The Twenty-Eight Republic - Lockdown Light

[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 booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation.

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

We're getting more whole families too. And a lot of siblings who test positive and the other negative. Seems such a bizarre virus. Unless those are false results either way.

Had to withdraw kids from resit exams too due to ECV or needing to SI. Shit show for the kids.

In response to the new guidance, my school have said after school clubs and revision can't run, which is quite a big change from their previous position!

I normally run a Y11 revision drop in once a week. It's pretty low effort for me, but a lot of the students like getting support with homework, or being able to ask for resources or ask questions in a more low pressure environment.

It does feel very strange to say that they can sit in a class of 30+ all day, but they can't come as a small group to revise after school BUT equally I don't track who is there or where they are sitting for track and trace purposes (I could, though).

Good news today - I've now got a TA in the afternoons. Thank fucking fuck. My 'wanderer' wandered out at 9.05 this morning and didn't come back until 2.30. Obviously normal process happened, but he spent a big chunk of time furious sitting down on the playground about not having a ball to play with. Then he moaned that school is boring. Anyway, I now have a TA to try and keep a lid on him. Obviously he'll be wandering all morning still, but 2 hours of education is better than none.

Two of our staff members off have come back after negative tests, and my isolating child came back too after her mum had a negative test. So... things are going to be a bit easier as of tomorrow. A tiny bit, obv.

Also had to avoid all news - I'm not ready to hear if Trump is in again.

So. Tired.

Are other schools doing lesson observations? We have ours this week. Everyone is being told we aren't challenging the children enough. It's annoying as we have just figured out where the children are at, they have made progress from September but they are still very behind. Yet SLT just waltz in and decide we aren't challenging them enough, depsite not knowing them at all.

No, no lesson obs. The odd informal supportive drop in.

No lesson observations. No staff to do them frankly. I'm meant to do some monitoring next Wednesday, but think I'll stick to looking at English and maths books to check for progress and identify any key gaps. It'll be writing as always.

Interesting @SansaSnark !

@ohthegoats we have observations and book looks at the moment too, then parents evening the week after. It all feels like a lot at the moment.

I wish the new guidance had had really strict wording about offices and staff gatherings etc... our school plays really fast and loose with this.

It does rather look like even Piggy's school will get masks!!

@tisaginthing

So. Tired.

Are other schools doing lesson observations? We have ours this week. Everyone is being told we aren't challenging the children enough. It's annoying as we have just figured out where the children are at, they have made progress from September but they are still very behind. Yet SLT just waltz in and decide we aren't challenging them enough, depsite not knowing them at all.

We are having learning walks + book scrutinies "soon" apparently.

I reckon I am going to get hammered because I don't have all the stupid bits of paper that we are supposed to have stuck in, stuck in all classes books.

This is because we were moving between classrooms until very recently, and many of the classrooms didn't have glues in etc, so bits of paper would have got lost. Now I am back in my own classroom, I don't really want to lose a lot of learning time to sticking random bits of paper in, but that's what's going to end up happening!

I'm also massively behind in my marking.

Given the circumstances, ploughing on ahead with observations and "learning walks" just feels really unnecessary. I also HATE the emphasis on "do you have x,y,z stuck in?" rather than "Are you being an effective teacher?"

www.theguardian.com/education/2020/nov/04/anger-as-english-secondary-schools-given-last-minute-rules-on-face-coverings

Yep, we are having learning walks and “book” ( i think by photo of the work) scrutinies.
Gone mad here, loads of y13 went to a Halloween party, we have 5 positives and given the number needing to isolate have sent the whole year group home for 2 weeks, to be taught via teams as per normal timetable. That’s the practicals i was finally allowed to do scuppered.

I know what 'my' phase books look like already - we look over things during PPA. But I need to write something up more formally.

@SansaSnark I can understand that! Moving between classrooms sounds very stressful. We have awful iPads and printers and half the pictures we try to print seem to get lost. I've got children with learning objects in their books and no actual work. Probably need to get them to do it again but when?!
Yep. It seems so unnecessary. Irritating too when they then keep going on about our wellbeing.

Glad things slightly improving for you goats.

Very down here. Went to a funeral today.

Ialso HATE the emphasis on "do you have x,y,z stuck in?" rather than "Are you being an effective teacher?"

Ridiculous isn’t it. Two years ago we had an SLT member who was more interested in the colour of your pen used for marking than the actual marking. Sigh!

@CallmeAngelina

Very down here. Went to a funeral today.

How difficult for you. So sorry

I reckon I can get books to where they "need" to be next week and catch up my marking, but it will be to the detriment of getting actual learning done.

Pretty sure my Y11 have perfect books as they were in my classroom still, so maybe if I do get told off, I can use them to make my case?

The Guardian article quotes U4T, guess what, they're NOT happy 😆. Good.

The NHS on high alert level which means among other things that staff can be moved around the country... that will delight certain posters....

Presumably in reality it just means they can move to a neighbouring health authority's hospital or whatever, they couldn't move staff further than daily travelling distance!

U4T are absolutely frothing at the minute. But it's heartening to see there's a few people on there challenging what appears to be a significant minority of conspiracy theorists.

Sad news ange

We have book scrutinies, learning walks and on Thursday, a whole school staff meeting to talk about the new observation focuses.

I wish they'd all fuck off, tbh. I think whatever anyone in any classroom is doing is good enough right now without some fuckwit from SLT who sits in an office telling me i'm not ticking the boxes that they only just made up.

I'm grumpy today.

So no new guidance then really and lots of emphasis on how children are at low risks and a massively disgusting lack of addressing risks to staff.

Also children and staff who live with ecv (and to be that you have to be extremely poorly and probably terrified) still have to go to school. They're criminalising people with eg cancer undergoing chemo who want to keep their children at home in a lockdown in an pandemic.

When my dad was having chemo we didn't visit even if we just had very mild cold symptoms.

I love that my current school don't do learning walks or book scrutinies at the moment. And they have not had any ridiculous marking policies for a few years. They are really good on work/life balance, and for that they have my loyalty.
I am so relieved though that masks are now advised in communal areas as up to now the head has followed the guidance religiously and as we are supposedly tier 1 - no masks needed... But we are not bringing it in until Monday!