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

Oh yes, we've done Pokémon go as well, and the girls have also had football
Love Pokémon go

Thank you

My dd has spent a LOT of time this half term making tik toks. And she's played the Sims, and Roblox. We had an afternoon at a friend's house where the mum and I planned virtual Brownies for this term and dd played with her friend. And another afternoon at the same friend's house, complete with disastrous sleepover. We've baked once. Dd is happy with this outcome for half term, she's counting it as a definite win!

There's also this MrsAD which mentions schools a few times:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/928720/S0789_EMG_Role_of_Ventilation_in_Controlling_SARS-CoV-2_Transmission.pdf

Another phone call from my head. Now one of my Yr 13s has tested positive! Never ending!

Good grief, mother

I've just realised: this is going to be the Christmas holidays, too, only worse. Every single day checking work email in case of information, constantly waiting for a phone call to say you've been in touch with a positive case. Heads not even getting a single hour off.

@MsAwesomeDragon

english.elpais.com/society/2020-10-28/a-room-a-bar-and-a-class-how-the-coronavirus-is-spread-through-the-air.html

Has anyone seen this? It came up on my Facebook, posted by a friend (or possibly sometime in a group I'm in). Near the bottom of the article is information about spread in a classroom.

So all those forwards facing desks...

Why what are you feeling guilty about? It's raining and there's a pandemic so you can't do usual outdoor or indoor activities. Kids bloody love screen time so they'll be having a marvellous holiday in their view.

@Danglingmod

I've just realised: this is going to be the Christmas holidays, too, only worse. Every single day checking work email in case of information, constantly waiting for a phone call to say you've been in touch with a positive case. Heads not even getting a single hour off.

It really will.

I so worry for our exam groups. All our cases have been upper years. Yr 10 now on second period of closure, Yr 13 their 3rd and Yr 13 their third.

Yr 12 and Yr 13 I meant.

"contaminated surfaces (fomites), although the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that this is the least likely way to catch the virus, a conclusion backed by the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (ECDC) observation that not a single case of fomite-caused Covid-19 has been observed"

So hand sanitiser, the only defence we have, is actually making no difference?

@noblegiraffe

"contaminated surfaces (fomites), although the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicates that this is the least likely way to catch the virus, a conclusion backed by the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (ECDC) observation that not a single case of fomite-caused Covid-19 has been observed"

So hand sanitiser, the only defence we have, is actually making no difference?

Probably not. Who knew? Covid 19 didn’t get where it is today by hanging around on surfaces waiting for someone to touch it and stick it up their nose. It leaves that sort of shenanigans to norovirus, which has evolved to last quite a long time on surfaces.

And from that article, it appears length of time in the room is really important, so those schools that introduced double and triple lessons really need to be having a rethink.

Just saw this on my news feed - really not convinced from my 23 year experience

apple.news/Abs56siD6TD6edm7ilQc1Bg

Yes, all our cases are year 10 and 11 (no sixth form). The two schools I have the next most inside info on (many friends work there) have all their cases (dozens) in year 11,12,13 and a few year 9,10.

Sorry forgot to say its y6.
The teacher doesn't do exit tickets so not sure I could go down that route (though i like that idea and so I'll keep that for future)
I'm googling questions

So my checking of understanding would be looking at a question in their book and asking of how did you go about this, what was your first step, then what did you need to do, how do you which are the coomon factors. how do you know you've found them all?
Where am I going wrong?!!! What does that section even mean?
Do you know i might even send it off having tried again and then ask again. As I'm clearly too dim to u understand

6 hours in the same room for Primary not ideal, either. Which is what it is with wet play and lunch.

The teacher doesn't do exit tickets so not sure I could go down that route

Of course you can. The job of a student teacher is to try out different ideas and find out what works for them, not to completely emulate the class teacher.

What noble says!
Trainees should try out everything and magpie the things they like and which work.

Absolutely. If you can't try our weird shit when you're a student, when can you?
I didn't get what they meant about the class being stopped after an hour in order to completely refresh the air, so the risk drops dramatically. If one class stops, and another comes in, that wouldn't refresh the air would it? How do you do that?
We've moved to doubles too

I was just reading that link about the different transmissions. Very interesting how little masks can make a difference if other measures are not used.
I'll be taking mine out to split up my primary afternoon more evenly after reading that.

The double lesson thing does mean less exposure in terms of people though. Like you mistress, how does changing kids change the air? Most of our classes aren't moving, teachers are.

Seen this, you were absolutely right re schools having to T&T in holidays etc:

www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-schools-teachers-spend-holiday-tracking-and-tracing?fbclid=IwAR2rHGlIvr0arKb82TMHkxA0QOBASB5BHYBs4Y3GVAbMI7fUJZj7gN-0nf0

I like (!) their use of the word "evolved"....

The DfE really are a bunch of useless wankers aren't they? "To reduce the burden on schools, we have provided all schools with a template letter to send to parents"

So at weekends and half term the idea is that heads generate a bunch of letters and post them to people who need to isolate? No, thought not.

Where whole year groups need to isolate (and that still can be the case for various reasons) that can be hundreds of calls.

Any MFL teachers on here?

www.tes.com/news/language-gcses-biased-against-poor-pupils-say-teachers

I must say, I agree. This was a problem when I was at school. I loved MFL, and still do, but the need to publicly speak about my utterly dysfunctional family just led me to make up a nuclear family because I had the vocab.