The Fortieth Republic - Schools are safe but they are vectors so go online

[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

@Mistressiggi

Thanks, Santa Hmm, wondering about a mic and headset now - maybe one of my dc's gaming cast-offs would work? Will have a go.

I'm using my son's gaming headphones (I gave them a good scrub first ). Added bonus is that you get to play at being Madonna circa 1990 - though that might just be me...

Added bonus is that you get to play at being Madonna circa 1990

@MrsDanvers123 Your username and this quote put such a bad image in my brain!!

Ok thanks all, I've have a brain blitz and thought how my subjects can be delivered for home. Might need to throw some money at it for resources to send. But hey ho.

Marking place.

This is ace:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/05/school-boris-johnson-national-lockdown-prime-minister-mistakes

Rule are you physically teaching your class too?

No. 9 out of my class of 25 (on role, 6 haven't come in at all this year anyway - they all turned up for remote learning pack this morning!) are in, there are four classes in my phase, 2 bubbles of 10 kids each. The 9 from mine +1 are with a strong HLTA and another TA - full time, right the way through. The other bubble is with a teacher who normally teaches in a SEN hub we have on site - I've 'inherited' the SEN kids who aren't going to be coming in.

I'm home - we're live online from 8.30 - 9.30, then in small groups for teaching in the afternoon, then half an hour at the end of the day too.

There are almost a third of the kids in my own child's school as KW/V children - she'll be a group of 26. That's more than is in her usual class!! As soon as my stuff settles down we'll take her out I think. She'll just have to do screen time when I'm live.

@KatherineOfGaunt

Added bonus is that you get to play at being Madonna circa 1990

@MrsDanvers123 Your username and this quote put such a bad image in my brain!!

Feel slightly proud about that

Full curriculum being sent home here, too, Neuro

Not happy about a full class with several adults in it. Back to square one, safety-wise.
Some schools are putting the previous 15 per classroom cap on numbers. We have condensed classes instead
All teachers were contacted on Sunday to ask how they felt about safety and returning. Not one support worker was asked. That has not engendered a feeling of good will among us, I can tell you.

We've got a cap on class size - 10. This is because we all sent the section 44 letter in, but said we'd work with 'small' groups.

That's terrible re support staff @Saucery. Remind us what kind of school/how governed?

UNISON have posted this on Fb, they're also campaigning for nurseries to be clouded to all except KW/V Kids:

UNISON has just had a call with the Department for Education and other stakeholders. They were unable to answer most of the questions asked around early years, special schools, exams etc. They aim to get more detailed guidance out this afternoon, to which we will respond asap. In the meantime our advice on section 44/100 issued on Saturday remains.

Our Head just mentioned in a briefing something about Gavin W giving more guidance tomorrow.

My DD's GCSE mocks are "postponed" from next week....

*closed not clouded!

@Monkeytennis97

DH is having a breakdown trying to switch from one screen to another on Teams. He has resorted to emailing all YouTube links to kids to avoid it. Dreading tomorrow when I'll be teaching and not able to help him in the other room😳😩

Hi @Monkeytennis97, would it help if he used his mobile phone for Teams as well? I did this when I had half of the class self-isolating. Used my desktop for the "presentation" and control part, but used my phone as a microphone. The good thing was that I could keep an eye on the class chat whilst I was in presentation mode.

Primary faith state school, JanuaryChill. I know tensions are running high and SLT are incredibly busy but we felt that just wasn’t on. Big thing made about the ‘school community’ but when the crunch comes, meh. And accepting that many children with no caps or using all available space is just ridiculous.

All teachers were contacted on Sunday to ask how they felt about safety and returning. Not one support worker was asked. That has not engendered a feeling of good will among us, I can tell you.

Similar feeling here. Teachers have been told they can work from home throughout but all support staff must be in school everyday for the duration of lockdown. We will be looking after KW children some days and doing covid testing on other days. No Teachers on either the KW or Testing rota.

Gavin W giving more guidance tomorrow

He is addressing parliament tomorrow (again...)

Teachers have been told they can work from home throughout but all support staff must be in school everyday for the duration of lockdown.

That's what we're doing. During the last lockdown TAs were off for the whole time apart from 2 of them. They literally had 6 months off on full pay. Those 2 are not on the rota at the moment for this time.

We're still waiting to find out how many we have in. Suspect it will be more than last time.

In terms of rota's we did it pretty fairly with all staff in evenly apart from first aiders who had to cover more shifts.

We're doing full timetable on Seesaw which I'm struggling to get my head around. I'm already getting notifications and we don't start back til tomorrow!

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot I think this is our issue; we are teaching all day and setting home school work :/

This term is going to really stretch us. I'm anticipating no key worker place for ds1 and so Dh will have to cover that. And won't do much home school. But I won't be able to catch him up easily on the other days as I'll be working too and with a toddler. So minimal home schooling going to happen. For our health and sanity!

Well I think we will safely be able to put the 'lazy teachers didn't set any work during lockdown' to bed this time. Actually in my school parents were complaining it was too much last time. I've done three live lessons and one Bedrock today.

Huffpost are saying that school staff are to be prioritised for vaccine. Hoo-fucking-rah, yes please.

Re. Treatment of support staff: This is where I feel both support and teaching staff being in the same union makes such a massive difference. In my school support staff are mainly NEU as we all came together over the last couple of years to fight a bullying head. They are being treated the same as teachers in regard to safety measure and working from home (with the exception of roles which have to be on site such as cleaners). I think partly because we are all NEU we are all working together and our reps discussed section 44 with slt on all of our behalfs.

Today we had probably 50-60% of staff in,others wfh (it's a choice for teachers at our school). I was in which is my plan anyway as it's easier for me to teach from school.

Mostly going ok - just tricky because I can't see what students are doing so just have to rely on them actually doing some work! I think most genuinely are -I set some seneca for Y11 after today's lesson and lots have done it already. They were asking questions during the lesson too which is a good sign. Y13 were very quiet -eerily so! Need to try to make things more interactive with them.

NQT is coping so well with it all which makes me so proud

We have about 60 kids in school in total out of around 1600. I have heard a few primary schools say they have around 2/3 in I do think some parents may be using places that they don't necessarily need.

I love my FB friend (not atecaher, ex police)

On today’s walk me and the kids walked past her school - the class rooms looked so busy compared to the first lockdown !!!
I really hope people who’s kids don’t need to be there haven’t been sent in otherwise it totally defeats the object!!
If your not a key worker , critical worker or your child is in need for what ever reason I understand. Makes me wonder how many people have just sent their kids in just because.
I really feel for the teachers only for people to abuse their hard work !

@Monkeytennis97

So sorry to everyone who is still in with almost full classes or full classes. So shit.

NEU zoom at 5pm, I'm hoping this will be addressed, I walked past our key worker bubble today and they were all sat next to each other - I don't think that's on.

I see playgrounds are still open. FFS. They are a major gathering point.