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

I need to get my working hours under control. I do 0.6 but have worked all day yesterday and today at home.

I also accepted a gcse marking contract that I hadn’t really realised was for now 🤣🤦‍♀️

I need to say no. I need to manage the politics of it all better. But also I’ve fallen into being fairly responsible for remote learning/teams/live streaming etc...

@Piggywaspushed feel you pain. My knees have finally recovered from my fall on Tuesday.

I’m so fucking happy to be out of the whole house points thing. I never ever managed to do it right, I’m terrible at remembering to give them out so I wouldn’t give any for lessons and lessons and then scatter them around madly just before I knew someone was checking. So inconsistent and shit.

Now we can put praise on the system but it’s not used lavishly. I’ve done two today which is my first for weeks and one of the kids said “hey, thanks for that praise!” which makes me think it actually means something to them. Much better in my opinion. Nobody values stuff they get all the time. But that’s just my old curmudgeonly take on it.

I also accepted a gcse marking contract that I hadn’t really realised was for now

Me too. Roll on Dec 14th.

Well some of that is luck if the draw of your schools marking policy. Don't think many would keep their jobs long if they flouted the school policy seasoned marker or not. I don't think incompetence or not being an exam marker are the issue here at least.

Agreed if you're only doing tick and flick and an ebi it's quicker. If I tried to do that I would be breaking our marking policy and leaving tons of blanks on data sheets even without book checks.

It's just a bit patronising when people assume it's their superior boundaries or special skills. If I did the marking you're describing I would be visibly failing at my school.

I don't even resent it actually as the marking and use of swans and support I can give them for meeting those next steps is done well and is definitely driving up student skills and achievement and understanding of how to do well. Meaningless marking pisses me off but I can see how switching to this approach is helping our students especially in an essay subject.

@SaltyAF

I also accepted a gcse marking contract that I hadn’t really realised was for now

Me too. Roll on Dec 14th.

😂 I’m sure I used to be some kind of competent 🤷‍♀️

My work colleague told me she crossed the border into England from Welsh lockdown to do Christmas shopping in half term -because it didn’t make any difference, apparently. I’m constantly opening classroom windows and sanitising the shared area where teachers have sent groups out to work by themselves- but neglected to remember that this needs wiping in between. I’m fed up. I want to go browse in a bookshop and eat overpriced cake.

I didn't mean to be patronising. You've spent most of your days off and weekends marking, I know, but I did a year in a school in which I had to micro-mark every piece but the standards at that school were, frankly, shit, and decided it wasn't for me. Essentially it doesn't matter how much or little I mark, if it's not making masses of difference in progress and if kids are not really taking an awful lot of notice of it. I left.

I can't stand meaningless marking.

I also can't stand meaningless assessment in primary. A hell of a lot of that goes on.

Far too much is there so that you can prove you think about assessment but there's assessment that actually helps you improve skills and shows you which ones need work and how that feeds back into planning, and assessment that just looks pretty in boxes to shove under an inspector's nose.

Test negative thank god but a really nasty chest infection! Think a day of rest has helped hugely though.

I LOVE “marking” classwork on Teams because you can C+P the same comment in and click return in ten seconds, and save your time for the students who didn’t get it or didn’t do it right. Plus there’s no escape if they’ve missed pieces, I’ve been making them go back and do stuff from two months ago. “I was off!” - tough luck, still got to do the work. Game changer.

Before covid kicked off, our school had moved to live marking in lessons which I loved. Can't do it at the moment so lots of self assessment going on and marking for the exam years.

Feel like my work life balance has disappeared somehwere The to do list is absolutely endless at the moment - things like writing assessments (as we have a new SOL), curriculum development etc. On top of actual teaching in the covid madness which means setting work for those isolating as well.

I am determined to go for a run this morning and hopefully squeeze at least one run in after school this coming week. I love my running and I'm gutted I haven't been able to go this last week.

Pumpkin, I've said before, we've been doing those things for several years, reinventing the wheel, and still doing it. I've wasted so much time as things were dropped for new ideas that I've begun to feel physically sick whenever a new idea is floated. (Which was last week.)

Also, not all subjects are the same and yet there's a determination to have the same model for each at the mo.

Living in a pandemic is stressful enough without all this extra rubbish on top.

When I started at college I came from a school with repressive marking policies and SoW and I was constantly drowning. It was awful, I was an experienced teacher who could teach the stuff standing on my head but I was always being pulled up and told off for stuff. So undermining and horrible.

When I got my job at college I asked the HoD what the marking policy was and she looked at me like I was talking a foreign language and said “you’ve been teaching long enough, mark their work when you think it needs to be marked”. It’s a massive weight off my shoulders that the only guilt I carry about marking etc is down to my own procrastination and nothing else!

Glad your test came back negative, NeurotrashWarrior.

I hate marking, because it always takes so long. It's always the thing that I leave till last, would much rather be prepping lessons. We had a departmental review a few years ago and I was praised for my marking and feedback, but it just takes so bloody long. I always feel behind on it and then I know that the pupils don't often read the feedback (well, they might when they are revising).

Am doing my very best now to get the pupils to mark their own work at the end of the lesson or at the start of the next for homework. Also making use of the "use comment for all who got this incorrect" in Dr Frost Maths and Mathswatch.

It can be suffocating can't it?

Don’t know if any of you have seen this, but one school trust has informed parents that their child could be refused access to school if the lockdown rules have been flouted. I hope that other schools take similar action m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=186435742958385&id=109688767299750

Thanks dreaming

Yes I hate it, live marking is the most useful and imo at primary level verbal feedback in the moment is the most useful tool. The children love a star or a stamp but you risk training them to only look for external "have I done well?" Rather than reviewing their own work and how it could be changed or how well they've done.

Count I can't access that link but is it on the neu page?

I think I've just read it.

On that line, on my way home yesterday I saw one of our students out of uniform and in a mask waiting for his mates to come out of school. (I had PPA period 5 so left early).
Turns out he is supposed to be self isolating due to a positive result! I mean, at least he was wearing a mask to protect his mates (who were not wearing masks), but....
Ffs

What annoys me about heads like that is that without me breaking the childcare bubble law, I wouldn't be able to work. How many of their staff are bending/breaking the rules to be there?

I understand the point when families are mixing at big parties etc outside school. But picking up another child so the parents can work is hardly crime of the year. Heads need to stop being dicks about this one.

Ive also just read a of a school that's widened the range of symptoms list for parents to follow, including runny nose and diarrhoea.

I spoke to the school IMS nurse last week as ds had increased his inhaler use briefly prior to school flu ims. She mentioned that lots of schools locally were refusing children with even a cold (partly as we've high infection rates and probably in those areas parents who may not be able to easily test or want to.)

She also told me of an area locally where they were seeing a lot of cases and so many bubbles closing, affecting the flu ims programme which ties up with the map.

Regarding data and infections, I think half term impact data will be seen over the next week or two. Possibly a dip this week and then a bounce back next.

There's absolutely evidence that schools are part of the infection rates, looking at increasing positivity rates and also the data around where people had been prior to infection. Secondary school is equal to bars and restaurants.

It’s a link to the ‘Stanley Learning Partnership’ Facebook NeurotrashWarrior The announcement was made yesterday, presumably after students shared weekend plans that involved meeting with friends

^Ah, but yes I saw it on the neu

I bet government would overrule that though. We keep being told at school for example, that we can't exclude anyone from education based on their [parents] refusal to wear a mask. That hadn't been updated in light of lockdown as yet.

I'm about ready to walk if I have to start dealing with shitty behaviour on too of everything else. I had a couple of awful classes on Tues/Weds and just wonder what the point is in putting myself at daily risk sometimes. I just think, if I end up with long Covid or even dead, no-one's going to be stepping up to support my family.

SaltyAF I feel the same - I have taken on extra hours to cover for ill colleagues, and had such awful behaviour from one class that I'm tempted to refuse to take on their lessons next week - they can have a cover supervisor rather than a subject specialist who is attempting to actually teach them GCSE content.
Especially as I cannot get 2m away from the front row in that classroom