The Thirty-eight republic - Covid Carnage - Schools still waiting for test kits

[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

@picklespark

Anyone in Early Years and feeling really worried about Monday? In a London borough & no communication from my nursery. We’re having INSET all day Monday with loads of adults in a room. I don’t feel safe.

@picklespark Gah, that sounds shit. Doesn't anyone else in the school think that's a bad idea?

I see some ones been using the staff room and not looking after it properly the biscuit tin will not be refilled if proper rules aren't adhered to.

Just woken up.

Gosh, last night was interesting!

Please miss, I think they were throwing biscuits at the invader.

Crazy times! Hopefully they are tucked up in bed now, all of them!

Morning! A day of shifting furniture about, oh the joys!
Do you want a spare bookcase to put across the door this evening, save having to repel invaders?

Nah, we'll just make sure a carton of milk gets left out next to the radiator, that should do it.

We are still having a whole school staff meeting where we can "raise our concerns". I have a list.
Our staffroom needs to be shut. Our meetings need to be on Google. Our observations and book scrutinies need to stop. Our marking of everything every day needs to stop. My fucking windows need to open properly!

I see a marauding parent got in, wielding a spatula and crying. Good job of ignoring her! My mantra today is "It's just a job think.of your own family" as this is traditionally the day the SLT choose to start the email onslaught.

We only threw the digestives, not the nice biscuits...

Do you like my new username?
Twirls

You look very noble, enemy 🤣

Thank goodness I went to sleep before our visitor started posting. Enemies of education

Wow! I missed all the fun. What an extraordinary individual. At least I hope they are extraordinary...

picklespark We are having whole day inset in the hall too.
We also have a young PE specialist deputy head and a young gaslighty twat head who is after us getting outstanding and sees no reason why a global pandemic should get in the way of his plan for world domination. Fine for him to issue diktats about not socialising at lunchtime (chance would be a fine thing) from the safety of his office.

Honestly wtf do our lives not matter? We matter as much as the children we teach, I am sick of people trying to emotionally blackmail us. My life matters and my family matters.

(I know I shouldn't engage)

Ooh no I'm not Noble! I am very shiny and gleaming though ,

Oooh, apologies enemy
Obviously, having been conditioned to baaa "close the schools" at every opportunity, I was confused!

@Iamnotthe1

In secondary, we just studied Lord of the Flies and several pieces from Shakespeare. If I'm being honest, that's probably why I actively dislike Shakespeare and have got away with only teaching it once in my teaching career.

We studied LotF too. I just can't bring myself to ever read it again now! I saw both films multiple times, too.

No Shakespeare, though, that would have been too good. Instead we got... The Crucible and The Withered Arm

I love the crucible!!! I so miss teaching it.

My school has an SLT composed mostly of PE and technology staff.

They are lovely, but I sent in to watch a history teacher in order to improve my teaching. Was great to see but I’m currently teaching physics, I needed to see maths.

I was also observed teaching, I genuinely don’t think the member of staff realised just how tough the content is at GCSE level.

Thank you night watch for standing guard last night. I get that people are angry and afraid but it sucks that it’s always the wrong people who get blamed for it.

I too have found my marking get out of control this past term. I miss terribly my paper based homework/exercise booklets that are so much easier to mark, check, peer review and self review-all in one place.
The amount of time it’s taken me to transfer everything to Microsoft Forms-Quizzes-Teams, schedule to show, mark in dribs and drabs (because meeting deadlines is still too hard for most) so, assigning scores and also typing feedback on sideways photos etc. All taking extra time to wait for old school laptop to load, software to load/refresh or re-do because of crashing.

I miss just opening a book, marking it and moving on

I love technology I really do (Computing teacher!) but only if it truly has value and to be honest, handwriting information still has the most benefit in my opinion.

I got so pissed off with dribby drabby marking that I set assignments to close in teams and refused to mark late work. The truly feckless still don't bother to do stuff in time but it's tidied up some of the disorganised.

And if you lurkers don't like it, tough!

Oh, and the past 4 years, all of our Heads of Year have been PE teachers because they are the only ones with slack in their timetable and at one point, were at risk of redundancy because so few are picking it for GCSE or A Level (zero some years!) so took the HoY roles to keep their jobs.
Sorry fellow PE teachers

Also missed the visitor. Honestly you would think the ignorance would be surprising but it isn't.

@EnemyOfEducationNo1

Ooh no I'm not Noble! I am very shiny and gleaming though ,

I'm guessing you are baubles but having just taken down my Mumsnet Christmas decorations realised that was probably a Christmasification...

I really don't like that we've had invaders, I read this thread when I want to feel calm and supported. If I wanted to be attacked there are lots of other places I could visit. It is also weird reading the last couple of pages:

• post about marking essays
• post about PE teachers
• attack on teachers
• post about books
• post about teaching history
• attack on teachers...