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

So food chains, diagrams pyramid of numbers, that sort of thing. Simple spellings of Fox, rabbit, grass.....

I once volunteered at a pre school where a just 4 year old couldn't be left anywhere near a timid little girl....

@Augustbreeze

I once volunteered at a pre school where a just 4 year old couldn't be left anywhere near a timid little girl....

@Saucery I was quite breezy about it too - just keep working hard, keep going. But I worry for them. Everything they've worked for. I can't help but feel that it will all go pear shaped at the last minute.
I'm sure in my the olden days unions (teaching, student) used to step in and actually try and do something?

Unions used to stick up for workers in the olden days. Not so much now, it seems.
I feel a bit self indulgent when I worry about DS’s future. It’s brighter than the future of a lot of children and young people facing this, after all. But I reserve the right to have a wallow now and again. If only because I haven’t had my little tour of uni towns that I’d planned, dammit! He’s happily touring them online from the comfort of his chair, but it’s not the same as wandering around finding promising little pubs.

It's so hard for them - complete shake up of anticipated future. I have to say if it was one of mine I would be encouraging them to hang fire on uni as it just won't be the same. And personally I know I got a lot more out of university when I went a second time - just from being a bit older.

I think we are all allowed a little wallow.
I'm afraid I've poured myself a largish glass of wine now I've finally got the kids in bed!

We had mocks three weeks into term for year 13 and I used the return of them as a chance to have a catch up chat and discuss their future plans. Any who were wavering about university I must admit I didn’t push on the subject. I have always robustly encouraged anyone who was even slightly university material before but instead I encouraged them to find out more about jobs/apprenticeships. Sad but why spend so much to do an online course when you didn’t really even want to go in the first place? Universities aren’t going anywhere. They can go later if they want. It seems like a terrible bargain right now.

Do children still working in KS1 at secondary level get the provision they need in mainstream? Is there specialist provision for that stuff?

@ohthegoats

Do children still working in KS1 at secondary level get the provision they need in mainstream? Is there specialist provision for that stuff?

Um, I suppose so but I really don't know.. I know they get extra sessions in the nature room. They get a TA in core subjects. Other than that?

We run a modified curriculum of sorts for those students - but this year they're in form groups so it's gone by the by. The kids are struggling and the staff are struggling.

It’s not good, goats

We try to get special school places for the really weak ones. Not really any money for TAs or proper support.

It annoys me when I see primary school parents on here being advised by schools not to apply for an EHCP because the school can meet their needs. Then they get to secondary and we have to start collecting evidence and it takes so long.

Do children still working in KS1 at secondary level get the provision they need in mainstream? Is there specialist provision for that stuff?

Short answer no.

This year definitely not. Mixed ability in form groups is failing these kids. I don't have the time, expertise, physical conditions to meet the needs of these children properly.

By physical conditions I mean I can't move round the class, change seating plans or take small groups.

No not really goats. The student I'm talking of has a chrome book and a ta and they're trying to teach him to use software that he can dictate to or will read out text to him but I think they are realising that is going to be beyond him.

They are saying they don't want him to be dependent on the ta but when he can't read or write in a very literacy heavy subject I don't see what that means.

I've done things like assigning him a video of the period we're studying and very low level comprehension from that. The others will have written a short essay where he might have to pick out a few key facts.

The ta doesn't seem to know what to do with him as they've never had to support someone with that low a level. I think the ta money would be better spent on paying someone to build a curriculum for him that he can access. It doesn't really seem viable to expect individual teachers to plan completely alternative lessons for him.

I've accepted that I might say watch this video and find out a, describe b and say what helped c (in a doc on the google drive that the ta can read to him and he's allowed headphones) and that might turn out to be over 2 lessons work. I've been checking with senco etc that this is ok because I feel awful as I've never had to aim that low. He cannot access a normal lesson at all regardless of differentiation. It really isn't the best place for him but parents aren't ready to see it. Seems like it's been years since he's made any real progress despite good funding and a very supportive primary. Secondary is totally beyond him.

We do our best for them goats but no, I don't think we meet their needs as well as a specialist school would be able to. We have a nurture group in each year, but they are generally kids who are working at about year 3/4 level when they arrive in year 7. Our learning support department work wonders with them improving their reading and spelling by huge amounts within months (because we have specialist TAs who take small groups that their primary schools wouldn't have had). But the pupils working at KS1 or below are not even at the stage where the LSD know what to do with them. The pupils we have at the moment who are working at KS1 or below are getting bespoke provision by a 1-1 TA most of the time, and only join the nurture group for parts of some lessons, never a full lesson because they can't access it and it does then no good.

It annoys me when I see primary school parents on here being advised by schools not to apply for an EHCP because the school can meet their needs.

Yes, that annoys me too. If it seems obvious to me that a child is going to struggle in secondary, I start EHCP stuff in year 3. Usually takes that long to get through everything to be honest.

We've got a S&L base in our school, ,which some children come out of in year 4 or 5 - externals always suggest finishing up the EHCP. It's like ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH? They can speak now, but still can't bloody write, they are still 2 or 3 years behind.

I've done things like assigning him a video of the period we're studying and very low level comprehension from that.

Yes, we'd go down that route too. I am working on the theory that the basics these kids need is to read, write sentences that vaguely make sense, and do practical maths (money). Most of them have a target to be involved in class activities, for the social stuff etc, but there is no point in them even trying the work. They can have exposure to it, but it mostly takes my attention away from the rest of the class to have them in/fucking about. If they go out, then the most needy kids are being taught by TAs, which isn't OK either. It's frustrating because I know that if I had real time, I could do a great job with them, but I don't have the time - either during class time, or during prep time.

I've got one kid with behaviour stuff at the moment - if I had time, I could get him reading and caught up by the end of the year, but that would require me to play along/convince him etc to get on with the work. And I just don't have the time. No TA has the skills to make 'stuff' fit his academic needs together with his behaviour challenges.

If you are interested, read about colourful semantics. He could do some work on basic sentences after some comprehension stuff on a video. Keeps the writing thing going.

I live between a Morrisons and a Sainsbury's store so shop at both. Looks like I'm ditching Sainsbury's for the next 3 months.

I've done so much extra reading up about various SEN. Future learn courses, county CPD and bought myself books.
But when I'm in a classroom of 30+ kids of mixed ability, I cannot, hand on heart, say I am meeting the weakests needs.
Partly due to laziness I suppose - now I have my own kids once I am home I CBA to do more and create individual resources like I used to. But also because the few minutes in a lesson that I can spare for these children never seems to be enough. And I'm probably saying the wrong thing, but I'm not sure the TAs help either - they just make them incapable of doing anything for themselves.
And right now when I'm supposed to stay 2m away? No chance.
I used to love doing practicals with the weaker kids - they usually learned so much without the barrier of weak literacy. Can't even do that now

Sadly, in classes of 30 mixed ability, no matter what you do and what you try I believe it is beyond our abliity to provide exactly what each and every one of those children need, whether it's the right pushing to achieve their best if they're MAT or meeting their additional needs at the other end of the spectrum. We do try though.

The ones I worry about from my class last year were the one or two who were battling to maintain being prepared to engage with the learning as they fell further behind their peers and knew it, and who lacked any self esteem or confidence in their abilities. AND THEN they missed over a term of school work - and did absolutely nothing at home either because they wouldn't have been prepared to or wanted to do any of the online work and didn't have parents who could/would make them either.

Also, I feel for the few who struggled to behave in a classroom environment and who often failed to conform to any expectations of effort or behaviour, who then lost the routine of going to school and all that this entailed for the summer term. One of whom was suspended in their first 2 days of school and their high school inclusion officer reports they've NEVER dealt with such a difficult and troubled individual.

I'm finding behaviour in general a challenge at the moment. Children who were struggling before have come back in a right state. Our head is seconded until after xmas and two of our key staff are on mat leave until easter. We haven't recruited to cover these positions, we are cobbling it together - means there is no room for the senco to run anything useful on mental health. She worked really hard over the summer sorting out our IEPs, but that relies on teachers doing it properly - as usual, some are doing well, some aren't bothering.

Tricky times for all frankly.

Behaviour at our school is appalling. Our supported students are struggling and the nt kids in the same classes know if they wind those students up, all they have to do then is sit back and watch!

But even the nt kids seem to have forgotten basic classroom etiquette, like hands up and wait to be asked before speaking, not interrupting teacher or anyone else who is talking, food and uniform!

this popped up on my fb. I thought the graphics were quite enlightening. Appears to be based on evidence from who, cdc etc.

I've left off the first picture which is 9am start showing no infections. Just teacher facing students with no protections such as masks or ventilation as it will only let me post 3 pics.

Our isolation room used to hold three students. Now the library is the isolation room - last week we had ten in on one day! In most cases, it seems to be because teachers can't manage behaviour in the normal way. If I can't stand over Bob to keep him on task, he messes about and winds himself up, and loses control, and then the next step is removal.
And some of them have been free range since March so asking them to please hush and pay attention and do some work is the equivalent of asking them to split the atom. Nope. Just not happening.

@StaffAssociationRepresentative help, new thread needed! Sorry no TLR available...
(I don't even know what it stands for but I get the gist!)

Yep on it