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

I've kicked up a fuss about ventilation so many times at work from refusing to go into classrooms to telling kids nothing is going to make me close the windows/they need to wear thermals if they are cold. I also keep banging on about it to the union rep too.

Head has specifically told staff they can close windows here - hope she reads that update. My HOD complained that a child had a coat on in my classroom the other day because 'we can close windows now and make them take their coats off'. I said we 'can' close windows however I will not be closing windows. I'm following the risk assessment and my common sense not a throwaway deniable comment buried in a sea of emails.

@Augustbreeze

Well all staff are going to have to comply after the changes to the Ventilation section in the updated guidance this week, *@Danglingmod*

What was the update about ventilation-I missed that?

We have no opening windows....

Not sure how we're ventilating anything. Air gets blown in via a losnay, not sure it sucks air out though.

If someone makes me move out of my specialised windowless classroom , I will weep. It has high ceilings and is very big. Does that mitigate?

I would keep the door open if one door wasn't blocked by a chair someone put on the other side and the other didn't have a corridor used by various non teaching and teaching staff to hold pow wows.

Ok I have finally lost it. What is wrong with my posts that renders people completely unable to read them? I know I’m maths but my English isn’t that bad is it?

We've been told we can't keep fire doors open. My classroom door is a fire door.

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/six-schools-nurseries-bristol-closed-4636527

This includes the numbers of staff and pupils affected in bristol since sept.

@noblegiraffe

Ok I have finally lost it. What is wrong with my posts that renders people completely unable to read them? I know I’m maths but my English isn’t that bad is it?

You're speaking in English. They're reading in moron.

Pow wows outside an open classroom door (or mine, at least) seem to be the new way to hold meetings in my school, too, Piggy.

@Augustbreeze

Thanks. Nothing on council website but local press quite interesting!

Including this, is this the criteria PHE are using for all school cases?? Have underlined the para that surprised me:

Around 15 pupils were self-isolating after a Year 9 pupil tested positive for coronavirus at School

Headteacher ** confirmed there had been no positive cases at the school since this one incident and pupils returned from isolating on Tuesday, September 22.

He said: "We had one Year 9 student who was kept off school when he became ill by his parents, he'd only been in for one day.
"They took him for a test, he'd been ill on the Monday.^

^
"By the Thursday morning (September 10) the tests came back positive and parents immediately let the school know.

"Then I got in touch with the local health protection team and worked with them on what we were going to do about it.

"Because we have already implemented compulsory use of face coverings in the school in any communal area and because we've got year groups working in bubbles, because he'd only be in one day and he had no symptoms in school we just needed to identify who he'd been within one metre of.

"We have seating plans set up for all of our lessons so we could identify that quite rapidly.
"So probably within an hour we had identified the students, phoned parents and sent them home."

This is more than likely what is happened h where I teach.

is happening even

I think that's exactly it Danglingmod, they don't come dressed more warmly as in many of their classes it isn't cold as one window is open as a nod to the risk assessment, rather than many. But even if the ra changes I do not want to sit in a poorly ventilated room.
I'd like if I could let the pupils take turns to sit near windows/radiators, but with t&t I can't really do that.

It was suggested on here that kids took turns week and week about to be on the back row or away from the windoes, however your classes are set up, but we also couldn't do that because of the children who need permanently to be near the board.

For you @Appuskidu :

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 <a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.hse.gov.uk/coronavirus/equipment-and-machinery/air-conditioning-and-ventilation.htm" target="blank">air conditioning and ventilation during the coronavirus outbreakak and <a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=www.cibse.org/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus,-sars-cov-2,-covid-19-and-hvac-systems" target="_blank">CIBSE coronavirus (COVID-19) adviceece^.
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.

I am really going to struggle with open windows in winter. I'm one of those irritating people who only stops feeling cold when everyone else is complaining about the heat. Doesn't matter how many layers I have on, if my hands are cold I won't be able to write. Especially if my Reynaud's kicks in. School are still telling kids to keep their coats off too, which is causing a lot of moaning.

ohthegoats We had the HSE in school last week and had removed our door wedges because all our doors are firedoors. He said that ventilation was more important than the fire risk as long as we shut the doors when the classrooms are unoccupied. The wedges were back before he had left the building!

So the inspector was contradicting DfE guidance? Excellent....

I think the HSE outguns the DfE.

We've just been told to close our doors because it's too loud in the corridors for the intervention groups.
An email over the weekend of half term so we can't argue with it. I proper hate my SLT.

Oh sorry yes, misread didn't properly read your post @WhiteFoxWindow !
So that could do with being communicated to the DfE really!

I think that is why the HSE are visiting so many schools at the moment - hopefully they will get round to releasing their own guidence at some point.

GuidAnce -gah!

I realise that MNHQ won't do anything (they have done as little as possible during all of this) as we have tried before.

But has anyone else noticed the same posters posting the same BS getting corrected then leaving the thread to start pretty much exactly the same threads over and over.

OK, a lot of the abuse has stopped but the repeated bullshit that is being pedalled over and over again is frankly insane.

MNHQ’s response to bullshit is that it’s fine as it’s being robustly challenged.

So expecting us to pick up the pieces from ineffective moderation.