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

Absolutely!

(Greetings @thecatfromjapan, you're obviously familiar to some on this thread but we haven't 'met' before!)

Guardian has an interesting article about how much clout U4T has with DfE vs ignoring anything PUAUS (may have messed up acronym) manages - with more members and bigger petitions. Hope that gets widely exposed.

Do you have a link for the article, Lancrelady90?

It occurs to me it might be useful to have linkeable articles about U4T all in one place ...

Hello, JanuaryChill. Nice to meet you.

cat left Mumsnet and missed all the Us4Them summer shenanigans (and my stealth campaign to close schools).

Catching up fast though!

Finally caught up with the thread. Sounds as if it was a good idea to be off MN today!

5 lesson day followed by 3 hour parents' evening. Am destroyed. On the plus side, every single set of parents was really appreciative and I actually got to see the kids on camera, which was so lovely - they never turn them on during lessons!

Did, however, have a rude email from another parent whilst I was basking in all this positivity. Boss has vetted my response, ready to send tomorrow. She wanted to respond on my behalf, she thought he was so rude!

[quote Mcvitoes]www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/26/group-campaigning-for-uk-schools-to-reopen-wins-backing-of-17-tory-mps[/quote]
Already posted upthread!

(Thank you. 😁)

@DreamingofBrie Glad your Head has your back.
(That sounds weird ...)
But ☹️@ rude parent.

I think everyone is doing brilliantly on the thread that probably must not be named.

Thank you Cat , I find myself having to look for positives sometimes! Parental complaints I find can really eat me up, but I know this particular parent and I didn't think much of him even before he complained...

Not tempted to jump in with any 🤬 ange ?

I have been behaving myself on here for ages now.
Hasn't ANYONE noticed????!!!

Well you’ve not been banned in at least a few weeks Ange. ⭐️

Omg cat I have missed you. You’ve read books on this stuff, it’s like another level.

I'm stunned, frankly. I honestly had no idea this was going on.

It's horrible. ☹️

I commend you for sticking with it, noble.

It's ... it's really shocking.

Daily Mirror has a front page survey of schoolchildren saying 70% of them want to go back to school. Yup. Mirror.

DT says Johnson wants to get primaries back before Easter.

Hmm.

That's interesting, JanuaryChill.

I'm hoping that is to put pressure on Johnson.

Because, of course, he can't do that - which is bad for him as a populist. And it peels him away from his support base.

I mean, he can try , he can try just opening schools - but the figures will rocket again. And he risks actually creating a vaccine-resistant strain of the virus.

Then he'll be really fucked.

He knows this, which is why he's holding out against the CRG. Just.

But, of course, he also can't open safely - because that is a huge, expensive logistical issue. Which he hasn't planned for.

So he has to keep them closed.

I'm guessing he'll just try to buy time until enough high-risk groups have been vaccinated.

So I guess the Mirror is piling on pressure in this window of time, while he's vulnerable.

I also wonder if the NEU thing is going to tie in with that in some way. 🤷‍♀️

Teachers are caught in the collateral of that, though.

With our nuanced message for a safe return.

It does feel like we're being hammered in all sides as scapegoats for what is a massive public health failure.

Anyway, that's one way of reading the Daily Mirror. But who knows, I may be entirely wrong.

Had an email to say my flights for summer have been cancelled already. Gutted I need to sort my flat out and I really needed something to look forward to.

Recieved from the school office just mow - just my year 6 and year 3 bubble left. Every single other bubble popped yesterday.6 staff from lft. At least 4 kids that we know of. It's just a matter of time for my bubble.

Primaries won't be far behind secondaries for long.

Good to be catching cases though.

phleb Were they all asymptomatic? Good that lateral flow is being done if so!

From the graun - thanks Mumsnet!

I mean, of course parents want kids to go back, I want my kids to go back, they’re doing my tits in, but that doesn’t steamroller every other consideration.

In the nicest possible way, how do parents know that their child's motivation and attitude to school work is vastly different to how it is in school? No child would be motivated to do maths if there was a dog in the classroom, a telly on, someone knocking on the door and so on.

The NEU email is talking about disadvantaged communities and laptops and "closing the gap"- whatever the announcement is, I'm not sure it's going to be something "for" teachers as such. The tone of the email would be pretty odd if the announcement was about vaccines.

"Our schools do all they can to level the playing field but, alone, they cannot fight the rising tide of poverty that is limiting the life chances of our children." - suggests some kind of national child poverty campaign or something, perhaps working with a charity?