The Thirty-Second Republic - Christmas count down - end of term in sight

[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

Meanwhile, Scotland cancelling exams isn't even front page worthy for BBC.

Additionally school workforce data will be published in the new year.

OooOooOoooh. How will they fiddle it do we think?

Same way they fiddle the kids ones. make it harder and harder to be off.

Is this inset day an extra one allowed? Or moving time from elsewhere in the calendar?

So, I know we have had issues with Anne Longfield and what she has said about schools during lockdown but, on the whole, she has been a good children's' commissioner, holding the government to account.

The next 'preferred candidate' is academy chain CEO Rachel de Souza : very much not critical of the government.

How do they continue to get away with this cronyism??

twitter.com/whazell/status/1336338991130443786

My reading of it, Herc, is we have to move one. Ours are all twilights this year.

Rachel de Souza is in charge of the trust that runs the Great Yarmouth Charter Academy. The one with the head with the sick buckets in classrooms.

I’m sure she’s very progressive.

This is just brilliant:

framheadteacher.com/2020/12/08/happy-christmas-to-you-too-gavin-i-hope-its-better-than-ours/

I don't want ours moved. What a shite idea.

CPD on the last day of a fucking awful term. No thanks.

We can cancel my positive day. Dd1's doctors appointment (by phone) that she was supposed to have today did not happen. Because she's not registered with the doctors here, she apparently registered with a doctor at uni, but can't remember doing it or even which surgery she's likely to have registered with. So I don't even know how to sort that out. I assume I need to ring all the GPs in her uni town and find one that has her registered so I can make her an appointment with them. Bloody hell!!! How can she possibly have forgotten that she registered with a doctor down there?? Especially when we had this exact problem 2 years ago!! And we agreed that she definitely WOULDN'T register with a doctor down there because if she's ill she comes home!!! I am so angry with her, but am trying really hard not to be, because it's not her fault she's ill. It just makes something "simple" (not that bloody simple, it took an hour to fill in the form to request an online appointment here last night) into a much, much bigger and less straightforward job.

If it was already directed time it doesn't need to be reallocated on our account but may need to replace another inset day so it doesn't effect the number of teaching days for kids?

We're due to finish at 12 on the last day anyway and an hour of their time in is in form anyway so no real difference education wise. Wonder if ht will take them up in it or continue with planned schedule. Definitely dicking around bus companies to change things this late in the day.

I'm aware dicking isn't professional language but I'm past giving a 'fudge'

In my county (where I live, not where I work), they shove the INSET into the last two days of summer term, and definitely NO training happens then. They just use it to sort stuff out for the summer. Or, in a school I used to work in (recently), we used it to go on holiday 2 days earlier than most other people with kids.

I don't imagine our head will put this one in. I reckon we'll be down to half a school by that point anyway.

Had an interesting chat with her today while we were on duty today about now there are two tiers of school now anyway - those who haven't been affected by covid much, will have more fair exam results, will have had time for school development, monitoring etc, and then schools like ours, who have had major fire fighting issues with staff absence. She's right.

I've just thought (been trying to avoid it), what happens if a pupil travels 200+ miles on the morning of the 23rd to stay in their '3 family bubble' and then their parent gets the phone call saying they need to isolate that afternoon?

Or on the 24th when they've already spent 24 hours with their granny?

This is actual madness.

(I only want an inset if I can stay home, I'm not planning on actually teaching in the 18th, but some sort of at-work-inset would be torture)

We finish early on 18th anyway. Basically get two marks in the register and go home so not sure well get it.

Oh MsAwesome. How deeply frustrating for you. I wonder if there's a local health board or something you can ring? (But I guess they'd need the digital equivalent of forms in triplicate signed by her plus a password and a ransom to release the info....)

Does your school have any paid for health benefits, MsAwesome? Mine does and I think it covers my kids.

MsAwesome, I'd post on AIBU (for traffic) entitled something like "Any NHS staff know how I can quickly discover where my student daughter is registered?"

Or ring PALS tomorrow?

The problems will be confidentiality and speed I imagine.

But can she not see your GP as a visitor?? I recall doing that as a student registered at uni.

But can she not see your GP as a visitor?? I recall doing that as a student registered at uni. We did that last time. They aren't allowing that at the minute because covid apparently. I'll ring the biggest surgery in her uni town tomorrow morning, and hopefully she'll be registered there. If not, I'll try to find a private GP. My school does not have paid for health benefits, but we can afford a one off appointment I think. I'm prepared to pay for private therapy for a much longer term than that, so a one off GP appointment should be doable.

Or I wondered if it's possibly a mistake in the system and she hasn't registered with another GP, but the fact she did two years ago is showing on whatever database they use?

That's quite worrying if students home for Christmas can't get to see GPs, incidentally.

Hope you get something sorted.

DD still hasn't registered with a doctor up in her uni city, which has been handy for getting her repeats of all her medications each holiday when she's back home.

It's being reported in the BBC that the Welsh gov's technical advisory group is advising that people 'pre isolate' for 10 days before any meetings at Christmas. Which would necessitate finishing early to do so - from this Fri.

Except the gov don't actually want to let us do that. So Drakeford is urging families with kids to 'show restraint' in terms of their mixing - while still sending them to school.

So you're allowed to meet and we've chosen a dedicated window to allow it. But not made sure it fits in any safe way with the term times.

Shower of shite. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-55230715?fbclid=IwAR1POBG--8iWPwsLQCy9G_rW8gwhNhyIU00SxeykbyglsPsGEZHcy46pdaI

[quote Piggywaspushed]This is just brilliant:

framheadteacher.com/2020/12/08/happy-christmas-to-you-too-gavin-i-hope-its-better-than-ours/[/quote]
That's good.
I applied for a job their nearly 20 years ago. Was quite a different head back then.

This Dfe thing makes me think the chief exec of our academy trust ( allegedly labour supporter) is in cahoots with them.
Our head ( lovely, knackered and very stressed) announced on Friday we were having our March training day on 18/12.
Fortunately we don’t have to go in, a teams meeting for half an hour then due to all the extra hours we have putting in on individual kids meeting with their form tutors etc we can use it as a marking day.
Covid continues to swirl round our school like a tornado. Looking at the government figures the local area had about 160 cases in the last reported week, we must have had at least 12 of those as staff and students at my school, ok it’s a semi rural area but there are four big and a number of smaller secondaries in the area.

This week is the first week since September we've had all year groups in.
Just in time for it to all kick off again next week.