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

MrsHP sorry missed your post about your mum, it’s so, so hard when these things happen in normal times, being unable to drop everything and go to them is even worse.

It also is happening the other way around, my colleague has had an awful thing happen and her parents would have been there helping out, but she’s a teacher and they couldn’t risk it.

At the moment it’s ‘why hasn’t the year group that is clearly riddled with covid been sent home?’ Previously it was ‘why has the year group been sent home, overreaction much?’

Sorry to hear people's shitty news. It's that time of year

We would not be allowed to watch films the week before a shut down and then just set them work to do remotely. The films bit is OK : we are hardly micromanaged at school at all in that sense. But the lessons if we shit down have to be full taught lessons.

I vote the going to bed and waking up when it's all over.

Our HT phones up/invites in anyone who has a go at our school on FB. They either agree to remove the posts or she offers to find them the phone numbers of some other schools they might like to consider!

Our HT phones up/invites in anyone who has a go at our school on FB. They either agree to remove the posts or she offers to find them the phone numbers of some other schools they might like to consider!

Is anyone else picturing the Godfather?!

We're getting parents phone in daily to complain about their kids being at home/not at home /not distancing on the road outside school/not getting set work/getting too much work. You can't please everyone as my gran used to say!

A few years ago I used to work in the corporate world, for a FTSE 100. Big role, colleagues and projects around the globe and all manner of internal and external stakeholders to manage. My mantra eventually became "who shall I piss off today", because trying to keep everyone happy proved to be impossible!

I think my view is people are going to mix and see family at Christmas regardless of what the rules are so it's better to close schools early for less spread when they inevitably do mix.

I don't see it as a choice between people mixing or not but a case of families mixing with some mitigation of kids having been at home for a fortnight or no mitigation at all and still mixing.

Not even my cautious conformative family (my parents and my sisters family) intends not see each other over Christmas so I assume widespread non conformity

MrsHamlet and MrsHP

It’s so tough.

I’m so pissed off. Why oh why did I check email on a Saturday?

Parent is appalled that I have emailed home pointing out her child hasn’t completed their homework and could the parents offer her some support.
The teenager swears blind she’s fine homework and as we know teenagers never lie. So I’ve upset mum by falsely accusing her daughter.

Would she rather I didn’t tell her her child isn’t doing her homework? Child is definitely not doing the homework.

So annoyed.

A lot of people need to just fuck off. That parent is on the list.

I have spent much of the day setting remote learning work and then recording loom videos going over that work and reviewing their understanding of the work and how it links into previous learning. Quite about putting these up for students and parents and colleagues to view. I've gone with screen share and voice only so at least my face isn't plastered on the internet.

Yes lots of work for a weekend but hopefully that means I can spend the lesson time where I would have been teaching my year 8s to be marking my year 7s mini essays and just being online available to troubleshoot problems and give help where needed.

In reality it's likely very few will actually bother to engage? I hope not because it takes time and effort to produce and I am continuing with the syllabus so they do need to do it but?? We'll see. Not sure what to expect really but am naively hoping that second time around parents will be pushing kids to engage and grateful for proper lessons. Hugely naive no doubt

When at least she isn't accusing you of whispering insults in her child's ear. Some parents seem to have lost the plot this year.

When at least she isn't accusing you of whispering insults in her child's ear. Some parents seem to have lost the plot this year

Yes it could be worse. Thanks honey and MrsH
Very aware it could be worse. I’m sure all have worse emails to contend with in the future. Just irritating when you are a parent yourself.
I always know to remember any story my kid comes out with is their version of events and it might not necessarily be true. I’d never go in all guns blazing with my child’s teacher.
Chances are my kids trying to wriggle out of trouble.

There was the parent who refused to let me teach their kid because I kept telling him to stop staring out of the window and do some work. She said that she would rather I left him to it.

Borderline Y11.

I’m so pissed off. Why oh why did I check email on a Saturday?

Parent is appalled that I have emailed home pointing out her child hasn’t completed their homework and could the parents offer her some support.

The teenager swears blind she’s fine homework and as we know teenagers never lie. So I’ve upset mum by falsely accusing her daughter.

This is precisely why I'm not opening my email this weekend, WhenSheWasBad! I'm anticipating at least one, possibly two of these emails to be landing in my inbox as well .

On the other side I had a lovely supportive email from a parent the other day horrified that their kid had been pissing about and promising to put a rocket up their arse.

Thanks everyone. Really appreciate the support.

I’m really hoping parent has checked child’s homework and is now very embarrassed. As child clearly hasn’t done it and they’ve now accused the teacher of fucking up when it’s actually their child.

Probably won’t happen but we live in hope.

Interesting, school offering free exam lessons in main subjects, maybe funded by Google (worth clicking if only for the scary staff photo!)

www.denbighshirefreepress.co.uk/news/18884011.denbigh-based-independent-school-will-launch-lessons-november-30/?fbclid=IwAR2M33Vp2NS369othQUS7I28t3VID6qqtq9-MWUHn-yuP5-rqLL50ls0pr4

That could actually be really useful, August!

@CallmeAngelina your head sounds great!

Done lots today -mainly home stuff but I did mark my Y9 assessments this afternoon and they have done well so I am pleased about that Maybe it's not so bad afterall!

Good old BRTUS posters again.....

Also, and it wasn't entirely clear, but there was a tweet from a teacher /head somewhere that his the DfE advice line was now asking more questions about symptoms in any staff who'd tested positive recently - did they have sickness/headache/fatigue etc.

But am not sure to what end, as these are all known lesser (debatably) symptoms and surely the DfE don't need to do a mini survey of infected teachers to convince themselves the WHO are correct???

We've just put our christmas decorations up and bought our tree!!! I would not in normal circumstances condone this behaviour in November... but you know 2020! It certainly cheered us up here anyway.

I've done all my planning for next week, marked Y11 assessments, planned some CPD I am running after school for remote feedback and made some dent in my GCSE exam marking. Feeling like next week might not be quite as bad as I feared..... I mean, there is still time.

Today was a baking day (cinnamon rolls), tomorrow is a work day. I have a shopping bag full of assessments that need marking and I need to plan the beginning of the week. But right now, I'm going to bed. Yes, I am that sad and that knackered!

Approach those free lessons with caution. I wouldn't send my DD to the partner school, put it that way.

Oh that's interesting, salty!