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

Regarding the 'reengagement' ratings I mentioned yesterday. It turns out no-one knew they were going out to parents (I thought I'd just missed it). SLT have even said we shouldn't have used the word 'poor' if they had been destined to be public (it was a drop down box). I don't know whose fuck up it is, but it seems everyone thought it was internal and just went with their gut rather that the consideration you give something you know parents will see. So now people are scrabbling to retrospectively justify their 'gut' ratings with data (which they would have considered more carefully if they'd known it was going out).

I don't know if anyone remembers, but this was the 'can you just' thing I mentioned a little while ago, we didn't exactly have time to carefully consider it! We thought it was just internal checking in. Like, tutors would have a quiet word if they got a 'poor' or whatever.

just what we needed.

@Frlrlrubert .....

There was meant to be a there.....

Oh bugger. That's a nightmare!

yikes frlfrl!

As predicted the head did not reply to my email clarifying what criteria exactly she thinks I don't meet for threshold but did a fly by grab me in the staffroom as I'm on my way to a lesson and said, 'I've spoken to your HOD and asked her to set you some targets to help you meet threshold in the future'.

So she's basically refused to say which criteria I don't meet and committed nothing to writing.

I chatted to a colleague today before the head caught me and had pretty much concluded that if all of my experience, extra qualifications etc aren't valued then so be it I will pull back, stop doing too much work and relax and be a good mps teacher and draw boundaries on my time and what I can be expected to do. I dread to think what the HOD now feels able to set as targets. The colleague I chatted to is on UPS3 and pointed out that she's known a couple of happy teachers who retired without ever going through threshold because they didn't want to jump through hoops and have to endlessly .

Slightly annoyed. Trainee is turning out to be completely unwilling or unable to put in the effort and work that's required for even a ten minute starter and completely disinterested in feedback. I presume she gets paid to train because she seems to genuinely have no interest in teaching. It's bizarre. I'm very much wishing I hadn't agree to have her with one of my groups and somehow she's ended up being in two. Professional tutor has mentioned she has serious concerns already.

Sorry this is a very moany post! Is it half term yet???

She’s a wily one, eh, Honey? I’d just be doing my job and nothing else for the next 12 months or so.

Oh Honey definitely time to put those boundaries firmly in place.

Your head sounds snakey and probably has an ulterior motive of keeping you cheap. Crap for you though.

Honey what's the trainee's subject?
I'd be finding the cause for concern paperwork and flagging it now. That should trigger an early visit from the training provider. And you don't need the added stress!

You’ve every right to complain honey I agree with you. Pull back stop jumping through hoops.

Sorry your trainee is being a bit shit. I was talking to someone who mentors trainees today. I get the feeling that when they are decent it’s a pleasant job but if they are shit it’s extremely time consuming and draining.

I wonder, Honey if your trainee was recruited during lockdown and this means she wasn't properly interviewed. Doesn't sound like she has any schools experience, nor burning desire to teach but fell into it.

If there are serious concerns already then hopefully she won't last long.

A good trainee is a joy and a delight. A keen trainee is a pleasure. A bad trainee is a bloody nightmare... and worse is when they don't listen and the the uni try to back them up even though they're patently in the wrong
Same is true of NQTs.

Our trainee is decent so far. Older person and very helpful, takes feedback well and can't believe the true circumstances we all work in!

Opposed to the other trainee who we had to call an ambulance for and they ended up getting sectioned. That was one crazy day.

How are you managing with a student teacher in the room, in terms of keeping apart from them/apart from the pupils?

There are three adults in the room often at ours : we have four depts with trainees and a lot of teaching assistants (1:1 not whole class, we have zero of those.)

I'm not allowed trainees this year. It feels very very odd.

But where do you fit in? If I have an adult in supporting a student they aren't 2m from them but can just about me from me.
If it was a student teacher I would either be less than 2m from them or less than 2m from pupils. I won't agree to either of these.

2m rule being ignored here mostly. We don't have space.

Our classrooms are tiny, too. We practically have primary sized chair to fit 30 in. You have to turn sideways to get in between rows. There is no distancing from the children or the other adults at all.

When I've got a 1:1 TA in my room she sits with the student she's supporting, and both she and the students around her wear masks. They found they couldn't support at all from a 2m distance.

We haven't got a trainee in maths at the minute, but I don't know if that's a covid decision. We normally only get students on their second placement. We didn't have one last year either, but did the year before. The last one we had didn't take advice, and he completely bored and confused my lovely bottom set year 9s. He couldn't make things easy enough for them and kept saying things like "but I've changed topic like you told me to" when I had actually told him that class needed regular changes of activity but keeping to the same topic.

Ah thank you. Can't you just refuse if it puts you more at risk? We officially all have 2m at the front though in practise children come into this area many times a lesson, or we need to come of it for various reasons. But I'm not sitting for a couple of hours within 2m of a pupil so a student can be at the front. If they need to be in they can take the class and I will go and sit outside the room!

Opposed to the other trainee who we had to call an ambulance for and they ended up getting sectioned. That was one crazy day.
Now THAT sounds like a story to hear!
Bit like the ancient Ofsted inspector who tripped over and concussed herself on the way in to my lesson, refused to go to First Aid, grew a bump on her head like something out of Tom & Jerry, then passed out. When she came round, she recommended me for an Outstanding lesson! I'm having that one!

Up here, only the PGDEs and the BEd4s are coming out on teaching practice. I'm getting a student after the break too.

Bit like the ancient Ofsted inspector who tripped over and concussed herself on the way in to my lesson, refused to go to First Aid, grew a bump on her head like something out of Tom & Jerry, then passed out. When she came round, she recommended me for an Outstanding lesson! I'm having that one!

oh dear

Loving the sectioned trainee and concussed Ofsted inspector stories.

Thanks all. I'm not the mentor or the professional tutor yet somehow she's done her first and only bit in the front of a class for me and I find myself identifying things she could do etc. So it's not my place to do cause for concerns and I think the professional tutor (if that's what they're called now) has already been in touch with the training provider with concerns previously.

It's actually a bit much now. I'm wondering if I'm allowed to say actually could you find her another class to work with or you come and supervise/observe/give feedback in future to the professional tutor? This is more than I realised I was signing up for.

In terms of how do we fit it's not hard because she wears mask and visor and shrinks herself way into a corner and doesn't move or speak.

I put a lot time in after school with her last week, despite her tutor already having explained to her what she needed to do, preparing her for today's 10 minute slot. I gave lots of examples of good questioning techniques, getting students to further clarify and improve each others answers, give different examples etc and making sure the whole group understands or got the same answer with eg a show of hands. She literally didn't take any of that on board and her prep and effort was preparing a list of questions (directly lifted from our PPTs starter task recall Qs) on a word doc that didn't obviously even work on a whiteboard because you can't see the whole doc so she had to keep scrolling up and down and she hadn't even prepared by finding out how to connect the laptop to the whiteboard.

Not sure if I'm being unprofessional discussing this on an anonymous forum? But being saddled with all of that whilst also being told I don't meet unspecified criteria that can't possibly be put in writing to be pinned down is too much of an oxymoron for me at the minute. If I'm just a bog standard MPS why am I being landed with this!

Sorry - I really am moany but it helps actually so thank you!

And yes I agree - a good trainee is fab and so rewarding. We had a fantastic Scottish girl last year who a joy to interact with and I'd have loved to be her mentor rather than the lazy git she got stuck with who had her writing schemes of work for him and tidying his pit of a classroom. I've never met anything like this one though.

I had a very accident prone trainee once. He fell down the steps at the railway station, and walked into a lamppost. Kids would come and say "mrshamlet, that trainee has..." and I'd know who they meant...