The Forty Fourth Republic - primaries sort of in, secondaries out, Gormless Gav says two weeks notice

[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

@noblegiraffe

God it must be frustrating living with a teacher who is not on MN. They must be so behind the times all the time!

DH hears everything straight away (whether he wants to or not). He was very tempted last night to start a thread off a bit like the one he did one week into September which was something along the lines of 'right they've beeback a week, seen their friends surely it's time to close the schools?' Bit of a wind up merchant.

@noblegiraffe

God it must be frustrating living with a teacher who is not on MN. They must be so behind the times all the time!

Is it bad that I have mostly stopped reading news websites as I figure if it's important it will be mentioned on MN?

@Medra

I’m getting annoyed by people who seem to think the death rate is the only problem. They’re not collecting any data on how a positive test is affecting people post-isolation. We’re on week 5 since H’s positive result and he is still not back at work in his usual capacity. So that’s one frontline worker down. They have several others isolating too. I’m managing to hold on as I’m at home and 0.6. I wouldn’t be coping in school. I’ve just had 2 days working plus a day off that was slightly less busy than a usual day off would be (no run, more sitting on my arse than usual, no school runs to do or activities to take the kids to) and I feel awful today. Sore throat, coughing and really tired. It’s crap. Both H and I are early 40s, no underlying issues, both physically fit and doing regular exercise. Sorry if I sound whiney, but it feels like the general view of the public is ‘so what? You’re not dead.’

I think this is really important. Even if we don't consider the human element that being ill is rubbish, it surely has to be considered from a reopening schools point of view.

As we have discovered, it doesn't take that many teachers being off to close a school. In some primary schools, just 2/3 people being long term ill and supply not being available could shut the school entirely.

I have a teacher friend (late 20s, no health conditions, a bit but not a lot overweight) who was off for nearly 6 weeks last term with covid. She just wasn't well enough to be in school and teaching. If you end up with say 10% of staff that ill, that is a real problem for a school!

Colleagues ask me what's going on educationally as they know I know stuff from magical sources. Feel like an oracle (outside of MN).

noble needs to stop chatting in the staffroom and sort out union comms. Chop chop!!

Tbf the NEU do annoy me sometimes. We spent ages on here saying we didn’t want schools closed then they pick close the schools as their bloody circuit breaker hashtag. And now you just get ‘oh the unions want schools closed FOREVER’

I’m not in NEU though. NAS appear to be the invisible union.

Monkey are you saying yr DH is on MN?

Yes I know re social workers not seeing anyone f2f. Was pondering about the census being in April and how that'll work for all the people normally doorstepped about completing it - apparently wise-as-ever Scotland have postponed it for a year?!

And Medra, so sorry to hear DH and you still poorly.

It's tricky to do house-calls - you'd need to get the permission of the adults - and they may have all sorts of reasons to say no.

I know social workers/people working with children at risk of CCE who are doing house calls - but it's a whole level of difficulty.

To be fair, I don't see that article as urging the return of teachers into unsafe schools. It's just pointing out that there is a hidden crisis - with its roots in years of austerity, worsened right now by Covid inequality.

The other thing I see in that article is the extent to which schools have - over the years - become a sticking plaster for a society hit by austerity, inequality and a depleted public sphere.

I mean, that's shocking, surely? How is it OK that we just accept schools have become the main nexus for identifying and referring children in need and at risk?

I'll bet we all read that and thought about all the pastoral and referral work we do,and SENCOs do, and MH teams in schools do, and Safeguarding Leads do ... and we just sort of accepted it - because we're so used to it.
But that is actually an jncredibly dysfunctional situation. And has been for years.
🤷‍♀️

The social workers I know have had their first jab already.

I doubt the govt will be increasing funding for social care at the same time as it has decreased funding for FSM.

They really don’t give a toss.

@JanuaryChill he went on it once. To wind some people up. He got roasted and found it very funny. Silly man.

@noblegiraffe

I doubt the govt will be increasing funding for social care at the same time as it has decreased funding for FSM.

They really don’t give a toss.

That is such a certainty that no-one would accept a bet on it.

☹️

(And who, I wonder, other than already-stretched social workers and already-threadbare MH professionals will be trying to hold the broken pieces together, I wonder ..?

Totally agree cat about schools being the places where all the tricky stuff gets picked up on, acted on, referred on, acted on some more, re-referred because social care have lost the referral, etc. It's not what schools are for, which is delivery of curriculum, but it's what schools do, because funding for it to be done anywhere else has disappeared. DH is aghast when I tell him some of the things we have to do, everything from finding breakfast for children who appear late at school without having eaten, getting MH advice for parents, going to paed appointments with illiterate parents, filling in innumerable forms for parents, buying pants for girls who appear without any, etc etc etc. Where do we find time to shoehorn times tables and fronted adverbials in as well. And we are paid shite money (and work in those fabled long holidays) but of course that's not why we do it.

We have had external agency people in, but not speech therapists, bizarrely. Ed Psych, family social workers, etc, all as normal.

I need to stop going on that thread before I say something that will get me banned.
Just as well I'm live teaching now!

This has been my rant throughout cat - I've even said on threads how can anyone of you not be horrified that the best society has to offer to a child they know is being abused is 6 hours of school a day? It disgusts me that people blithely talk about how schools have to be open for abused kids because now they're stuck at home - like wtf? How on any level is it acceptable to think that underfunded, overcrowded state schools is the answer for child abuse victims?

Anyhow. I don't know what thread you're all referring to but it's probably best I don't.

No teacher spouse here, but does anyone else have a work out of the house spouse? I've had weeks of 'can you just.... ' and 'seeing as you're at home... ' plus much pouting of face when the washing ups not done. Plus several 'you must be enjoying not having the commute ' comments. I must have ranted a bit last time she did it as this morning she stopped herself half way through the request and said 'before you have a go, I'll do it when I get back '.

January in fairness I did say my head was cabbaged . You have sorted out my literacy input for next week though

I have so many thoughts on this issue, it's probably best not to start.

You know, there's a thread on MN about CAHMS waiting lists. A SENCO came on to it and sort of touched on how traumatising it is to be a SENCO, a Head, a teacher, pushing for referrrals and having to try and deal, day in and day out, with children in all kinds of need, knowing they won't be seen - perhaps for years.

It pulled me up short. Because, of course, it is traumatising. And I just don't have the bandwidth to deal with what that means. 🤷‍♀️

Coronavirus has made an awful lot of deeply unacceptable thing visible. Things we've had to bury and accept.

@Piggywaspushed

Don't get me started on the Edutwitter trads gunning for the beloved Rosen.

Sorry noble but if Tom Bennett doesn't withdraw his Tweet, I'll kick his head in.

What problem do Edutwitter have with Rosen? I stopped following Edutwitter months ago for the sake of my mental health and really don't want to get sucked into it again.

@noblegiraffe

Tbf the NEU do annoy me sometimes. We spent ages on here saying we didn’t want schools closed then they pick close the schools as their bloody circuit breaker hashtag. And now you just get ‘oh the unions want schools closed FOREVER’

I’m not in NEU though. NAS appear to be the invisible union.

I've left the NEU because I got fed up with their stance. It hasn't stopped them sending me inordinate amounts of spam at anti-social times, they don't appear to understand the concept of a work-life balance.

They launched on something he tweeted that they took to be an implication that teachers aren't experts (frankly, it's true : I can teach poetry but I'm a terrible poet). Notably it was all secondary teachers and non teachers who laid into him. he is v left wing and progressive so really they were awaiting their opportunity. they also revealed terrible elitism and snobbery as regards children's literature , children's writers and primary education in general, assuming Rosen to be a bit of a gentle dimwit. One of them sneered at his honorary doctorate. It isn't honorary! Another secondary English teacher who foolishly went for him was revealed to have attended the uni to do his PGCE where Rosen teaches!

The best comeback was when some odious person tweeted 'what have you been doing for the last 10 months whilst we have been working our backsides off ?' and someone replied ' He was in hospital. Trying not to die of Covid.' That shut that one up.

Just listening to the latest press conference from home. Cases seem mostly to be in secondary age pupils, and people in their 30s/40s, namely their parents and school staff.

Joy. I'm in tomorrow with 26 year 11s. 26 ffs. No they are not vulnerable they are just the children of parents who've never actually enforced anything ever and we, and their peers, have had to deal with that complete lack of discipline or respect for anyone for nearly 5 years now in school.

Now it turns out we have to have them in lockdown too.

Honestly, obviously, really pissed off by this.

There was a press conference??

But yes I saw those stats in the news, it's 13-17 yr olds and 18-24 yrs olds. Again.