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

Another factor I have been thinking about is that we had nearly every class bubble close from Sept onwards, some twice and many confirmed cases in those classes. I suspect a lot of parents aren’t now concerned about the safety aspect for their child, because they’ve had it and it feels safe to send them in. A fair proportion of parents and older siblings have had it too. I don’t know of any severe cases (bar one colleague) or deaths in the school community. I don’t think a sizable proportion of the parents are taking it seriously any more.

My secondary is rural and pretty mixed, we had about 30 kids in on Tuesday, but that is increasing as the week goes on, and it seems like quite a few more have booked places for Monday.

I think we had max 30 kids in at any one time, last time.

It's a mix of vulnerable and keyworkers.

We have more Y7 in this time, which makes sense as it's earlier in the year and parents may be less willing to leave them home alone/unsupervised. And I think this year's Y7 seem less mature?

I’ve never posted on here before, but I’ve followed from afar for months. Feel I wanted to talk to other school staff today though...

I voiced my opinion to my head today that I think our KW group is too big at 26 and growing. It’s almost a full class size, so how is the risk lowered? It came at the same time as head saying that all staff must be in school, even if they’ve been effectively teaching remotely from home so far.
I’ve had two more emails tonight from parents saying they can’t cope and want their children in school, and we can’t say no... school doesn’t feel very closed!

We’re in an area of rural poverty. Over 50% in - some parents are really pushing their luck with the KW thing. The pressure on staff is immense. Cried a lot last night and it did me good to get it out of my system. I managed to get my game face back on this morning to face the hordes.

Welcome, @LillethCrane

Just heard that we'll def be off til Feb half term, like England and Scotland.

No surprise there then!

We are v.deprived, almost 70% premium premium. In some year groups only 5% in, none more than 10%. Can’t convince the truly vulnerable in either.

We have capped class sizes at 10 though with support from the Chair of Governors.

Although our area is urban poverty with high proportion EAL, don’t know if that makes a difference?

The unions are moving again:

www.facebook.com/620405791311277/posts/3899347610083729/?d=n

Letter from UNISON and NEU to Gav asking some searching questions. I don't know why they haven't quoted any concrete examples of how many kids are in some schools, maybe they feel it's better to wait a week or so.

Wonder why other unions didn't join in on this one.

Looking on other threads there's a vast array of school policies on this, so maybe it's more to do with heads' attitudes etc, not socio economic profile of catchment.

Some of you may ahve seen this online. Made me chuckle

In my primary school, I had 15 yesterday and 16 today. Normal class size is 34/35. They are running at around 24% in school. I'm with the UKS2 pod. The y5 & y6 teachers are taking it in turns to do the mornings, so this week was the y6 one. I take over at noon. Other classes have HLTAs, 2 TAs or specialist provision for the afternoon. I count as specialist.

In my secondary school I had 5 out of 32 of my tutor group in on Tuesday. I've not been in since then. Back tomorrow, my first live lessons are meant to happen. Sort of hoping the snow comes a bit early and I can have a day at home...

@Piggywaspushed

Some of you may ahve seen this online. Made me chuckle

Erm... you can tell you don't teach year 7, Piggy .

Eugh. What a day.

Even more keyworker kids turned up today with the promise of more next week

Sounds from the thread that most of you have children in school accessing the same provision as those at home?

We are teaching proper lessons with live marking and feedback and providing DIFFERENT remote learning for two thirds of the year group at home. Splitting the day between two teachers. No support staff.

I am not far from breaking pork

Breaking POINT obviously

We have 3 sixth formers in they have very vulnerable home situations, much safer they are in.

@piggywaspushed that really made me giggle. I have made friends with many dogs, cats, younger siblings and even a gecko this week. After all this is over, I think I'm going to try for a job as a cbeebies presenter!

HELP EVERYONE any ideas for LKS2 art for tomorrow. I have a lovely scheme of work all prepped for in school but it requires lots of resources and most my class won't have anything other than a pencils, pens and paper. Any good ideas?

skylark That's bonkers.

There seems to be such disparity (again). Most of my fb feed is full of parents of primary complaining there's too much. Too many apps and too much work if you have more than one child. Local primary has 5% in yet are still sending letters about not sending kids. The maintained nursery are refusing to open fully and won't give parents funding back to move to private nursery. We had a mum in tears at the school gates, not a KW but has 3yo, 2yo and baby whilst trying to work. Baby is allowed to private nursery, the other two aren't allowed to maintained. Space to move them to private but she needs the 15/30 hours to go with them. She just seemed broken.

Squashed can you do something with pencil patterns and ways to shade? I remember doing this at primary, like cross hatch, light shading, shading one way and then the other over the top. We ended up with a page full of boxes with different ways to shade. (the Internet probably explains this better somewhere than me).

@JanuaryChill

Looking on other threads there's a vast array of school policies on this, so maybe it's more to do with heads' attitudes etc, not socio economic profile of catchment.

That’s my thoughts exactly.

Friend of mine has sent her kids in. They are in a class of 28 with one teacher. The other teacher teaches 30 on line.

I wouldn’t want to be a teacher with 28 kids in my classroom. I don’t think the head is looking after their staff at all well.

Ah no, but I do teach year 9 random and they'd do for the first pic too in my school!

I got the dog on the keyboard from a year 11 today

Great idea @HercwasanEnemyofEducation but we did that in t1. Had a sketching unit of work in t1 that would have been fine remotely. Sod's law!

@LillethCrane

I’ve never posted on here before, but I’ve followed from afar for months. Feel I wanted to talk to other school staff today though...

I voiced my opinion to my head today that I think our KW group is too big at 26 and growing. It’s almost a full class size, so how is the risk lowered? It came at the same time as head saying that all staff must be in school, even if they’ve been effectively teaching remotely from home so far.
I’ve had two more emails tonight from parents saying they can’t cope and want their children in school, and we can’t say no... school doesn’t feel very closed!

Hi

I missed your post as I’ve been crazy busy.

I’ve got no advice but that sounds unsafe to me.

Do these parents still believe kids don’t transmit Covid?

Oh no squashed!!

I'm secondary maths so struggling now....! I always revert to mathsy stuff like using a compass or patterns with reflection and rotation but they are probably too young for that.

Could you look at a graphic artist and get them using paint or equivalent on their computers?

HELP EVERYONE any ideas for LKS2 art for tomorrow. I have a lovely scheme of work all prepped for in school but it requires lots of resources and most my class won't have anything other than a pencils, pens and paper. Any good ideas?

@SquashedFlyBiscuits, how about rangoli patterns? There are loads of resources for them online but I can send you something tomorrow morning if you pm me an email address. Lots of nice symmetry and can be as easy or complicated as you like.