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

Agreed tbh if we only close for three year groups that’s less than the amount of kids we have out of school currently anyway around here.

@NeurotrashWarrior

Wales are clearly saying that secondary do drive it with that move.

Or Wales are saying that up to Y8 schools count as childcare.

Anyone going to make it to half term with no cases in their school?

Still no cases here but a LOT out and test results being waited for. Nearest primary and secondary both have cases. I wouldn't like to bet on whether we make it to Friday.

@CallmeAngelina

Haven't seen Mrz for AGES. Has she name-changed? Feenie pops up from time to time, but not often.

She name changed to something that still has Mrz/msz in it. Primary boards are pretty quiet these days, it’s mostly seems full of people asking about individual schools.

I think the last time I saw her of Feenie might have been when Masha popped up for a while.

What is the point in circuit breakers with schools open.presumably they understand the concept of breaking routes of transmission.

Spoke too soon.

Last post must have jinxed the school.

www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.38.2001645#html_fulltext

Me too squashed. We have our first positive student. 60 kids sent home for 2 weeks and a letter informing all parents. Fair play to head, we're not hiding anything.

I wonder if this will make parents more likely to test their kids and unearth more positives?

We've been crazy lucky to make it so far without a student case or unlucky that parents haven't been testing their kids 🤷‍♀️ Either way we have popped our cherry

www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476%2820%2931023-4/fulltext

Just wondering how likely the parents of those sent home to isolate for 2 weeks are to cancel half term holiday plans ?

@TheHoneyBadger

Just wondering how likely the parents of those sent home to isolate for 2 weeks are to cancel half term holiday plans ?

Our first whole class out. Was wondering exactly that. Chances are, slim to none, for most of them.

We had complaints within minutes of sending them home - they were "marauding" apparently.
I can't imagine that people will cancel their mini breaks...

Just wondering how likely the parents of those sent home to isolate for 2 weeks are to cancel half term holiday plans ?

We will be cancelling ours but I bet we will be in the minority.

Urgh. Live in Wales work primary in England. Dd is L6 in England too. I can go to work, she will have to stay at home. There is zero logic.

@SquashedFlyBiscuits

Spoke too soon.

Last post must have jinxed the school.

10 minutes your post stood for!

My school nearly made it too. Feel sorry for those who have to isolate in the holidays. Getting jittery tbh.

Are you looking for a new post, colour or quitting teaching?

Being bollocked for teaching a lesson out of sequence is outrageous. We’re professionals.

Hi everyone, I haven't been around lately. But just got our first positive today. There are two of us teachers in my department and it's the other teacher who's tested positive. No symptoms, but routine testing due to being on a clinical trial. The children she's worked closely with will have to self-isolate but I don't have to because we've been socially distancing, apparently, even though we share a small office. So I spent a lot of time with her in there last week, plus parts of today, both touching the photocopier and door handles and stuff. I just have to hope I've been keeping my hands clean (I do try). I'm a bit jittery, I have to say.

I’ll be looking for a new post for September 2021. I would have been anyway since we are moving but I hate feeling I’m leaving on a bad note.

It was more than a bollocking, it felt like an ambush. Hauled out of a lesson to go to a meeting with no notice. It’s really upset me still to think about it.

One of SLT positive today too. Luckily it's the really antisocial one so no one else affected.

Blue that is despicable. You need to speak to your union.

The schemes of work and accompanying resources were absolutely rigid in the way they had to be taught but honestly not very good. For example, a paper 2 English language lesson (AQA) featured an extract from A Christmas Carol although that one isn’t fiction, so extremely hard to use.

Besides, if you ever asked a question it was treated like you were a fly buzzing around someone’s face. I had some horrible emails over lockdown.

I’m just glad to be out to be honest. It’s affected my maternity pay but at this stage I couldn’t care less.

Anyone going to make it to half term with no cases in their school?

Has anyone??

We've had cases in pupils and staff.

Whole schools have closed locally.

Matt Hancock in HoC "..... keep education as open as effectively possible" (speaking about getting TTI to improve).

Anyone who puts that extract in that paper is an unmitigated muppet. For many reasons. It's absolutely not okay to treat you like that, regardless of the logic of poorly constructed resources.

Visors are inexplicably popular at my place. I applaud the optimism of the wearers but.....
I don’t know how a staff base with at least one degree each can’t work out the efficiency of different types of PPE. And if you are standing over a child working at a desk visors are a brilliant way of funnelling any Covid germs straight down into their airspace. False sense of security, particularly when you see 2 people picking up a visor from a work surface and attempting to guess whose it is before putting it on without even wiping it down.

news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-ireland-considers-going-back-into-full-national-lockdown-for-six-weeks-12108633