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

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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

We're at 43% in.

Today has been difficult. I've had to speak to my daughter's school to explain why she is the only child that has not completed any work via teams. That would be because I had to buy a laptop in March( as not provided by work ) and unlike then I can't share it with her now I'm live teaching. Hopefully I will get a pack of work. I feel pretty crap as a parent today.

To which i should add, felt safe too. Easy to keep away, plenty of scheduled time outside.

@Mrsbrownsgargoyle

Neurotree it's no. of pupils in/no. of pupils on roll x 100.

Thanks! I did know that but never use it.

Not sure roll number now but it's around 80% I think.

Primary and running whole curriculum.

2 form entry so 1 teacher per year group and all tas in school as lots of the children who are in are very high need. The teacher at home is doing all the home learning for both classes. SLT are doing all they can to keep class sizes as low as possible for safety reasons but getting a lot of pressure from families.

DS's school are 2 form entry and have said that they will have 1 class of 30 in per year group for kw/v. Keeping those risks high. They have sent begging emails to all those who have requested kw/v places to ask them to not use the place if at all possible. We had already decided that will we do our damdest to keep DS out for safety.

Did a crop job of home schooling today as sorting out everyone else's children. Also got heaps more work to do before tomorrow.

Reckon it will be gone 1am again (like in the last lockdown) before I can get cracking on my sunbathing, repainting the house, lounging around drinking g and t and then posting selfies on fb.

I think support staff are treated more fairly in our school. In the first lockdown and this one, we are all rotaed in to school exactly the same proportion of a normal working week. Then, on top, teachers obviously have live lessons and marking and all the rest from home on our days not in school. Support staff (well, the TAs) are doing training and a bit of pastoral support on their working from home days.

When in school, TAs are with KW children all day and teaching staff are with them a couple of lessons each but having to leave to go to classrooms to do their live lessons for the rest of day.

NEU will support collective action within a school if staff feel the head is unreasonably demanding they work from school, not a section 44 issue but get together and make your case to the head and if no joy contact the union.

Pupils should be socially distancing, ask your rep to request an updated risk assessment if you think bubbles are too big.

Lots of talk on the NEU meeting about nurseries and high numbers of parents requesting places.

They don’t want to make a set size to cap class sizes on as all schools are different.

They said though, that if you’re in a class and it’s not half to a third the size of normal, then something isn’t right.

@Frlrlrubert

NEU will support collective action within a school if staff feel the head is unreasonably demanding they work from school, not a section 44 issue but get together and make your case to the head and if no joy contact the union.

Thanks. I don't think there would be appetite at my place. Sadly.

Nightmare. After spending two days sorting DH out on teams tried to use DS1s MacBook and the bloody screen wouldn't share. Just taken three hours to sort it. Then the Covid numbers came up as a news alert and I decided to put all the stress into perspective x

So sorry for anyone having a shit time in school too xx

@flumposie . I hope things improve, and I hope your dc school is understanding.

It seems to me, from reading various threads on here, that parents want a full online live timetable to a) ensure they are getting value for money from their teacher and b) to keep their kids occupied, but that they are very unwilling to take any responsibility for their children's learning. So if asked to ensure that an adult is present with a younger child for a morning registration, they don't want to do it. One particular thread stuck in my mind from yesterday, but that's why live online teaching isn't the gold standard! Argh! Because it ties households into having a certain number of devices / broadband at a certain time!

@RigaBalsam, I have taught to half a class in the room and half at home, although no plans to do that during this lockdown. If you have to do this (and it's a nightmare), make sure your meeting controls are set to "only me" allowed to present.

I should say that our TAs are all bloody marvellous. Some of the other staff I am less convinced by!

Thanks Dreaming. Yes I always have that on as standard. A few teachers didn't and found out the hard way.

Good grief I have all sorts of alerts I will need to make sure I don't screen share without remembering that!
Listening to news about BBC's broadcasting (that's primary dc sorted for the mornings but I wonder can we see what the secondary programming is in advance, otherwise can't really take advantage of it for lessons I set.

Monkey was it a Mac compatibility issue? I just had to download chrome so I could change meeting settings. I'm a bit worried my first Teams lesson from home might be a bit of a shit show on the MacBook!

Thing is with nursery, Boris said they were open. Why they are somehow different because they're attached to a primary school I don't know? The nursery 400 yards away from the school is open as normal. The school one has 6 kids in after lots of persuading. I'm sympathetic to the staff (I now have a place for dc) but their handling of this has done them no favours.

@Frlrlrubert

Monkey was it a Mac compatibility issue? I just had to download chrome so I could change meeting settings. I'm a bit worried my first Teams lesson from home might be a bit of a shit show on the MacBook!

God knows had to get DS1 to try and sort it out with the aid of FaceTime apparently I had clicked the 'deny' setting for something. Praying it works tomorrow.

Can I ask a question of those of you who have prior experience of online teaching /live lessons? I am curious to know what your school does if a member of staff is unable to teach their lesson live online (SI/got an appointment/ childcare etc).

In my school, instead of their class teacher putting up some work for the kids to do, they insist it is covered by another teacher, either by the class teacher providing work for a cover teacher to deliver, or by 30 odd kids piling into someone else's lesson for babysitting.

I am sure we overly fret about potential parent complaints.

Class teacher sets work to be completed. If they can't, HOD is exoected to do it.

No school place for DS. Dh will have to lump it.

All local schools been giving out to two key workers apparently, but also made decisions over what a kw is too it seems.

At least we know where we stand though, and one less risk for illness entry.

Unschooling though!

@Piggywaspushed

Can I ask a question of those of you who have prior experience of online teaching /live lessons? I am curious to know what your school does if a member of staff is unable to teach their lesson live online (SI/got an appointment/ childcare etc).

In my school, instead of their class teacher putting up some work for the kids to do, they insist it is covered by another teacher, either by the class teacher providing work for a cover teacher to deliver, or by 30 odd kids piling into someone else's lesson for babysitting.

I am sure we overly fret about potential parent complaints.

We set Oak Academy if they are not in. The teams lesson isn't covered.

Stress eaten 2 packs of smarties...

See, that makes sense riga!