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

[SantaAssociationRepresentitve]

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

@TheHoneyBadger

Thanks everyone. Clearly my suffering was literally less than nothing compared to the girls I took care of but it was really shit that they left me with her for 12 hour shifts taking all of her offloading and with her getting inappropriately attached to me for a week. I can remember going over to the ward every lunch and saying to the nurse in charge I think this is a bad idea, she's getting too attached, she's telling me everything, I'm only bank staff and haven't had proper training and should she be getting this attached to me and telling me all this when I won't be involved in her long term care etc and just being ignored.

It's never left me. It seemed like people were either emotional wrecks likely needing time off for stress and their own mental health issues regularly or were really hardened and cold and shut off from the patients/clients. I decided I didn't want to be either of those. It was a tough job anyway but feeling totally solely responsible for the well being of that girl broke me.

I'm pouring a bath with lots of magnesium in it and a large glass of wine. Freaky how much stress and discomfort can be re-thrown at you from remembering someone else's trauma.

Another admission that I feel the need to share is that I taught a boy a couple of years ago who was always late to school, never had equipment and was beyond peculiar in terms of how he interacted etc. I found out that the reason he had a TA wasn't because of SEN but because he had already sexually abused children younger than him in the home and in his last school so couldn't be left alone unsupervised during movement times etc. He was still living in the same home and from everything we know likely to have been sexually abused himself to be hypersexualised and abusing others at primary age.

People just don't get what, 'comprehensive' means. I remember an adorable but soft friend of mine once being genuinely ashamed of the fact that she didn't like ONE of the kids she had to teach that year and having to give her a talk on how every rapist, wife beater, pedophile, axe murderer etc went to school and how now even kids who are way beyond the reach of education (and some who are already too damaged to be ok to be mixing freely in society) are in our classes.

I think I, and presumably, we make light of it most of the time and the really scary or disturbing cases are spread out and we deal with it at the time and move on and fortunately it's not every year or every day.
Though we did have one student last year who was stuck between services and couldn't cope at all in school and whose behaviour was a nightmare to even pretend to deal with in mainstream but was in care so couldn't be expelled and everything was up in the air waiting on court cases and legal stuff.

Point being people who tell us we should try and work in, 'the real world' can ftfo. Sorry for the venting - just all flashed up. Will have a nice bath and stick it back in the box in the attic

I think a lot of people assume our job is maths english playtime and marking.

I don't think they realise what we actually see, and who we actually need to help.

I'm sorry you were put in the situation you were all those years ago.

You should never have been put in that position, Honey, but still people are, every day. All down to money, as usual.

I won’t go into the stuff I’ve had to sort out and worry about in my time at primary, but some of it stays with you a long time. A chance remark at playtime can set a whole chain of events and discoveries in motion.

@BreadSaucery

You should never have been put in that position, Honey, but still people are, every day. All down to money, as usual.

I won’t go into the stuff I’ve had to sort out and worry about in my time at primary, but some of it stays with you a long time. A chance remark at playtime can set a whole chain of events and discoveries in motion.

Oh it can and I don't think many people on MN realise that

Definite apologies for taking us to the dark side.

Term is over and we deserve cheer and lightness not depressing reliving of dark stuff.

I have opened a bottle of relatively cheap fizz from my Aldi delivery (mostly good wines to take to sister's house for Christmas but a few cheapies for me) and encountered a strange new plastic contraption that you have to unpeel in circles up the neck of the bottle and then pop out of the top of prosecco instead of a cork.

Genuinely sorry and hope we can all shake that off and enjoy our accomplishment for making it to the end of this term. Who gives a damn what idiots think - we know damn well that we and our colleagues have down awesomely.

Gosh just came on to say how utterly fed up and down i feel. But actually I'm just ill and pissed off because I haven't been able to work in my study week and Christmas is buggered and I'm unsure what to get present wise for my DC and I feel ive let them down.

Nothing compared to the awful, awful stuff others are going through

Please don’t apologise, Honey, we can all take on what we want or pass on it when we read here. You’re not bringing anyone down with a deeply personal experience.

Honey this thread is for support and if you need to offload then this is absolutely the place for it.

All school staff have their own experiences with horribly neglected or abused kids, although not as up-close and deeply personal as yours, which is why it is pretty fucking galling when certain groups bleat on about schools needing to be open for vulnerable children, not because they give a shit, but because they actually mean 'schools need to be open for my kid, and I'm going to use vulnerable kids to make a handy emotive argument'.

Oh I say. Rebellion in Tory Teacher ranks

twitter.com/Miss_Snuffy/status/1340594603754463233

@noelgiraffe

Honey this thread is for support and if you need to offload then this is absolutely the place for it.

All school staff have their own experiences with horribly neglected or abused kids, although not as up-close and deeply personal as yours, which is why it is pretty fucking galling when certain groups bleat on about schools needing to be open for vulnerable children, not because they give a shit, but because they actually mean 'schools need to be open for my kid, and I'm going to use vulnerable kids to make a handy emotive argument'.

That's it isn't it, exactly.

Yes it's exactly that Noel.

Don't apologise for your posts honey. It's helpful to read that others have similar experiences.

First few week back were trauma training for us for a reason.

@TheHoneyBadger

Definite apologies for taking us to the dark side.

Term is over and we deserve cheer and lightness not depressing reliving of dark stuff.

I have opened a bottle of relatively cheap fizz from my Aldi delivery (mostly good wines to take to sister's house for Christmas but a few cheapies for me) and encountered a strange new plastic contraption that you have to unpeel in circles up the neck of the bottle and then pop out of the top of prosecco instead of a cork.

Genuinely sorry and hope we can all shake that off and enjoy our accomplishment for making it to the end of this term. Who gives a damn what idiots think - we know damn well that we and our colleagues have down awesomely.

DH and I nearly had a total meltdown the other week due to one of those corks. We couldn't get it off for a good ten minutes.

As it goes through you can actually get it back on the bottle and the prosecco does stay fizzy.

I got it back on after the first glass Ophelias but couldn't after the second and now no longer give a shit.

[quote TheHoneyBadger]I got it back on after the first glass Ophelias but couldn't after the second and now no longer give a shit.

So, found it. This is what it says about 'extra INSET day':

However, schools can use an extra INSET day on January 4 to “prepare to deliver the testing”. More detailed operational guidance is expected to be published next week
Eh?

So, if you have an ISET already on Jan 4, this isn't extra and you now have to change plans

And is you don't have an INSET on Jan 4th , are you supposed to come back early??

@Piggyinblankets

So, found it. This is what it says about 'extra INSET day':

However, schools can use an extra INSET day on January 4 to “prepare to deliver the testing”. More detailed operational guidance is expected to be published next week
Eh?

So, if you have an ISET already on Jan 4, this isn't extra and you now have to change plans

And is you don't have an INSET on Jan 4th , are you supposed to come back early??

We have inset on 4th and 5th... I'm so lost

At least its "extra" and not just one being moved. Wonder what parents will say when they thinks those teachers are getting an extra day off?

Joining the fed up club today. Got into a silly twitter argument about people on the London trains. Off to a local carol service in the hope I can snap out of it.

Can't believe I still have to go tomorrow

I am going to wild in the Zara sale to compensate and achieve mental stability

@namechangedyetagain

Gosh just came on to say how utterly fed up and down i feel. But actually I'm just ill and pissed off because I haven't been able to work in my study week and Christmas is buggered and I'm unsure what to get present wise for my DC and I feel ive let them down.

Nothing compared to the awful, awful stuff others are going through

How old are your DC ? Male ? Female? What are they into?

It wasn't due to be an inset day for us and couldn't be an inset day anyway as they've said we have to have exam groups in from the 4th so? An inset day but one in which we're still teaching a level and gcse and have the children of keyworkers and our vulnerable students in?

It doesn't actually make any sense.

I think given the last minute announcement about Friday could be an inset day the government actually thinks inset days are days off for teachers - didn't occur to them that we can't move them last minute because we have a shed load of training and work scheduled for inset days.

@TheHoneyBadger

It wasn't due to be an inset day for us and couldn't be an inset day anyway as they've said we have to have exam groups in from the 4th so? An inset day but one in which we're still teaching a level and gcse and have the children of keyworkers and our vulnerable students in?

It doesn't actually make any sense.

I think given the last minute announcement about Friday could be an inset day the government actually thinks inset days are days off for teachers - didn't occur to them that we can't move them last minute because we have a shed load of training and work scheduled for inset days.

I've done a bit of planning today.

Got some ideas down at least.

But then I'm thinking will we be in to do this stuff ? If we aren't back straight away for any reason, how unsettled will the kids be... I don't know what to prep for really. I'm hoping just starting as usual

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.

It was due to be a teaching day for us but is now an inset day on which we do something unspecified. I only see my year 12 on a Monday so I'm not pleased.

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

Hi all

Day of mostly tears.

Anyway just seen that the new strain 'grew exponentially in the lockdown'.... I wonder where?😩

It was always an inset day for us. We were supposed to have someone from the LA coming in to talk about Ofsted, but that's now cancelled. The morning has already been set aside for training staff volunteers in how to perform the swab tests. There are quite a lot of staff volunteers as everybody felt so incredibly sorry for SLT having it dumped on them at such last minute. They will then practice their new skills on the rest of us (I did not volunteer, I don't believe we should be helping out the government like that, plus I'm CV so really don't want to get that close to anyone).

I think in the afternoon is for our own planning now. It was supposed to be departmental meetings/subject specific cpd, but I hope we have that time to prepare some of our remote learning.