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

I found 100% online learning WAY less stressful.

Stick young kids into the mix and it‘a not so fun, I was constantly task switching between planning a lesson/explaining a twinkl sheet, phoning home kids/correcting a twinkl sheet/writing resources/telling DD to get on with her work. Being in school would be easier, but less well equipped re tech and wifi.

David Blunkett on LBC even he has changed his narrative from the summer. Saying schools do not have time to set up the testing in 2 weeks and new strain is a worry.

I am sick of when the school question and the new strain is put to MPs they start it with the schools are essential guff... I mean really.. no shit that's not what was asked. Labour are actually becoming worse for this sadly.

Why do so many parents (of straightforward children)on MN expect teachers to phone their children? I don't expect anything of the sort!

Am cheering myself up by noting that the most vocal TBs are also Macron bashers/ GP bashers/ anyone who can be bashed bashers. It's not necessarily personal.

Yy to behaviour. For a couple of classes it is something of a relief not to have to spend disproportionate amounts of time dealing with a very small number of pupils who demand so much attention. If primaries stay open I'll have a mixture of dc in school and at home. Nothing from our head teacher yet so not sure what will happen in January. I don't have y11-13 this year so may be able to work from home. Other than that it might be nice to work from what used to be my classroom instead of carting my stuff from pillar to post every hour!

I'm hoping that if we're doing online again for a bit then the people who stayed at home last time doing fuck all, have to go in and do KW cover. We sent all BAME staff home because of unknown higher risk, and frankly some of them did nothing. One still bangs on about how hard work is compared to a lovely summer term cycling around southern England. Read the room nob face.

Actually, they'll send TAs in won't they, because all teachers can now use teams.

I don't need to PM this. One of the co leads of U4T is a writer of some kind who now has a beautifully SD, WFH job which she doesn't want disrupted by her children writing columns in the Tory owned Telegraph.

They ahve also had visits with Boris, where BRTUS (and the Unions!) have been refused audiences.

That said re behaviour our year 9s apparently orchestrated coordinated disruption to remote lessons on Friday..

I'm going to say it - the pe staff can deal with the KW kids. Ours did naff all in lockdown and not much more since we went back.
Bloods taken. Swabs correctly done. I'm going to nip to booths now to stock up.

Yes, our Year 9s have been the worst for online lessons so far, Piggy! The behaviour policy was re-written specifically with their actions in mind! It’s still an issue, despite what many posters claim cannot be a problem!

@Piggyinblankets

That said re behaviour our year 9s apparently orchestrated coordinated disruption to remote lessons on Friday..

Yes, that happened in one of my y7 lessons when I had half the class in front of me and half the class on Teams (so stressful), and in my dad's class. I'm going to be stricter about kicking disruptive pupils off Teams next term, if it happens, and also put the meeting controls as high as they can be set. Hard when you don't know who's doing it though.

Dd, not dad. My dad can just about cope with a family Zoom!

I've done no work either. I may do a spot of planning later today or tomorrow.

So far,I have finished Christmas shopping, watched tv with DH/DS, tidied the house,played snakes and ladders with DS and helped him build some minecraft lego. Today, we are going to the park and getting lunch from the takeaway window if a nearby cafe which we love. DS will want to go to the post office to get his pick and mix sweets so we'll do that (he actually likes counting up the cost bless him ). I have some gifts to deliver to doorsteps today or tomorrow and all DS presents to wrap. Oh, I also went running the other day.

So, I have done lots with the first 3 days of my holiday but none of it related to work I desperately need some time to just relax and switch off.

I don't mind doing remote learning and being on the kw rota but I dread the after effects of the combination of kids who've done nothing and the kids who have in class together afterwards.

I'm thinking of one really shitily behaved year 8 disrupting a whole lesson saying he didn't get it because he hadn't done any of the lessons when they were remote learning for 2 weeks and that being his excuse for not being willing to even try to do the task we were doing and then just talking over me and disrupting everyone else whenever I tried to help and explain it to him.

Kids who already have behaviour and engagement issues come back from remote even worse and seemingly feeling even more entitled to disrupt everyone else's learning. And I also don't want their lack of progress reflecting on me when I have no control over what goes on at home and have to carry on with the syllabus because we haven't got time to do it all again and even if we did we have parents whose kids did engage complaining that they were repeating things.

Long moan there. So yeah I'm ok with doing remote learning but not keen on the aftermath

Attendance figures are out today aren't they? Will be interesting to see. We've not had any year groups closed (officially) but our attendance was something around 53% in one year group in the last week of term and in the 60/70s in others, despite having only roughly 10% of kids with an X across the school.

WiFi also woeful at my school. We're all much better set up for tech at home (self-provided, of course). I'm just going to leave on the dot of the bell, go home and make recorded lessons and then just do a five minute live intro on Teams to point them to the recorded lesson. Live ones are just a bit pointless (for many subjects).

I think they said attendance figures wouldn’t be published today but postponed till Jan.

That is another really tough impact of the current situation, Honey.

However, it was weird that during the full summer lockdown, some of our naughtiest in-class boys did the most and the best work and came on in leaps and bounds. When they've had just a ten day isolation period this term, though, they haven't really. Live lessons encourage misbehaviour, too, as there's an audience. Pre-recorded: they just get on with it.

@noelgiraffe ah convenient...

I'm not sure how to handle the Monday to be honest. Normal time I'd have 2 lessons to teach back to back and that's it. It's the only day on a fortnight timetable where I don't have trapped unpaid time. The lessons are not 11 or 13. I can quite imagine being put on rotas etc that assume I do a full day on each day I'm in school.

Going to be really awkward if that does happen because I don't want to be seen to be difficult but I also don't fancy effectively doing a whole extra days work unpaid.

True jingling. The just two weeks bit and parental annoyance with mid term closing of the year groups for staffing reasons probably didn't help.

@TheHoneyBadger

I don't mind doing remote learning and being on the kw rota but I dread the after effects of the combination of kids who've done nothing and the kids who have in class together afterwards.

I'm thinking of one really shitily behaved year 8 disrupting a whole lesson saying he didn't get it because he hadn't done any of the lessons when they were remote learning for 2 weeks and that being his excuse for not being willing to even try to do the task we were doing and then just talking over me and disrupting everyone else whenever I tried to help and explain it to him.

Kids who already have behaviour and engagement issues come back from remote even worse and seemingly feeling even more entitled to disrupt everyone else's learning. And I also don't want their lack of progress reflecting on me when I have no control over what goes on at home and have to carry on with the syllabus because we haven't got time to do it all again and even if we did we have parents whose kids did engage complaining that they were repeating things.

Long moan there. So yeah I'm ok with doing remote learning but not keen on the aftermath

Agree with this 100%. Right down to your y8 student .

I don't mind home learning. Lessons were shortened by 10 min and as such I didn't spend that time going through the answers at the end of the class, which left a huge amount of marking every evening. So will be making sure we self-mark or use self-marking tasks much more next term.

The vast majority of my students work and try hard, and engage with me during lessons. They also generally have the tech available. I'm lucky in that sense. I think parents also tire of hearing from me when their dc aren't engaging properly, so hopefully that also helps with keeping their dc on track.

Our CV and CEV staff stayed off according to advice at the time of the first lockdown, I can’t say there were any skivers, really. One caught Covid when she came back in Sept and is still quite ill.
I’m more than happy to do the KW supervision again, it felt very safe. Much safer than the last few weeks of term.

I’ve never done remote learning. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.

I can already tell which kids will engage and which won’t. A lot. Of my year 9s are already massively behind where they need to be. Remote learning is going to make it so much worse.

UPS are absolute dicks. Every other courier does what the note on the door says and photographs it if signature needed. UPS have taken my parcel to the horrible, skanky corner shop I never go in 😡😡. Useless fuckers.

I worked from home from March-July because of ECV DH. My school had Reception, Y1 and Y6 in and I was in y2 then. My 1:1 was in school as she has EHCP, in a bubble of 14. I did 4 or 5 Zoom calls a day to various classes so they could chat to each other. I did another daily Zoom to a different 1:1 child who couldn't be trusted in school (spitting etc) and also to another whose parents didn't want her in school. I did training online and updated curriculum planning etc etc.

I found the Zoom calls really draining, the children were often on their devices playing Roblox or whatever online with each other at the same time, they didn't want to talk to me or each other. I had to be cheerful and try to engage them in scavenger hunts etc. There were parents on the calls too especially for the smaller ones, so I had to keep my manic grin fixed at all times. Fortunately our school is small so I do know all the children not just the ones I teach. I had Wifi issues, laptop didn't always manage good quality calls.

Since September I have been in school 8-4 at full tilt every day. The difference is marked! Don't know how/what I would do if we go back to online provision or if we would have keyworker children in school. Or do we think that there is no way primaries will go online because of childcare?

I haven't done any work as I am so physically exhausted by the term that I just need to sleep and slump on the sofa.