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

@Appuskidu

10,000 emails!

My Deputy Head emailed us last night with some quotes from parents who had emailed Ofsted to praise us. It was really needed! There is some good news!

Thank you TW. That does resonate.

@CallmeAngelina Oh I'm getting a million emails from classroom. If they reply to me or ask a question I get a notification. They are mostly well trained in sharing docs or slides with me if they've made their own.

But we don't just get a message to say someone has turned in a task. When I look in the settings it doesn't seem to be there.

There are several children who also DON'T click turn it in though.

So my routine now is to answer any questions first thing and then check in every hour or so for qs. Then at the end of the day I go to each task and scroll through from pupil to pupil making sure I've seen their work and replied to it with a feedback comment.

It's getting less time-consuming now I'm doing it that way.

And as we aren't doing live lessons and are on a 50% timetable with the KW kids, it means we are being asked to do all sorts of other admin and planning tasks.

There's even bloody well talk of a virtual parents' evening! Eeep! I don't want to be doing that in the middle of online learning AT ALL. Give me a few weeks with the kids back in class, yes. But not if we've not seen them since Dec.

@Piggywaspushed

I am picking up on the vibes that other public Sector workers are also protesting about unavailable risk data and not being included in vaccinations. If the police and teaching unions got together to fight for more data gathering and protections that could be really powerful.

Interesting listening to news about Israel. Teachers and Police officers were high up on the priority list.

Evening all - another ridiculous 13 hour work day complete, topped off with a family member (not one I live with!) telling me I was 'lucky' that I'm still being paid because... you've guessed it... 'schools are closed.' I've just about climbed down from my high horse now.

Hope people have had good days - I'm miles behind on reading the thread so apologies if I've missed anything major.

I did nearly 12 hours today and it's my day off!! Plus working much of Saturday and Sunday.

Haven't read the thread today. Nothing particularly tricky has happened but I am busy sulking like a stroppy toddler.

I used to be bra off and pyjamas on after supper. Now I have to check my bloody filming schedule and get any recording done first. Today all my frustration with the world is being focussed on this. Can't even slob in my pyjamas whilst doing stupid, time consuming bloody work. Sulk, sulk, sulk.

Sticks head round door.
Whispers
"I've not worn a bra since March"

Sidles off.

I am very small of boob.

I've been on the go since 7am. Between recording lessons, marking work that's coming in, writing information for year 12 form tutors to do a "mini virtual parents evening" tomorrow (thank God I'm not a year 12 tutor!!), Driving dh to and from work (he doesn't drive, I'd rather he doesn't use public transport), Brownies zoom meeting, etc. Poor dd has been left to her own devices, equipped with a laptop, her school website blended learning section and the white rose worksheets I printed out last night. She's managed to do English, maths, spellings and PSHE. I'm impressed. And she made sandwiches for both our lunches so I would stop work and eat with her for 20 minutes.

Dh is working from home for the rest of the week, so at least I won't have to drive him backwards and forwards til next Monday. That should save me some time, so I can put more effort into providing decent lessons particularly for my sixth form and year 11 (most of my timetable this year)

On the bra front, I can't even take my bra off to sit in the living room. I'm rather well endowed, and it's uncomfortable if they are unsupported for too long.

@CallmeAngelina

I did nearly 12 hours today and it's my day off!! Plus working much of Saturday and Sunday.

I’m struggling with this-it’s difficult when part time during a lockdown to know when to start and stop. I can’t imagine it’s any easier for full timers!

I'm hiding in the bathroom. Maybe I should do my lessons from here? (Only room with a lock)

www.gov.uk/government/publications/whats-working-well-in-remote-education/whats-working-well-in-remote-education

Have we all seen this? It's the first bit of sense from the DfE in a while.

To all suffering in mind, body or spirit (as nanna used to say).

@Appuskidu and @CallmeAngelina me too! Just finished working for the say after working all my two days off last week and all of Saturday and some of Sunday!

MrsH yes to those rubrics please!

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation is that recent?

Thread on AIBU about live lessons at the moment. For all the screaming and throwing toys out of the pram about not having them last lockdown, seems not many are keen now they are getting them.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation today just missed the date on it!

I think lots finding love lessons hard as no flexibility for anyone!

Published today apparently. It seems quite sensible from a quick scan.

I may put it into every live lesson, too many worksheets thread.

Crikey that's written by someone/ some body entirely different from the usual guidance isn't it - content, tone, and sensible-ness!!! Apparently from Ofsted, is the sense contained therein therefore surprising? (Non teacher here)

Let's hope they do a "what parents need to know" version.

Ghost-written by noble maybe??

@JanuaryChill

Ghost-written by noble maybe??

Ha ha-was it you, @noblegiraffe?! Have they given you a job to try to stop your one-woman crusade to shut schools

Have any of you used any of the oak academy lessons with your classes? I'm having a look at the inequalities and think it looks appropriate and better than my videos for my year 11 Foundation group. Do we think it is frowned upon to link to one of those lessons, or would your school be ok with it? Obviously I wouldn't do every lesson using Oak, but once or twice a week for some classes would save me a lot of time.

No go for it if better and yours would be ore-recorded anyway! I hadn’t even looked there for maths for secondary for some reason!

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation Thanks tor sharing - that guidance looks almost - dare I say it? - reasonable! What's going on?

Just thinking about that very reasonable guidance for schools on remote learning, in relation to this thread's title.

When Gavin issued that call, did he actually know his department were about to publish a document from Ofsted which contained such sensible utterances as:

This means that we need to think carefully about whether pupils have access to the right kind of device when we’re using digital remote education. If they don’t, and we can’t provide enough devices, it might be better to consider non-digital approaches as well.

When using digital remote education, we often rely on internet access. Again, we need to consider whether pupils have this and what we can provide if they don’t. The Department for Education provides support on internet accessss, and on setting up a digital education platformrm.

NB nothing here about sending them into still-crowded classrooms if they haven't got laptops at home!!!

Actually the more I think about it, the more distance there seems to be between the Secretary of State's rhetoric and this document published by his own department. Odd.

Shhhh.... don't look directly at it or it'll run away....