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

Herc hasn’t been on has she? Hope she is ok.

Woo hoo:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-teachers-could-be-prioritised-second-vaccine-phase%3famp

Scientists suggested that we* could be given priority along with other frontline workers in the second phase of vaccine roll out!

(Noble got a thread calling out to her by name, in order to draw her attention to this! How sweet......)

• I say "we", assuming that teachers = all school staff, perhaps I'm a fool!

Don't think she has. She's not the one that's come over all Nick Gibbs is she?

Anyway, yes, hope she's OK and just busy regrouping / reflecting /relaxing.

schoolsweek.co.uk/exams-2021-contingency-plans-revealed-as-ministers-attempt-to-avoid-another-fiasco/?fbclid=IwAR3u2sv3M6UJkp2n7Msl2HN0KNmUpSV1tD82vIrEBWDWUNmgQPtf2UUCNcE

Do we think the generous grades are here to stay? Shortly followed by a grade 10 being introduced?

So extra exams if anyone is ill or isolating? So not back to normal (ish) by Easter for everyone in schools then?

[quote RigaBalsam]schoolsweek.co.uk/exams-2021-contingency-plans-revealed-as-ministers-attempt-to-avoid-another-fiasco/?fbclid=IwAR3u2sv3M6UJkp2n7Msl2HN0KNmUpSV1tD82vIrEBWDWUNmgQPtf2UUCNcE[/quote]
This just looks like it will be biased more towards schools who have managed to keep y11 in by luck, as they will be most likely to get top grades, surely?

And as deprived areas seem to be worst hit in many cases, this will just increase the attainment gap.

@monkeytennis97

So extra exams if anyone is ill or isolating? So not back to normal (ish) by Easter for everyone in schools then?

Yeah, I noticed that too.

I suppose as teens will be low priority for the vaccine, they will still have the potential to be off ill or isolating after Easter.

Snow here today
The Facebook freak group are demanding weekly after school tuition for all exam classes to make up for lost time.
They're imagining all the dc will attend of course and that we will staff it for free

Exams thing as predicted.

What happens if you still can't get through the actual content DfE??

And, once more, total focus on exams and coursework ignored.

The certain subjects bit will be interesting... history again?

Apparently, Gavin is on BBC1 at 7.30. I shall be on the lookout.

He's on GMB after 8.00 too. Great. Just when most teachers won't be able to ask questions.

Gav on sky now, being roasted by Kay

I agree it still seems biased. I wonder if they will be given the Physics fornulas. Hmmm

Thanks for the concern noble, went to bed super early last night! Student suitably dealt with. Lots more issues in the background so ultimately a broken child lashing out and not realising their behaviour isn't ok.

Maths won't benefit much from this announcement is my prediction. Formula sheets possibly.

Gavin REALLY just compared us to Finland and Singapore!!???

Really, Gavin???

I preferred you in hiding.

Unfortunately for you, Gav, I know rather more about the school systems in Finland and Germany than you! And how they ahve coped with covid.

So long as your DD is OK, hey, Gav?

Got an appointment to give blood today. I was filling in the questionnaire and have had to tick "yes" for two questions - flu jab less than 8 weeks ago, and whether I've been in contact with someone with infectious illness within past 2 weeks (child in one of my classes tested positive last week). Will be interesting to see whether they let me donate today.

Don't think they'll let you. Might be better off calling and asking to avoid a wasted trip.

Dragon my ds has an advent calendar because my mum remembered. I didn't Can't get my head into Christmas at all currently.

In history they said previously that we could drop one of the topics on one of the papers so our department immediately dropped American West from year 11s sol for this year. The dfe better not change their mind.

We know the topics eg Elizabeth, medicine through time, ww2 etc and they are all covered in the exams bar the dropped one so revealing topics makes no sense to my subject either.

I don't get how inflating grades across the board addresses anything? Isn't it done naturally anyway ie how well the whole cohort does determines the grade boundaries? Unless eg they widen the grade 5/6 bands?

Meh. I'm going to try and have another day of house sorting and getting ds to up his remote learning input and trying to avoid turning on work laptop. The downside of trying to not work on days off is by the time I do turn my laptop on there's a hundred emails of things to do but I'm trying to give it a proper trial.

Don't see how the plans benefit English. With lit we know the texts - if they tell us the characters or themes the questions will be on then we just teach to the test even more so than we already do.

As for language what can they do? There ARE no topics! Give us the extracts in advance? Again, that'll just result in a million prepared responses being churned out and will reduce the whole thing to even more of a pointless exercise than it is already.

I wish they would increase the weighting of the coursework for A level, but that's far too sensible an idea for them. It's also really annoying that it's another 'further details soon' scenario, so we STILL can't plan properly for it. I actually hate these people. Rant over...

Well for my subject a list of topics would be good as there are so many areas to cover that honing it in would be helpful but who knows 🤷‍♀️

Also what about the st least two universities that have already said they'll give lower offers? If exam boards are now marking more generously, those institutions are going to end up with many more students than they can accommodate (in all senses).

And yes, this is just going to increase the attainment gap. Never mind, they'll realise that the evening before results day, and put everyone's results into a random number generator. Much fairer!

I also noted that initial exams are expected to be in first two weeks of July then alternative sittings soon after for those who were ill and then teacher/school generated grades for those who are absent from both sittings due to illness.

They get that we break up in July don't they? We had a really early September start this year. I haven't checked the school calendar but I'm assuming we'll be breaking up around 23rd July. Not sure how these plans fit or whose going to be staffing the second chance exams or being in school after them to generate marks for students who don't attend any of these exams.