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

I'm out of touch but aren't trainees produce at least some of their own resources?

Yes, but not really if you use a scheme - they need to go with the scheme. Hence the White Rose stuff I assume. My trainee last year was only JUST about passing at the point when lockdown happened. Really I'd have failed her then, but things were showing signs of improvement, and I think she'd probably have got there. Her college tutor person seemed to think she'd be OK. So, she was.

@Piggywaspushed

On a side note, apologies for mentioning another thread but the data thread had a big falling out. Everyone is tetchy it seems. I am not sure if I am welcome now, though, as there seem to be in group and out group. It's like Big Brother.

Still good to see one of our least favourite posters have her arse repeatedly handed to her on a plate.

Read that today. Sour at the end and no continuation just a new special thread. Hope Red is ok.

People are feeling it now. School is very difficult.

Have just skimmed through bits of the updated guidance and think there may be more subtle changes to wording, but of course unless you downloaded the original document it's impossible to check back!

The more obvious updates are things like references to the NHS app, and that shielding for a few will only be recommended in extremely high risk areas in the future, possibly.

Meanwhile we still ahve students (but not employees) passively being allowed to continue shielding a my school ...

Thanks goats. I'm not happy about her doing full lessons when she's not reflecting on feedback and following guidance. I'm going to give her a specific time to cover a specific learning objective with an introduction, a main task and a plenary and have her specify what they should know/be able to explain and how she will be assessing if that has been achieved.

Think I will suggest she makes a worksheet with info and task and have her collect them in and mark them so she physically sees how many actually did the task and if they'd met the learning objective. She's not picking up on lack of understanding or engagement despite feedback so maybe it needs really breaking down.

I'd expect trainees to be coming up with some of their own stuff - but I also tell them that they should use what we have a tweak it. After all, we have schemes of work which everyone is following.
Trainees and NQTS at my place often get their planning red penned by me. At this stage, writing a lot down is normal but it bothers me when they still have a script by Easter.

Oo @Piggywaspushed I missed the new bit about keeping areas ventilated at times in the updated guidance! (Just posted by 🐖 on Data thread) And that this must happen.

A pity it doesn't go into any detail about how or link to any specific advice though.

I hated planning proforma when I was training. My current level of planning involves 2-3 sentences in my planner and a page number . Then I find any additional resources I might need and print them out.

So today's lesson with year 11, my planner said starter: speed simple problems whiteboards. Main: speed multi step problems exam questions. And I found and printed appropriate exam questions. The lesson was really productive, there was a lot of discussion about methods we were using, etc but God help me if SLT ever decide they want to look at my planning, lol.

Of course, that's because I have been doing this a long time and have taught each topic a lot of times so know which examples work and what they're going to struggle with, so almost automatically put starters in that build on the skills they need in the main part of the lesson. I couldn't do that in the first few years, at that stage I wrote about a page in an exercise book for each lesson, planning which questions I wanted to use, thinking hard about what might cause problems to highlight, etc.

While I agree with MrsH about lengthy proformss, does she really have nothing, Honey. Because the things you are asking her to specify are the sorts of things a proforma would help with.

I tell a lie, it does go into some specifics:

8) Keeping occupied spaces well ventilated.

Once the school is in operation, it is important to ensure it is well ventilated and a comfortable teaching environment is maintained.

This can be achieved by a variety of measures including:

• mechanical ventilation systems – these should be adjusted to increase the ventilation rate wherever possible, and checked to confirm that normal operation meets current guidance (if possible, systems should be adjusted to full fresh air or, if not, then systems should be operated as normal as long as they are within a single room and supplemented by an outdoor air supply)

• natural ventilation – opening windows (in cooler weather windows should be opened just enough to provide constant background ventilation, and opened more fully during breaks to purge the air in the space). Opening internal doors can also assist with creating a throughput of air

• natural ventilation – if necessary external opening doors may also be used (as long as they are not fire doors and where safe to do so)

Further advice on this can be found in Health and Safety Executive guidance on air conditioning and ventilation during the coronavirus outbreakak and CIBSE coronavirus (COVID-19) advicece^.
To balance the need for increased ventilation while maintaining a comfortable temperature, the following measures should also be used as appropriate:^

• opening high level windows in preference to low level to reduce draughts

• increasing the ventilation while spaces are unoccupied (e.g. between classes, during break and lunch, when a room is unused)

• providing flexibility to allow additional, suitable indoor clothing. For more information see School uniform

• rearranging furniture where possible to avoid direct drafts

Heating should be used as necessary to ensure comfort levels are maintained particularly in occupied spaces.

It has rained ALL DAY - same for most of us I expect. Ours have to have wellies and proper waterproof gear so we can get them outside even so, but today was photograph day so we couldn't let them get messed up until they'd had them done which, for the sibling shots, was not until 2 o'clock this afternoon.
I then booted them all outside and.... Oh. My. God. You've never SEEN such a mess - jumping in puddles, kicking mud around, the works. They had an absolute blast but taking their boots off coming back in was like a scene from hell. There's no covered porch area outside the door, and only a small mat inside, so before I could stop them, some took their boots off outside and stood in puddles in their socks!!!!
I left all the windows open to air the room whilst we were out, with an umbrella protecting the computer that is a bit near one opening! 21st Century schools, eh?
Have told them all to bring spare socks/tights in from now on.

"•rearranging furniture where possible to avoid direct drafts"

Is that really how they spelt that?

I have already rearranged all my furniture in my tiny room (this is the one with windows) to get them 1m 2m away from me. I can't do that and have them out of direct draughts. (fixed it for you ange!)

I have higher level windows but no window pole...

Oh my goodness m, now I'm shocked I didn't notice that!!!

But yes, I copied and pasted!

So have you got air con in yr windowless room(s?) piggy? Or is that a silly question?

No! It's an old drama studio so I a relying on its cavernous size and high ceiling. It has an extractor fan...

Does anyone have this 'mechanical ventilation'??

About to run out of battery, but I will be back later

I'm sure you're welcome piggy.

Can't get a word in edgeways there.

Everyone is v stressed. I really noticed our threads ramped up near the holidays and then when coming back while the data threads fell behind.

I think they're experiencing similar. It's v hard to distance yourself from "data" when it has real life consequences. Lots of emotive posts. The Manchester stuff is really tough.

I do think the OP types from a place of relative security; it's very different if you're actually in the thick of it. Germany is really on top of this where we aren't.

I find they often haven't had any training on planning lessons so they either think planning means "write a lot of stuff" or nothing at all. Our proforma used to have a "why?" column which helped to get rid of pointless videos which were there because they might be fun rather than having real purpose.
At the very least, I'd expect a trainee to know what the objective was, what the students were doing in each phase of the lesson, why, how it was being differentiated, and how it was being assessed. That sounds like a lot - but it doesn't have to go on for pages.
My planning for y13 today said "explain nea and marking. Chapter 7 onwards. Key themes?" Not exactly the model for a trainee!!

Glad there's more info on ventilation. some places make a mockery of it.

Mechanical ventilation means air con of various kinds (have done a lot of reading on this!)

We should all see the ventilation stuff happening and being checked after half term, the guidance says is must happen at all times a room is occupied.

Somewhat contradicts our LA who seem to think it's sufficient to open the windows for a bit at the end of each day!!

Ah name, those drove me nuts and I spent hours on them.

It's supposed to get you in the habit of considering all those points automatically but sometimes I find the boxes highly distracting from the main purpose of the lesson.

Why is a good one! Never add resources just cause they're nice looking and fancy unless it's especially for pupil interest and engagement.

Our school have a mantra, what is the new learning? How will they move on? And work back from there.

Another good tip I learnt was around use of a stimuli. A good stimuli does a lot of the work for you. Eg start the lesson with an object etc.

@NeurotrashWarrior

Glad there's more info on ventilation. some places make a mockery of it.

@NeurotrashWarrior absolutely. I kicked up a fuss about going into a classroom with no open windows, the other adult in the room at the time when I arrived looked at me as if I was mad.

Really wish some adults in schools would have more knowledge about mitigations and care for others who may be vulnerable.

A system that removes the air from a room and replaces it with fresh air from outside is ok. One that cools and recirculates the same air is not good.