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

I have horrendous eyesight too and I know it's got worse. But the optician won't see me face to face

Musing on the suggestion elsewhere about holding everyone back a year. Is it still the case that your GCSE results count for the school only in the year in which you are 16?
I'm pretty sure this used to be the case - I worked in a state boarding school where the Chinese kids were often a year older than their year group and so didn't count...

MrsH what do you mean by count? There are rules about which results count for league tables. Didn't know there were age ones.

My MP isn’t a prick - though we are an island of non-prickness surrounded by oceans of pricks.

I'm sure it was the case that they only appeared in the data in the year they were 16.
So Boris and Doris are both 16 but in year 10. Their results didn't appear in the overall tally for their year group when they were in year 11 because they were out of the cohort.
I don't even know if I'm making sense now!!

ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2017/01/whos-left-how-do-pupils-count-in-league-tables-and-how-does-our-reweighting-approach-work/

Penalty add backs?!

@MrsHamlet

I'm sure it was the case that they only appeared in the data in the year they were 16. So Boris and Doris are both 16 but in year 10. Their results didn't appear in the overall tally for their year group when they were in year 11 because they were out of the cohort. I don't even know if I'm making sense now!!

That's right, , it used to be like that, until a few years ago, with random Y10 and 6th formers included because they were 16 and in the 'wrong' year. Then it changed to students in Year 11 as at January census, regardless of age.

Thanks blankety I'm glad I hadn't dreamed it!
I was thinking about the impact if those who wanted everyone to repeat a year got their wish. Another year of Nathan and I'd be bald, to start with.

It's also the first sitting that counts for league tables too. Put a stop to early entry in most places.

Oh my god I'm so bored. I can't sleep for thinking about work either, so tired. Meh. Trying not to work, but it eould at least be something to do.

Was thinking, might the exhausted parents" narrative, only 2 weeks in, come from a Londoncentric POV? More for primary age.....We know that in several boroughs in the last week of term only about 20% of students were in school.

Then there was the Christmas holidays, perhaps in some ways more exhausting than usual as you couldn't take the kids to exciting places or send them to Grandma's.

Then schools closed.

I think I'd be feeling exhausted if I lived in one of those boroughs and had younger kids.

Just been looking at Unlocked's Fb Page.... oh dear oh dear. Unlock the schools, unlock fishing, unlock the pubs. Sexist, racist rubbish.
PUAUS says it's linked to something called LibertyAllianceUK but I can't find them.

Our school site's closed tomorrow so I won't be in supervising or being tested!

I have some sympathy for the exhausted parent narrative tbh. Juggling work and homeschooling is shit. They are setting way more work than last time and my school is expecting more of me too.

We're setting too much work because they moaned about not enough and needing their kids to be occupied all day aka making a rod for your own back.

We could really do with paring it back. Especially for ks3 eg they get 3 lessons per fortnight for history in years 7 and 8. We could easily go to 2 lessons and still cover the core stuff.

My first task when trying to make and record a remote lesson is to get rid of at least two thirds of the slides on a PowerPoint and create a couple of clearer ones that actually cover the bloody learning objectives. I then get rid of the complicated and pointless card sorts and living graphs and match and god knows what else in the way of showy paper heavy ingenuity that my hod seems to be obsessed with (yet hasn't added any copies of those resources to the system and half of them don't exist) and create some simple lo fulfilling tasks.

Then I record.

I've now had requests for the PowerPoint I made as well as the video 'just in case'. The just in case will be just in case they're all actually workable and should replace the existing ones.

I'm an awful person. Becoming deeply cynical

Plus I sound really arrogant there sorry. I'm kind of resenting that I'm actually putting work into these things but for another year group I'm not responsible for creating for I'm getting shite that the kids don't get and need loads of help with.

Resentment is not pretty. I need to do an Elsa

I don't think you sound arrogant at all, Honey - you sound frustrated at having the piss taken.
Or maybe I'm also arrogant 🤣

You absolutely don't sound arrogant.

I just had a lovely peaceful walk in the snow after nearly all the kids had gone home. With the street lights just on, it was like Narnia.

I hope you weren't offered any Turkish Delight, January

Turkish Delight is the most misleadingly named sweet ever.

I read the Narnia books obsessively as a kid and only got to try Turkish Delight when much older and it was disgusting.

I had the same level of disappointment at ginger beer and the Famous Five. How could they drink so much of it?

I've just had a lovely walk too January. It's not snowy here, but a crisp frost that's stayed all day, which is really beautiful. I walked for 2 hours, just me with my audiobook, it was great.

I think I've nailed the self care and mental health thing today. A nice walk, made a cheesecake with dd2, finished a diamond painting, very chilled. Dd2 is seeming very chilled and mentally healthy today as well, far less screen time than during the week, although she's playing Roblox and on facetime with her friends right now so double screening.

Back to the grindstone tomorrow, but I'm sending out a video from YouTube for one class, which is cheating a bit but genuinely is better than the video I would produce, and covers the same content in the same way I would teach it.

My MP is a prick, but I knew that already. He votes in the opposite way I'd want him to every single time. If there's a way to help those in poverty he will vote against it.

We are worried about the amount of screen time for staff and students. Our lessons are now 5 mins shorter and we have an extra 15 mins at lunch just to give people the opportunity to stop looking at screens but it is bloody hard.

I think my school is going to have to seriously consider this. We’re doing a full timetable of live lessons plus one piece of work to be marked in every subject each week.
Last week I went rogue and gave my pupils time in the live lesson to complete their marked work. Solved the issue of pupils not doing the work for me to mark and helped with their (and mine) screen fatigue!

We're being actively encouraged to set off screen activities for our kids, KS3 in particular. I don't quite know how to do that for maths unless they have a printer, as I really need them to answer questions, which they may well be reading from a screen. Geography, history, art and English seem to be managing to set more in the way of off screen activities judging by the "spotlight on good practice" bits we get in the weekly t&l bulletin.

SNOW DAY!

No online lessons either because 'some staff rely on coming in to use tech' and it would be too complicated to communicate an 'ad hoc' approach to parents.

Actually quite annoyed as I was starting a new topic with y7 and don't see them until Friday, so wondering whether to follow the schools 'no new work before live' and reset them revision from the last topic, for three lessons, or leave it and let them have a go one their own like the other group did with that exact work before they cut back on their workload because some parents said they were stressed. (Or options three, pretend I didn't see my emails and teach them anyway cos I bet their parents won't have checked/understood all lesson are suspended by their 9am lesson).

Also: massive sign the head can't be arsed anymore, calling a snow day for Mon at 5pm on a Sunday! He'd normally be on site at 7am to do a final check just in case he could open!

How's DD1 Awesome?

So got a WhatsApp to our road group to say hospital near us was offering walk in vaccines for over 70s and it wasn’t busy. My dad went and got some straight away so DH too MiL and they did him too when they did her! I’m actually really pleased and a bit emotional... I just need to kidnap an over 70 and take them... 🤣🤣🤣