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

And Saucery and Phlebas could have like an exclusive S Club 2 niche group

@Monkeytennis97

I did my pgce in '94. Old. National Record of Achievement? I remember pupils getting it but it didn't exist when I was at school I don't think.

I'm just younger than the O level people and just older than the National Record of Achievement people.

DH has all his certificates in a RofA style folder, though (despite being lots older than me) and you definitely can't take them out again without losing the typing off them

I need to have a scream, why oh why would anyone send their kids in with coughs during a pandemic. I can not grasp the mentality.

I wore my mask to listen to readers on Monday and to work closely with a group. No child said anything about it or looked horrified.

If anyone on here is Scottish and did O grades when they were numbered 1 to 7 for one year only, they are my vintage!

[quote phlebasconsidered]@Saucery I had to do special after school lessons (an hour in the library while my teacher smoked fags outside the fire doors and asked "What do you reckon then?") where I read a shit ton of Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare and The Philosophy Of History. Imagine asking a student to do that now for no reason other than another special exam.[/quote]
OMG, I’d think we were at the same school except for the fact my teacher didn’t smoke
Was General Studies a thing, too? Wtaf was that all about? What even is the equivalent of that A Level today?

So on application forms I have to put I got a 1 for English. Thanks, Gove.

S levels were like A levels plus. You studied for a paper that you had no idea about what it might contain and it only even got marked if you got an A in the A level. They were useful for uni entrance as they showed ability aside from exam technique. They were quite odd. I remember one history question was "History is a discipline that is no longer needed. Discuss". I can remember writing an English one comparing 4 tragedies and arguing that the elements of tagedy were not the same across the board.

@eitak22

I wore my mask to listen to readers on Monday and to work closely with a group. No child said anything about it or looked horrified.

If they go anywhere with their parents apart from school then everyone will be wearing masks. Sensory etc issues aside (and I know those are extremely difficult to handle) there are very few children who turn a hair at masks, unless their parents make an almighty fuss about it.

Ha! General Studies! I went to a gig the night before and fell asleep in half of my exam for General Studies. Wtf was that subject anyway? I don't even think I ever had a lesson in it!

S levels are a bit like CSYS. Which I also have to explain in interviews.

Since I will never apply for another promotion I guess it no longer matters.

100% lang coursework but 100% exam for lit, when I took my GCSEs (and definitely included Shakespeare). Oh, and closed book for GCSE and A level. Think that must have been an exam board thing.

I taught the AEA when that was a thing, and one year my students refused to do it unless I did.
I got a distinction ... beating the next candidate by 3 marks. Thank god!

My claim to fame is that I managed to fail general studies A level!

I was 2 or 3rd year of gcses but I don't have a ROA whatever one is.

@phlebasconsidered

S levels were like A levels plus. You studied for a paper that you had no idea about what it might contain and it only even got marked if you got an A in the A level. They were useful for uni entrance as they showed ability aside from exam technique. They were quite odd. I remember one history question was "History is a discipline that is no longer needed. Discuss". I can remember writing an English one comparing 4 tragedies and arguing that the elements of tagedy were not the same across the board.

We did an A level General Studies board that was really hard and impossible to prepare for with questions like that.

Really "boils my piss" (to quote Mumsnet) that GS later turned into an absolute doss subject. It was really rigorous when I took it and the only ones of us who got As were really well read, aware of current affairs and history as well as a broad range of social science concepts (all self-taught).

@Saucery exactly!

@phlebasconsidered

Ha! General Studies! I went to a gig the night before and fell asleep in half of my exam for General Studies. Wtf was that subject anyway? I don't even think I ever had a lesson in it!

We were told to read a variety of broadsheets and a tabloid for it. That delighted the local newsagent. Apart from that, we had the Creepy Music Teacher talking to us about philosophy with the odd LOTF type game thrown in where if you cried at what your classmates said about you you were Out. That was just O Level. I can’t remember a single thing about A Level, but I got an A. Basically, you sat down, they asked you ‘What Is Society?’ and you put your best 17yr old wanktastic pretentious best into it for 2 hours.

@RandomGrammarPun I do think it was rigourous - a quick google reveals general philosophical questions. I have a vague memory of writing about the Berlin Wall in my exam.

If my just turned two year old can casually say ‘Mummy, remember mask’ when we go out, I’m pretty sure primary kids can cope with it.

Actually I think I do recall some general studies lessons with the technology teacher, weirdly. He was usually angry about machinery. I remember one very angry lesson about inflation. And my form tutor teaching us about the monetary standard.

I know we do pshe and citizenship now but...

General Studies in our house is shorthand for Doss Subject, still. Talk about gulf between State and Private- fuck me, that’s it right there. DH did Latin, with no study of anything General anywhere to be seen. (Also State, just better)

When I did general studies there were two exam boards you could pick from. One was more rigorous and actually counted for ucas stuff the other was the doss one. I went for the hard one. Got an A in it. Yay me! In hindsight how weird is that whole scenario. Being told you could pick an a level that counted for nothing

@phlebasconsidered

S levels were like A levels plus. You studied for a paper that you had no idea about what it might contain and it only even got marked if you got an A in the A level. They were useful for uni entrance as they showed ability aside from exam technique. They were quite odd. I remember one history question was "History is a discipline that is no longer needed. Discuss". I can remember writing an English one comparing 4 tragedies and arguing that the elements of tagedy were not the same across the board.

I did them in Chemistry and Physics. they asked questions like the old Oxbridge entrance papers, with the difference that the S level papers gave you some of the required data, whereas in the Oxbridge entrance papers part of the challenge was to make reasonable assumptions for every single thing.

i remember both asking about the number of Oxygen molecules in the atmosphere, or something similar, and being shocked that in the S level one they gave the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere AND its height...

That S Level sounds fun - I remember it being a thing, and something about STEP...but my school didn’t go for that sort of thing. I got the best GCSE and A level results in the school though!

I have a Record of Achievement folder, it has my GCSE certificates in. Despite my academic prowess, I still got “shoe designer” on the careers thing!