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

Oh yes you could be right Noble, data taken from occupation rather than workplace. More likely.

Yes, maybe we need to lobby our unions - not that we should have to, but.....

@Timeturnerplease
Fingers crossed for you x

@Timeturnerplease oh no -what a nightmare! Fingers crossed you can go ahead with the transfer.

That’s dreadful timeturner hope you can go through with the transfer.

More emails home about positive cases at school. Staff and pupils

I’ve spend all weekend mulling over pupil who has failed to complete homework. So bloody annoying having to email parents who swear blind their child has done the work (when they clearly bloody haven’t).

Grrr

On the grapevine I've heard of two more cases.. nothing from work at the moment just panicking emails about making sure no one moves from the seating plan.

Oh no Timeturner that’s awful. We send the whole class home including staff each time in primary what timing for you.

@noblegiraffe

Aren’t our unions supposed to be lobbying and fighting this corruption?!

But they're not.

That is just too much @Timeturnerplease. Why were you even expected to be in school at such a crucial moment?

A secondary local to me has just shut a third year group (one case in each - Wales). Why are standards so wildly variable given that the disease is the same everywhere?

I really hope it's because they've done an in-depth investigation into community rates and patterns, likelihood of in-school transmission, whether the households concerned have other positives, whether other students have non-testable symptoms etc.

In reality, I have no idea!

Do you mean differing approaches from one authority to another, or within an authority?

@WhenSheWasBad

That’s dreadful timeturner hope you can go through with the transfer.

More emails home about positive cases at school. Staff and pupils

I’ve spend all weekend mulling over pupil who has failed to complete homework. So bloody annoying having to email parents who swear blind their child has done the work (when they clearly bloody haven’t).

Grrr

It never ends does it?!

@Flagsfiend I've looked at the turtledoves, I've heard they're great, but having just spent £25 on silver fingerless gloves I couldn't justify another £30. I bought cheap alternatives- I hope they work, let me know how you get on with yours.
It's small beer compared to the obstacles that this is throwing up for so many others in education, wishing everyone a restorative Sunday afternoon

I've got angora fingerless gloves...

Problem is we're supposed to sanitise our hands every time we enter or leave any room/cupboard/corridor... Makes wearing the gloves hard. They're in my pockets though

Whatever happened to "deep-cleaning?"

Our 'cleaners' are doing no more right now than they ever did - quick swill round the loos with a brush, mop the floor, wipe the desks and hoover.
I avoid the staffroom as much as I can, but I was in there the other day and a ray of light shone on the fridge door.
There were literally hundreds of fingerprints all over it; clearly not been cleaned in months. (I set to with my personal stash of Flash wipes, but that won't last long).

Do yours wipe keyboards and mice?

Our cleaners do door handles, taps, clear desks and floors. I don't think anyone has ever touched the fridge (tbh the rancid empty tupperwares are more likely to be your problem... )

Can anyone else not get onto Twinkl? Sat down all ready to get some topic stuff sorted and it keeps asking me to do a 'Are you human' captcha... no I'm not human, I'm a hormonal teacher trying to get my Science lesson planned!

@Augustbreeze

Do yours wipe keyboards and mice?

Hahahahaha.

No, I do that myself, along with door handles, light switches and every single one of 30 laptop keyboards each time we get them out.

Yeah, Twinkl OK for me.

SAGE mins from 4/11 published, still unsure about schools but this:

Action: Ian Diamond to lead a working group to assess data on transmission in children and schools; SAGE to consider new evidence in 3-4 weeks.

So that would be in the next week or two ....

They unfortunately go along with the ONS's false data purporting to show that teachers aren't more at risk than other keyworkers. Let's hope someone draws Mr Diamond's attention to the Twitter thread about that!

Also emphasise importance of ventilation in school settings.

@Augustbreeze

Do yours wipe keyboards and mice?

Ours don’t. I have bought myself my own box of latex gloves to protect my hands better as I have to clean after every lesson myself before the next class comes in.

I spray and the kids wipe after every ICT lesson. Including headphones.

The fact that they go along with the ONS survey is actually mentioned in the Twitter thread. That's why Sarah Rasmussen calls it propaganda...

Oops! BBC News - Covid-19: Thornbury school closes after positive test
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-55027570

Our school bubble has just popped big time - due to a very small number of staff cases which affect an important team...

As others have said, one minute you're "Oh we've only had a couple of cases", next minute it's

"ACTION STATIONS EVERYBODY!! 🚨🚨"

As we always knew, it's staffing issues which will mainly close schools. Which the government seems to ignore.