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

Online INSET from home today. Full online timetable from Wednesday for all groups

Well I was awake for an hour in the night worrying about what would happen if HoD insisted we all go into one room for inset. Then I managed to convince myself that wouldn’t happen and went to sleep.

Only to come in, set myself up in a classroom (we’re watching a virtual conference), and for her to come up and try to make me come to another room - “we can all spread out!”. So I had to do my least favourite thing and stand up for myself - I said “oh come on, we can’t ALL spend all day in a room together, it’s ridiculous” and she huffed “oh ok” and just left. So I’m sure I’m on the naughty list now. However I can honestly say thinking of this thread really helped me pull up my big girl pants on this one.

Just had our online staff meeting. By the sounds of it not many (if any) staff have handed in the NEU letter.
We are in Tier 3 so our head said it’s possible we won’t ever shut again - I just can’t understand why the government could let our cases (which are rising very rapidly) get Very Bad before taking action.

Well just looked at the news while waiting to go into the hall for our staff meeting. I see Starmer has called for schools to stay open with bubbles. Wanker.

I'm just itching to type on one of the numerous faux innocent tb threads that ask "when and how should schools open/reopen?": "Rotas?" No one dares suggest it but surely, surely, it's better than no school?

Online Inset today , we move to online learning from tomorrow and open for keyworker / vulnerable.

sing that drove a colleague of mine nuts last time. She was working all day and trying to fit dinner and home learning in between 6pm and bed. She wasn’t expeting teaching but just a bit of supervision while the kids did at least some of the set work.

I told her to just stuff it in the end and make sure she was doing some reading everyday, number bond and tables practice and a bit of writing a couple of times a week.

Good luck everyone today. Am at home with my daughter as we both have Inset . Also her birthday . We are expected to have whole staff briefing in the hall tomorrow and department meetings. Madness.

@phlebasconsidered

Well just looked at the news while waiting to go into the hall for our staff meeting. I see Starmer has called for schools to stay open with bubbles. Wanker.

What- the sort of ‘bubbles’ that schools have had thus far?

Because they’ve worked so well!
What exactly does he mean??!

So, this is how the BBC report what’s happened with schools today?!

I have come to loathe starmer I'm afraid. No respect for him whatsoever.

Office buddy is doing the online LFT training. It's the worst inset ever!

Is there a link to what Starmer said?

I’m on the LFT training. It’s woeful! Dull and not telling me anything that I didn’t already know. I didn’t expect it to be a barrel of laughs but did hope it would be more illuminating.

Is this LFT training the much anticipated Squaddinar?

So, to those of you in secondary...have any LF tests arrived?!

I also want to know what the bumf says about

1. siblings of positive cases (do they go in anyway?)

1. What happens outside school hours for those staff and pupils in the 7 day testing regime as close contacts. Are they ONLY allowed to go to and from school? Should they not be going to Tesco/meeting a friend for a walk as they should be self isolating? Except when they’re within the safe confines of the school walls, of course.

No test kits yet 😂

Half of our delivery arrived.

So neighbour says the her daughter and son in law tested neg on lateral flow test from work but positive on cpr the next day, all got tested as yr6 child had it from school and they'd all had contact.

@Appuskidu

So, to those of you in secondary...have any LF tests arrived?!

I also want to know what the bumf says about

1. siblings of positive cases (do they go in anyway?)

1. What happens outside school hours for those staff and pupils in the 7 day testing regime as close contacts. Are they ONLY allowed to go to and from school? Should they not be going to Tesco/meeting a friend for a walk as they should be self isolating? Except when they’re within the safe confines of the school walls, of course.

Ours have apparently arrived this morning. We're having a teams meeting about them at 2.30.

There's been a brief discussion of staff testing, and how this actually works in terms of staff coming into school between tests, but no mention of actual isolation.

Seems like staff volunteers to supervise the testing.

My head's line was "don't worry too much as everything may have changed by Monday".

staff, does your school have to pay?

Test kits arrived, no idea how many. Over 100 keyworker kids in out of school of 1000, we had about 20 last time!

I've spoken to my hod this morning (he's ringing all of the department to check we're all set up for online learning this week). He is absolutely convinced that we won't be in school next week doing tests, as things are changing so rapidly and rates are going up so quickly. He's also neu, so we discussed the s44 letter and have decided that we'll be signing the letter by Friday if plans haven't already changed by then. That is apparently the consensus from the rest of the neu members in the department as well. I do feel better having discussed it with someone else at my school.

Can't believe the Labour line on this. Why does no party want teachers to vote for them?!

Our head specifically doesn't want teaching staff involved in managing testing