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

With a few exceptions British media is dying on it’s arse. There’s no real will to consistently hold the government to account. Not really helped by the government either refusing entry to press conferences or refusing to send people onto shows they find a bit difficult.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/russia-spyware-school-laptops-b1790759.html

Have we had this yet. I’d guess this is the obvious consequence of having Russian money flowing through your government.

Oh yes I saw that earlier. One would kinda hope they'd all been testing before being distributed, but 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was teaching from school today and the freezing cold, and the shit connection made me grumpy, I slipped off the 'unrelentingly positive' script to explain to quite a few that if they didn't interact in live lessons and didn't submit work there's no way for me to help them progress.

Honestly, year 11, you were meant to do your mocks now, you need to get your arses in gear and be able to find relevant revision content on bitesize.

Year nine boy that asks the date every lesson, don't wait until the day after a task is due, when you've had a week to do it, to tell me you 'don't get it' (it's pretty clear, you open the word doc and answer the questions). When explored further, turns out they hadn't actually got as far as opening the document! Then logged off before I could make sure they could do that.

Year 7 parents, don't message teachers for them, show them how to do it.

As least the piss poor submission rate gives me less marking to do.

@RigaBalsam I know those kids inside out as have taught them three times a week since September. I’m talking about kids who click the link to the work and then go away and don’t attempt any of it - I can see they aren’t even looking at the screen cos it shows me who is on the page or not. Funnily enough it’s the same students who fuck about trying to disrupt my lessons and need constant telling to do the work in the classroom that are the same ones. Also I’m not asking them maths questions to reply to I’m saying “hiya xxx, just checking you can see my questions, you can unmute and tell me or pop a yes in the chat”... they aren’t suffering with anxiety, they’re the lazy ones who think they can get away with it.

I've now heard of 5 people who have jumped the vaccine queue because they are friends with doctors.

Piers laying into Gav has cheered me right up!

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

I've now heard of 5 people who have jumped the vaccine queue because they are friends with doctors.

Yeah. Don't get me started.

However, they're cutting the vaccine supply up here as we are too efficient at getting it done so I imagine that will stop.

I'm livid.

[quote MrsHerculePoirot]@RigaBalsam I know those kids inside out as have taught them three times a week since September. I’m talking about kids who click the link to the work and then go away and don’t attempt any of it - I can see they aren’t even looking at the screen cos it shows me who is on the page or not. Funnily enough it’s the same students who fuck about trying to disrupt my lessons and need constant telling to do the work in the classroom that are the same ones. Also I’m not asking them maths questions to reply to I’m saying “hiya xxx, just checking you can see my questions, you can unmute and tell me or pop a yes in the chat”... they aren’t suffering with anxiety, they’re the lazy ones who think they can get away with it.[/quote]
Oh I quite agree and I have the same. I am just saying that is what our SLT would say and often do probably a reason I am off ill.

How are you Riga?

@TrashedWarrior

How are you Riga?

Getting there thanks for asking. Still a lot of ups and downs.

I'm not due to start till 11. Lots of marking to do. We've gone ahead with qmas. My colleagues aren't doing any marking except the qmas so it's a good deal for them.

I'm lightly marking everything handed in though because I sort of feel if they can be arsed to do it I should be arsed to mark it. I may need to rethink that as it does add up but it does make a difference to their work effort and they often follow feedback and resubmit to improve their effort grade that I've given them.

I feel like I'm being told just don't bother marking, don't do as many recorded lessons but the bridging lessons being set by colleagues are literally just bunging an unmodified PowerPoint at them which isn't fair imo and many of the recorded lessons I've looked at are basically reading a list of tasks rather than t&l content.

Meh. That's why I've set limits on the bullshit work so I can use my time and energy on the actual teaching.

I don't know if I'm doing too much. It doesn't feel like it given some, like ds maths teacher, are doing loads of google meet live lessons.

Hope everyone is ok.

Good, but do take your time riga.

Hope you're remembering they left you with no choice Riga and using the time to take care of yourself

Thanks both. I try to remember that when I feel guilty.

I feel like such a fraud today. It's my day for supervising KW/V students in school, but our newest RA says that anyone with symptoms of any illness should not come into school: kids, visitors or staff. Well, I have a cold. It's pretty shit, but no fever, no cough and (when my nose is clear) I can smell just fine. I emailed our HT for clarification and he told me not to come in! I have never stayed home from work for just a cold. I'm sure my place in hell is being prepared as I type.
(Saying that, I bet that were I in today, every time I sneezed about once every five minutes all the kids in the room would shit themselves)

I may have had an unreasonable tantrum on the current numbers thread.

I think sometimes as a teacher used to planning both in the long term and microsecond with zero resources and budgets, I become very scornful of other's inability to organise piss ups in breweries.

@RigaBalsam unless you lot dob me in, I reckon I'm safe 😂

[quote MrsHamlet]@RigaBalsam unless you lot dob me in, I reckon I'm safe 😂[/quote]
in the words of year 11...

I am no grass me like.

Stepaway - don't feel guilty! Feel pleased that your school is taking such a responsible approach. I wish all were.

I think it's believed to be another thing Australia got right - all and any illnesses and students and sciool staff all stayed home.

It's the right thing, imo.

@RigaBalsam I hear you. In a previous school I worked in that is exactly what SLT would say and you'd be in loads of trouble for kicking pupils out. Used to have one class with anxiety levels so bad there were 5 fainters in the class. Tbh staff anxiety was/is pretty bad there too.

@Stepawayfromtheminirolls

I feel like such a fraud today. It's my day for supervising KW/V students in school, but our newest RA says that anyone with symptoms of any illness should not come into school: kids, visitors or staff. Well, I have a cold. It's pretty shit, but no fever, no cough and (when my nose is clear) I can smell just fine. I emailed our HT for clarification and he told me not to come in! I have never stayed home from work for just a cold. I'm sure my place in hell is being prepared as I type. (Saying that, I bet that were I in today, every time I sneezed about once every five minutes all the kids in the room would shit themselves)

That's very sensible! Enjoy being able to get better, soon

[quote Monkeytennis97]@RigaBalsam I hear you. In a previous school I worked in that is exactly what SLT would say and you'd be in loads of trouble for kicking pupils out. Used to have one class with anxiety levels so bad there were 5 fainters in the class. Tbh staff anxiety was/is pretty bad there too.[/quote]
This has reminded me of the year the head of sixth form made the exams officer phone the board to ask what was in an exam paper because we had an anxious student who might take a turn if certain topics came up. He wanted them to let him know what the paper was on.
I believe the answer was don't be so bloody stupid; we're not telling you we can't help with that.

@Frlrlrubert

I was teaching from school today and the freezing cold, and the shit connection made me grumpy, I slipped off the 'unrelentingly positive' script to explain to quite a few that if they didn't interact in live lessons and didn't submit work there's no way for me to help them progress.

Honestly, year 11, you were meant to do your mocks now, you need to get your arses in gear and be able to find relevant revision content on bitesize.

Year nine boy that asks the date every lesson, don't wait until the day after a task is due, when you've had a week to do it, to tell me you 'don't get it' (it's pretty clear, you open the word doc and answer the questions). When explored further, turns out they hadn't actually got as far as opening the document! Then logged off before I could make sure they could do that.

Year 7 parents, don't message teachers for them, show them how to do it.

As least the piss poor submission rate gives me less marking to do.

I stopped being unrelentingly positive as well. I don't do live lessons other than for sixth form. So all my lessons have videos then a worksheet, dull as anything but tbf, my classroom lessons often look like that too 🤷. I can see how many kids bother to watch my videos. One of my videos from yesterday had nobody at all watching it. What the duck is the point of me recording the videos to tell them what to do if they then don't bother doing it?? In the first week, most kids were doing the work, now I'm down to less than half from each GCSE class submitting anything, and even several sixth formers aren't submitting anything for me to see. I don't even want to mark much of it, just see that they've done it before sending them answers to self mark.

I'm getting lots of engagement in live lessons, but almost no work handed in, even though we've only asked for 2 pieces a week.

I was discussing whiteboard.fi/ with a friend and he was saying he didn’t want to use it because he didn’t want to know exactly how few kids were engaging in the live lessons.

I know what he means. Teach into the void, job done. If you find out they’re logged in but nothing else, more work for you!