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

Good luck @eitak22

Fingers crossed for you soon @monkeytennis97

And hello goats if you are reading

A whirlwind of a day for me today but still in one piece so onward and upward!

*your son

Yes we're all routing for you monkey

Thank you @MistressIggi and @SquashedFlyBiscuits xx

Woke up worrying about DS and stupidly looked at bbc news and saw this shit: Lockdown children forget how to use knife and fork www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54880403

I'm so sick of teachers getting the blame for everything. Regressed into Napier and not using knife and fork? Errr hello PARENTS!!! Christ, I can only imagine how my primary school teachers of the 1970s and early 80s would have reacted to that headline. Also the 'third' group of children who flourished in lockdown - this will be undoubtedly be ignored as it doesn't fit the agenda. Urgh.

*nappies

Unpopular opinion august but BCF started much of the aggro on the data thread and no one has fallen out since. Her monomania that schools aren't data was tedious and, given how much the data now looks like coronavirus is transmitted in schools, looks rather misjudged. I think she must have been under some other stresses. To be honest it was some fairly familiar Covid sceptics who tried to tell her to not allow any school comments but she then started policing it in rather assertively. The data thread can't just be run by people in their 60s with no dependents. Just my thoughts but after a bit of tension the data thread has become much less aggressive and the tone from some less supercilious. I prefer it. But not going to say so on the other thread.

This insistence that schools data have their own thread was plainly people trying to diminish teachers' on the ground experiences as somehow invalid . There is also a lack of acceptance of qualitative data on there.

Noticeably most who played that argument out left too. But I felt like I was being shooed off for being a teacher.

Morning all

@monkeytennis97 keeping everything crossed that you see your DS soon. You sound like a lovely mum

Let's hope that our Tuesday is better than Monday seems to have been!

Remarkably, I slept quite well so I'm hoping this bodes well.

Not sure on absences at the moment -will know later who I have/haven't got.

Morning all! 13 days to go as a dept of 1. First day of Key Stage 3 asked to stay home. They won’t have live lessons, just work set, as we are now being used to cover absent staff and priority has been given to exam groups. It is just a repeat of the week before lockdown in March.

How you feeling today @monkeytennis97?

Good luck @motherrunner

@eitak22 fingers crossed for you and your DH.

Slept ok but I’ve had a sore their for a few days and feel exhausted.... everything feels stressful about work. Feel like although I am part time my responsibility I am doing the full time role of. Going to discuss with school this week if I get a chance....

Just had a call from my HT as I'm not showing symptoms I'm on to go in according to PHE and DfE until he tests positive. I don't understand how that's ok, as according the Gov guidelines I should self isolate. Literally one rule for school staff and one for everyone else!

@monkeytennis97 glad hes tested negative. Hope you get to see him soon.

That's not true, Eitak. Other contacts: yes; members of your household: you isolate.

@eitak22 You need to isolate! Can you contact your union?

@Danglingmod

That's not true, Eitak. Other contacts: yes; members of your household: you isolate.

That’s terrible advice from your head?!

If you turn out to be positive-how many people will you have potentially infected?!

@eitak22 that's definitely not right. Until you know he's not positive, everyone in the household isolates.
Your head is making it up!

According to my HT she spoke to PHE about another member of staff in same situation and that's what they said.

I'm really uncomfortable about it as I often work 1:1 so cant socially distance. Hoping DH just as s cold with temp.

[quote motherrunner]@eitak22 You need to isolate! Can you contact your union?[/quote]
Dont have a union (I know I need to). My HT is not one to lie which is why I'm more concerned/confused.

What an idiot HT, eitak. Surely can’t have spoken the truth about the situation to PHE to get that guidance?
However, the general ignorance about it all is much more than I thought - I know the guidance has been confusing for some, but we had to close our bubble yesterday and the parents I spoke to had no idea what this meant for their child. Some of this is to do with my HT being a covid-denier and a terrible communicator, but is also widespread lack of support for parents. Social workers ‘didn’t know’ that the affected pupils (all close contacts, and I mean CLOSE) would have to stay at home. They don’t understand why they can’t be at school, citing EHCP/ vulnerable.
My day yesterday was crazy stressful, not to mention worrying about the positive staff member and the health of my colleagues and SEND pupils - all verging on adulthood.

@eitak22 I would screen shot the guidance and ask for clarification. Or have you the app? I do and I entered details of when I was in contact with a positive. It then gives a counter of when you need to isolate to.

Sounds like your HT has fudged the truth a bit to PHE i.e said your DH is isolating without the core symptoms. Agree with sending the clear gov guidance on household members with symptoms awaiting tests.

Am sure it's in the DfE guidance (even now!?) @eitak22 ! And of course general NHS guidance. I presume you're not masked in school, certainly not proper PPE?!

The report from Ofsted re children regressing /displaying MH problems on return to school and what I've heard on Radio 4 this morning is a massive and valid argument for not closing schools again:

That doesn't make us wrong to want them safer though, and to doubt that that is achievable to any meaningful degree.

I really don't know what the answer is.

Piggy, I don't disagree with most of your views on the Data thread shenanigans, but there are now vast gaps in what it discusses (eg ONS report in last couple days saying govt graphs etc were wrong hasn't even been mentioned afaik). BCF was an amazing data-publishing and -explaining engine. And I wasn't happy when people started swearing at each other.

@CallmeAngelina

Well, to add to the stats, the Year 6s we've just sent up to Year 7 were beyond feral. They went through our school like a plague of locusts, laying waste to every (experienced) teacher they came across. A fair few of the "naice" kids were taken out by their parents, and the spaces filled by yet more "challenging" ones who were being "picked on" in their previous schools. Last I heard, quite a few got detentions (or whatever the Covid equivalent is) on the first day and there have already been exclusions. Well, we did warn them.

God, it could be me writing that post it sounds so much like my y6 from last year...

[quote motherrunner]@eitak22 I would screen shot the guidance and ask for clarification. Or have you the app? I do and I entered details of when I was in contact with a positive. It then gives a counter of when you need to isolate to.[/quote]
I quoted the guidance at her and she said its confusing as PHE/DfE are saying different things to NHS. I'm taking my mask and going to try to keep my distance as whatever I say shes going to go with what shes been told

If this is a new way in which DfE is departing from its own guidance that's really worrying. Must be incredibly stressful, esp combined with waiting for years DH's results @eitak22! 💐 I hope he is OK.

It just shows what a complete debacle this whole thing is. Contradictory guidance, potentially unsafe situations... gotta love teaching in 2020 🙄

Agreed august although she started the swearing iirc! A sign of the impending flounce.

I do feel freer to discuss schools' data on there now. MRex seems more open to it. and we aren't always being told about Germany Do agree no one is hunting down data in the same way.

What was interesting was literally no one could understand what the ONS sudden research on teachers was meant to mean or say!