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

@CallmeAngelina

Anyway, I have registered for the NEU national webinar tomorrow morning at 11am (did the local one on Thursday). I've had a message to say we can submit questions for discussion. Don't know where to start! Any suggestions? I would quite like to know if *@SantaAssociationRepresentative*'s HT's request from the DfE to lie to parents about 98% efficacy of the LF tests is widespread, but not sure if it would be the most important thing.

I would say that's pretty important! Those tests were deemed not ok to be used to clear the mess in the ports when the lorries got stuck over the border...so if you can't use them over the borders you cant use them in schools. I think that's a great question. And important.

Where can I find the link - I'm NEU but haven't had any details but would like to join...

@Iamnotthe1 that's very mean they should miss their playtime.
Eugh. This is our safe space!

We studied The Crucible in the pre GCSE year. Then halfway through the English teacher left under a cloud. Something about dodgy notes left in the books of the girls he gave the best parts to. The fact they obviously decided to denounce him loudly amuses me with the irony now I am older and wiser. At the time I was quite upset because he was the best English teacher I’d had and really encouraged me with my creative writing (also ironic, I suppose).
We stopped studying it halfway through and it was replaced with something bland and boring.

Just in; I still think it will be localised. Tier 3 worked for us and is still working, now tier 4, v low hospital numbers at the mo. I can't see them closing primary locally... yet.

Covid-19: Call for all schools to stay shut amid U-turn 'chaos' www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55511662

I studied Pride and Prejudice, Lord of the Flies, Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth for O Level. I was the last year of O Level as was. I did Coriolanus and Macbeth for A level along with Plath, Larkin, Metaphysical poets, Middlemarch, Pardoners Tale, Mansfield Park. I sodding hated Middlemarch. I also did S Level English so had to study Hamlet, Merchant of Venice and Lear too as well as Beowulf. I was like you @MsAwesomeDragon. My mum used to drop me off at our central library on Saturdays and leave me there all day.

I still quite like Shakespeare despite that focus on tragedy.

If I were in the Cumbria area I'd definitely be saying shut.

Today I am switching to the NEU. They seem very much more proactive.

Son's school has sent a preemptive questionnaire re any emergency closures to primary. They are "opening as usual but obviously this is a fast moving pandemic so..."

I reported. Didn’t post as thought I’d get banned the rage it gave me 🤦‍♀️

Link for tomorrow registration for NEU ZOOM. Here neu-org-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nRWPzYt4RGCt6UoBgFNKYA?link_id=0&can_id=ce49dc421e54195d5368bf9802aa6994&source=email-january-return-of-schools-2&email_referrer=email_1033918&email_subject=fyi-form_value-default-emergency-zoom-on-sunday-at-11am

Re webinar : DEFINITELY more focus on the tests and the non SI. DH thinks the unions just think we will close and so aren't worrying.

I would like some clarity on why so many heads are resisting allowing staff to WFH in schools with such limited student numbers. I suspect it is because of guidelines but those guidelines only apply to fully open schools.

Clearly troll-like behaviour and so MN deleted everything they ever posted and closed their AIBU? thread.

According to a MNHQ message, our bot de-registered so MNHQ decided to remove all their posts. A bit sad to think that they might not have done that if the bot hadn’t de-registered

They are also going to live stream on their SM channels.

I’m going to their reps one today.

got to Richard Adams watership down, which I find incredibly boring

No! This was my absolute favourite book as a child and I read it to pieces! Got DS to read it recently too, my childhood copy. He expected it to be a fluffy story about bunnies not rabbits having battles and ripping each other to shreds.

I switched to the NEU from NASUWT earlier this year - we only have one rep at our school and she is NEU. I'm really glad I did now - NASUWT seem to be busy scratching their collective arses!

@noblegiraffe

got to Richard Adams watership down, which I find incredibly boring

No! This was my absolute favourite book as a child and I read it to pieces! Got DS to read it recently too, my childhood copy. He expected it to be a fluffy story about bunnies not rabbits having battles and ripping each other to shreds.

Sorry noble. I was expecting it to be able rabbits, but found it was mostly descriptions of meadows. I could have fit the actual story into fewer than half the pages as so much of it was descriptions. I don't like books that describe so much, I like a story, with things going on.

My Scottish education meant I did lots of Scottish stuff. But also , in Scotland, we studied whole authors rather than just one off texts , at least at 17/18 , so we did several Hardy novels and 3 Brecht plays (confusingly , I also did Brecht in German, in German...), I do think doing more than one text by an author allows for more depth.

I can't remember because we had O grades, Highers and SYS what we did and when for actual exams but beloved favourites were Sunset Song and House With The Green Shutters. No Of Mice and Men fro us becuase very Scottish child ever does Gibbon.

I was in The Crucible at school! My co star had to kiss me at the end and never managed in rehearsals. It was not a nice experience on the night... and he was constantly forgetting all his lines. I still remember another lad magnificently covering up for him by pretending he needed to have a lengthy legal consultation with him and handing him a script on 'legal paper'!

Times have changed so much. It's good to drop reverence for white,dead males but a lot of the greats haven't survived because of headlong rushes to 'cover content', so George Eliot would be too long and hard ( I loved teaching Mill On The Floss years ago) and Chaucer has disappeared despite the engaging smut!

noble The Plague dogs really traumatised me, Watership Down was a walk in the park compared to it.

This will massively out me if anyone I know is on here.. we did The Winter's Tale for A-level and my mate and I wrote to Woman's Realm problem page with the story of the queen asking for advice about what to do (from Mrs H McQueen, LOL). And we got a reply, which we duly showed to our English teacher, who did a teacher eyeroll and set us extra homework....

@NeurotreeWenceslas

If I were in the Cumbria area I'd definitely be saying shut.

I'm in Cumbria. Dd's school are supposed to be open as normal on Tuesday morning. I'm not happy about that.

I did Brecht in German, in German too(Mutter Courage). (und Das Tagebuch von Anne Frank)

Can't really remember English set texts.. Great Expectations, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men possibly Death of a Salesman too (over 30 years ago...)

@Medra

Thanks for the new thread. I’m stressing about setting lessons for this week.

Medra, how are you feeling now?

We've been told we're fine to wfh for inset and also to teach from home if we like. Testing of staff and students due to begin on Monday. I feel for our slt at the moment, they must feel like puppets on the DfE's strings.

Passing to everyone. My chin seems to have erupted in zits, probably a bit due to stress and a bit due to booze and rich food .

The interloper was Us4Them not some internet random. They said something about me posting about education for months so knew my username and ‘stealth campaign’.

I reckon U4T have a dartboard at HQ with our names on. They must bloody hate us.

(I don't read a lot... unless it's to do with my subject). Remember feeling jealous of those kids that got to 'study' Adrian Mole as part of their GCSE course though.

Ah MrsA, I'm sorry 😞

Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, of Mice and Men and lord of the flies I think.

I like poetry. I remember doing the lady of shallot and comparing Blake and Wordsworth (fucking hate Wordsworth Pollyanna shite) at a level. I hate war poetry though. I think a level put me off James Joyce. Oh and we did some Henry James whose work I fell in love with and read all of it. Can't remember the name of the text but she she caught malaria in the colosseum after going there in the dark with a man.

Haven't looked at the news yet. Also haven't turned on work laptop. Going to get a cup of coffee first!