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

@CallmeAngelina

A friend's child's secondary school has got Ofsted coming in tomorrow!! Apparently, to talk to the ch'n and staff about how they are dealing with covid in schools!!! Is this a good idea, or a completely shit one?

Urgh. I guess it beats an inspection. But is it a great idea right now? Probably not.

I'm irrationally annoyed today about the one complete shit I have in my class. I'll get grief for it, but never mind. He's just absolutely defiant against any instruction. NO! is basically what I've heard all day.

Won't sit on the carpet.
Won't sit at the table.
Gets up and walks out.
Opens the door and shouts in to other kids or to tell me he hates me.
Won't do any work.
Won't do any work on a laptop even.
Won't come in after break.
Won't line up.
Keeps wandering off to other parts of the school and breaking bubbles.

I want him excluded right now, he's dangerous.

So there. I feel better now I've said it.

Feeling your pain. I was unfortunate enough to have inherited a class containing 5 of those one year, ranging from Y3 - Y6. They egged each other on and scared the shit out of some of the quiet ones. Their previous teacher had had them for 3 years with only a part time TA and chocolate teapot Paul Dix fans for SLT who did nothing to back them up, so had chosen to take the easy route and just let them do whatever they wanted, so they felt they were in charge, not the adults. One flung a chair at a supply and hit her with a ruler. He got quiet time with the SENCO playing with Lego; she got told off for having touched his desk after several verbal reminders to stop slapping the ruler down on it while she was teaching. They did not enjoy boundaries being put in place and consistently maintained when I took over. Nor did I! Personal highlight...being told by one that he would find where I lived, burn my house down and murder my children. Little darling!

Sad to say no pearls of wisdom about how I dealt with it. I went for an operation and returned 4 weeks later to find two had been permanently excluded, one had decided to move schools before being excluded and one had suddenly been moved to his other parent 40 miles away. The remaining one has settled down into quiet stubbornness but can usually be brought round.

Unfortunately, the knock on effect to the rest of the class is that low (or even medium) level disruption had become normalized, as adults had been having to deal with the others, and a lot of learning had been lost in the years they had been together due to those individuals. So our Y6s in particular are still a lot of hard work.

(We had a new head arrive who took a much stronger line on discipline...especially after they wouldn't do anything he asked either and told him to fuck off and die.)

I read yesterday that the so called 'friendly Ofsteds' are meant to be going virtual. They coukd just scrap them, of course. ...

Been up all night with wisdom tooth agony...

We taught live to timetable throughout lockdown, Im also teaching live this week due to isolating.

During lockdown my ASD DS had a meltdown during a lesson. Pupils heard it and, as we also record the meetings, I feared it would go viral.

I told my head and her response was “please feel free to turn off the camera and audio if it happens again”.

5 live lessons and a parents evening today!

Nothing wrong with what you said goats. People forget the impact of "inclusion" on the rest of the students. You wouldn't force adults to work with others in that scenario but it's fine for kids to be in a classroom.

Up all night worrying about cover/absence and down right selfish dept members. If I could afford to resign I would right now.

@Hercwasonaroll ☹️ How difficult is it your dept at mo? Please look after yourself. Need to be in a good mindset to cope this herald term 💐

Half - still blurry eyed.

ohthegoats

I feel your pain.

I have a similar pupil.

Not helped by the fact that the TA that he is supposed to have isn't there (not by her choice)

Thanks for the new thread. Your voices of (mainly!) sanity are a lifeline.
2 days inset for us. Bubbles of staff in for the training that I am delivering - it is possible for me to socially distance during that so I don’t have a problem with it. But then when not training with me, all the bubbles were merrily mixing, there was a tour for a group of 5 new staff who will all be in different bubbles and who had spent the morning in one small meeting room/cupboard together. No distancing or masks expected of any of them.
Head ‘doesn’t really believe in it’, as is evident by staff attitudes.
Are your schools still having visiting sports coaches etc (if you already were)? I can’t tell if this counts as ‘educational provision’ in the guidance (like my DC’s out of school music lessons, apparently).

Only our year team meetings are happening in person - but they're no more than 8 people in a classroom. Everything else is on Teams.
But there are so many contradictions... all offices on my corridor are the same size. I have shared for years and ours is designated for 2. Next door is one, then we have 3 in the one next to that. It's crackers.

@ohthegoats - we have student(s) like this. All we can do is follow them around the school, and I've taken to messaging on our system to ask for help. So a member of slt turns up and we all have a chat, until the next time! There's no plan moving forward, and with the weather getting worse, I'm making sure I take a coat to those lessons as I'm buggered if I'll be cold and wet because a student has decided to do a wandering act.

The parents are allegedly involved but are refusing to have them put in the referral unit because "it's not their fault". But the parents behaviour outside of school is just making it worse for the student in school.

Raining again. I am staying in the Staffroom for a while on MN as too many repetitive threads elsewhere which invariably result in a bun fight.

School chuffed as a second supply teacher has agreed to come in Wednesday to Friday so that’s a positive.

Need to get a few ucas done today so prepared for the ‘give me an A Miss’ (for not doing much work .... promise I will do more work .... honest)

Yep. Inclusion for learning difficulties, disabilities etc is one thing. Inclusion of truly shit behaviour and wilful disruption of others learning quite another.

If it was the old days and we actually got an hours lunch break plus an afternoon break I'd probably happily offer the kids who do behave but have their lessons ruined day in and day out to come back at lunchtime if they wanted to go over things. Though presumably I'd be told that wasn't fair on the kids who ruined lessons.

I think I am going to do a book lesson with my nightmare class next time I see them. It's not exciting or how our sols are designed but it's the only way I can see of ensuring those who want to learn can.

We had Ofsted in a few weeks ago. They spoke to slt, not sure if they spoke to anyone else or any kids, it was very low key. Looked at lockdown provision and how we were managing Covid measures. We’ve had a letter to say they think we’re doing ok, no report so no official judgement. Their visit made no difference to us bar not being able to access slt for the day.

As an aside, has anyone ever heard of a school which sets Y7s for everything, after the first half term? As in, there's even sets for Dance??

My friend's son has just started at a state, v academic, church school (I think), and posted on Fb last night how proud she was that he was in the top set for everything. I asked if this meant Eng, Mat, Sci and she clarified. (Presumably this is their normal practise - you'd think they might have stopped it this year to minimise mixing)

Imagine if your child/ you were in the bottom set for everything......

Sometimes it is that timetabling blocks subjects together - so the top set for English might then all go to dance together and be (in their heads) the top set? (Clutching at straws)
I'm glad to find you all I can't believe in November I'm still ending up on threads defending the "lack" of live lessons in lockdown

Yes it could be a rimetabling thing couldn't it @MistressIggi, partly st least. Bizarre though.

First day back for me. Fell over walking to school so it’s going well🙄

My secondary school did that setting thing from yr7, MANY years ago! Seems rather old fashioned now. You never got to mix with other classes and if you floundered in Stem subjects there was very little help as rigid timetabling meant no opportunity for interventions. The 'best' teachers took the top stream too.

Aw Mrs, have a
Surely the day will get better after that!

I am isolating today. My dd has lost her taste.
Sure its just a cold though.