The Thirty-Third Republic - End of term and DfE threats- cheers all!

[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

Once again the disadvantaged students will be most disadvantaged.
If my children's secondary put a call out for volunteers they'd have a battalion of highly skilled, literate and communicative parents to choose from, many of whom work flexibly or not at all.
In the school where I work you don't assume that parents can read instructions. They may well be willing to volunteer but it would need a very high ratio of staff to parent to train and oversee. That's more staff time out of class.
The whole thing is nonsense.
IF MASS TESTING IS THE KEY WHY ARE BEING THROWN A SKETCH ON THE BACK OF A FAG PACKET ON THE LAST DAY OF TERM???
This should have had a clear plan in August, and been transparently tested since then.

Gosh yes @OnehorseopenBobsleigh , so right.
about the NQT running the Plan.
Piggy what suspicions do you have about mass testing in the first week?

I discussed this with my kids (Y9 and 11) on the way to school.

"Do they have enough tests to do that?" they asked.

"Good question" I replied.:....

My suspicions are that not all that many kids will test positive. They should do it in the second week!!

Nick Gibb says volunteers don't need DBS???

He also said that "every school has a school hall, no?"

Yeah, being used for exams or PE or lunch and breaks or as the actual "Covid safe room" whilst awaiting collection of symptomatic children.

He. Has. No. Idea.

I posted this on one of the many other threads, but what would happen if heads did this and just refused to set up testing stations in schools

Dear Gav,

1. We don’t have facilities for storing the tests
2. We don’t have a room with a non-porous floor in order to hold these tests in. We have a hall but it is used for breakfast club/mocks/classrooms/lunch.
3. We have canvassed our parents and a vast majority refuse to give consent for daily testing rather than self-isolating if their child has been near a positive case.

We therefore have completed our risk assessment and we will not be able to set up a testing site on our school. If the NHS/LA/Serco wish to set up local testing facilities somewhere instead, we will try to accommodate pupils attending where possible, accompanied by their parents once we have seen further detail. As is stands, we will continue to isolate pupils for 10 days following contact with a positive case as remains government advice everywhere else in the country.

Yours

Head teacher

I would imagine Gav would try to take them to court, but actually-I think this would be a hill worth dying on for many heads.

Yup @Achristmaspudsskidu .

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55354564

"Heads 'broken' by late Covid test plans"

Discovering that BBC articles have comments has really helped this week.

People who don't hate teachers exist!! Hurray!

Head eventually emailed us. Email obviously copied and pasted from something written by a minion.

@Danglingmod

Discovering that BBC articles have comments has really helped this week.

People who don't hate teachers exist!! Hurray!

Yes the BBC comments boxes have been brutal.

MN is a small group of the population compared with BBC

There were plenty of teacher bashers/not in the real world/part time overpaid etc on there when I looked.

Our head has said we'll tell you more when we know more but to plan for yr11 and 13 to be in school first week back and remote lessons for the rest.

Oh I thought the BBC comments were on the whole MUCH kinder than mn posters!

I was reading oldest first - maybe that makes a difference but plenty of oh poor diddums somebody on 120K a year might have to work over the Christmas period or all teachers think they're special but we know they're just selfish and lazy, you should try getting a real job etc etc.

We made it to Christmas everyone! Bloody well done one and all.

Can I just ask, is it definitely the up the nose/back of throat swab or is it saliva test? Well done everybody!!!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🎉🎉🎉

DS’s school have stated unequivocally that testing will not take place in the first week back and not until all training and safety aspects have been sorted out. Jolly good for them, I think all schools should take that tack tbh. Clear that first week of classes, insist the govt sort out the testing. I’m glad they are not using their much needed Christmas holiday to try and get it up and running.

Both nostrils.

I see Boris has said he's really hoping we won't have to lockdown in January.

There's the go ahead to start planning for it then......

Like I said yesterday, I suspect the week will be a half-hearted ‘firebreak’ to try and slow the spread in schools after the Covid-tastic Christmas break anyway.
Say you have a plan.
Fail to implement that plan.
Deflect criticism onto those pesky school heads who unfathomably couldn’t set up a seamless, safe testing regime in 2 weeks over Christmas.

Either that or the whole nation is going into lockdown so this is a little pretend we were intending to do something about schools charade that won't come to pass.

How can there possibly be confusion about what the test will involve, even?

The schools handbook written on 15th December says nose and throat.

And it’s wrong?!

God knows.

I also think but I'm not sure that schools don't even have to attempt to roll this out if they don't want to.

I hope we stick with "no, thank you."

I think they're banking on lots of schools saying no thanks so they don't actually have to pull millions of tests and the distribution system out of their arse over Christmas themselves.

Thing is, as we keep proving, we're way more cowed and obedient than they expect every time so we might end up actually calling their bluff and setting it all up ready to go only for them to have to admit they don't have the tests or ppe or distribution in place to actually do this.

They are so shit. If it wasn't our actual government in an actual international crisis where tens of thousands of lives are in the mix it would be amusing. As it is it's kind of.... disorientating tbh. You think they can't be that shit, maybe they can be, do they really think this is possible/acceptable etc?

It's causing cognitive dissonance on a mass scale because people need to believe governments and institutions are competent and at least partially beneficent but the evidence that keeps being put in front of them tells another story. I think perhaps blame those fucking lazy selfish teachers is a coping mechanism for the psychologically immature who can't handle facing and reconciling that dissonance.

Am sure I read somewhere definitive that it was both nostrils?

PUAUS have found at least one school - in Cumbria iirc - that's refusing to do it. The comments from parents on their Fb page weren't great though.

Schools handbook with pictures

I think perhaps blame those fucking lazy selfish teachers is a coping mechanism for the psychologically immature who can't handle facing and reconciling that dissonance.

Spot on. Representing Authority as a whole.

Well that seems pretty definitive Noël, apologies!

Oh blow, autocorrect respelt your name..... now I've got the Crossroads theme going round my head (old enough to get that reference??) [OK that's Noele iirc]