The Thirty-First Republic - oh the joy of on-line parents evenings

[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

And it won't be long before she suggests you take in ironing or something, if you're feeling hard-up.

Sorry you are having a tough time honeybadger

I’ll bet being a delivery driver is pretty stressful. It is however pretty low skilled. Same can’t be said for teachers.

I’ve had some pretty perky weeks in school. This weeks been shit though. It’s mostly just one class I have that I’m really struggling with.
Been made to feel like it’s my fault for having a bad attitude towards that class. No mention of doing well with my 7 other classes (which I am). Just lots of time pointing out where I’m failing. Feeling totally demoralised.

Honey, that had the opposite effect on me to what they intended. Why would anyone start teaching if the starting salary is similar to an unskilled job?

Have you thought about tutoring? Not sure if there's much going in your subject or area but round here there's a massive market for it, most of our department have done it at some point or another. Not me, I'm too knackered to do extra.

Tutoring is a good little earner, but I'm not sure it would be any use in counting towards a mortgage offer.

@TheHoneyBadger and for you!

My house is also a tip been shopping this morning as there are still no bloody click and collect slots at my local store

DS enjoyed his birthday yesterday which is good.

Need to try to get ahead with work/house this weekend because next week is crazy busy.

Thanks for the replies everyone - useful to see how other schools have apprached this. We will have to ammend some current lunch practices I think.
Always good to know that the magic walls continue to combat aerosol transmission

No Angelina . he's the one who is the black sheep...

The BBC factcheck on Rishi's bollocks about public sector pay is well worth a read.

Careful about discussing other posters on here.

I can't post the stuff that ahs gone on this week as is vvvv outing but suffice to say our SLT suddenly seem to be getting very worried about 'accuracy of data..'. It is an obsession in our school but it has got quite hectoring this last week and involves passing much of the stress down to subject teachers and year 11.

I've emailed my MP a teacher version of this email for parents that I've posted on other threads. (bold bits to amend). Their stupid Christmas policy of a free-for-all only a week after schools close is going to kill people, because schools aren't safe. www.writetothem.com

Dear X

I am writing to you urgently because of the government's nonsensical policy around Christmas.

I have children in in a secondary/primary school which has had several cases of covid recently, including in their classes, therefore given the lack of mitigation measures in schools, I consider them to be at high risk of catching it. We know from the ONS data that secondary school pupils are the most infected subset of the population and that transmission in schools is rising.

We are not planning on seeing elderly relatives over the 5 day Christmas relaxation period because of this risk. Christmas falls one week after schools close and this would not be enough time from having been in school for the risk to be low enough to avoid spreading it to them.

We had been planning on waiting two weeks from the end of term and visiting them then, however, with the tiers of restrictions, it looks like this will not be allowed.

We are faced with the choice of seeing elderly relatives for Christmas at a time when we are more at risk of giving them covid, or not seeing them at all.

It seems absolutely baffling that the government would enact a policy that would encourage families with children to get together at a time when there is more risk of spread from children to old people, by banning this contact when there is less risk.

The obvious solution would be to allow schools to close a week early, or move online a week early, giving a clear two weeks 'quarantine' before Christmas day and therefore much less risk of the infection rates in schools spreading to elderly relatives, however the DfE have already stopped schools from doing this. We know that closing schools reduces the infection rate in school children from looking at the ONS random sampling data where there is a clear dip over half term.

Why is the government ignoring the obvious risks associated with their Christmas policy and blocking attempts to mitigate them? Please can you ask your colleagues at the DfE whether they accept the responsibility for the additional deaths this will cause?

I look forward to your response.

This is the vaccine schedule:

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/939119/Greenbook_chapter_14a___provisional_guidance_subject_to_MHRA_approval_of_vaccine_supply_.pdf

Considering DH was bumped off the flue list, he seems to reappear on this one.

Some interesting stuff here on children (including monkey, stuff about residential care setting and various neuro conditions)

Have a look on what it says about children and gastro intestinal symptoms RIGHT near the beginning! The government need to be questioned on this !!

It does look like schools may go on unprotected.

Ah, OK, I stand corrected.

I'll be sending that to my yes man Tory man and will await a reply. Not with baited breath though as I'll either get no reply or a standard reply. He simply will not engage with constituents about political matters.

@Piggywaspushed thanks for posting it.

That vaccine link is interesting, school staff aren't anywhere in the list of priorities. I think I will claim that I am a social care worker as my job is with vulnerable children with medical and educational needs and see where it gets me. Probably nowhere.

School staff should be in the same category as social care workers in my view.

Yes angelina exactly that. It's not about needing extra cash and I actually potter along ok ish it's about being mortgageable.

You poor poor English teachers. I'd no idea that they had managed to make English language so fucking boring till I just sat with ds doing a remote lesson! How far can you analyse one word ffs? What type of word, what meaning, what does it make you feel, then think etc. We skipped the life sucking analysis of each frigging word and just wrote a paragraph on the cumulative effect. Probably doesn't help that I'm not a fan of gothic literature but that was boring as hell.

The other lesson was ok as it was reading a passage and looking at how tension was built and it was actually really well written and open questions to answer so a lot easier to engage with.

I now understand why you were bemoaning the language component. Not at all how I remember it.

Jesus Christ, it's like groundhog day on the Scotland thread.

Is it too early for gin?

Re the vaccine, I think it would have been better to have used a points score that took into account risk of becoming seriously ill AND risk of catching the virus. Some in the ecv category may have a greatly reduced overall risk due to shielding measures they may be able to take. Other cv people may have greater overall risk due to their job.

@Piggywaspushed thank you x hopefully DS will get it in one of the priority groups then...

Fuming that as teachers we are not classed as high a risk a social workers. All meetings with SS are remote for DS at moment.