The Twenty-fifth Republic - circuit breaker before/during/after half term

[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 and you will receive a detention

Grrr... must check my text before sending... It's dd' s isolation that is screwing her camhs appt as it's on the Tues it says her isolation ends.

She’s getting sympathy for the ‘bullying’ on the AD thread where they can’t understand why Teachers4Me are so unpopular.

Apparently I bullied her too... although I was the one who was sworn at. Oh well.

Despite being 'bullied off the thread', complaining loudly about being bullied off the thread and moaning on another thread about the dreadful bullies, she's still there on the thread, posting away. 🤷‍♀️

I'm watching that NEU thread in disbelief. One thing I did want to say in response to the "lazy teacher" trope was how much I've appreciated the tips and resource sharing we've done here in The Staffroom - which wouldn't be seen by parents. All of the help with Teams, recording PowerPoint, the sharing of decent video lessons etc., it's been invaluable, so thank you.

We shared all of our A-level Maths resources as a department during lockdown on TES, and they have been downloaded 40,000 times. Our HT boggled when our HoD told him.

(HoD has just auto-corrected to GoD ).

Our school funds a flu jab for staff. I had mine yesterday and feeling a bit rough today (same experience last year). Cannot wait for half term now.

I had my flu jab today. It was a drive thru clinic and it was so incredibly efficient!! I arrived, was directed to the right tent before I'd even had a chance to put my mask on, rolled my window down and was jabbed straight away (they did take my invitation letter before they stabbed me). The entire process, from arrival to exit took exactly 3 minutes. I did have to drive about 10 mins each way, but even so that's still quicker than the normal turn up and wait clinic at the surgery.

Given the teacher training bursaries have been slashed for a lot of subjects they will struggle to replace us all

I've been offered an antibody test. That should be interesting. They are very clear you cannot benefit from knowing (as in, don't assume you are immune!) but it would be interesting all the same.

@Mistressiggi I've been offered one too. Once you get the test sent out it's every month for the academic year which is great!

Back after a long while. A week to go, and as every day passes fewer and fewer of the staff are paying any heed to the 'rules'. I'm a TA, and reluctant to put my head above the parapet, but am now wondering about speaking with the union rep. I felt quite safe in school during the golden days of pods, and open doors. Now that it is chilly the doors are shut, and in the last week even the windows. Additional cleaning is completely absent, and though we are supposed to wear face shields for close work, the loudest and biggest characters are no longer doing so, and are making the rest of us feel OTT.

It is all a bit depressing.

Oh I like the sound of that. The illness-that-might-have-been-Covid-but-probably-wasn't was ages ago so I doubt I'd still have antibodies anyway. If I did it would be proof I had survived it once, so that would be something I suppose

Another case in dd1 school. She literally only went back on Thursday after 10 days off being ill and getting tested and waiting for results. A girl in her class so now to see if she has to isolate again. How are y11 supposed to keep doing this. 5th case in her year group in two weeks
She just said it’s probably linked to the first one as they are all friends.

@StaffAssociationRepresentative

Given the teacher training bursaries have been slashed for a lot of subjects they will struggle to replace us all

I was reliably informed in March by a MNer that there’s an army of volunteers who’d be willing to go into schools. So not only will they replace you easily, it’ll be much cheaper. 😂😂😂

I will eat my hat if that turns out to be true.

Sorry to hear about your mum Piggy

They really don't realise how shit the average person would be at teaching and how quickly they'd run for the hills once they'd actually been in a secondary school and seen first hand what you have to be able to deal with in the classroom and not be effected by whilst simultaneously producing and delivering good lessons, marking, recording, showing progress with every pupil and whatever target for teaching is being highlighted that half term and dealing with a zillion emails a day.

I don't know how I deal with it let alone you're average person who hasn't been trained and doing it for decades.

I think that parents are desperate for live lessons because they think that a teacher in the room magically makes their recalcitrant kid do work.

I’m not sure they are aware of the sheer amount of nagging, cajoling, jollying along and sanctioning that goes on in schools and were surprised when their kid didn’t dutifully engage in lockdown work without it.

I've been aware of myself and how I teach this week, trying to imagine how it would be if I had a whole load of parents listening in - and judging!!)

Oh god, Angelina I’d not even thought of that. The MN threads and complaints to schools about lessons when parents are essentially sitting in lessons don’t bear thinking about.

Do you all think he will announce circuit break next Friday? According to DMail more backbenchers and Hunt are in favour.

@monkeytennis97

Do you all think he will announce circuit break next Friday? According to DMail more backbenchers and Hunt are in favour.

It wouldn't surprise me, the government have form for announcing these things with minimum notice. We break up on Friday so I'm half expecting it.

Hi All.

Thanks for kind thoughts.

My mum may or may not have has an op today to drain a haematoma : I think it was today , in which case I have heard nothing, my step mum thinks it is tomorrow. Such are the vagaries of time zones and my sister sending a Facebook message at 0045 our time.

I got all stroppy because a poster who begins with an X appeared on a heretofore lovely uni support thread and is spouting anti lockdown type stuff.

The lockdown in Wales is not going to include primary schools.

I can see our gov doing that and forgetting once more about middle schools.

Well, I'm getting a sense of deja vu, as back in March it was "no, no, no" to lockdown and then Bam! 6 o'clock news on Wednesday and we were all closing 2 days later (apart from the Key Workers fiasco where, initially, just about everybody qualified as one) and needed to get work-packs together whilst teaching our normal timetables.

Oh, come on, Piggy! NO ONE should get themselves riled by her!! She's a joke.

Hope your mum’s op goes well piggy

Hope it all goes well Piggy