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

My school is actually not Newcastle, a bit further out, but it feels like it's spreading quickly. I'm CV and feel
extremely resigned to catching it; the staff and kids who've had it so far have been absolutely fine though which gives me hope.

Sen schools are effectively life as normal but more hand washing and cleaning and lots of windows open.

I'm also amazed at how clueless some people still are; my neighbour who had no idea toddlers could catch it.

After hating the no mingling with anyone rule up here (it's getting v lonely!) I'm now a little more glad of it!

Can't see us making our half term hol away though!

I'm in rows still. It's written into the guidelines for reopening in our Country, but we had already made the move to rows as a school where possible based off a project to improve teaching and learning standards the other year, driven by Shirley Clarke's (and others) findings.

Which was music to my ears as I've favoured rows for years due to eye contact, limiting chat etc.

I just feel at the moment that although I have my 'safe space' at the front that I keep to as much as is feasibly possible, that they are ALL breathing in my direction! :) Windows and doors open as much as possible, but I have a noisy class this year (even more so than they were last year before having 6 months of no school) and do have ot keep shutting my door.

FFS BBC . This is NOT the requirement!!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54363069

Why have they got education correspondents who know so very little about education and appear unable to read?

Rubbish. At least they quote all the Unions and re-mention the laptops which never turned up as well as the figure of school partial closures at the moment.

True : but the opening is so misleading that's all non teachers will see , or care about.

I ahve noticed it's gone a bit quite on the schools anxiety front on MN at the moment. Those anxious posters have moved on to frothing and dramas about general lockdown issues and name changed again.

Off for a test today. Not a local one, because that would be too damn easy, wouldn’t it. Can’t kid myself these symptoms are a cold, in all honesty, much as I’d like to plough on through and ignore it.
So that’s a bit shit.
7 months of going nowhere and doing nothing all for fuck all because ‘children don’t spread it’.
Anyway, Happy Weekend

So, leaving aside the 100,000 laptops that never appeared, has any mention been made of providing teachers themselves with any?

I hope you're ok saucery How far away is your test? Once you've had it, tuck yourself up in bed and let yourself recover as best you can. No school work if you are ill!!!!

Are any of the maths people going to the virtual mathsconf today? I can't believe I signed myself up for it, when I've got so much else I need to do, but some of it does look interesting, so I'm up before 9 on a Saturday to attend a virtual conference. I would never, ever have attended one of these things in person as they're always too far away, but I suppose I thought a virtual one would be ok. Has anyone been to one before?

Hope you’re OK, saucery

It’s about 20 miles away, Ms. Testing centre provision round here is woeful. Thank you, and colour, I’m trying to be positive (DH has a bracingly positive grasp of the stats but I feel like shit on toast right now).
I’ve done everything humanly possible to avoid catching it, bar rowing myself across to a deserted island cottage and sitting out 2020 there. So that sucks.

So, leaving aside the 100,000 laptops that never appeared, has any mention been made of providing teachers themselves with any?

CallMeAng This is so annoying. My personal laptop won’t work at school because of the insane firewall. Just been told to use a school desktop instead (it’s hard to find an isolated one).

I’ll bet when I’m required to teach from home school will suddenly take a different view on my personal laptop.

School school shouldn’t be relying on teachers own tech.

Hope you feel better soon saucery hope it’s not Covid. There seems to be a nasty bug going round our school. It’s not Covid but it’s still not pleasant.

I've got a horrible sore throat and cold that I know I caught from a Y10 who was clearly ill on Tues then off the rest of the week. He said he'd been unsure about coming in because he felt so ill. Thanks, mate. I should buy shares in Lemsip.

Hope you're ok, saucery and that your (fingers crossed negative) result comes quickly.

Not going to the maths conference, MsAwesome, is it just videos to watch? Let me know if there's anything interesting!

We're just getting started noble. There are loads of workshops going on throughout the day. It seems to be a live presentation for each workshop with a chat facility for attendees. Currently, they are doing their advertising bit for the products and services available from LaSalle, some of which seem decent value but I'd want to have a closer look to see if it's as good as they say. I think I get to see all the videos of the workshops later because I bought a ticket.

Oh yes, the tech.

I've always assumed other public sector workers use their own tech at home but maybe they don't?

I've just had to tether my laptop to my phone's 4G (because our home internet died in the middle of a food shop) and it reminded me that at my last school, the children who worked on laptops constantly had to tether to their TA's mobile hotspot because the school's wifi is/was so woeful.

People have no idea how underfunded schools (outside of London) are.

I love a subject conference! A maths one is not for me though 😂
I'm off for a spa day/cocktail drinking/nice dinner with my friend. It's her birthday present... her birthday was in February! We're always in bed by 11 whatever apart from the memorable night in Blackpool so I have hotel room Prosecco (Aldi organic, if anyone wants a recommendation) in my bag for later when we get sent home from the bar!

It’s quicker for me to stand in my classroom and set assignments on Teams using my 4G and the mobile app than it is to use the college network. Luckily they’re relaxed about the use of phones in college. At the moment our Adobe suite is virtually unusable as it requires regular updates and the system can’t cope with the downloads. Which is great when you teach a course that relies heavily on the use of Premiere, Photoshop, After Effects etc...I’m trying not to panic as it’s ok right now but in a couple of weeks it’s going to be a HUGE issue.

@Danglingmod

Oh yes, the tech.

I've always assumed other public sector workers use their own tech at home but maybe they don't?

I've just had to tether my laptop to my phone's 4G (because our home internet died in the middle of a food shop) and it reminded me that at my last school, the children who worked on laptops constantly had to tether to their TA's mobile hotspot because the school's wifi is/was so woeful.

People have no idea how underfunded schools (outside of London) are.

I know several non-clinical NHS workers and their tech is provided. Management have always had iPads and a work laptop, admin moved to working at home were sorted out with laptops by their IT dept in a couple of weeks. Schools very much the poor relation when it comes to staff tech! Our laptops are rubbish, so several teachers bought their own purely for school use.

@Danglingmod

Oh yes, the tech.

I've always assumed other public sector workers use their own tech at home but maybe they don't?

I've just had to tether my laptop to my phone's 4G (because our home internet died in the middle of a food shop) and it reminded me that at my last school, the children who worked on laptops constantly had to tether to their TA's mobile hotspot because the school's wifi is/was so woeful.

People have no idea how underfunded schools (outside of London) are.

My H is a Police Officer and they get provided with a laptop and work phone, both of which can access the work network. It annoys me that everything at our school is kept on central servers that we can’t access when not in the building.

I'm supposed to be at mathsconf too but kids aren't playing ball! I'll have to catch up later.

Oh, we can access the network from home - using a programme that means you are just logged directly onto the network and nothing is downloaded to your own device - but no-one has school provided tech. It's expected that you will have your own laptop and use it for work. It's like a paycut every few years when you need to upgrade

I honestly am surprised at how few schools provide staff with tech. We don't have any desktops at school at all now so everyone works from a laptop. We have to remote in to use SIMS but everything else if accessible via the cloud now.
Anyone with an office has a separate keyboard/screen/mouse as well - but if anyone wants those, they're provided.

The data deniers are out in force today. Extraordinary.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4040551-Cases-rising-in-secondary-school-aged-children-more-mitigation-measures-needed?

@noblegiraffe I've just reported that last comment (NCer?)- first time have ever reported anyone - in your thread.

Why won't ppl listen to others who actually work in schools? (And what's an MEO?!)

Thanks August. I love that they 'knew it was me' and are 'sick to the death of me' but clicked on the thread nonetheless. There's an easy solution to their problem!

I have no idea what a MEO is either. 😂