The Thirty-Fifth Republic - Covid - the gift that keeps on giving even during the Christmas 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

Re year 7/8s at home, i'm in the same boat. I will be in teaching primary until the end days but my year 7 and 8 will be at home. Last lockdown they went in, for this week coming they won't, even though they could, because school buses are not being offered due to cost and lack of numbers. I can't take them in early enough for me and I can't pick them up early enough either so they will be at home. With one laptop so it's unlikely they will do enough.

If the period extends they'll probably put on a minibus.

I would leave them to sit outside school but I go 12 miles one way and they go 8 miles the other.

I can heartily recommend to everyone sitting under a blanket watching old Dorothy L Sayers tv episodes with a bucket of gin for stress relief. Dd is learning how to curl her hair upstairs (my help not required- my hair is grade 4 all over), ds is playing with his mates online. Mum will watch any old detective stuff quite happily so things are peaceful. And my test was negative too (although now I must concentrate on being well to face the germ onslaught of the 4th!).

Evv 🍷🍸🍹

Glad you were negative phlebas.

If anyone is looking for light hearted escapism, I can recommend Bridgerton. Downton Abbey crossed with Gossip Girl and a smidge of Pride and Prejudice, with gorgeous sparkly dresses.

Officials from Number 10 and the Department for Education were due to meet on Monday

Do they not realise this IS Monday??

I reckon Gav said 'fuck off; I'm on my holiday'.

Parent fury, now!

I binged ALL of Bridgerton yesterday - fabulous! I've still got Queens Gambit to watch but i'm saving it for new years day.

Would the first we know about any decision taken at any meeting be an announcement or new schools guidance (which they'd obviously need to write) or a leak??!

It occurs to me they could have decided to not make a decision or not to say anything, if they know/expect the whole country to go into lockdown /tier 5 in two days. Dunno

Love Shirley Jackson. The Missing Girl & 2 other short stories are available in a £1 green Penguin.

I managed to turn a whole lesson on something entirely unrelated into a rant on jeans pockets and feminism. Year 7 boys totally got it! (How do they get so sexist later on?)

Tbf, they may be in the liminal cheese-eating half-light world of the days between Christmas and New Year like so many of us, piggy.

What day does Boris usually make announcements? Nicola Sturgeon likes to do the really crappy stuff on Tuesdays.

But the parents are furious at the scientists not the teachers & unions though.

Meanwhile hospitals are declaring critical emergencies because they are running out of oxygen and this is all completely normal according to the deniers on MN.

So, Kate Green and Wes Streeting (shadow education and shadow schools wrote to Gav on 22 Dec. No reply received. No wonder Kate seemed so angry on telly this morning.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

But the parents are furious at the scientists not the teachers & unions though.

Meanwhile hospitals are declaring critical emergencies because they are running out of oxygen and this is all completely normal according to the deniers on MN.

Yep apparently it happens all of the time. Just like welsh tweets or staff to aid in proning.

"Bowing to pressure from teachers and unions."

Ds(yr8) borrowed one of my jackets once to pop out quickly. He was flabbergasted to find that one pocket was still sewn up and the one i'd unpicked in a FURY was pathetically tiny.

I actually have a kind of utility belt now for work. It's meant to be for army cadets but it's bloody excellent for holding pens, wipes, stickers, stampers, anti-bac and tissues as I teach. I look like a kind of elderly Ripley as my work uni is black trousers, back tunic, black boots, shaved head (lostit nearly all through illness, can't ever be bothered to have hair again plus it went weird) but I can live with that.

What day does Boris usually make announcements?

10.30 pm on a Friday is his preferred time slot, for implementation by 8am on Monday.,

I reckon they will kick the can down the road for as long as they can with schools.

So on the 7th or 8th, they will say that not enough secondary school students have been tested and the full opening will be delayed for longer.

At which point, maybe we'll get a tier 5 with school closures for the worst affected areas, or maybe things will appear a bit more under control and schools will reopen and limp the four weeks to half term...

The worst thing is that if we came up with an actual plan for face to face school like rotas and so on, we could probably manage this term (in most areas) but I reckon we will have full closures with about as much warning as last time because the government won't plan.

twitter.com/je_police/status/1343486654967902208

I assume the government will no longer claim to be following the science

[quote Piggyinblankets]twitter.com/je_police/status/1343486654967902208[/quote]
Ha ha

On Sky now saying there has been a meeting. No results though.

[quote Piggyinblankets]twitter.com/je_police/status/1343486654967902208[/quote]

Lol

Bloody hell, was anyone else screaming at the bbc news just now?
They had a professor on saying how much damage the Christmas Day break would be doing, along with serious concern about New Year/Hogmanay in Scotland and that people MUST NOT MIX.
Any change to the tier system will be made on Wednesday, based on the medical situation.
Next item: schools preparing to open next week!

@CallmeAngelGabriel

Bloody hell, was anyone else screaming at the bbc news just now? They had a professor on saying how much damage the Christmas Day break would be doing, along with serious concern about New Year/Hogmanay in Scotland and that people MUST NOT MIX. Any change to the tier system will be made on Wednesday, based on the medical situation. Next item: schools preparing to open next week!

It's crazy they have hospitals running low on oxygen.

And Yvonne Doyle:
She urged members of the public to "continue to play our part in stopping the spread of the virus" as the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine is rolled out.

Feel like we are in some alternate reality.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/fears-tier-5-lockdown-england-23230646