The Thirtieth Republic ( 30! who would have thought) - Is it too soon to book a staff Xmas party?

[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

I've got a virtual parents evening coming up, thankfully the appointments are only 5 minutes. I was worried they would be ten and I'd be sat there with a countdown timer and minutes to go (I'm very efficient at parents evening) and we'd just stare at each other awkwardly till it finally got to zero and I faded from view.

I share the class and normally both teachers would be sat together and do the appointments. Have no idea how to have us both on one webcam and also socially distanced. It's not zoom so we can't dial in separately.

So many year groups out in full around my area (due to staffing levels) but people seem to have no idea. The local press are reporting/listing all affected schools but comments btl suggest people just don't believe it and think their school case is now over, because it's not their child's year.

Some full school closures in my area too; though some are secondary, most are nurseries and special schools.

We can add members to our own teams but it does sync with sims however the staff stay. Not sure how it works though. For eg I have my HOD in my team so they can set work.

Well I have had a week of a full team so that's good.

Isolating kids are mostly back in my classes which is good. There seems to have been fewer cases in our school this week which is good.

Unfortunately, my wisdom tooth has been painful all week but got an antibiotic from the dentist last night so praying it kicks in soon.

Still absolutely shattered though -had a few pastoral issues in my form to deal with, something to smooth out between 2 members of staff and about a million emails many of which require action

Still another 4 weeks to go and bloody loads to do.

Thank goodness I didn’t take the gin out of the online order this week!

Oh and the parent who I had seven emails from when I gave her daughter one warning point for rudeness last term has made a complaint and crazy accusation because I had to give her another warning two weeks ago. The daughter claimed I'd said something awful to her but when the class were questioned discretely none of them backed her up (because I never said it) so she changed her story and said I walked over to her and whispered it in her ear.

I had someone in to observe me teach her today who was most apologetic in explaining why she was there but apparently the mum has rung her on a daily basis about this. She was interested to observe how differently the student actually behaves to mum's impression of her behaviour.

Trust me I'm not going anywhere near my students at the minute let alone getting close enough to whisper in their ears.

Ffs is about my reaction and that of the poor pastoral team having to deal with it. Said student got a warning in another subject today so the lady who had to come and observe me is now dreading the onslaught from mum about that.

Clearly she has no comprehension of what we're dealing with right now or sense of proportion or realisation that kids lie and always claim they didn't do anything to merit a warning.

Fuck it I'm opening the wine.

I'm on the gin. Not for any negative reasons, just that it's Friday.

My little challenge came in this afternoon and just stood in the corner shouting 'teachers are ugly' for about the first 15 minutes. I ended up taking the rest of the class out to the hall to play benchball. Fuck him.

The bloke who did his PPA at home last week (of 'ace lie in/my head blowing off' comments) did an appalling job of planning. I opened a lesson at lunchtime to use at 1pm, to find it was basically shit. Fuzzy pictures cut and pasted in, different font on every slide (one of which was almost unreadable), and a crap activity. Luckily for him he'd gone by the time I had chance to go and ask about it.

Sorry that was long

Forward to line manager rulewith?

The person who is meant to produce year 8 work in the event of remote learning is lovely but... Think I will set my own as I honestly don't think the resources will be forthcoming and I'd rather meet my own standards iyswim.

I wouldn't be surprised if it's just quietly assumed I'll set work first and then everyone just'might as well' set the same.

Don't mind but I better bloody well get ups next year

honey I will never understand parents like that. What do teachers have to gain from lying about student behaviour? We want them all to be perfect.

Don't want to be too outing but my trainee is testing my patience. Argues about feedback every single time. He thinks everything is negative when it really isn't.

Honey that is appalling and I’m sorry you have to fend off that sort of utter bollocks.

@TheHoneyBadger what a pile of shit. These parents are lucky their kids have teachers. Enjoy the 🍷 x

Mental parents are awful, and the worst thing is not being able to defend yourself properly but having to go through proper procedures, even though everyone around you sympathises and knows the parent is making stuff up.

I'm doing the marking to MrsH. It's a actually a nice little bit of normality any I'll scraps together a sorry percentage of the money I've lost this year.

@DrMadelineMaxwell, did you mean yes you're in Wales, or yes it's correct that no work needs to be set while awaiting a test?

I know I don't post much, but I've just had a medley of fuck knows what dishes from Tesco and two glasses of wine, so I am anybody's We are missing year groups most weeks and that is because our head teacher us taking no prisoners and genuinely looking after her staff! Next week, two year groups are at home because of anticipated continuing staffing issues which at least means that we can prepare for more remote learning without walking into it on Monday morning.

I really do feel for those of you who are being shafted. My husband works in a different school to me, and has observations, learning walks, book scrutiniis going on which are just not being countenanced in my school. I feel rather like a lady of leisure in comparison as at least I am in charge of my daily workload without the added pressure of being monitored Who knows, it may change... I hope not

@noblegiraffe

Mental parents are awful, and the worst thing is not being able to defend yourself properly but having to go through proper procedures, even though everyone around you sympathises and knows the parent is making stuff up.

There is one at our school who insists on joining the teams lessons to complain they don't understand the work (their dc has done chuff all for a long time and lockdown was no exception).

I've been sent home to self isolate until the 3rd with my class
Dont know if I am upset, happy, annoyed or relieved!
Off to catch up

We had a supply teacher in today as class teacher has been signed off with stress. Not a good day, we don't have a class TA on a Friday so my "status" as 1:1 TA tends to go out of the window and I do it all. Lots of behaviour issues all day, same few kids, we have one of those pathetic lank of consequences behaviour "systems" and my Paddington hard stare was much in evidence. Supply was lovely but admitted she had no idea how to handle a class with so much need (multiple MyPlans, EHCPs, etc etc).

I have had fish and chips for tea to make myself feel less shit after show-off head who wants school to get outstanding and utters all manner of lame crp (remember "gaslighty twat"!) issued note saying we are all to turn off Covid app as school is "Covid-secure" (LOL) and not to talk to one another unless it's about a specific teaching issue. He can FO and then FOSMWHGT.

Forward to line manager rulewith?

That'll be me.

I sent an email saying 'my class didn't get that, please find a way of re-teaching it for next week, include a retrieval quiz at the beginning of the lesson (as you've been asked to do for every lesson), and I've left a blank page in their books for the knowledge organiser'.

Mean.

Plastic I hear you. they can all FOTTFSOF in my opinion.

Well I've finally had a reply from my Tory MP. I emailed him at the end of October about the lack of mitigations in secondary schools.
His email is talking all about why he voted for lockdown

I was on break duty today and had forgotten my whistle. Managed to get 120 kids to stop and stand still by raising my hand and beaming out my best teacher's glare.

Excellent work!!

and not to talk to one another unless it's about a specific teaching issue.

I'm sorry @plasticboxesrock, what did I just read? You mean you're not allowed to talk to your colleagues about anything except for specific teaching issues?

Today, this happened:

Reading A Christmas Carol with Y10.

The word “gay” is used on multiple occasions.

Class clown: “What? He’s gay”

4 other kids, in perfect harmony: “🙄 It means happy.”

They did my eye roll and sarcastic tone perfectly.

I feel my work is done.

SaltyAF we did the same kind of eyeroll as SmileEachDay 's Y10s