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

Thinking of you Herc

Blimey herc hope you are ok and it’s dealt with appropriately.

I really hope they support you properly, Herc. It sounds horrible, and you are not normally a teacher to be shaken.

Sorry to hear that herc. Do you have a supportive partner you can lean into? Can't remember if you've mentioned.

Crying here too. Assessment point coming up and my evidence isn't up to scratch so that needs attending to as well as a reflective essay by Monday.
Am on my knees tired. Not even thought about xmas yet so also stressing about that (my DD are still small so need xmas).
I need to keep going. I want to keep going.
But I don't know if I'll ever be good enough and I can't shake that feeling if self doubt.
Not even put my lesson plan on the proforma for the morning yet. It's scribbled down but I just need to get to bed. I'm cold and I ache.

Better days all round tomorrow hopefully.

namechange You are good enough. The fact that you care about being good enough is half the battle. Do as much as you can online for Xmas.

Thank you for your kind words. This thread is ace. I do have a supportive partner and some good friends at school who have helped.

Despite saying I was going to be less Amazon-y this Xmas, I did all my Xmas shopping on Amazon on Sunday. Poor partner had to answer the door approximately eleventy hundred times today, and the stack of boxes is 5 foot high. Bought myself a tiny silver handbag for all the nights out I have planned... ahem.

Have got a swim slot booked for 6.30am on Thursday too, which I'm super excited about. Now all I need is for my child to sleep through the night.

Herc that sounds shit. Gin is your friend.

@Hercwasonaroll I hope you're ok and get support in school

Today was ok but Y11 were bouncy - partly because we were doing classification and there are a lot of confusing words. Parents eve tomorrow and Thursday. I'm so tired - too tired to want to be cheerful two nights on the run!

Can't even get away with 'easy' lessons - my Y11/13 can't afford to waste a single second, Y10s are nice but very weak and struggle to work independently. Y9 are nice but current topic is taking ages and isn't one where they could do a research task

Can't believe it's only Wednesday tomorrow!

@namechangedyetagain

Crying here too. Assessment point coming up and my evidence isn't up to scratch so that needs attending to as well as a reflective essay by Monday. Am on my knees tired. Not even thought about xmas yet so also stressing about that (my DD are still small so need xmas). I need to keep going. I want to keep going. But I don't know if I'll ever be good enough and I can't shake that feeling if self doubt. Not even put my lesson plan on the proforma for the morning yet. It's scribbled down but I just need to get to bed. I'm cold and I ache.

Better days all round tomorrow hopefully.

A cuppa and a hand hold (not my actual Covid ones obvs!) You’re doing a phenomenal job. We all are.

Sorry namechanged hope you get some more energy for the rest of the week.

@Hercwasonaroll

I'll join the crying brigade. Very disturbing incident with a ks3 pupil. Still very shaken now about it. Being a female member of staff in school is tricky sometimes.

Hope that you are ok Herc, and that you are getting appropriate levels of support.

Looking at other jobs now. Not even teaching ones. I’ve not started year 9 reports due Thursday. It’s all too much and I’m not being paid enough to feel this crap and have no other life.

I've noticed something.

All the staff at work who are off either with a positive covid test, or who have been off more than once getting a test, are the people who are normally off sick a lot anyway.

Do you think they are better at noticing things wrong with themselves than others? Or just generally more ill? Hence why positive for covid? Although one of ours is asymptomatic, and only had a test because track and trace said to due to positive contact.

I drag myself in unless I'm bleeding from the eyes, but I wonder whether the headache and dizzy weirdness last week/over the weekend should have been investigated.

@namechangedyetagain

Crying here too. Assessment point coming up and my evidence isn't up to scratch so that needs attending to as well as a reflective essay by Monday. Am on my knees tired. Not even thought about xmas yet so also stressing about that (my DD are still small so need xmas). I need to keep going. I want to keep going. But I don't know if I'll ever be good enough and I can't shake that feeling if self doubt. Not even put my lesson plan on the proforma for the morning yet. It's scribbled down but I just need to get to bed. I'm cold and I ache.

Better days all round tomorrow hopefully.

It sounds trite, but remember to be kind to yourself, namechanged. You probably hold yourself to a higher standard than others!

Wiped out tired here too. Some horrid stuff going on with poor ds at the moment which is making me emotional, on top of the relentless workload. I've been doing my Christmas shopping using the independent online shops thread on MN - so useful.

@Fossie

Looking at other jobs now. Not even teaching ones. I’ve not started year 9 reports due Thursday. It’s all too much and I’m not being paid enough to feel this crap and have no other life.

Ooh Fossie no. Really sorry to read that. You are a cracking teacher. Hope it all gets better soon.

I drag myself in unless I'm bleeding from the eyes, but I wonder whether the headache and dizzy weirdness last week/over the weekend should have been investigated.
They do say teachers are some of the most likely to carry on working when they shouldn’t. I hope you feel better soon.

@MsAwesomeDragon

Our SLT haven't been involved in the contact tracing at all. That's all been done by the admin staff. So will it be the admin staff who have to be on call over the holidays? They definitely don't earn enough for that!!

Our SLT have been focusing on kids wearing coats today. As in, telling them to take them off, even though the policy communicated to staff was that the kids can wear coats at our discretion. They seem to think that if some of the kids can cope without a coat then they all should. But some kids are sitting next to a radiator and others are sitting next to an open window!! In one corner of my room there are 4 open windows and it gets bloody cold in that corner!!! But the head comes and stands in the doorway (close to the radiator, miles away from the windows) and declares it warm enough for no coats. The kids are freezing!!!

I feel like admin staff don't get paid enough to be responsible for contact tracing in general. That's not meant to be derogatory- just for the amount of pay they get, I would not want to be responsible for making those decisions. And yes, they absolutely shouldn't be expected to work in the holidays (unless voluntary overtime with pay).

I agree that the coats thing is ridiculous. I have also had SLT tell students to take coats off, even though parents have been told that students can wear a coat in class! I don't ever question it, because I'm a perpetually cold person, and I know what it's like to be the one person who can't get warm after I have got cold. It's also totally different when you have to spend most of the day sitting down.

Half of them are in PE kit anyway, so I'm not sure what difference a coat makes!

And rant over!

Feel for any cev staff having to go back in tomorrow

The NEU are saying they will support CEV teachers and advise heads that they should continue to work from home.

Heck, even one of our main detractors on here agrees with that.

Hanging on in there but just so tired. Trying to pack the learning in to my exhausted class but get some Christmas bits in a bit early too just incase we have a bubble closure. Attendance is weirdly good at the moment.

Extra gin for all students, NQTs and secondary peeps for sure.

herc, hope you're OK, no-one should have to put up with that at school.

Name, difficult to tell over the internet, but you always come across as very dedicated. I'm sure you'll make an excellent teacher. I've been teaching for a long time and seen loads of trainees. The best ones always have a big chunk of self doubt .

Also a crying day today here. Loads of staff saw me crying and loads more now know about my car crash of a year so want to go in in disguise this morning to avoid the nods of sympathy.

Hope today is a better day for all of you.

@SquashedFlyBiscuits

Hanging on in there but just so tired. Trying to pack the learning in to my exhausted class but get some Christmas bits in a bit early too just incase we have a bubble closure. Attendance is weirdly good at the moment.

Extra gin for all students, NQTs and secondary peeps for sure.

I was thinking the other day that all the mask wearing and handwashing has to be good for something.

And the normal winter coughs can't spread as much as kids have to go off and wait for a test.

Do you have room for another on here ?
I'm not a teacher but I work in pastoral care at a secondary and quite frankly I am knackered.

Every day I start thinking I am going to be achieving one set of goals and every day I am chucked in the middle of something else leaving my original aim for the day in the dust.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

I drag myself in unless I'm bleeding from the eyes, but I wonder whether the headache and dizzy weirdness last week/over the weekend should have been investigated.

Headache for 48 hours or more, and fatigue are both on the list of symptoms I've been told I have to test for.