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

@namechangedyetagain it will. I can't imagine training in a pandemic year.

I'm going to whisper this here... I prefer teaching live online to being in the classroom

@Appuskidu

It's a 45 minute lesson and I find that registering them, dealing with last lesson's feedback and going through the teaching bit often means they only have about 10 minutes to do the work, then 5 minutes to check answers

That’s exactly what today’s Fail TB arrive is about today. Parents bitching about teachers teaching online saying that by the time they’ve faffed around registering, sorting out late people and people who don’t understand, there’s hardly any lesson left.

A bit like in many actual classrooms really!

Ha. What do they think it's like in school?

Still catching up with the thread but this amused me/made me roll my eyes

I'm only doing live lessons with 6th form as I have my kids at home. I hate it. I can't speak to a sea of initials. I need faces. And I mixed up the words antigen and antibody about 20 times. Never do that normally. Plus I've got to say I can easily put up some nice professional videos that explain things really well with nice animations. Way better than anything I can make

@hedgehogger1 Yes it's easy for us as we only have us teaching here in the day. DH is one room and I in another. I'm not bothered speaking into the void really-just keep thinking oh well it's better than being in Covid central than last time. Also I do a lot of 'now you've got 30 minutes to complete xyz and send it to me on Teams'. I record the lessons so they are there for the kids but no pressure to make super duper recordings.

Live lessons are doing my head in. Doing the vast majority of a full timetable on google meets. It’s like trying to teach through a letterbox. You can sort of see and hear but have absolutely no idea what’s going on.

It’s like trying to teach through a letterbox

That was Gav's next idea

Seen the 'OMG schools might not go back til after Easter thread'....?

Love that analogy!

@Piggywaspushed

I ahve not had any emojis in Classroom yet so I assume either my kids are very backward (possible veering to probable) or classroom doesn't allow it. No Like option either!

I Like the 1,2, 3 thing.

I wish Classroom had a thumbs up thing so they could just put a thumb up if they were fine.

My year 7s send me emojis on classroom in the private message box. I haven't worked out how to send them back though...

Imagine if we could have a fifth of the kids in each day. How much safer we and they would be and how much they would learn (ok, I know it's not really feasible at KS3/KS4 with the range of subjects and it doesn't solve childcare issue for keyworkers or vulnerable children), but...

And, interestingly, rotas are now actively being requested by some parents who cried absolute foul before.

It's so sweet how we try and keep the chat really quiet as possible in live meetings and reprimand anyone messing about, but still secretly like it when we get a sweet message from a kid at the end "Thanks for the lesson, Miss "

Seen the 'OMG schools might not go back til after Easter thread'....?

Noble has!

Thing is rotas are screwed now as too many people are claiming they absolutely have to have a KW space so there would be nobody to rotate out to get the others in.

I’m hoping the floppy-haired twat doesn’t announce that Reception/KS1 are in as that will screw infant only schools who would be jam packed and have no spare classrooms to spread out over.

I know! I know!

We need some other solution for the childcare element, though.

Scotland are now saying that people who worked at home during the first lockdown should be working at home now. Assuming Boris copies Nicola as usual - could this make a difference to our numbers in school?

So I had my first teams sessions today. Despite the fact that I explained clearly on SMHW that this was a troubleshooting session not a taught lesson, I still had at least 5 kids who were clearly expecting me to teach live. I very bluntly said "well guys, if you don't have anything I can help you with then you should probably get on with some work." Picture of tact and subtlety, that's me 😁

@chocolateisavegetable

Scotland are now saying that people who worked at home during the first lockdown should be working at home now. Assuming Boris copies Nicola as usual - could this make a difference to our numbers in school?

Yes I thought that. It definitely would!

And possibly to schools which are demanding that all staff be in.....

Evening all! Nothing much to report from me today - I seem to be falling into a horrifying routine of being in school 7am-7pm which is less than ideal but the only way to keep on top of recording lessons and giving feedback to my home learners. I'm worried it won't be sustainable.

Neighbouring school has 4 teachers positive and another load waiting for results. The figures near me are horrendous and rising by 60%+ daily. It feels like it's only a matter of time before it hits my school, yet parents are carrying on socialising regardless.

@JanuaryChill

Seen the 'OMG schools might not go back til after Easter thread'....?

Yes it gave me rage. Should we not be past "all schools open regardless" point by now?

And possibly to schools which are demanding that all staff be in.....

keeping my fingers crossed!

@chocolateisavegetable

And possibly to schools which are demanding that all staff be in.....

keeping my fingers crossed!

Same! Union meeting tonight said it was against government advice. Can't see my school changing though.

@chocolateisavegetable

Seen the 'OMG schools might not go back til after Easter thread'....?

Noble has!

My head was hinting at that. With restrictions in place until 31st March that would mean an Easter return

@RandomGrammarPun

It's so sweet how we try and keep the chat really quiet as possible in live meetings and reprimand anyone messing about, but still secretly like it when we get a sweet message from a kid at the end "Thanks for the lesson, Miss "

I like the penguin emojis

@chocolateisavegetable

Scotland are now saying that people who worked at home during the first lockdown should be working at home now. Assuming Boris copies Nicola as usual - could this make a difference to our numbers in school?

In theory, yeah. In practice, probably only slightly. A number of the keyworker children have at least one parent at home, some two, but they are in because the parent is working from home and, in their words, cannot supervise or support the child(ren).

Yes it gave me rage. Should we not be past "all schools open regardless" point by now?

You’d hope so wouldn’t you.

I rather suspect that ‘All schools open as before, regardless’ will still be the reopening plan though. Alongside a few DfE campaigns saying, ‘Schools are safe’ and some guidance clarifying that masks are not necessary.