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

You should post that on the other thread @CallmeAngelina Dare ya!

Goodnight all, good luck for tomorrow.

Thanks. I don’t know why they won’t listen.

Ah @SaltyAF that echoes the LA that someone posted about on BRTUS page, asking if positive staff members had had any of the longer list of symptoms. Wonder if it's the same LA....

Things are worsening hour to hour at my school today.....

One year group out with us.

One year group out at school down the road.

Multiple cases in both.

@MrsHamlet so pleased to hear your step mum is home I second the high calorie drinks. Also, might be worth your Dad stocking up on anything high calorie that she likes -creamy rice pudding, deserts etc. If she is very weak and not eating much, the higher calorie the better even if it seems 'unhealthy'.

@MrsHamlet glad to hear good news on step mum

All year groups now have cases at DH's school. Today has seen a number of SLT emails arrive and then a flurry of WhatsApps on his department chat as they all try to work out the bits they haven't been told and sort out what the hell they are doing tomorrow.

I have baked for them again to show support. Just got to individually wrap each portion to covid secure it

A whole year group out at dd’s secondary school. Given that there is less than half of her year in I’m guessing that year group must have been badly hit.

A whole year group out at dd’s secondary school. Given that there is less than half of her year in I’m guessing that year group must have been badly hit

I’m wondering just how bad these outbreaks are. We’ve had multiple infections in year groups (staff sick too). And all school does is send home the few pupils who sit near the infected kid or sit on the bus or eat with them.

It’s clearly spreading in some classes but we haven’t sent a whole class home yet. Never mind a whole year group.

I'm noticing that dh and I stress each other out at the weekend, too much reading twitter and mumsnet and getting worked up.

Well, from the list in salty's post I should be getting a test, but in my area I shouldn't. I have had a headache for 2 days (not bad, but noticeable), a sore throat since Thursday, and have been sneezing all weekend. But no coughing (well, I woke myself up coughing on Friday morning but nothing since then), high temp, or changes in taste or smell. I'd almost quite like an excuse to have to test and isolate for a couple of days, but I really don't want it to be covid so fingers crossed it's allergies (I do have plenty of allergies, generally to cleaning stuff)

@AllDoneIn

My motivation is at zero. I did nothing this weekend. Mentally I have already left the building; it's just a case of 'when' now, not 'if'.

@noblegiraffe I commented on your other thread. I'm in awe of what you're doing

My motivation is zero this weekend too. I tried to mark a sixth form assessment only to find I'd left the mark scheme at school so I've ignored everything else as well, in a strop

It'll be ok, I've got PPA first thing tomorrow, so can do a lot then to organise myself for the day ahead. And I'll mark the tests tomorrow night and push back marking year 10 books til Tuesday. Not quite sure if that all fits with what else needs to be fitted in, but I'm sure it'll all get done (or it won't, but the world will carry on anyway 🤷)

From BRTUS
Cardiganshire LA have sent an urgent notice out saying they've decided to close seven schools for two weeks because of the high number of cases in the area.

I'm really starting to wonder what the (four) national attendance figures are going to look like for next week.

Yeah definitely loom. It's a thing and luckily it's quite simple isn't it Twinkle? A link takes up a lot less space than a whole PowerPoint with voiceover so also quicker and easier to set on GO and google classroom.

Impressed that ds's maths teacher is jumping straight in at the deep end with a truly live meet lesson tomorrow morning.

Less impressed with people posting what is effectively the homework task that was already set plus they've uploaded a load of PowerPoints on classroom for them to drag through and said it's 120 minutes of work and counts as two days lessons.

Makes me feel a bit better about my remote offering though.

That seems very inconsistent Honey. We have consistency that if whole classes are off then a live lesson is expected unless the normal teacher is also absent. In which case "cover" is set via teams.

Waters become very mucky with small groups of isolaters. The odd student and a ppt on teams with a video from Corbett oak etc. But more than about 7 off and some staff (me included) have done a hybrid.

I used loom throughout the last lockdown. It was really easy, and I managed to get through loads with my sixth form class.

This time round we've been told to use MS Stream, which is just as easy, and I can still send a link to my lesson. I've been recording my explanations as I do them in class for my sixth form isolators. I can't/won't do that for other years because the pupils in front of me wouldn't cope well with me recording while in their lesson, they would be more tempted to shout out, make noises, etc so I do a very short explanation video separately for them (luckily only one class have needed this at a time so far)

Finished my exam marking - woohoo. I know it is nearly 1 am, but it is done.

@MrsHamlet glad your stepmum is home. Hope she starts to feel better soon, so your dad finds it easier too.

Off to be now. Waiting for it to explode in our school tbh. Apparently the private school up the road had 11 cases in their sixth form in three days...

@MsAwesomeDragon if you use the zoe app and put in that you have a sore throat, it has always emailed me the next day and offered me a test. I didn't get round to it first time, but did it last week. As far as I am aware you don't need to isolate when waiting for this because it is part of research and not because you have been in contact or have the official symptoms. They are allowed to do it as they are working on an algorithm to pick up more efficiently cases from symptoms so they test lots of people with different symptoms to confirm whether or not they should be considered I think.

I felt OK this weekend, given I ahve a full day today. But have woken up feeling really stressed. This is probably exacerbated by my dishwasher being broken. And my boiler making weird noises. And DS1 having broken his third laptop. And generally the idea that I have not got time to sort any of this!

Only just had the washing machine replaced, fgs.

Oh no piggy. Washing machine should be under warranty and they'll likely send someone out? Pita making the phone calls though.

Been awake since 5. Going to get up and make Really don't need to be up this early as I have a late start at work today and don't have to have ds out of the door by 8.30 now he's on remote learning.

It shouldn't be patchy provision because we've had clear guidance on what we have to provide.

No live lessons from us if we're in school with other year groups. Just don't have the ability to do them in school. Old Desktop machines with no mic/webcam/visualiser/anything.

If we're at home, we can because we can use our own laptops. Can't take own laptops into school as no WiFi.

So, prerecorded only for us. It's better anyway, I think, as they can pause and go back. Feed back from lockdown 1 was that they didn't want live.

Another school in our Mat is closed today for a deep clean following a sudden outbreak of cases. It's geographically not that close but staff do sometimes travel between the two schools.

Our local paper has been pretty good at reporting school closures but this is not mentioned for some reason.

As far as I know, we are still business as usual.

Thanks everyone, class bubble now officially closed so we’re on two Zoom check ins a day and home learning through Seesaw. Going to be fun with a toddler, who is staying at home until I get the results of our tests to avoid infecting my ILs, who are over 70 and look after her four days a week.

Won’t know anything about IVF till we get all the test results back, so I’m trying my hardest to stay hopeful in the meantime. @SaltyAF I would have preferred to isolate at home prior to the procedure, but we lost so many staff last week due to another bubble burst we couldn’t manage it. How I regret not pushing the issue now....

It's dishwasher : not under warranty any more afaik. Grr

What I find most annoying about any repairs is the expectation that you can be in when they want to call. This is when the inflexibility of teaching really becomes apparent.

@MrsHerculePoirot you're so fast!!!! Well done :)

@MsAwesomeDragon on my list from the vaccine people, I'm required to tell them about a headache of 48 hours or more so I can get a test!

Or to even get a dental appointment!