The Thirty-ninth Republic - Covid Carnage continues and spring term is just about to start

[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

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

I'm looking forward to a heavy day at the photocopier! Papercuts a go-go.

We're banned from using the copier. Sob.

Good luck to everyone who is returning today.

Thinking of all my primary colleagues (and sen/eyes/pru) who are in today. Got 2 masks and the 'hangover" of a migraine but weve got this!

Good luck all, DD2's primary closed this week which I am happy about. I'm heading in to do online inset and meet a new member of staff!

Thinking of all of you going into the classroom today. I am full of admiration of those who sent in the letter - I know that with some HTs that will have been a difficult but brave choice. To those who didn't - no judgement from me - I know for some they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Boris and Gav should never, ever had pushed teachers into this position.

For the NASUWT decision makers - shame, shame on you.

@singsingbluesilver

Thinking of all of you going into the classroom today. I am full of admiration of those who sent in the letter - I know that with some HTs that will have been a difficult but brave choice. To those who didn't - no judgement from me - I know for some they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Boris and Gav should never, ever had pushed teachers into this position.

For the NASUWT decision makers - shame, shame on you.

This!

Good luck to all who are in today.

The photocopier comments have reminded me of my first school where I was an NQT. We had a photocopier code each with a maximum of 60 copies per month. So less than two class worths... Bigger jobs had to go to the office four weeks before. This was pre IT in schools--desktop computers in classroom and five projectors for the whole school (big secondary) that you had to book weeks in advance.
Anyway, one day I was copying and put my code in incorrectly... and found a code that had no limit allocated to it!
UNLIMITED LAST MINUTE COPYING! I was a staffroom favourite for evermore. They never did find out where all the paper was going...

I've noticed in a fb slt group that in some schools primary children over the age of 6 have been wearing masks.

Erasure on radio 2 perked me up briefly singing then back to slump. Need coffee.

Here's my things that shock me:
That any ht would insist on in person inset (are they afraid of tech?)
That there are schools without laptops for teachers
That anyone would think it's a good idea to spread kw kids around the school and expect teachers to traipse from room to room as if it was a normal week

Good luck to all primary/SEN/AP colleagues and any secondary who are being crammed into large in person INSETs .

Remote INSET for me today and very grateful not to be deicing the car, for one

Honey - I'm always shocked to hear of schools that do provide laptops; it's so not normal in my county!

@Ulelia you’ve also woken a distant memory of similar at my first school. Few computers (two in staff room for whole school!) and photocopier codes. We used to try and collect codes from SLT or guess random codes to use 🤣🤣🤣

Good morning all. I've just finished recording all my lessons for today. I have to do them early in the morning so there's no noise around me from my family. I forgot how long it takes to upload the videos though, my home WiFi is not as good as school WiFi.

Good luck to everyone who is in school today 🤞I hope everything goes well for you.

I've been here since 7.45 as normal. So far I've done nothing that couldn't have been done from home. And the printer is out of ink.

I taught at a school where staff had really limited copying but students had unlimited... Guess who used to get bribed a lot with merits and/or Haribo?

Good luck to everyone today, and solidarity with those who've chosen to send in the letter. I know either way it must have been a difficult decision.

I'm feeling very glad our rep has negotiated a remote inset today- I was not looking forward to being in the hall with half the other staff as originally planned. This would have been the largest gathering of staff that we'd held since February last year!

Our head has, on the whole, been good, but our MAT CEO does not get it and liked to address us in person in large groups. I'm so glad we are not being forced to pander to his dislike of tech anymore.

my home WiFi is not as good as school WiFi

We don’t have WiFi at school. I’ve had to use my phone as a hotspot to download apps for my vi student’s iPad.

@TheHoneyBadger

Erasure on radio 2 perked me up briefly singing then back to slump. Need coffee.

Here's my things that shock me:
That any ht would insist on in person inset (are they afraid of tech?)
That there are schools without laptops for teachers
That anyone would think it's a good idea to spread kw kids around the school and expect teachers to traipse from room to room as if it was a normal week

We have desktops in all classrooms, so no need for laptops apparently- but it did make things tough for some staff last summer.

Our MAT CEO was trying to insist not only on an in person inset, but gathering the staff in 2 groups (one in the hall which has NO ventilation). He just doesn't get it- the lead school in the trust (his usual place of work) had to close for a deep clean last term- this was due to the number of cases across bubbles and staff. None of the other trust schools had to close, although of course we had to send kids home.

Luckily, the plan for KW/vulnerable kids is to stick them in the library/computer rooms so they can access the same work as everyone else.

@CarrieBlue

my home WiFi is not as good as school WiFi

We don’t have WiFi at school. I’ve had to use my phone as a hotspot to download apps for my vi student’s iPad.

Same. No WiFi at my school so really hard to bring in and use your own laptop if your desktop or classroom is being used by someone else.

Fake classroom in Chippenham on BBC right now again... Massive room (compared to secondary, anyway). Half the tables and 3/4 of the chairs removed

Good luck everyone going in today.

I feel fortunate that my LA in a high rate area had already made this week flexible for special needs schools, so we have no students at all until later in the week (after staff testing and any students). Remote learning will be happening though, including TAs like me. We have an online staff meeting today.

Various events in the last week of term demonstrated some parents complete lack of respect for staff and other students health!

Sensible to have KW kids d the same online work as all the others. I had a 'disagreement' with SLT over this during the March/Apri/May lockdown. All of the staff were setting remote work via Teams and marking it, sending feedback etc, and it was working really well.

Except for the KW and other kids who were coming into school. I was one of the volunteers who came in to covet for them They did none of this work - we were told to do fun things with them. When I asked why couldn't they so the online work along with the other students I was shot down. They had access to the IT suites so this was not an issue. The staff covering could have given them support too. But no, I was told they were to have fun things to do and that they could work on the remote learning at home. Which many of the didn't.

To be fair after a few weeks of this some of the kids asked to work on the online stuff in school time.

I put my dress on backwards then slipped on the ice. Good start!

Oh no @RigaBalsam hope your day gets better!

Inset for us here so going to NT for the day...

@MrsHerculePoirot

Oh no *@RigaBalsam* hope your day gets better!

Inset for us here so going to NT for the day...

Thanks at least no kids to see it. Only on Teams.

I absolutely stacked it walking up some stairs once.... you know it’s bad when all the kids freeze in silence then ask if you’re ok as opposed to just laugh 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️