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

Sorry to be boring but can I draw your attention to the link I posted about the BMA asking for proper masks for all medical staff.
All.
Not just ones treating Covid patients.
The full on currently only used in ICU masks - because it is airborne.
This has various implications for school workers position.

1. We support HCPs to be as safe as possible and they should have appropriate effective masks.
2. HCPs are effectively saying surgical masks are ineffective at reducing transmission in a clinical environment.
3. Clinical environments tend to me much less densely occupied (crowded) than classrooms - and close contact is normally of a short duration (less than 15 minutes) - unlike a lesson in a classroom.
4. This makes teachers requests for universal cloth face coverings in lessons seem quite mild
5. Asking for universal cloth face coverings may not be sufficient with the new variant with current standard classroom over crowding and lack of ventilation.

1. Oh shit

I think that thread shows it was never about live lessons. That was something easy to latch on to last time. It literally is about having kids in the physical building of school. Understandable in a whole lot of ways but also, often, just either rather self absorbed and lacking in social empathy.

Also, ahve just had an hour long sleep in front of telly while woman banging on about how much exercise everyone is doing at home. Then ate a muffin. Such is life.

Sat down for a quick mumsnet after an exceptionally long day - with another one planned for tomorrow - and have already told someone to fuck off, so think I might go to bed and read a book!

@FlagsFiend, I have WhatsApp on my laptop, so I copy and paste emojis over from there. I mainly use it for the thumbs up, and just press Ctrl V as I whizz through a set of assignments.

@MrsHamlet rage away! Hope the marking goes quickly this evening for you!

@EnemyOfEducationNo1

Sorry to be boring but can I draw your attention to the link I posted about the BMA asking for proper masks for all medical staff. All. Not just ones treating Covid patients. The full on currently only used in ICU masks - because it is airborne. This has various implications for school workers position.

1. We support HCPs to be as safe as possible and they should have appropriate effective masks.
2. HCPs are effectively saying surgical masks are ineffective at reducing transmission in a clinical environment.
3. Clinical environments tend to me much less densely occupied (crowded) than classrooms - and close contact is normally of a short duration (less than 15 minutes) - unlike a lesson in a classroom.
4. This makes teachers requests for universal cloth face coverings in lessons seem quite mild
5. Asking for universal cloth face coverings may not be sufficient with the new variant with current standard classroom over crowding and lack of ventilation.

1. Oh shit

Sobering summary there. Really hits home.

Instead of looking up gin and books n stuff, I have spent half an hour looking up wired keyboards on Amazon as I continue to attempt to turn my table at home into a workable classroom. FML

(I know that's not a lot to be annoyed about, it's just there isn't much of anything to look forward to just now - when even your "down time" is spent thinking of school related stuff)

This week I have realised that my child has an excellent class teacher but she is crap at admin. Nightmare! Pre-recorded lessons are fab but finding them plus getting the right worksheets etc for the right lesson at the right time is very hit and miss. Dh is locked in the kitchen live teaching. I am in school bubbling. Ds on his own in the dining room floundering. Hoping she gets more with it on admin next week. Fingers crossed.

Surprised it's taken bma that long.
Surely most hcp will be vaxxed soon too. But obviously some might still catch and spread.

But if it goes through the surgical masks which are better than cloth then really do need to limit people indoors.

Though i wonder that maybe the icu patients are less contagious they onto day 3+ at least surely. Certainly not asymptomatic. But they do intubate them in there...

@Piggywaspushed

Also, ahve just had an hour long sleep in front of telly while woman banging on about how much exercise everyone is doing at home. Then ate a muffin. Such is life.

Achievement of the day was finding a decent gingerbread in a mug recipe I expect this discovery will torpedo my pathetic attempt at not putting on any more weight.

It's interesting, our place did a government stylee uturn in the space of a week over some things.

We were told things were fine as rates were low and we are managing well, last week.

A few cases later and the whole school has been reorganised. I felt that it was also coming from the LA tbh. I'm wondering if our phe peeps are thinking about that list Enemy.

Had another 2 friends working for NHS vaccinated yesterday. Ones a SALT doing everything online and the other a chiropodist. Feels like they are at less risk than we have been for the whole of last term.

Gingerbread in a mug, please share!

Yes our SALTs have had theirs. To be fair, one in particular is also community based.

We've had snow. Good possibility I'm outside with them all day today. Thinking about my walking boots.

Why did I think wine on a Wednesday was a good idea?! It felt nice at the time but I've not slept well
Virtual meeting with uni tutor today to discuss extension to assignment so fingers crossed.

Can't remember if I've posted this on here already or if it was another thread but dd's 22 year old perfectly fit and healthy friend has a temp job working in nhs admin in a back office, going nowhere near patients, got her jab on Monday.

It was 10.15 when I logged off last night.
It was nice to see some of my colleagues briefly, but the nice does not make up for having to work til that time.
Not impressed.

My DSD is a trainee nurse. Currenly on placement in a busy city hospital between A&E and covid wards. No vaccine or regular tests as no NHS number

Have the joy of yr7 today when some totally get what we did last lesson, some need more practice and some can't do basic maths. I may be bald by lunch time.

I suppose the thing about being in school is that a lot of us will have seen teacher friends/colleagues get ill with covid and realise it can be quite serious. I'm young and healthy and I'm not concerned about dying from it but I am concerned about being incapacitated for weeks as happened to a friend who is the same age as me. I live alone and I would really struggle.

Whereas I think many parents are still in the "don't know anyone who has caught it" phase and have bought into the idea that it is a mild illness ie no worse than a cold.

We have a parent at school who is pushing for her clinically vulnerable 16yo to come in on keyworker provision. This is a child who is basically fine at home, but is feeling "lonely". Slt are currently resisting, but I'm not sure they can outright refuse.

I saw one of my colleagues who had had covid yesterday. His wife is still ill - she sleeps a lot, has no energy, is still hanging regular ECGs because of the damage to her heart. She's been off work since September and looks like she might not be able to come back.
He used to be the life and soul of the party - but he was telling me that he struggles to walk up the stairs.

I've got up this morning thinking about whether we could live without my salary. And I have done precisely two days of work this week (part time). If two days of this and home schooling can bring me to the point of wanting to quit, what will I be like by next week?!! Maybe I can pull myself together a bit and cope. I'm painfully aware that I'm being asked to do much less than many of you folk are.

Herc, cant do links on my phone but just google 2 minute gingerbread in a mug. I warn you it's a slippery slope...

I really really really need to stay off school laptop today. I found myself marking and trying to set up chat rooms at gone eleven last night.

Anyone using google classroom what do you use, if anything, for chat? I thought all google platforms would be compatible so set up a room per class and sent invites to my students but it doesn't accept their school email addresses despite being able to get to gmail, classroom and meets with them.

My objective is to be available in their lesson time and generally I have my 'to review' page open in classroom so I can mark and return work as it comes in and they can comment and reply to my comments on their work and they know they can email me for help. I wanted to have a chat open also where they can get a response quickly and the whole class can see explanations or additional resources I put in there. I know there is the stream page but both them and I miss stuff on there once we're in class work area plus watching recorded lessons etc and I'm making.

Am I missing a really obvious add on for a chat room? It obviously needs to record history for safeguarding and ideally be a room with the whole class in but the ability to do one to ones too. Any ideas?

It's a bugger that I seem to be unusual in here in that we don't use teams.