The broom cupboard 2 - just for when we get briefly stranded without a staffroom

[TheHoneyBadger]

I'll pop a link in the old one so you know where to find safe haven. I have tried to clear out some space by getting rid of the ohp and vcr trolley and gin is hidden behind the sick sand bucket.

My brother's school was streamed. He was brilliant at maths/science, average at English/any other writing subjects, so ended up in stream 2. So he wasn't stretched in maths, but was used as an unofficial TA when he was finished his own work. He did manage to get an A at GCSE and then loved A Levels where he was exposed to the most challenging materials. What really suffered was his English and writing, as he just felt completely out of his depth the whole time. His essays were always the worst, everyone else was getting As and high Bs, whereas he was C/D. He got a C eventually in his GCSE but it was a definite struggle and he says he would have much preferred it if he'd been in a class with other people who were struggling, OR with a wider range of abilities. So he would have been fine with mixed ability or fine setting but not the awful hybrid that was streaming.

My school had ability bands. So there were 3 classes in top band, 3 in middle band and 1 in bottom band (they were the nurture group). So there was setting within those bands but no movement between bands. That was also rubbish for anyone who was good at one subject but less good at others. And we didn't ever mix with anyone from another band, so I literally only saw clever well behaved (other than a couple of incidents where MH issues were involved) girls.

I wouldn't mind teaching mixed "higher" sets, and mixed "foundation" sets. That was the system in the first school I taught at and it was ok. But even they had a very bottom set of about 10 pupils who needed a much more personalised curriculum.

My brothers' school had 2 classes per year group (very small rural secondary). Higher class did O-levels, lower one did CSEs [old gimmer].

For final 2 years before exams, some subjects e.g. History / georgraphy were mixed across the two classes. A few students did O-levels, most did CSEs (and some of the O-level students did CSEs in the same subject as a back-up). This relied on the content being aligned between the two qualifications. After everyone failed O-level historty for a couple of years, my dad investigated - teacher knew that the two syllabi had diverged, but had no way of teaching both in the same classroom, so carried on teaching just the CSE content as that was right for the majority of the class....

Wow, that's shocking, Can't. It's not like the O level students could have studied the content themselves without the Internet (presumably they didn't even have relevant textbooks).

We've got two year groups where's there's literally just one child who needs a nurture group for English and maths. So, of course, there isn't one and they do just flounder in bottom set (maths) and mixed set (English).

Wow, that's shocking, Can't. It's not like the O level students could have studied the content themselves without the Internet (presumably they didn't even have relevant textbooks).

Yes. the teacher couldn't even be properly disciplined because they were the union rep.

My dad initially tried to teach DB the O-level himself but in the end he took Music O-level outside school instead.

Interestingly, despite our very different secondary schooling, all of us went to Oxbridge, a really clear demonstration of the power of parental expectation and education [both my parents are Oxbridge graduates] over school type / quality.

Uhoh, Jan. From your BBC article:

"So long as they test negative all week, they can carry on with their lives."

That's v different to the trials happening in schools and workplaces where they aren't allowed to carry on with their lives and only allowed to go to work or possibly the shops.

Shouldn't they wait for the results of the school and workplace trials before steaming ahead?

With my subject, I have only ever taught mixed ability.
There is no higher/foundation paper for the subject so the exams have to cater for all.

We don’t even have pathways at my school. You want to do a subject, you can do it.
I differentiate from the top down pretty well now. I’ve long since stopped doing different resources for different pupils and I find this approach, along with repetition for all pupils, yields the best results for them.

Yup noble

What they should do and what they are going to do are often very different things.

I'm assuming they haven't seen the reports from somewhere in the US (I can't remember where) whose average age of covid ICU patients has dropped by decades in the past few weeks.

Science setting is a bit of a nightmare where we have triple higher and foundation and combined higher and foundation to consider particularly as triple you can take different sciences at different tiers but combined has to be all 3 at the same tier. Added to this it is not uncommon to find a brilliant biologist who sits looking utterly lost in top set when in a physics lesson (and vice versa). Ensuring all are on the right pathway knowing that a significant minority only start ‘getting’ physics when their maths has matured in Y10 is a major challenge.

At ours everyone does combined and then they decide before year 11 come back who they'd like to do triple and invite them to do so and they do the additional units required. I'm not keen on how science manages things at our school though but that's due to how they've set ds.

I'm mixed ability Chloe and don't produce different resources anymore but provide everyone with eg. scaffolding that some will need and others won't and we make clear what is expected for each flight path on a task and I endlessly bang on about how your flight path is your basement, not your ceiling. I'm not overly keen on the flight path system but I use it to, instead of telling them what they have to do, show them what is required if you want to get x mark or what you need to show to achieve a higher grade. I often look a flightpathed slide of tasks though and go yeah scrap that no one is doing that bottom one, everyone is aiming to do the 2nd and 3rd levels and if you get that done think hard and try to do the top level part which just asks you to take an extra leap in your thinking.

I use lots of video clips, discussion etc so that even the kids with very very low literacy levels have definitely engaged and learnt and could tell a hypothetical ofsted inspector (not that that's why I do it) what they learned about today and why they were learning it even if they're not able to translate that into much written output. My higher ability students get the hang of understanding the basics of what they've got to do and then continuing listening whilst others crack on to what they should be aiming for and how they can take that up to what they're capable of.

I haven't had an ofsted for a long time and trained an eternity ago so I may technically be doing it all 'wrong' but it's working for my kids and progress is good.

All the CPD I've had from English/social sci specialists has shown how good you are at teaching to the top and scaffolding the bottom. It appears 'easier' (less resource heavy?) to differentiate an English lesson for mixed ability than a maths lesson. The best mixed ability maths lessons I've taught have taken me 2-3 hours to plan and that isn't sustainable, especially as this is a one off year. This isn't meant as a dig at any subject, just that it is really difficult to do mixed ability well. It's difficult enough to differentiate a set lesson sometimes!

All the CPD I've had from English/social sci specialists has shown how good you are at teaching to the top and scaffolding the bottom. It appears 'easier' (less resource heavy?) to differentiate an English lesson for mixed ability than a maths lesson

I think it’s the difference between teaching “skills” and teaching the content. Science is insanely content heavy.

My current differentiation for my top top pupils basically consists of my creating separate work.
Letting them crack on and self mark. I don’t feel like I am actually teaching them anything because I am too busy with the lower to lower middle ability kids.

Which reminds me that my half and half Maths/ICT timetable for years required me to teach the separate subjects entirely differently, and how some that struggled in one coped very well in the other (went both ways). One thing the ICT taught me was that asking the right questions at the right time can save a teacher a lot of effort in delivery, and the supreme importance of explaining concepts in ordinary words before resorting to technical language - this applies to Maths as well.

average age of covid ICU patients has dropped by decades in the past few weeks.

But that isn’t necessarily anything to worry about. The infection rate and hospitalisation rate of the elderly is plummeting due to vaccinations.
If you had 50 70+ year olds in ICU and two 40 year olds previously and now you have 10 70+ year olds in ICU and two forty year olds, then the average age will have dropped massively but be good news!

It's been a long day but I've finally finished my reports.

Sorry. Just had to share that with people who understand the pain.

As you were...

@noblegiraffe

average age of covid ICU patients has dropped by decades in the past few weeks.

But that isn’t necessarily anything to worry about. The infection rate and hospitalisation rate of the elderly is plummeting due to vaccinations.
If you had 50 70+ year olds in ICU and two 40 year olds previously and now you have 10 70+ year olds in ICU and two forty year olds, then the average age will have dropped massively but be good news!

I think the point was that the ICUs were filling up. So the age has dropped because of vaccination, which is definitely good, as the 30-50 year olds in hospital are less likely to die than the 60+, but it doesn’t mean everyone can relax too much and spread covid around because there will still be enough 30-50 year old who need hospital treatment to cause issues with capacity.

I know I'm being picky, Rafa but obviously it's something that sounds concerning. Is ICU capacity the same now as it was back when the average age was much higher? Are we seeing more young people needing ICU than previously? Has the criteria for entry to ICU softened because there is less pressure on beds?

Not expecting you to have the answers, but I'd really like the answer to not be 'it's affecting younger people more badly than it was before'. Trying to be optimistic!

Loads of ICUs and Covid wards are celebrating being empty now. The average age going down I'm sure isn't to do with more sick 30-50 year old, just fewer sick older people (though if we stopped vaccinating and stopped restrictions, that wouldn't be the case).

I think my smartphone is trolling me. I’ve just had a message pop up:

You’re doing great, reading twice in 2 days. Keep going!

Patronising swine.

My watch keeps telling me to get off my arse and start moving.

It needs a 'bank holiday weekend' setting.

Do be optimistic. Here it’s fine. Cases are low. ICU capacity is fine. It’s under control, but we need to come out of it with caution. A very small % of a small number of cases is obviously bad for the patients but won’t really stretch health services.

The problem parts of the US has with the Kent variant is that with very few restrictions, a small % of rampant Covid in 20-50 year olds is a lot of people needing ICU.

I quietly confident that won’t happen here as long as people don’t suddenly go mad on May 17th. By June 21st I think we might be so far down the age groups with vaccination that I doubt it’ll be an issue. But that’s why i’m not sure why you’d bother with taking the risk of reducing isolation now. It seems a bit unnecessary.

My phone kept spending Jan/Feb telling me that I was moving less than the same time last year. Also my screen time is up.

No shit. Have you seen the news, Apple?

Yeah apple should allow a Pandemic setting

I think I heard an ICU consultant on the radio saying that the emergency pop up ICUs requisitioned using other wards and operating theatre spaces were being stood down and extra staff redeployed back to their normal workplaces, so ICU capacity has probably diminished.

“No shit. Have you seen the news, Apple?”

Relaxing weekend. Off to the gym at 10 then I’m going to start the marking train.