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

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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

I am WFH today and feeling SO angry looking out of the window at the entrance to the local lower school. Hundred of kids streaming in. St the last lockdown, I reckon they had 10 -15 kids on site.

We talk about kids being entitled. Their parents are a bunch of entitled wankers. I also think pester power may have played a part here.

We have rates higher than most boroughs of London here, just in my village. Last count 1159 per 100k. I know this because DS's HT likes to keep us all informed.

As a parent I don’t want my child doing every single lesson on a screen

Me too - my primary DS has a 30 minute registration in the morning on Teams, then 1 live lesson a day, either in English and Maths. He then gets another 2 - 3 tasks a day to complete. This seems like the right balance, as it gives us flexibility for him to complete the tasks in whatever order he wants. On my full days he's left to himself and so far (fingers crossed) is doing a good job.

I think it must also be better for his teacher, as he is only live for 1.5h a day, but he marks all of the work that comes in (so 40-60 pieces of work). Not ticks/crosses, but he's clearly looked at it and types a feedback comment onto the online platform.

We had 20-30 a day last time - we have 150 this time, which is more than a third....head sent a pleading letter home yesterday to ask parents to think carefully about whether they need that place. We have 10 out of 12 of my SEN class - but they prob do need to be there as can’t learn from home. Speaking of which, they will be here in 20 minutes so time to put phone away and paint on the brave face and welcoming smiles! Have a good day all!

The thing is, U4T have lost their argument re: schools open full-time for all with no masks or SD mitigations, so they're now turning their attention to demanding full-time live lessons.

Our LA sent out a comprehensive letter to all parents yesterday, and in it they stressed the fact that live lessons are not the be-all and end-all Holy Grail that some seem to think. They said there is a place for them in some instances, but it is NOT a legal requirement and a blended approach is better.

Yeah knackered after six full lessons yesterday, free now, then 5 lessons and parents evening.
We are also encouraged to do half live input ( every lesson is expected to have some) then ti let the kids loose. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. At least the kids are turning up for the time I am on live, which a lot of them weren’t last time.

This is all appalling. I feel so much for all of you. This isn't sustainable. Riga look after yourself.

All of you look after yourself.

We've had major rejigs in bubbles and timings of the day at work which has cut my range of contact right down. For all of us actually. Im very grateful.

This way of working live for hours is no good for pupils or staff and this will soon come crashing down. I had major issues with my back due to posture and sitting on screens for too long. Squeezing in an hours exercise each day will not counter this. It will affect sleep patterns and cause issues there. I give it one more week and the parent complaints will start coming and staff will have significant health issues.

Even Ofsted inspectors agree that Ofsted shouldn’t be doing f2f inspections at the moment!!

@SarahLou67, you're probably right, but we shouldn't have to wait for that to happen. But, as with everything else, the powers-that-be will wait for the crisis to happen and be firefighting, rather than doing the sensible thing and pre-empting it all.
And we teachers (and some pupils) will be the collateral damage.

This is the sad thing about it all.

I'm so glad my school aren't insisting on live lessons. Dd's primary aren't doing anything live, but there's a prerecorded lesson for English every day and they link to white rose for maths. They also have a video for each of geography, re, PSHE, science, computing, and art. A mix of some recorded by school staff and some external links, but dd says the external links are things they would have watched together in school anyway (she likes history because they watch lots of videos )

I have set an oak lesson today for my foundation year 11 class. Between a numeracy starter sheet, the oak video and a short exercise from a textbook (which I had to scan and snip because they don't have copies at home) that'll probably take them longer than an hour tbh. I've asked them to send me their score from the exit quiz and give feedback about whether they like those videos or prefer mine. We'll see how it goes.

OMG the covid board is like that time you decide to update your homework policy and send a parents survey out.

1/3 think there isn’t enough HW, 1/3 think you’ve got it about right and 1/3 think there is too much.

Perhaps it would be simpler if everyone just swapped schools.

I can't imagine doing live lessons with our year 2s. They struggle to join our twice daily check in/question time call. Obviously the lessons have to go around when parents are free for that age group.

I also think if normal school hours are kept, surely then everyone will be at Tesco/the park/wherever at the exact same time when school/work hours end, whereas yesterday I had my exercise on my lunch break and didn't see a soul.

Perhaps it would be simpler if everyone just swapped schools.

. I dare you to suggest it on the covid boards!

Just been into school to pick up my office chair.

I have been told to self certify for 5 days then the doctors will write me a note. I feel a relief. Going to have CBT etc.

As I am off, I listened throug the door for my daughter's PE lesson. Could just hear music. So I went in. She is laid in bed staring at Teams. I asked what she was doing. She said I am supposed to be doing work out but stuff that, I just had a shower.

It will be weird hearing my colleagues though through her lessons. I may avoid as it may make me feel guilty.

So glad you have got that sorted Riga. Look after yourself

Thanks Crackle

Tiny complain- I made a recorded powerpoint for Y10 physics, and I've set it for two classes today. It's accessible through office 365, but students need to request access. When they follow the link, there are two really obvious options- one saying "request access from admin".

About 30% of my students, instead of clicking this option, email/comment and say they can't access the powerpoint. I then have to grant them access manually, which is marginally more time consuming.

People talk about teens being tech savvy, and I know some of it is work avoidance, but you would think they could all use their brains and just click "request access"!

I don't think doing 4 or 5 hours a day of live lessons is sustainable for anyone- the kids will get burn out too.

So glad to hear things are shifting riga.

Yes that would be both my two if our PE dept ever attempted actual lessons! They've only sent encouraging suggestions for activity thus far.

I have made my DC do errands for me under the guise of PE. No way would any actual PE such as Joe Wicks get done. I ought to set a good example and put him on I suppose....

I'm not working today but doing dc school instead. Primary one going fine (he would happily work all day), secondary one I think I need a major intervention with, he is rude and stroppy and does about three lines worth and thinks that is loads. He does have some learning difficulties. We are supposed to be following timetable, registration etc. It is awful, and I am shouty and horrible. Absolutely nothing happens for either of them without direct intervention.
I can't face this and following my own timetable too
Sorry for moan. It's all just so sad.

Riga glad you are off, right decisions. Your dd sounds like she has exercising sussed, to be honest!

Has anyone figured out a way for one meeting organiser to allow another one to have the same privileges?

The remote learning team last week set our daily catch ups in Teams calendars, but the team working remotely this week (including me) can't 'start' the meeting, we all just wait around endlessly waiting to be admitted by someone who is not scheduled to join all week. Usually the Microsoft site has a tutorial for everything but I couldn't find this specific issue.

Some of my 'live' lessons are more of a clinic if you are stuck on stuff. Maths mostly.

We're going to teach harder on the whole class English stuff, and sort of just tick writing over. They do such a shit job at home it's almost worthless.

3 hours PPA this afternoon. Yay!

Beachhuts90 we have had this problem too, but can't see a way to do it. We have had to add new meetings. Pain in the neck! Then there are 2 conflicting meetings and the children don't know which to join.