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

Happy Birthday, Rule.

Good luck. 💐

What a peculiar birthday rule. Hope you manage a bit of cake.

Happy birthday, Rule!

Fingers crossed for a negative test result (but maybe in a few days' time )

Fingers crossed, rule.
And Happy Birthday.

Wishing you a good birthday Rule, and hope that you're feeling better soon .

Happy birthday rule 🎁
Fingers crossed you get the right result from your test. 🤞

Happy birthday Rule 🎉x fingers crossed for a negative test x

Happy, but weird, birthday Rule!

Happy birthday rule Hopefully your test will be negative.

I've been a tad absent on here last few days -just mega busy!

I have had some quite bad headaches/feeling tired this week but I think it's the amount of screen time

Slightly better weather today so I have managed to run this morning for the first time in two weeks. Hoping that helps me feel better and fingers crossed I get out midweek.

Although the coming week is also very busy SLT presentation, network meeting plus a parents eve

Still, only 2 weeks to half term!

Happy birthday!

That's going all the way with a lockdown birthday isn't it, having one complete with Covid test!
Really hope it's negative

Happy birthday Rule 🎂

Comments about the PGCE worry me a bit! I did mine in 1992 as a late entrant to the profession and it was demanding but not gruelling. During my NQT year I was pretty much left to it with a few observations and signing off was a formality.

However DD has finally decided after years of resistance (to herself) to train as a teacher - Science - and is applying for a September start. She’s well qualified and has all the right attributes and skills to be an excellent teacher but she’s used to doing as she pleases and has a very low tolerance for bullshit and make-work ...I hope that in her mid-30s she can bite her lip and get on with it but it sounds as though it might be a trial for her! And I’ve been encouraging her! Until last year I advised her to avoid it if the subject came up. But she’s changed and this is the right time to follow what I think is genuinely her vocation, though she put it off for a long time.

Thanks. It could be just Screen time, but that doesn't expĺain the appetite thing. That's the bit that makes me think hmmm.

Happy Birthday Rule! Fingers crossed for a negative.

Hope your test is negative, Rule and you feel better soon. 🎂

Thank you for the discussion above about perimenopause anxiety. Mine has been stratospheric over the past year, which is hardly surprising, but it’s proving hard to dial down now there are glimmers of hope on the horizon. I don’t want to be stuck with it when the Covid situation gloom lifts!

I have never done a PGCE but can agree that the TA experience can be very helpful. One of our teachers was an SEN Ta before qualifying and she is noticeably more fantastic in that area than many others I’ve worked with.

Happy Birthday @RuleWithAWoodenFoot. Hope you get a quick negative and feel better soon.

@namechangedyetagain saying it was like observing a qualified teacher is a major compliment. Try to just focus on that.

I am sure that you have discussed this:
BBC News - Covid: Are teachers more at risk of dying?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/55841748
already and I have just missed it but what should I take from this? I don't trust the BBC after all the misleading school photos.

Happy Birthday, Rule, hope your symptoms disappear quickly and your test comes back negative.

Happy birthday rule and I hope you feel better very soon

Squashed what is really interesting about that article is the line:

"School workers had moderate exposure to disease, with primary and nursery teachers more exposed than secondary"

Now, I think they've got that from the data that shows that primary and nursery teachers are more likely to have had to isolate due to close contact at work than secondary teachers.

The conclusion is that secondary teachers are less exposed to covid.

What I think the actual reason for secondary teachers isolating less than primary is that secondary teachers are regularly not allowed to isolate having had close contact. In primary schools and nurseries, the whole class isolates, so that naturally includes their teacher and there's no argument. In secondary, the assumption is that that teacher was 2m away and so they don't isolate, even though we know that's bollocks. I can't be the only one with a front-rower testing positive and yet being told it's fine to come in.

I saw a whole article from Education Datalab discussing various reasons why secondary teachers might be less exposed, and it didn't consider this at all. Why are the researchers not talking to teachers on the ground?

Happy birthday 🥳 rule.

Name everyone has already said it and I concur pgce was bloody hard going and I made a good group of friends on mine and we kept each other going and did lots of planning and drinking and paperwork sorting together and you don't have that.

I had an epic sleep and then got up and took the dog for a 20 minute stomp to wake me up.

I also second peri anxiety. I went through a patch of whenever I felt stressed or even just a bit flustered I'd have what I'd describe as a combined hot flush and panic attack.

Not had one recently. It helps that Covid saw the back of whole staff 8.30am briefings crowded into an overheated tiny staff room those were the worst. A kindly older design teacher once stood beside me fanning me with her paperwork sign bless her. I thought I was too young for it but there we go.

Happy Birthday rule

@noblegiraffe I totally agree re exposure. Although the children in my LKS2 class are probably in my face in the classroom more often than the children in dh's KS4 classes, I never have to run the corridor gauntlet and our front rows are approximately the same distance from us.

The deaths though. I expected this to be higher for teachers.

I agree noble re exposure. IME staff only isolated if the app went off and we were supposed to have turned it off!

The deaths are higher if you include over 64s aren't they?

I'm more concerned about the long term health of teachers who caught it. Teachers are quite a young population so deaths aren't the whole measure.

Teachers aren't dying in disproportionate numbers from covid, I suspect because we are protected by our demographic - largely female and reasonably well paid. The higher death rates seem to be in much lower-paid occupations, with males being much more likely to die of covid than females.

That doesn't mean we aren't being infected in larger numbers.