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

Bet they don’t materialise at all (the tests), just like the ‘mobile testing units’ that were going to be sent. Half the school bubbles popped and they never appeared.

Don't mind being woken up early on a Sunday morning when it's a negative test result .

What a relief, Cracklefraggle !

I'm appalled at how Sen schools in particular are being treated. We can't close, we know we can't. And we can't have any control over how close we get to kids and sometimes in some circumstances adults.

I'm particularly grumpy as I know of a few who have the vaccine now who are wfh in the nhs. And some not even in the nhs but managed to get it via tenter spouse. (One not even working at all.) And got their kids KW places.

Great news crackle!

Oh and a bubble has popped at school. Staff member. So it begins...

@Cracklefraggle

Don't mind being woken up early on a Sunday morning when it's a negative test result .

That’s great news. Thank goodness.

Oh no trashed you are right there is a really good argument for vaccinating staff in SEN schools.

I’m primary and we have got weekly testing.

However just seen on the news today that the rate in our borough is 1603 per 100,000 and 1 in 16 are currently infected. It is out of control here.

Fucking hell user. I'm so sorry.

What does the weekly testing entail?

I'm particularly grumpy as I know of a few who have the vaccine now who are wfh in the nhs. And some not even in the nhs but managed to get it via tenter spouse. (One not even working at all.) And got their kids KW places.

You have every right to be grumpy. I know personally of this happening as well.

Including my social worker cousin who has been wfh since last March (the ‘I’m doing my bit for the fight’ post on Facebook when she had the first jab was a step too far when it has been so difficult to get support for many students from Social Services since September and their refusal of anything face to face). Yet it’s fine and expected for us to be face to face and pick up the slack.

SEND schools like yours. especially, are very much the forgotten tragedy of this government’s failures

It’s PCR testing, we do it at home and take it back to work. At the moment some of us are having to drive in and drop off as we aren’t all in every day. We have had it since before Christmas and quite a few asymptomatic positives have been picked up.

Ooh when glad you're around. I have just emailed you a couple of lessons.

Why do you become a teacher to be a head teacher?

Yep. I have served under a few male Heads who had only been teaching a year or two before they got their Head post (including one who has been on TV!) and it really shows how inexperienced they are as bog standard teachers and what that entails.

And they always brag about how quickly they got their post when all it highlights is how little they truly know about the job of a teacher and make some poor decisions as a result.

Luckily, I currently have an ‘on the ball’ Head (female but it’s not that that makes the difference) who has had decades of experience and it shows in how they have dealt with this pandemic.

I put this in the Broom Cupboard, I think, but some NHS trusts are insisting that wfh staff take the KW places as they are not allowed to supervise their dc’s home learning.
Some non-frontline NHS staff are also receiving ‘leftover’ vaccines i.e. if a community care team are being vaccinated and you are in the building you might be offered one that hasn’t been used. This could happen to DH. Which is pretty galling, but I’ve promised not to hold it against him
Totally agree about SEND school staff. I have done that role and the contact is as close as residential care, including personal care and it is unacceptable to treat those staff as being in any way able to distance and provide the essential support those children need.

That's good to hear and scary how many a symptomatic cases are being picked up User.

So do part timers have to do it daily and drop it off? That would be hard.

We were told it's not coming to primary as the setting up of what's needed is too difficult.

I see saucery. Yes that's happened re left over tests, but also a wife of a Gp who's not working got a spare test. Don't begrudge her as she's lovely. Just feel hard done by!

Yes part timers do have to come in to do it, or they can book their own test at a local testing centre. As long as you do the test on the right day, it doesn’t matter if it is the test provided by the school or not.

Feels like a waiting game until I catch it to be honest, about half of us have been positive since the beginning of December.

@TrashedWarrior

I see saucery. Yes that's happened re left over tests, but also a wife of a Gp who's not working got a spare test. Don't begrudge her as she's lovely. Just feel hard done by!

Oh so do I! Even the NHS friend who got the vaccine said they felt guilty because people like me, the only people still expected to mingle with 30 others at close quarters, weren’t getting it first. They know it won’t make a lot of difference on a personal level until frontline workers and the vulnerable get it.

We must be the exception, because not only do we have lots of male teachers at our primary, but also they are all lovely, don't want to be Head, and are not knobs. One fixes all our ICT stuff too.

Mind you one did go off to be head elsewhere and he wasn't a knob but was v ambitious.

I was at school with a girl who went to the local boys/ grammar for a particular A-level, she married her teacher and there was a big scandal at his school. In fact, I know of another girl younger than me who did exactly the same 6 years later.

We had a PE teacher who went off to be a priest, too. And the lesbian one who made us give her our towels, then we had to ask for the soap before she watched us go into the showers. EEEK. And mark P in the register and give us hell if there was a P 2 weeks running or twice in a month.

My GP consortium are buggers for texting you, about everything under the sun. Vaccine? Not. A. Dickybird. GP practice silent about it, too busy telling you to not even think about trying to come in.
I am feeling let down by them tbh. I’m doing my bit, they should be doing their’s.

@TrashedWarrior

I'm appalled at how Sen schools in particular are being treated. We can't close, we know we can't. And we can't have any control over how close we get to kids and sometimes in some circumstances adults.

I'm particularly grumpy as I know of a few who have the vaccine now who are wfh in the nhs. And some not even in the nhs but managed to get it via tenter spouse. (One not even working at all.) And got their kids KW places.

It is truly appalling.

Do you have suggestions? Would you like rotas for children who you know are really well supported at home where parents might be able to take over some of the learning? Would that make a difference?

Is there a way to make bubbles smaller and staff to cross them less? Could extra adults be hired? Could SALTs and other therapists be allocated to a school for a block and take a small group?

Probably both impractical. I can't think of anything else.

Rotas worked v well indeed. Half days so staff could set learning for those at home.

I don't feel too bad to be open where we are but my gosh any sen school where rates are over 500/600 must be starting to struggle. Those of over 1000 surely can't be operating at all.

I know this has been done to death but it seems ridiculous that there couldn't have been more blue sky thinking.

Mainstream primary and lower secondary could have had some amazing wider curriculum experiences delivered from all the out of work people in the arts, sports and hospitality industries (obviously supervised by DBS checked adults and with use of large spaces outwith their schools).

Special school children would benefit from the same (especially EBD?) but with the addition of other specialists who may be not able to work in normal ways.

Obviously this would require vision, money and giving a toss about children and school staff, which the govt clearly doesn't.

Matt H just said on Sky. I think Gavin is doing a great job. I cackled out loud.