The Forty Second Republic - Lockdown 3 online learning struggles continue

[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

Honey, you do have rights.... but being assertive can be very hard esp if it goes against early life lessons.... And re yr post last night: yes the NEU's graphs read as if they're of confirmed cases. However the DfE stats are for the various reasons for absence from school. Hence noble's puzzlement.

Is there some kind of Latin memory enhancement going around MN?? The Archers thread had a sudden side conversation last week about how seemingly everyone had done Latin, many absolutely loving it and quoting remembered sentences etc!

I loved Latin but couldn't do it at A level because I was the only person in my comp. Well I could have travelled to another sixth form for it but the thought of that was way out of my comfort zone, so I didn't....

Look at you all with your fancy classical educations. I did CLAIT and have a GCSE in French for Business.

Honey - I completely understand the laptop dread when you've just set some boundaries.

Those who did Latin - was it those orange books about a family in Pompeii? Metella was the wife?

Honey I totally understand the feeling like you will be in trouble for something. It's weird as I didn't at my old school. It's why I have outlook in a hidden folder on my phone. So I can check it on seconds to put my mind at rest. I think I should set boundaries like you though.

Yup with dirty old Grumio.

My school was SO not a Latin school! The year I took my GCSEs they were celebrating because they'd broken the previous 5 A-C record and achieved 25%!

@GravityFalls

My school was SO not a Latin school! The year I took my GCSEs they were celebrating because they'd broken the previous 5 A-C record and achieved 25%!

Sounds like mine. 🙈

Is that Cambridge Latin? We did Oxford Latin with Quintus, Flaccus & Scintilla

Loads of MNers seem to have usd the Cambridge Latin course never found anyone that used Oxford.

Latin teachers are always characters. I think it’s in the job description.

I adored Latin, took it for GCSE. Yes to the Cambridge Latin Course! My colleague says the good thing about Latin is that it doesn't change much . My teacher was Mrs Butler and she was quite quiet and reserved, but I remember she was incredibly kind. And she took us to a Pompeii exhibition at the British Museum!

If A-level had been about the subjects I loved most, I would have taken Latin (took a STEM route instead, which I don't regret).

All I remember from The Aeneid was "salo spumante", which was the foaming waves!

Caeciliius and familiae (?!) here too, although at least we had modern paperbacked textbooks with line drawings on the front.

Miss Moore was Head of middle school and NOT to be messed with, great teacher.

I did CLAIT too!

The DfE email has just come - no testing instead of isolation for now!

I think we are the same age, MrsHamlet!

Did they have any rationale in the DfE email, Cantaloupe? I thought the Ed select committee yesterday was suggesting that it would be reduced to being 'piloted' up to half term to see how it goes.

'We have consistently been guided by experts, and as part of our testing approach we rolled out daily contact testing in schools on the advice of NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England (PHE).

Both NHS Test and Trace and PHE have now reviewed that advice, and concluded that, in light of the higher prevalence and rates of transmission of the new variant, further evaluation work is required to understand the impact of daily contact testing, instead of self-isolation for those who have been in contact with a case, to make sure it is achieving its aim of breaking chains of transmission and reducing cases of the virus in the community.

In light of that assessment, we are pausing daily contact testing in all but a small number of secondary schools and colleges, where it will continue with detailed evaluation to inform any future resumption and to make sure nobody in the remaining settings is put at any risk. Regular testing of staff should continue and will increase to twice weekly as further reassurance and to break chains of transmission during this period.'

I found this from 1964. I did O levels in 1969 and it hadn’t changed at all

tanfield-association.org/exam_papers/O%20Level%201964%20Latin%20Paper%201.pdf

I so wish my teacher had had the slightest interest in military history. She managed to make Caesar terminally boring, and I didn’t have the nous to find out for myself. Oh those pre-internet days.

Regular testing of staff should continue and will increase to twice weekly

Gotta get through those surplus lateral flow tests somehow.

I wonder if the parents in the pilot schools know that their kids are the guinea pigs for a testing approach that hypothetically increases their risk of catching covid. I bet the consent forms haven't been updated.

Right, I need to sign up to the DfE email alert. I'm pretty much up to speed with all changes thanks to you lot and Twitter, but I want them SOONER.

Can someone please link; I can't immediately find it myself. Doing a kid and asking someone to do it for me

Both NHS Test and Trace and PHE have now reviewed that advice, and concluded that, in light of the higher prevalence and rates of transmission of the new variant, further evaluation work is required to understand the impact of daily contact testing, instead of self-isolation for those who have been in contact with a case, to make sure it is achieving its aim of breaking chains of transmission and reducing cases of the virus in the community.

Translation: we actually looked at the data concerning infections in schools and realised we fucked up. We’ll blame it on increased transmissibility and do a quick U-turn on LFT rather than SI because we’ve realised that’s a potential disaster as well.

Yep - blame on the new variant instead of it being a monumentally crap idea in the first place. Fine by me.

Found it now (the email sign up).

And I’m still suspicious about “increased transmissibility”. Because all it seems to mean is “more people get it”, and I’ve yet to see a convincing reason why, other than it’s been cultured in an environment where more people can catch it. (On the data thread it’s all about spikes that help it bind to receptors but that appears to be mostly speculation.)

@noblegiraffe

Regular testing of staff should continue and will increase to twice weekly

Gotta get through those surplus lateral flow tests somehow.

I wonder if the parents in the pilot schools know that their kids are the guinea pigs for a testing approach that hypothetically increases their risk of catching covid. I bet the consent forms haven't been updated.

Maybe they could trial them in Parliament and let us know how it goes?

Aren’t we all in this together and all that?!

Aren’t we all in this together and all that?!

We are, but in the same way as Orwell’s equality, some are more in it than others.

Our headteacher taught Latin to one class in the third year so he could pretend he was still at the chalk face. Our Christmas treat in his class was to sing ‘Three blind mice’ in Latin - wasn’t the most popular with 30 13yos! I did CLAIT too 😇

Can't test new covid isolation approaches on Cabinet as they all caught covid off Boris so may have natural immunity.