The Forty Third Republic - Lockdown learning continues - when is half term?

[Staffdontblowitnow]

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

to everyone struggling. It’s shit.

And schools are now being supported by the EdTech demonstrator school and college network, which involves experts helping them get the best out of the technology available

Say what? I must have missed this. And yes that headteacher is about 30 ffs.

You have a lot on your plate phleb. That would floor me even in normal times. You get all the

Noble I was already planning how to make myself completely unavailable at weekends. I booked flights when you guys said about working in summer

I've got a relentless 3h of slots - no-one ever misses a slot with Maths! Was aghast when I went to dd parents' evening and the Music teacher only had two appointments!

I much prefer remote parents' evening, excellent timekeeping and no need to have to run around classrooms or hang around for parents who don't make it on time.

Don't want to talk to the parents who complained about me, especially not for 6 minutes.

Yeah what is EdTech??

Oh @phlebasconsidered that's so hard..... hugs

@phlebasconsidered, you have so much on your plate. Pride and Prejudice and Anne with an E sound perfect (I would happily binge watch all of the Megan Follows Anne of Green Gables with dd, curled up under a duvet). We did all 7 series of Buffet over the summer and it was epic .

I'm in bed with a cup of cinnamon tea. Feeling destroyed. Hope everyone is bearing up x

Buffy, not buffet!

I'm disappointed. Buffet sounded intriguing.

I’d love a seven series buffet

I fancy a seven series buffet as well please.

Seven series buffet in bed sounds like a dream

Vol au vents are my buffet weakness . I've eaten my bodyweight in takeaway tonight. Need to sleep it off!

Actually honey you forgot to give us the flight numbers so we could book too

Oh Brie, I have cinnamon tea bags which we do not like, do you have any ideas how to make it (more) palatable?

I'm loving the idea of remote parents' evening. DD's y11 one is next week - Friday. Was booked for Thurs but the appts have all been moved due to overload apparently.

We're using it for ours too. Ideally in the daytime for wellbeing online meets rather than progress meetings. I love the idea that it will cut a parent off if they've had their time.

I'm in Wales and wonder what the words they keep using in terms of who might come back earlier mean. They keep saying that the 'very young' children who cannot learn remotely. No indication whether this means all primary or just the infants.

@JanuaryChill

Oh Brie, I have cinnamon tea bags which we do not like, do you have any ideas how to make it (more) palatable?

I don't actually like cinnamon much myself, but these are the Pukka Three Cinnamon ones and they're really nice and sweet, but the kind of sweetness that hits the back of the throat. Kind of like their peppermint and liquorice teabags too.

Oh no Honey, I've just booked flights somewhere else for the summer! Well, it'll just have to be a yearly excursion 😁

Hi all. My online teaching is going fine. Not getting much in to mark really but it's much easier now that I've got the hang of assignments on Teams.

My big worry is my Year 3 DS and my Year 6 DD. They're just getting online work that DS in particular needs contextualising. DD has been pissing about chatting with her friends as getting a bit behind. Their HT refuses point blank to deliver any teaching. WTF can I do? I suppose it's going to be to abuse my KW privilege and send DS in.

I hope we keep schoolcloud after lockdown much better than the usual long parents evenings. At least there is no chance of being cornered by one parent for 20 minutes complaining about harsh marking on their child’s homework from the previous term

To retur to our research and discussion about why U4T might have influence at No10 etc etc, have just seen this posted on the current Trump/Biden thread:

^Did anyone on here see the video Farage released in favour of Trump on Wednesday?

Telling his viewers not to believe the MSM lies that are being spread about Trump being an awful president.

He's part of the agenda, there is an astonishing number of British people, mostly Farage supporters/ Brexiteers who were in complete and utter support of Trump.

This is going to sound mad but i'm a motorhomer and was silenced on a motorhoming forum for expressing negative views about Trump and Brexit before the election.^

You're independent, aren't you, Staff?

My ds was at an independent school. I wasn't "that" parent but I did enjoy overhearing the ones who were and then reading the teacher mark book upside down to read their kids' grades I guess remote parents' evening has ended both of those dubious pleasures.

I can never decide whether it's bad form to quote a poster from another thread? And whether it's important to name them...

(Was glad I did yesterday with borntobequiet's post as she turned out to be on here!)

Parents evening is a bit of a free for all with parents turning up at all the wrong times. I end up just taking whoever is sitting waiting.

Weirdly much as I dread it and loathe a tiring evening I usually end up quite enjoying it and feel like my relationships with students are strengthened by it.

On the other hand I do pretty much anything to avoid phonecalls home. Last one I did was when a usually calm student misbehaved and I asked him to step outside to have a quiet word and he then completely lost it and was head butting and punching walls and doors and had every member of staff in the block out of our rooms trying to contain him.

I spoke to dad and he chuckled and said it used to happen all the time at primary so don't worry

I dread emails from parents because it's usually to complain about something really petty or to demand some kind of special treatment for their child or that awful my child has got a bad mark and they say it's because they're really struggling and they need help when said child hasn't done a scrap of work all term.

Was weird talking to students on google meet today and hearing their parents in the background

I have stayed up late, watched a film all the way to the end without falling asleep and had a proper conversation with DH. This is nothing short of miraculous for a Friday. I am feeling quite proud of myself.

Glad you have all made it through the week. Have been enjoying reading bits of the threads but haven't had time to post much.

@Monkeytennis97 I hope you manage to see your ds soon.

@SquashedFlyBiscuits thank you. We had a video call today which was lovely that we could see him and we blew each other kisses. Have to keep telling myself how lucky we were to have him home for Christmas.

Oh @Monkeytennis97 it’s so hard. I keep my fingers crossed you can see him again soon.