The Thirty-Fourth Republic - Time to recharge our batteries and make the best of our festive break

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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

Oh yes @bornatXmastobequiet now I remember who you are? Sorry!

Interesting about support staff, maybe it's just me, or my school, then!

I'm technically a disabled teacher - I have ME/CFS. I also sometimes think I was mad to sign up for the teacher life, but I'm not suited to a desk job. Under normal circumstances I get by fine working part-time. Current covid running around the building isn't exactly great, and obviously catching covid has the potential to be very bad - thankfully I'm not experiencing the major warning symptoms though so I think I'll be okay and hopefully will recover from covid properly over Christmas

Only HLTA's have to come in to our insets unless it's for safeguarding training or such. I think TA's can choose to and would then claim for it.

@OpheliasCrayon sorry your arthritis is so bad, it's hard with young kids because you never really get a break do you.

I'm not disabled but I do have a curve in my spine and some disc/other issues following a bad accident a few years back. It can get very painful at times and the first half term this year was particularly bad with the disc bulging

Luckily, my school are fab. Usually I am in one room and although I can't have that at the moment they have worked really hard to make sure I don't have to lug loads of things around. I am a 2nd in faculty and have been allowed to share the office with my HoF to make sure I have a base.

I couldn't do a desk job though -I'd be so bored (no offence meant to anyone who does a desk job, it's just not for me!).

Today, I am enjoying Sunday without the feeling of having to get up and go to work tomorrow

@dollymixturelulus good luck for tomorrow and Tues. Must be hard being the last one of us still in.

[quote SquashedFlyBiscuitsForSanta]@dollymixturelulus good luck for tomorrow and Tues. Must be hard being the last one of us still in. [/quote]
We finish 2.30 on Wednesday! Must be the last surely.

Lsa here and we do all insets at my school and some after school meetings (if relevant). If they want me to do testing they can pay me a heck of a lot more.

Fuckweasel you definitely win the last one standing prize! Please tell us how many you have in on Wednesday I'm expecting serious absence tomorrow (and I'm keeping my own ds off, not sure what I'll say when I phone in about him)

@ItsIgginningtolookalotlikeXmas, Now let me think what shite excuses I've heard recently.
Erm.... "He had a bad night." "Not well." "Has a cough but it's not Covid." ( WTF? )
"Not in today."

Any of those do?

@fuckweasel You definitely got the short straw. It’s crap. Are you expecting many in?

I think we actually might have more in if they aren’t coming back until later. Haven’t planned anything though...

[quote DollyMixtureLulus]@fuckweasel You definitely got the short straw. It’s crap. Are you expecting many in?[/quote]
Probably! We have had no cases in school (whispers cautiously).

@DecemberStar

We did the outdoor nativity trail at church this morning (real sheep and newborn) and c80 people went round in groups of 6. My station involved lots of hand sanitiser!

It was lovely.

I'm still thinking we'll be in lockdown by 4 Jan, the things Matt H and scientists were saying this morning. Goodness knows what that would mean for exam years/ primary/ SEN.

Honey I imagine that sort of experience of someone else's horror could definitely 'qualify' a person for counselling. Especially if one was the type who is 'open' enough to have someone like that confide in them.

Still catching up but thank you. I'm pretty proud of the experience in some ways. I never allowed her to be restrained on my watch and although unconventional my grandma went shopping got us through some dark days.

I've since trained as a counsellor and I've also had various counselling myself. I'm ok but thank you and yes, well intuited, I do seem to have been open enough to have been told all sorts of things by all sorts of people and I'm a lot better at sort of shielding or protecting myself in that sort of energy as a 'grown up'. I was really still a kid myself then.

Is it just me whose only starting to feel vaguely grown up in middle age?

@OpheliasCrayon

I feel like I need a little non covid / non Xmas related moan. I've got really bad arthritis and other things as well although arthritis is the issue at the moment. My joints are just becoming abysmally painful. I've got two young kids so resting over Christmas isn't possible really and then obviously straight back to school, and my job is very phsyical being sen teacher. I sometimes wonder why I do my job with my illnesses but I wouldn't enjoy anything else. Disabled I may be but I just could never accept doing a job I didn't love.

I was just wondering since this is a board of teachers (without the teacher bashing madness ) ...Is there anyone else who's a disabled teacher (who would be happy to share ?) or even if anyone works with a disabled colleague ? Sometimes I feel like I'm very much on my own.

Well, I'm sure it's not too outing to tell you I'm deaf (with some hearing, not profoundly). I also work in SEN and I have a toddler.

So not a physical disability that is better or worse on different days and doesn't affect my movement, more that some days I take things in my stride and some days I hate my hearing aids/everyone who lacks deaf awareness training/everything else!

But you're not on your own. I totally appreciate the ups and downs and added difficulties on top of a normal teaching job.

Steady @fuckweasel, the first bubble in my school went about 20 seconds after I'd typed those exact words on a thread in here. Wed - yikes!

Name don't feel guilty - and you're not just doing this for you really as you'll be bringing considerably more money as a teacher and the whole family will benefit from that and they'll benefit from having seen their Mum work hard and challenge herself and achieve something hard.

I always used to buy ds a teddy and a pair of pjs for Christmas Eve - one year I bought him one that lets you record messages and we still have have it years on. We could record cutesy messages for each other or insults and I'd eg. come out of the loo to find the bear sat in the corridor and play the message or I'd record something silly for him and put it in his bed. Also bloody top trumps that he's managed to hang onto for years and still drags out and makes me play (sports cars is one deck and star wars is another - we know them off by heart and it goes on forever). His 'happy' yet little present this year is Harry Potter top trumps. He's all about designer clothing and PS4 credit but I know he'll love that and I'll be made to play it for hours.

No, no results yet december got butterflies in my stomach earlier when a message from coronavirus nhs testing came up on my phone but when I went into it it was just a survey on how my experience of ordering a survey was.

Sympathies and gin to colleagues in Scotland who are still working this week

Sorry you're in pain Ophelia!

Oh and my wrist warmers arrived today! So pleased. I can't wear jumpers or keep a cardigan on for long because of hot flushes but I can wear leggings under my trousers or skirts and scarfs and now I can have warm wrists too ds says they are embarrassing but I care not.

Forgot to say there was a case in year 9 announced on Friday and I got a text message telling me to check email today because they'd been informed of another year 9 testing positive. If our tests come back negative we've dodged a bullet again (ds is year 9)

Ophelia I'm not registered disabled but I've really suffered with health issues for a number of years, often very painful (chronic) and loads of fatigue and brain fog. Had one year off work I was so bad. Some diagnosed and some not yet, if ever. I fully understand how hard it is, I have 2 kids under 8, one is a toddler.

I have to use bean theory but I run out often with work and Fridays often have to be a rest day. I can only physically work part time.

Dh commented today that it's probably work that keeps me going physically, to a point I think he's right actually. Despite one day per week, after the days I do at school, having to be a rest day.

(and do you take magnesium?)

Name, you're also showing your kids the fruits of determination. You're not a shit mum at all!

I’m hoping some of you will be able to help me understand a colleague of mine.

I teach in London, so just gone into Tier 4. Our borough is providing weekly tests for all education staff, including those of us in primary. It’s hassle free - you take the kit home one evening and return it to school the next day. Results sent by email. Most of us very happy about it as I know primary staff are not being tested across the whole country.

However someone in my bubble is refusing to participate in the weekly tests. Her reasons are that she doesn’t want to stick anything up her nose and neither she nor her family are vulnerable to Covid.

I have a CEV toddler at home and I am upset that she won’t do this for the benefit of all of us in the bubble. Is that unreasonable of me?

@namechangedyetagain

Dds are 7 and 10. Ds 13. For the first time since they all arrived, this autumn I've concentrated on myself and I was hoping I could make it up to them at xmas and now covid. Ive worked late, worked weekends and generally not been the mum I should have been and now I feel so guilty. I'm not even sure what they're into. They never ask for anything

Don't feel guilty, @namechangedyetagain, the first few years are so incredibly tough. I've got a pretty solid marriage but there were times when I think my husband couldn't cope with what the work was doing to me. I think it took him 4-5 years to get used to it. My ds (now 11) always laughs about the time we were watching TV one evening and I was leaning my head on the top of his head and fell fast asleep. Every evening without fail, I'd fall asleep during their bedtime story.

A printable Amazon voucher might be an easy gift this year? Then you and they can go online on Christmas Day and choose something together. Or a voucher with a promise, such as a meal out or a trip to a local attraction?

Look after yourself. My old boss always used to say if I didn't look after myself, I wouldn't be able to look after my family.

@Useruseruserusee

That's a really difficult situation.

In your situation is be upset and probably take it personally.

Try and remember your colleague isn't doing it to spite you. The really kind part of me may think she has a different reason she is unwilling to share (past trauma or medical anxiety?) so is brushing it off with that excuse.

I have a CEV toddler at home and I am upset that she won’t do this for the benefit of all of us in the bubble. Is that unreasonable of me?

I'm so sorry to hear about your toddler, poor wee mite. No it's not unreasonable, it's very understandable. When you're protecting someone so small, innocent and vulnerable, I'd say that's a very reasonable reaction.

I'm not sure how to deal with it other than talk about it loudly in her ear shot.

There's a peculiar thing that happens when you've gone to so much trouble to keep others safe and you find someone else disregarding it all and not bothering. I've felt it a lot.

TheHoneyBadger thank you for sharing your experiences. It makes sense; for those of us who care for the children who need the love the most but show it in the most unloving ways, we can't help but give too much of ourselves. Personally - don't care if it's outing - I struggle with MH, last year had ambulance called, panic attack, lying on the floor full on screaming fits etc, and all down to overwork and stress. Have managed to keep going this year but this last week have felt the edges going all fuzzy, wouldn't take much for that cliff edge to crumble.

Righto, off for a hot bath, hot chocolate and cuddle with DH and DD.

However someone in my bubble is refusing to participate in the weekly tests. Her reasons are that she doesn’t want to stick anything up her nose and neither she nor her family are vulnerable to Covid.

She’s thick as two short planks.
She’s a selfish dick.
She has a phobia she is trying to deflect from by being either of the above.