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

From my AIBU poll it looks like we won't have to worry about being asked to work the summer holidays.

Daily Mail reporting that the plan would get 'significant pushback from unions' as if they're thwarting the demands of parents once again.

Your students speak mrsH ???

@Piggywaspushed

Your students speak mrsH ???

They do :) Some of them anyway. This was horrific. It made me think I just can't do it. Sigh.

Thanks guys, will steal your ideas as they look great. Forgot about quizlet, used it years ago, what are the chances I can remember my password.
As well as being knackered I am apparently very very angry. Just knocked sons punchbag off it's bracket.

My visualiser killed the sound on my laptop today

Yep - mine does that too. I've now got an external webcam that I move around - on top of the laptop, then when I need to model something I move it into a clamp. Meeting starts on me, I share a screen almost straight away, then move the webcam and flick between cam and screen share.

Also in shock about students speaking. I've taken to making deliberate mistakes halfway through and seeing if anyone notices. Not science mistakes, things like sharing the wrong screen etc. So far at least one has.

My students speak too, but I do really try to encourage them to...

@EvilEdnasEnemiesOfEducation so I'm going to use whiteboard.fi for some past paper questions (think someone here suggested that). I love quizziz at the moment - loads on there, and you can make your own multiple choice. Then it can do it like a competition, in teams or just take their time and concentrate on getting it right!

What would you usually do in a classroom in small groups for revision?

• Could you put them in groups get them to discuss a specific topic then come back and 'teach' the class (eg they have to have an explanation with worked example then three questions for students to answer).
• Carousel activities - so each breakout room is to work on something different and they go in and out of each room to do different things (could drag that out over a few lessons).
• writing own questions on a topic worth 1 mark, 2 marks 3 marks etc. and their own mark scheme in small groups
• if they've done an assessment put them in rooms with a designated student expert to go through their answer to a specific question
• get them to mark some 'sample' answers as a group and discuss why they've given that mark and what the model answer would be.
• make a revision flashcard/poster on the whiteboard (one of them might need to then download it/screen shot it?)

I think it depends how you like to revise usually and then try to do what you're comfortable with/have resources you can build on already.

In the breakout rooms they can share their files in the chat, and they can collaborate on the whiteboard in there (it has post it notes and stuff) so you could use that for them to be doing something.

One of my most disruptive year 10 is the best at letting me know when they can't see what I think they can see. He was a godsend yesterday when I'd moved about 3 screens further than they could see, and nobody knew what I was talking about. Once he dared to speak, the rest of them spoke to agree with him. I've got the situation that some of them can't see the chat, so can't type answers in there or like my answers in the form of a vote. And some of them are apparently incapable of clicking on a link to take them to whiteboard.fi

Mine can't open their email.

I've also had to teach a few of them how to hold their work up to a webcam on a laptop and take a photo... and then teach them how to get into their email so they can send me their work.

It's exhausting.

Been in school today. Chatted with a really nice behaviour coach guy from a team called Thinking for the Future. They do sessions on things like motivation and managing emotions but was being a spare body in my year 7 kw group for some reason.

He knows my son and spoke highly of his emotional intelligence and levels of 'sussed'. They have a rolling rock, paper, scissors competition going on and ds is really taken with him. My son isn't on his list btw but sees him during kw provision.

Do any of your schools use them? They're national apparently with hq in Nottingham. Seems like good work they're doing working with difficult kids. This was a young black guy who seemed really switched on to the kind of behaviour and motivations of some of our more challenging boys. I can only imagine how positive it is for kids to have him spend time with them trying to break through to them. We have very few young male teachers and no ones of colour.

So something positive for once. It was also nice to chat with some colleagues and student services staff and cleaners. I'm knackered though.

How were you’re dreaded Y11s, Honey?

Where the hell did that you’re come from?

Blame the phone.

I feel like about 20 years ago we were all teaching kids how to use word, ppt, excel in ICT and use the internet safely and now they don't do any of that as most of what they use is on apps on their phone! I feel like they are taught about coding, but not how to use basic office packages, but then I used to be responsible for ICT and aren't now so may well be out of touch and they are taught this... I've made student guides for ours for some bits and pieces, but it drives me mad that they can't be bothered to even try or work it out and think just emailing it or uploading to a random folder is ok... IT'S NOT OK!!!!

Oh and I got some really positive feedback from the kids about my recorded lessons which was good to hear. Apparently they're good because they get to watch videos and I teach them stuff

I think the phenomena of recorded lessons being used to just set tasks is wider spread than I realised and I'm beginning to understand what parents mean when they clumsily try to say there's no teaching happening just work for the kids to do. I'm trying to strike a balance.

I possibly don't set as much 'work' to do as some colleagues but I am teaching and including video clips etc and that's generally about 20 mins with some mini thinking tasks or quick written answers weaved in and then the independent tasks are about 25 mins worth and I attach extra videos to watch for those who want to go deeper.

Reality is no one has really told anyone how to do this or what to do. I'm doing similar to what I do in class which generally requires skipping half the slides too so maybe that shopping list of tasks is how some teach in the classroom too? I trained pre PowerPoint so I generally feel a bit out of touch with the teaching world I walked into when I came back to schools 4 or 5 years ago and I haven't had an ofsted since I've been back so haven't been indoctrinated into all the current buzzwords and rules.

I got swapped to year 7s noble. The squeaky wheel...

MrsHP I reply, 'thanks but you need to hand this in on google classroom otherwise it gets lost and I would end up putting on the engagement register that you hadn't done the work'.

The engagement register is the one thing that their parents really see so they don't want to get 3s on there. I still get the occasional emailed work to reply with the above to but

Me too! I had a sixth former NOT follow instructions. I have found and marked his work for my own use, but have told him until he submits it properly he has a zero and that is what is being used as part of his projected grade consideration.... harsh?

Oh honey, am so glad your dreaded day turned into a good day (partly because of your proaction (? pro activity) doing something about it! And it is so nice when you get random positive feedback about your child, perhaps more so as a single parent

I am desperate to get in to school. We had an email sent to all staff today about how if we get called in the morning to go in, we should be able to go in. That not being on the rota, doens't mean 'day off'.

Haha, I wonder who she called this morning! I'd have gone in immediately. Would be wonderful.

Do we have any thoughts as to why rates are staying high in primary age children? Just been discussed on Data thread (which fortunately has some teachers on!)

We know 20% of them are in school but that is only 20%. So is it thebeffect of childcare bubbles, illicit play dates etc etc? Someone suggested it was important to remember those 20% aren't random, they are the children of critical workers or perhaps from chaotic, deprived, or crowded homes. So more vulnerable to infection. But I don't know if that's enough to explain it.

Not harsh at all mrshp. I don't mark it till it's submitted in the right place. If I get a message on google classroom with 'I emailed it to you!" I remind them again no the actual work needs submitting here.

My brain can't cope with bits of work all over the place.

Thanks January. I'd always had lovely feedback about ds up until secondary. He's more of a refined taste in his teens

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

I am desperate to get in to school. We had an email sent to all staff today about how if we get called in the morning to go in, we should be able to go in. That not being on the rota, doens't mean 'day off'.

Haha, I wonder who she called this morning! I'd have gone in immediately. Would be wonderful.

Does that include people who might have childcare problems though? I would be ok to go in on short notice because dh is at home with dd2. Some colleagues have young children and partners working elsewhere, so if they know they're on the rota they make arrangements for their child to be at school/nursery but on days they aren't on the rota they have the children at home. I really don't think they are treating it as a "day off", more that they've set the work required the night before or early in the morning so they can be responsible for childcare at the same time as providing feedback online. It would be really difficult for them to go in on short notice as their children need somewhere to go arranged in advance.

Oh yes and the other point someone on Data made, was that if the new variant affects children more, there is a greater pool of previously uninfected subjects to transmit to (sorry hanging infinitive or whatever that is, yuk!)

It was directed at TAs - no teachers are going in at all.

I get the impression from the email that it wasn't about childcare.

I’d have thought there’d be more immunity in schools than the general population. The old strain might have had more asymptomatic cases in children but doesn’t necessarily mean that those children aren’t immune. Since there’s no cohort testing here it’s difficult to know though.

Numbers still going up fairly rapidly at home but the 50% of all cases being linked to schools figure seems to be stable. And that’s with very little pre-existing immunity.

My guess is that it’s mostly due to more primary school kids being in and possibly less social distancing between primary kids. ASC still running around here and they’re mixing bubbles. I’m not sure the 20% is evenly spread either. Which might affect things.