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.

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-SWOT - school workers opposing teacherbashers
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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

So what are you meant to say? Just so I know before I see my nightmare class on Thursday

I think I’m just meant to be more positive. “My year 8 class will be great today because I’ve had a restorative conversation with x & y”

I kind of get where they are coming from. If you have the mindset that a class is a challenge it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy (to be fair it’s only 6 of them in the class that are tricky).

Like I say I can see where they are coming from but fact is they are bloody difficult. My saying 2020 has been a shit year isn’t the thing that makes it a shit year. It just is a shot year.

Here you are
I'm reading a thread about when schools will offer additional sessions to exam pupils to catch up - loads saying their dc schools are doing this. We aren't allowed to have pupils staying in after school at all so far.
Is this a big thing? Are you not overworked enough without trying to "catch up" on missed weeks?

Hmmm. I do have some issues with the mindset stuff - we have posters everywhere telling us that if we believe, we can achieve anything. Well no. I'd love to be an astronaught - but I have dreadful eyesight and can't fly a fighter plane, and dreaming won't fix that.
It's not a bad thing to acknowledge they're difficult. Unless you're the senior person charged with behaviour or whatever and you have no clue so you suggest a change of mindset or a seating plan because no one ever thought of that before

We're not doing catch up. I think that would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

We normally have 'intervention' sessions for year 11s anyway (and I have done them for year 10 on the side before because their knowledge of the basics was so dire and they couldn't access the work we were doing in class) so 'catch up' sessions wouldn't even touch the sides. We also aren't having anyone back past home-time at the moment, so actually y11 are losing more time on what we 'normally' do even now.

Is this a big thing? Are you not overworked enough without trying to "catch up" on missed weeks?

There’s some intervention lessons for some a lot of year 11s in my school. There’s no way I’d have the time or energy for it myself.

Hello everyone.

Just sticking my head round the door as I'm currently off sick (not Covid!) and feeling rubbish.

Sorry piggy, no money for English bursaries next year. And nothing for primary either.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/4050084-Teacher-training-bursaries-slashed-axed-in-response-to-pandemic-but-Classics-still-qualifies

The slashing of training bursaries means they think loads of people will be signing up to teaching even without an incentive. I wonder if the govt think they can treat teachers like shit atm because they can't quit in a recession?

Keir Starmer is just proving noblegiraffe’s point that there is something very odd about the lack of acknowledgement and facts from the gov and PHE about schools. It’s a national disgrace.

What did Starmer say, Chloe? I missed it.

In Victoria the government is offering money to bring out the retired, newly-qualified, supply and long service leave teachers do catch-up next year. Our years run Feb-Dec.

Thank God our contract is 38 hours per week on the premises. End of.

Checking in. Sorry about burst bubbles.

Touch wood we’ve been lucky at our school and don’t have hardly any staff off and therefore little to no cover. I know it’s all going to kick off sometime soon though. Our area has relatively very low rates compared to neighbouring boroughs... but for how long who knows.

Our voluntary (for staff) "intervention" timetable got published and sent home.

Staff (rightly) said no.

Parents kicking off that we don't care about their kids. SLT facing a massive backlash from staff, some of whom would have done the sessions but now won't because of the presumption/handling of it.

That's not good noble. Not at all.

Crikey @Hercwasonaroll !

Best wishes to all feeling ill/scared of being ill/isolating.

Gosh I so wish I'd had one of you lot to talk to /cry on when I was a rubbish NQT. My last 25 yrs might have turned out somewhat differently.

Because even if someone's not going to cut it, it being made clear because you've had loads of real support, and a kind voice to help you come to the final conclusion, is worth millions. You are wonderful.

@namechangedyetagain

for you *@13luckyblackcats*. I'm on a scitt and am really lucky with my first placement mentor. Just how does that slt think they're being helpful? Not sure about you, but I'm only in my third week in school. So far I've only taught a starter and a lesson (which i cried after). I am too scared to ask if I'll ever make it as a teacher. I worry that i should have stuck with being a TA

It takes time, Name. I cried after my first observation, it shows that you care.

I only started to feel as if I was doing well in about February of my NQT year, even though my PGCE mentors had passed me as outstanding. Every time I change school (in fact, every bloody year, it feels!), things only really start to slot into place around February half term. Don't be too hard on yourself, it's early days yet .

Oh Lordy, our 'reengagement' reports have gone out to parents and now we all have to spend hours dealing with the backlash where their darlings have been given 'poor' reengagement status.

Obviously this is due to the woeful lockdown provision, and if the darling has scraped a 'satisfactory' in their other subjects it must be that one teacher who is at fault, nothing to do with the darling not having their exercise book half the time, oh no.

I sometimes wonder why we bother telling parents anything, it never ends well!

I need to take my kids school shoe shopping in half term so they'd best not lock us down

4 staff and 7 pupils positive now. Three year groups sent home. I think we’ve met the threshold for some sort of intervention from PHE or something. Emails still flying around this evening. Tomorrow will be interesting.

@noblegiraffe

Keir Starmer is just proving noblegiraffe’s point that there is something very odd about the lack of acknowledgement and facts from the gov and PHE about schools. It’s a national disgrace.

What did Starmer say, Chloe? I missed it.

In one fell swoop he says that schools are safe to stay open and in another, that his circuit breaker should run across half term. “Sir Keir said his lockdown proposal would "not mean schools closing" but it should "run across half-term to minimise disruption". A little disappointed and was up till now, likening what he was saying about this shambles. But schools seem to be the exception all round.

Starmer pissed me off in the summer too with siding with the government over schools opening instead of challenging them on safety. He seems to have bought the ‘children don’t spread it’ line.

Blimey fossie that’s a lot. You are right tomorrow should be interesting.

My lovely Dh just made a comment to me about how teachers should be teaching 2 metres away from the kids. I might of got a bit ranty about the complete impossibility of that in 50% of my classrooms.

Starmer pissed me off in the summer too with siding with the government over schools opening instead of challenging them on safety. He seems to have bought the ‘children don’t spread it’ line

I think he’s just trying to keep parents on side. I don’t mind admitting I found homeschooling my primary aged kids a complete and utter nightmare.

Most working parents really can’t juggle a job and homeschooling their kids. I don’t think any politician wants to be the one to suggest homeschooling again.

In the summer the govt was lying and saying the unions were trying to block the re-opening of schools, but they weren’t. And then Starmer waded in saying ‘yes, we must re-open schools’ and it felt like he was telling off teachers and the unions. Except if he’d asked teachers and the unions they’d have pointed out that they wanted schools open too.

It was like he was making a point of not bowing to the unions, except it was a fake war and he could have just said ‘Boris, wtf are you on about?’ instead.

I'd just like one single politician to do the right thing, rather than play stupid games. Just one. Jess Philips maybe does already.

Morning!

Dd1's school now has their first recorded case and has sent 30 odd kids home. How they write it says they've popped the bubble, but it's year 11 and they're still mixing classes because of options sets. But we shall see. Needless to say fb is full of parents saying how awful it is and how they're not sending their kids in either now. It seems there are a lot more brtus minded parents in my area than U4T.

We had our trust behaviour bods in today. Reportedly it all kicked off with a student right in front of them! Surprisingly not with the student I expected it to be.

One of mine walked from class today as well. I knew they were having a rough day as the signs were there, and the teacher did all they could but things escalated so quickly. I am concerned for them that it could be something our department has done as we've been building a relationship and this week they've had so many different LSA's in their class. All because one student has refused to work with one LSA and our time tables had to change to accommodate it. I understand the changes but I'm an adult and our neuro diverse kids don't all have the capacity to understand the reasons. Needless to say I'm pretty cheesed off and probably care for my students more than I should do. I think it comes from having sen kids myself. If they were my kids and I knew what was going on...