The Twenty-ninth Republic - lockdown light continues & good news for Welsh students

[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 staffroom password just in case it attracts the wrong sort

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 come with a stick to goad us then that is not allowed in the staffroom and you will receive a detention

Oh bugger, I meant .

Dh and dc probably get more out of Amazon Prime than I do, but dd and I also watched all 7 series of Buffy over the summer, which was very enjoyable. I've got Alias on our watchlist, I remember that being very silly, watchable fun.

@monkeytennis97 well done with your weight loss - that's fab!

@eitak22 your friends head sounds awful

@Flagsfiend in your situation I wouldn't isolate from my husband either

Think Christmas may just be us (me,DH and DS) plus MIL (she is elderly with alzheimer's so is in a bubble with us).

Done all my ironing and tidying this morning. Now to do some school work.

We've just been told year 10 are out for two weeks.

Flags, that sounds really hard. I've been through similar and it took it's toll on my own mental health, so hope you have support in real life.

Thanks all for the recommendations, my watch lists are now fuller.

Honey, no problem with straight sex scenes, but not a fan of sexual violence as entertainment (couldnt watch game of thrones), which is why I've avoided outlander so far.

I don't get the point of sex scenes in general. We know that's what they are going to do - why do we need to see it?

#grandma

I think we’re going to say no to my family even trying to have a small get together at Christmas. Usually it’s my parents with us (making 6). My brother has 4 DC do it would be 8 if they went to theirs. I’m currently self isolating due to my class bubble being closed. It’s almost certain to happen to at least one of the DC before then too. And DH is rota-ed (hard to spell!) onto a covid ward early December. My mum (70) has done so well with looking after herself, following rules etc for the whole period, I would hate to jeopardise her health for the sake of a nice day. We’ll just have a different Christmas.

Because you are all keeping me company whilst I am marking today .

Got a new laptop over the summer and have just found out that my inkpad which I was using over lockdown, works with the latest version of SMART, which I've downloaded. Happy days!

One of the most time-consuming things over lockdown (apart from the marking) was that I couldn't ink directly onto SMART from my laptop, so had to rewrite all of my lessons in PowerPoint. And sure I wasted tonnes of time animating stuff that I would normally just have inked on.

I'm so happy about this!

We were supposed to be going skiing. Gave up on that idea and booked a house in Hereford with PIL. They are in Manchester, so haven't been able to travel since July anyway.

Who knows.

Part of me would love to have 3 or 4 days to myself completely alone. But over Christmas without child, that seems a bit bleak.

I need to get an inkpad I think. Also a webcam that can go on a tripod as a 'visualiser'. My worst nightmare with being sent home with my bubble would be no visualiser. Don't want to spend my own money, might spend phase budget on it as a thing to go home with whichever teacher in our lot gets sent home first.

We're pretty resigned to not skiing this year too, ruler. Primarily because I couldn't do the likely quarantining afterwards.
I will console myself with all the money we will save.

Lone parent to an only child here. Christmas on our own wouldn't be Christmas at all. If it comes to it I'm afraid we won't be going to school for the last week.

I've already been unable to travel to my place in Egypt that urgently needs me there to deal with some problems and I may lose the place as a result. I've seen my parents once at the end of half term and haven't seen my sister or niece and nephews since a garden visit in June.

I am not missing Christmas with my family or allowing my son to.

my place in Egypt

What. I was just feeling bitter about only having one bathroom and now I'm wondering why I don't have a place in Egypt either.

Yep @CallmeAngelina there is that. We've just rebooked for... wait for it... February 2022. Insane.

We could go and stay with friends at Easter if there was a tiny window of something, but obviously that remains to be seen.

Instead we're dithering about v expensive Neilson or Mark Warner summer beach club holidays.

@noblegiraffe

my place in Egypt

What. I was just feeling bitter about only having one bathroom and now I'm wondering why I don't have a place in Egypt either.

One bed apartment currently without an electricity supply and in danger of being stolen by the dubious property management. It cost less than most would spend on a car for context

Sadly I don't even own a bathroom in this country and can't get a mortgage on my piddling income despite paying more in rent than I would on a mortgage. It's a large part of why I need to increase my hours.

Just posted this on completely the wrong thread

"Can't someone local sub in for you Honey?
When I moved back to the UK after a few years abroad I had to rent my place out - got a friend to do all the "in person" stuff for Amazon vouchers...
I have several friends in Egypt (teachers of course!) but never been myself...."

Ah don't go spoiling the image, Honey

Besides, it's still cool. I have no idea how one would go about getting a place in Egypt, especially as I've never even been to Egypt.

Do you have links with Egypt - we're all intrigued now!? But I realise it may be too outing to say.

It's always just me and the two children for Christmas and am on my own in the afternoon as they go to their dad's for a few hours. Have tried various short trips to see friends /family in that window but it's always a bit weird.

It is what it is. So at least I'm not angsting about The Day.

I might be playing a major part in the socially distanced outdoor nativity we're planning at church though on the 20th! IF it's allowed!

So when we've done the party in the hill - if that goes well - can we book a weekend's shindigs at Honey's place in Egypt? 🍷

(Only joking - maybe I could just borrow the church's camel costumes and take them up the hill ....🐫)

How does a socially distanced nativity work?

I never know whether to feel cross (on your behalf) or vindicated, when I read of secondary colleagues who are STILL having to hoover up this sort of stuff, when many of us in Primary have been battling to get them independent from quite a young age.

A lifetime ago I was a young slim carefree scuba diving instructor and lived in south Sinai. Very attached to the place and have been back and forth a lot. Lived there again and bought my place in about 2014 when I was home Ed'ing ds and working online in a different field.

Have been back in the uk for about 4 years I think.

Haven't been able to get to my place since summer 2019. Need to sort a new electricity supply (easier said than done and requires a lawyer and shed load of traipsing around government offices and collecting mysterious stamps and probably paying a lot of bribes) before I can think of letting. Corrupt management company managed to get the whole complex's electricity cut off due to not paying the electric company for years despite collecting the money from tenants throughout. I'm hearing rumours they think they could take my apartment as I haven't paid maintenance but I know full well no Egyptian owners and tenants have paid either given the shit show.

It's a saga. May ask a friend who all men love to see if her lawyer can do anything in my absence but I doubt it's feasible.

Anyway as I'm likely to lose my flat already I'm not missing out on Christmas. My sister has been stuck in Saudi for months her husband's employers have promised to get them flown home in December and the whole family could be together at last. Ds will be gutted if they all get together and we're not allowed.

But yeah sure. If you don't mind candles and over a year's worth of desert dust we can go to my place

I meant to say about the delivery slots when i booked some asda ones earlier in the week. Tescos for xmas week still to come out i think.
Tried getting mince pies from asda last week and only got 6 instead of 18 so definitely trying to get stuff well in advance. Though ended upeating our yule log already as it went out of date in nov! Just cant win.
I like Bones series and Greys Anatomy.

It looks like immunity is slowing it as say london areas have fewer cases than we do. The post office had to remind people to post covid tests in the outside postbox!!I
The fact my area is still growing suggests it wasnt just the gym/pub etc.

Socially distanced nativity:

School field, "stations" set up at intervals - May and Gabriel, Shepherds etc etc. household groups (or up to six people in a group if allowed then) follow the trail, ends with M, J and baby in the porch of the Infants (as we have a real newborn actor plus first time parents). Starts off in school hall with an introductory video. Groups will have to queue to get in but we're giving them a two hour window to arrive to hopefully mitigate this.

No idea whether it'll be allowed though, just praying.

Are any infant schools/sections planning some kind of nativity substitute? Video maybe? Surprised I haven't seen any threads about the (non-)possibilities and how it's going to damage someone's mental health actually....