The Forty First Republic - Gav encourages parents to report schools to OFSTED

[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

I'm bloody freezing. Boiler has stopped working and both landlady and I have contacted the boiler guy but no response yet.

I'm really cold too but I don't want to put the heating on! Have super spicy soup for lunch ... that'll warm me up!!

@MrsHamlet

I'm really cold too but I don't want to put the heating on! Have super spicy soup for lunch ... that'll warm me up!!

Just done the exact same thing!

I too have been very surprised by the lack of knowledge of school conditions from health professionals. Horrified most of them. I fear Mr Whitty, who has been actually working on wards as well as advising the Government, is just not being listened to by the powers that make the decisions - the Government. I’m sure his a sense from GMB and ITV and only speaking to the softly softly BBC was not of his doing. I wonder if anything will change. It needs to.

My mouth is now on fire. It's taken my mind off my frozen toes!

@borntobequiet

I’m signed off for a while as awaiting an in-patient procedure for a heart condition. Both GP and specialist were horrified when I described my working conditions. The GP said “totally irresponsible” and the specialist said it made a mockery of what the NHS was trying to do. Neither had any idea of actual conditions in schools/colleges. They both appeared to have the impression that the same sort of precautions were being taken as within the health service, and that “bubbles” are real and useful, social distancing actually taking place, and face coverings worn.

And the papers are to blame for a lot of this as they have spent months putting up photos of classrooms with only 6 masked and socially distanced children in. It’s a very dangerous misfeed of information.

Yes @Appuskidu I think you're totally right.

As an aside, I'll never look at "illustrative" pictures in the press with trust again!

We aren't doing live lessons. 'Just' finding premade videos to support their work and posting them and tasks on google classroom.

Lockdown v1 I had less than 1/4 of my class consistently doing anything.
This time they all are. Which is
a - brilliant, I'm less worried about their learning if I can keep them ticking over and
b - a nightmare as it spends so long every day responding to emails and giving the needed feedback.

If only google classroom would notify you when they turned in a task it would help. We don't set deadlines as trying to be as flexible around parents working days as possible, and we get no notification if they've done anything.

We have apparently been inundated with requests for laptops- which I guess is Gav's doing as he implied schools have loads to give out. We don't and we are having to prioritise, which is leading to some put out parents.

We are going to end up with more kids in school as some have been offered this as an alternative to a laptop (not all, thankfully!).

I'm finding the live stuff is great - I can get a clue as to how they are doing, rather than seeing reams of photos of work that their parents might have done. I also hope that it gives parents a bit more downtime/less needing to be involved. As long as they are around, they can leave the child to ask me the questions. Also can tell children to stay on who I need to go over stuff with, while the others go.

Faffing around pre-recording just seems annoying now, but obviously we have to do that as well.

I've only got 2 not engaging. One of them is a school refuser anyway, the other one joins in to the chat stuff, but does none of the work.

@DrMadelineMaxwell, Well I'm using Google Classroom and my phone/laptop never stop bloody pinging with email notifications of work that's been submitted, so it is possible. Was wondering about trying to turn it off, but that way I can miss some of them (particularly the ones that aren't submitted properly and turn up as an invitation for me to edit!

First day back here and I've only cried twice so far This does not feel sustainable to me!
Am now eating cold toast for lung because I made it so long ago. Better to and find one of my own dc to teach...

I can't believe they're talking about banning people from stopping to chat in the street and not letting people sit on park benches but they're happy with primary schools at 60% capacity, no masks or distancing, it's insane.

@Cantaloupeisland

I can't believe they're talking about banning people from stopping to chat in the street and not letting people sit on park benches but they're happy with primary schools at 60% capacity, no masks or distancing, it's insane.

This!!

I want to shout it from the bloody rooftops!

Daily DfE email just come through, still saying schools must not cap attendance and it's fine that some schools have got huge numbers in because it's reducing overall transmission across the country...

@Cantaloupeisland

I can't believe they're talking about banning people from stopping to chat in the street and not letting people sit on park benches but they're happy with primary schools at 60% capacity, no masks or distancing, it's insane.

And fussing about people distancing in supermarkets... that's NOTHING compared to inside schools!!!

It's ridiculous. It obviously needs capping or limiting to genuinely critical workers and vulnerables.

Bloody freezing and landlady's preferred guy isn't available today - I'm thinking she should be finding someone else to come rather than just leaving us with no hot water or heating.

The latest email just has the wishy washy 'keep your kids home if you can' bit but still says only 1 parent key worker and no limits on numbers. Yet apparently it's a risk if I walk around my local area by myself more than once a day

Partner teacher and I have been sharing emails from students about how they can’t do the task because they “don’t have any plain paper” - while I realise this might be an issue for deprived primary school students, these are lower 6th, we have supplies widely available at college (admittedly not right now but in general there’s always stuff there for the asking), and even if they didn’t have a single sheet/back of envelope/old letter they could sketch on, we GAVE THEM ALL A NOTEBOOK at the start of term. Absolutely zero common sense employed.

The task is to sketch out a layout for a flyer so not some elaborate art task needing specialist stuff. Just easier on plain paper.

FFS. If in desperation they could always open up a cereal box from their recycling

I can believe they don’t have pristine packs of printer paper. I can’t believe there isn’t one drawable-on surface in the entire house. And we GAVE THEM NOTEBOOKS.

Honey I know the feeling, currently have no functioning heater nor light in the lounge (which is nearly 50% of my v small house!!

But James the lovely electrician is popping round after his other jobs, phew!!

We are apparently asking if ESPO can make us up packs of 5 different coloured exercise books to be mailed out to all in KS3/4! (If anyone can persuade them, our purchasing asset can, she's fab)

Sorry I OD on exclamation marks when I get excited...

We sent them home with a lined exercise book and a squared exercise book. Glad now - means we can just plan accordingly for the rest of term, and don't have to worry about mailing paper packs to many of them.