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

@noblegiraffe

Why do I get the impression that the meeting has been had and Gav wasn’t invited? He’s just been summoned to hear the outcome.

What the twatting hell else did the minister for education have to do today than was more important than going to a meeting about schools

Hi everyone,
I've been lurking all day, hugely entertained by Katherine's song. I thought it was a Terrorvision song, but googled the lyrics and apparently not!

Not surprised that government/DfE haven't put a statement out, tbh. When do they ever give decent notice? My y12s have got a test on Fri 8th, not sure whether to postpone it or try and do it remotely, with a password protected page on OneNote and a time limit.

Did see Gav leaving a car on Sky News and waving at the cameras, he has such a smug expression on his face. Thought uncharitable thoughts.

Now drinking beer and crocheting a Pokemon-themed pair of wrist warmers for ds, who complained of cold hands whilst out on Pokemon Go walk today but refused to put his mittens on....

Hamlet re gender do you know @volewriter Kate Long on Twitter?

She does regular threads about gendered clothing and representations of women/girls in magazines through the ages. Might be some useful stuff for you.

Oh yes, I saw an advert for covid testers at a nearby school - £8.72 per hour. Any takers on your thread, noble?

To be fair dreaming you can't actually play PoGo with mittens on. I may have tried it, unsuccessfully (I play ingress actually, which is a slightly more grown up game that PoGo was based on). I now have a lovely pair of wrist warmers that I wear on my ingress walks (a daily occurrence during the holidays).

I've just had a long email from our head outlining the plans for how we're going to test the whole school in the first week. He's apparently worked solidly for the past week on figuring out what's doable and what's not, only taking Christmas Day off completely. I hope for his sake that work isn't completely and utterly useless, but I suspect the government will drop something else on us by next Monday.

Oh Noble, you're not up to your old tricks are you? Tut tut (looks school marm-y)

One of our local schools is asking for ‘community volunteers’ to help administer the tests with the promise that there ‘may even’ be scope for a small payment for their time and trouble. I’m sure they’ll have been overwhelmed with applicants for this tempting proposition...

@DecemberStar

Oh Noble, you're not up to your old tricks are you? Tut tut (looks school marm-y)

🥺 what have I done? 🥺

Seriously I just don’t get where all these volunteers are going to come from. We can’t even get volunteers in to hear children read never mind do covid testing.

@starrynight19 I hear you! I can’t remember when we last had any volunteers for readers. I can’t imagine there will be a mad stampede to help with testing.

£8.72 per hour

Any takers were insistent that they would happily do it for free. It would be an insult to offer them cash.

I wonder if they’d let sixth formers apply.

In the DF..

@noblegiraffe

£8.72 per hour

Any takers were insistent that they would happily do it for free. It would be an insult to offer them cash.

I wonder if they’d let sixth formers apply.

Don't see why not. Some of them already work in care homes and supported housing.

Well, I see now that bods on here don't care about school staff. 4 pages of responses about kids being in school and the overwhelming concern was that the kids would bring it back to them. Single figure comments on school staff safety. Shan't bother answering anything about schools anymore. Selfish twunts.

Anyone else been forced to watch world's strongest man? Apparently it's a Christmas tradition.

My school cleaner is a 6th former. Straight out of school, round to us, out by 5. Perfect I'd say.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

Well, I see now that bods on here don't care about school staff. 4 pages of responses about kids being in school and the overwhelming concern was that the kids would bring it back to them. Single figure comments on school staff safety. Shan't bother answering anything about schools anymore. Selfish twunts.

Anyone else been forced to watch world's strongest man? Apparently it's a Christmas tradition.

Every year... for the last 30 or so...

Noble it was when someone asked if you had any takers on yr thread... now realise they were referring to an old thread. Glad you're taking a break for Christmas

Oh well, that sounds interesting from the DF doesn't it? (Pity they can't write English - they mean "at least" rather than "ideally", don't they?)

I’ve only just discovered my sister didn’t get paid for all the work they did at the Nightingale. Their gift to the NHS apparently.

I think there’ll be an announcement via a leak to the Times.

Followed by a hastily arranged presser at 2.45 tomorrow.

Lay your bets....

To be fair dreaming you can't actually play PoGo with mittens on.

I know . I'm making some wrist warmers in Squirtle colours right now. Other ds doesn't mind what colours I use. Watching Man v Food. Pretty content at the moment!

@SmileEachDay The Telegraph

not sure whether it will be tomorrow or Wednesday when we get the tiers update. Maybe a full lockdown announced on Wednesday eve after a couple of shocking days of data when all Christmas data catches up. Am sure we will have many leaks leading up to that though.
Although expecting primary’s to remain open.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

I’ve only just discovered my sister didn’t get paid for all the work they did at the Nightingale. Their gift to the NHS apparently.

What did your sister do? It's nauseating that so much is expected for nothing when the Tories spaff millions on their mates' dodgy enterprises.

I reckon HuffPost. Or the Metro....

@noblegiraffe

£8.72 per hour

Any takers were insistent that they would happily do it for free. It would be an insult to offer them cash.

I wonder if they’d let sixth formers apply.

I reckon we could get a decent number of sixth formers as volunteers if 16 year olds were allowed to do it. Just have to mention the magic words UCAS application and help you get into medical school/vet school/dental school/nursing/paramedic science. In fact most of my y12 chemistry group would probably be interested and some of my y13 BTEC group. Could get top set y11 science involved too...

If you paid them £8.72 an hour they would be delighted. I also think they would do a better job than random volunteers.