enough. Would make me ragey or weepy. Solidarity, flowers and wine to all.

Phleb

I agree re thyroid meds. I went hypo around 20 and stupidly thought I didn't need them a little later. Became v ill and lost a boyfriend. I'm very puzzled with what they've said to you.

I've been struggling to get levels right for the past year tbh post second baby. Was v hypo during lockdown.

(Also, don't take any multivitamins with biotin in for a few days / week before a test as it can affect the test. Always best to get a test first thing in morning too.)

Oh, I've been working out how online learning would work for my subject as its resource heavy. I'm having to think a bit outside of the box.

A lot of the things you've listed are a big barrier for our children. Those who might have laptops and printers have parents who work very hard and would be working at home. Some of those who don't may actually have additional needs themselves.

Why is the bbc not being mentioned anymore?

@RigaBalsam

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/09/30/largest-covid-19-contact-tracing-study-date-finds-children-key-spread-evidence

I want to say "well doh. Obviously ." But that's childish!

Our school have been clear that teams can run or be downloaded on any suitable device - laptop, pc, tablet or smartphone. So non-attendance is not going to be acceptable unless there is a very good reason!

Another day, another learning walk. Feeling rage today. Staff are starting to close doors and windows. Suggesting I do the same. Poor secondary dh completely exhausted. @phlebasconsidered I hope you have a better today tomorrow. Only one more day until the weekend.

So non-attendance is not going to be acceptable unless there is a very good reason!

What are we going to do about it?

I've been putting stuff up on our website, and the only kids who are looking at it are the ones who are already in school and using it like homework. These are also culturally, children who are more interested in school anyway. Our white British dudes do F-A.

Teams can give you a record of when attendees logged in and out from the meeting.

It also shows you when a student accessed and submitted assignments

I refused to go into a meeting today (no agenda so I only stumbled across it by mistake). Ten people in a classroom, maybe two or three masks. I wasn't going to be the eleventh.

Seems the leaders had missed the fucking big memo that said the rule of six is non-negotiable. Not doing it. Not going to be held to account for someone else's mistake and not teaching from home until I absolutely have to.

It's all just too much, isn't it?

Yeah I know we can see who does and doesn't do the work, but what can we do about a child doing nothing? I can't make them do it if I'm at home and they are too.

@ElvisandAngel all that stuff sucks! I've done no monitoring of my phase at all, and got pulled up on it today. I'm also not asking any of my staff to leave their base class bubbles to teach intervention groups. They can't stay 2m away, not even slightly, and lots of them have additional risk factors. Still not going to do it though.

We're doing phone calls or Teams parents evenings - this is good, the interim reports at easter took me 4 days to write, but even phone calls for 2 hours are going to be hard going.

Yes

@ohthegoats it goes better than you think. We are doing parents evenings by teams this year, slt are listening and adapting the second one based on staff feedback from the first. A great advantage is that on our system the calls cut off automatically after a set time. Ours are 3 hours long, and this time they are even building in a ten min “comfort (cringe) break” we never normally get that in live meetings.

A-levels to be delayed by 3 weeks says a leak to the Telegraph twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1311774212432986114?s=21

Yes we have done two parents meetings now online. It is like speed dating. Video calls are open for a 7-minute meeting slot - if the parent is a no-show well that is tough. The system is set up so parents had to book a slot.

I think I prefer it to the face-to-face meetings as you are not caught with a parent for 20mins or so.

[quote noblegiraffe]A-levels to be delayed by 3 weeks says a leak to the Telegraph twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1311774212432986114?s=21[/quote]
Buggers up some private school holidays. The term ends on 4 July or thereabouts.

Gained time gets shorter and shorter every year.

What about GCSEs?

My Australian school ran Teams parents' meetings last semester and they went well. They were generous with time allowances in case of connectivity issues and had built in breaks of unbookable time so staff got a breather.

For me it felt better because I couldn't see the queue building up behind the parents, less of a feel of rudely looking at your watch. One thing about my school is it's all on the one session per semester, not year-level.

Not marking exams in the summer holiday. Didn't get paid a penny this year.