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

[Staffdontblowitnow]

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I don't have anything insightful to add about other threads but can I have a little whinge? I'm full of anxiety this morning and need to get to the bottom of it?

name sorry to hear that. Do you have any ideas why?

Name, whinge away. We might be able to work out the main reasons.

That twitter thread is excellent.

Though I sort of knew it anyway, it actually shows how vaccinating teachers will make no difference to the impact of schools being opened more widely. Particularly any time soon tbh.

Especially this bit:

Recent analyses from the ONS suggest that 2-12 yr olds are 2x and 12-16 yr olds 7x more likely to be the index case in a household compared with adults. And both 2-12yr olds & 12-16 yr olds are 2x more likely to transmit to contacts in the household compared to adults.

I'm especially angry about the September propaganda that it's teachers who tended to spread it. Particularly given the high level of asymptomatic cases in children.

Whinge away, name.

(Top tip for weird anxiety, though: could it be peri-menopause?)

I think it's me. I feel constantly on the back foot, behind with the study side of things. On our course the paperwork is huge and I'm sure I'm repeating myself over and over! My mentor is great and I'm having a day this week to make a start on my proposal.

i have no confidence in myself at all. Was a ta before and i still have a former colleagues words saying i can't do this ringing in my ears. Though in my observed lesson week my mentor said it's just like watching any other qualified teacher in the school, which was lovely.

But eventually i will have to find a job and that's playing on my mind too. I can't 'sell myself'as well as others. I'm not shouty about how great I am. I'm naturally a quiet reserved person who always thinks Im not good enough and can do better. I'll never get a job being me and that's worrying me a lot.

I feel knackered. I'm not sleeping, I'm worrying about everything school, jobs, essays, my own children esp eldest who is shut in room all day on his own on teams. He's missing his mates so much.

I shouldn't moan as I'm bloody grateful to have a lovely family, a roof over my head and food on the table. Lots have it worse. This week though ive been overwhelmed with missing my d bro and ive felt generally down. I need to stop eating and drinking as I hate the way I look but I can't. That's annoying me as well

Don't mean to be such a miserable cow and bother you all with my ranting. What is it I need oh wise ones?

Also def of a peri age!

Training is very hard name and even more so during a pandemic. Go easy on yourself because you are doing a stellar job. It’s just hard to see the wood for the trees sometimes

Name, for you. It's fine to whinge, don't feel guilty. PGCE and NQT nearly finished me off, it was so relentless. I totally empathise with the not being good at selling yourself aspect. The thought of having to interview again makes me break out in a cold sweat. Nowadays if I'm true to myself, I would say that my best selling point was that I'm a "safe pair of hands", so good at what I do and deliver reliably. But that's not cool or creative or exciting, so I'm not sure it would get me very far at interview with some schools! It's taken a good few years in the same school to get there though.

Half term in sight. Make sure you rest. Teaching can be all-consuming. Hard to put it to one side and concentrate on other things.

Never, ever dismiss peri-menopause as the cause of anxiety. So many women do. It's just a physiological thing, and not identifying it as such can lead to trouble. It's massively under-recognised.

A PGCE is just a process to getting a license to teach - it's not a judgment on you and your very being. However, it's well-known as a pretty gruelling process, and many people do fall into the trap of seeing it as a judgment of their being. Afterwards, they wonder how they came to think that way. Answer, pressure and lack of sleep.

This year is particularly grim. Yet here you are: succeeding.

And that last part is important. Who knows best: negative people who undermined you before you embarked on this, or your mentor, who actually works with you and is a professional?

You need to write out what your mentor says - a few key, positive phrases. And whip them out when the anxiety starts running around.

Paperwork - what to say? On my PGCE, we ended up with some 7 fat files. This, apparently, meant our course was great. Better than those courses where students ended up with one file. I've always been 🤨 about that. The mania for paperwork is quite weird. I think it's a weird cultural blip. My suspicion is that the circle will turn in twenty years' time. However, for now, just get the paperwork done in the most cursory way possible. Allocate twenty minutes to it and don't exceed that time.

You're doing fine. Your mentor says so. So well done.

Ah, name the paperwork...
I ran a SCITT. I was obsessive about the paperwork - because that's what ofsted would want to see. So our trainees had lesson plan proformas to complete, and evaluations to and training logs.... but we were careful about what we actually needed to see.
There were several versions of the planning - the more confident the mentor was in the trainee, the less scaffolded the plan.
Reflections could be a few bits of highlighting and a smiley face.
Training logs were just a list of meetings to make sure we had evidence of their having had some.
You will be repeating yourself. It's the nature of the thing.
As a mentor, I always take a red pen to these things - I actually made an NQT cry this year when I red penned her lesson plan! She'd turned our very simple planning format into a 3 page epic. When I asked whether she really needed to write all that down, she said she'd done it for me. Thankfully, she doesn't do that any more!!!
What I'm trying to say is that there will be corners you can cut on the paperwork front. You just need to work out what they are.

That's a great thread cat.Meanwhile.. I see Devi Sridhar now banging the get them all back in stuff , based on a study. In Norway.

@Piggywaspushed

That's a great thread cat.Meanwhile.. I see Devi Sridhar now banging the get them all back in stuff , based on a study. In Norway.

I saw that last night-was that the study of 13 children?

I’d thought Devi seemed fairly balanced in views, prior to this?!

Yes, the comments underneath her Tweet are interesting.

Norway has also just shut it's upper secondary schools and closed all schools in Oslo!

Firstly, yes peri can be a real confidence underminer.

But omg the PGCE is the hardest thing I've ever done, and I only had me to think about at the time.

Then teaching generally is extremely hard confidence wise.

Focus on turning self criticism into recognising that you're reflective about your practise. That you want to keep improving. The over confident young teachers don't actually do well.

I also think as a TA, you've seen many confident and good lessons and it's hard to feel you can match that - remember that all teachers started from a point on not having a bloody clue at some point.

Being a parent and having been a TA does count for loads. You'll have that connection with parents and also you know what it feels like to be a TA. THAT is really useful!

There will definitely be lots of jobs. Or try supply; we have loads of supply TAs who are actually teachers. Then some get jobs with us. That's v common. You have skills as both.

I existed on slow release beta blockers during my early teaching years. I still find public speaking in new situations hard. Massive performance anxiety. I also care far too much what others think of me. You could ask the Gp if you could try some, you can take them as and when?

My peri discovery is Magnesium glycinate and taurine, (or magnesium taurate) b vitamins especially b6 and high dose fish oils can work absolute wonders. There's a period expert I follow called Lara Briden, her period book was really helpful and she's literally just released one for the peri and meno years. (Only on kindle here at the mo.) Mag, taurine and b6 is her main go to. Glycine, magnesium and taurine all chill you out. But I've decided to get some more beta blockers too for this lockdown.

That's so interesting about paperwork and Ofsted. MrsHamlet.

I think accountability is so important, I really do. But I also wonder if we've gone too far with data-collection and accountability.

Thinking back to the poster writing about SEND, targets, etc. - it's all part of this accountability-data-collection culture ...

I wonder if we've reached a point where it's (the level of it, at least,) somewhat counter-productive?

www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/thousands-of-teachers-across-the-us-get-covid-vaccination/ar-BB1deX7R

I found this interesting
US-vaccines
Italy-masks
France-masks
Denmark-remains closed??

Wasn’t it Denmark (with their tiny number of cases/deaths and their ability to decrease class sizes and use spare rooms) who we were being told all over the summer that we should be more like?! What happened?

Yea that was me Cat. Definitely in my setting. We are loosing sight of the important things like life skills etc.

Absolutely cat - it was arse covering. We knew what we were doing and we knew it worked, and we had set ups for when it didn't, but all of that had to be documented right the way through from application stage into the NQT year. It was madness.
Shame the parent school failed its ofsted spectacularly and we had to close!

It's my birthday today and I've got a covid test booked at 10.30. Nice treat!!

Headache
Shivery
Slight temp
Odd loss of appetite

Thought I should check it out before my child does any more rubbing herself on kids at the park.

In normal circs, I'd go to work. So in a way, if this is 'it' I'll be sort of glad.

It or not, it doesn't sound very nice :(

Hope it’s negative Rule and happy birthday 🥳

Happy Birthday Rule - keeping everything crossed it’s negative

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

It's my birthday today and I've got a covid test booked at 10.30. Nice treat!!

Headache
Shivery
Slight temp
Odd loss of appetite

Thought I should check it out before my child does any more rubbing herself on kids at the park.

Happy birthday and fingers crossed for a negative!