The Twenty-Sixth Republic -Half Term Horror?

[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

Neither France or Germany closing schools so our chances must be nil

Training year is hard @namechangedyetagain - it'll never be this hard again. If that helps.

Impotent - don't know what happened there!

Unison? @Saucery

Saucery is that the one in Preston who was told he couldn't give freebies? Muppet.
I went for lunch with a colleague today - people were moving chairs about in the cafe, wandering about with masks off, generally acting like there's nothing to worry about. We're in tier 3!

Teacher in France here. They're going to outline new guidelines for schools remaining open tomorrow... it'll be interesting to see whether they impose a maximum classe size, as they did when we reopened after the confinement. It'll be a farce if they say classes of max 15 though, as the majority of classes in our school have over 30 students.

name - I don't want to be that person, but does the assignment actually count? All the providers I've worked with have a bunch that are formative....

Yes, Unison. All they ever email me about these days is committee elections and faintly risible demands for me to demand more pay. To which I always want to reply “I’m concentrating on not dying right now, but you crack on with your 5% rise”.
Actually, I must dig out my password and cancel my membership. They are useless. I joined for the protection of a Union but they couldn’t care less about staff on the ground.

@FrencheFancie ah so they aren't keeping it all business as usual then? There will be some changes? Solidarity with our French and German colleagues!

Nous sommes ensembles
Wir sind zusammen

That’s the one, MrsH. Smirking, penny-brandishing megatwat.

@FrencheFancie apologies if that French was rubbish!

@Saucery ah yes I agree. Am a member of NEU and NASUWT, feel the same tbh.

I’m going for afternoon tea with two friends tomorrow. I think we’re heading for Tier 2 in the next few weeks so this is probably my last chance to see them properly before Christmas.

I don’t have behaviour issues in college that need me to move round the room, and in generally I’m MASSIVELY lazy and teach from the front/shout across the room from my desk when they need help, but if they need Adobe Premiere/Photoshop help I basically have to go and use their actually computer and there’s no space for them to be far away from me, so I end up within 1m more than I should. But then so does every technician/IT guy in the place.

monkeytennis.that must be so hard for you. I hope his home get it under control quickly.
I know it's not the same but I'm not going to be seeing my mother this side of Christmas now I think. It's just too much of a risk. We've organised a home help and an alert necklace, and all the gadgets, so that's all I can do..

@monkeytennis97 C'était bien !

Apparently there will be some changes. At the moment, we have to wear a mask (secondary school) at all times, adults and children alike.

All that Macron said in his speech on schools was that they would remain open, with reinforced hygiene measures. No idea what that could be for the moment... It might be some tiny change, such as an adult to squirt gel on the pupils' hands before class, or maybe it'll be something like max 15-20 students per class. Maybe they'll announce something ridiculous, such as everyone keeping 1m appart in class, when I've got a class of 34 and we're rammed in like sardines...

@FrencheFancie It will be interesting to hear what the guidelines are.

That sucks, monkeytennis. I agree with saucery that rapid testing is the way forward for residential care. It wouldn't stop every case getting in but it would be a start.

@MrsHamlet it is only pass or fail. I'm just aiming for a pass, literally scraping a pass will do me.

@ohthegoats it does help, thank you. Need to remind myself that it's just a year.

Well, if you want any advice, ask here or drop me a line :)

Don't know if this has already been posted? www.tes.com/news/are-we-heading-another-gcse-and-level-disaster

So sorry to hear about your ds monkey. I hope you have good news from his care home soon .

Been out to drive-in cinema with dd tonight, it was a lovely evening and very well managed.

NameChange, I remember the essays were the worst part of the PGCE for me. Aimed for (and got) a pass each timr. I can't construct an essay to save my life but good at technical reports.

Good luck with them. Do you have the paper mountain on your bedroom floor yet?!

Have just posted this on another thread, but hadn't thought about it until I wrote it:
The fact that T&T don't say anything about handling things a positive case has touched says a lot about the low risk of surface transmission I think...

So yeah, all the hand gelling is just hygiene theatre (to quote @noble I believe?)

It's on the kitchen table. Where I've lived for the whole of half term so far 😆 and yet seemingly STILL not made the word count.

thanks monkey I love this thread too

Hope your DS is ok, it must be so difficult not seeing him. Hopefully there will be no more cases and you can see him again soon - your posts are so joyful when you talk about him.

So sorry monkey. I hope you get to see him again soon, hopefully it will just be that one case and no further positives.

Name I hated writing the essays in my PGCE. I failed the first one, because I hadn't written an essay since GCSE English 7 years earlier, which is not good preparation for writing an academic essay. Then they put on tutorials about essay writing for those of us who'd failed, and once I knew the expectations I could do it (surely it should have been obvious that some of us had degrees that didn't require essay writing skills!!) I could happily have written them a computer program or some equations, but an essay was not in my skill set. It still isn't, I wouldn't have a clue where to start.