The Forty-fifth Republic - Is there anyone there? Surely time for half term

[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

Hear! Sorry. It's all gin and walking round in circles to get my steps up here. SPAG is mostly bollocks anyway according to my went to primary in the 80's conditioning - it's all about creativity and expression

Publicly masturbating over your own ego's sense of wonder at it's own wonderfulness? Not so much

Isn't that basically Instagram?

Incidentally, my Threads I'm On snipped showed your post as 'Cats are definitely fine. Publicly masturbating over'

I was a bit worried to open the thread.

Yes to the amazing lesson tweeters. I'll share stuff I've made like desmos lessons or forms quizzes, but to save time for others, not proclaim my own awesomeness.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

honey I feel much the same.

The emails from the parents when I have removed non responsive children from lessons are always full of excuses when I say your child isn't doing the work.

Our half (ish) timetables stem from members of staff being given whole school responsibility for something. This thing is now irrelevant as we are online, and probably won't be relevant going forward.

SLT have low TTs here. HODs on 37/50 periods teaching over 2 weeks.

My hod appears to be on about 36/50. Tiny department with basically 3.5 teachers and a couple of token slt who maybe teach half a dozen lessons between them. I've no idea how she pulled that off.

What split screen thing? Looked, can't find.

Noble. You should have snipped it.

I'll share that today I accidentally hit 'Deny' instead of 'Admit' to a lovely Y9 and he then couldn't get into the lesson and was messaging the other kids to let me know he was having problems.

March Back to School March - obvious, innit? It's probably on U4T's website already ... goes to check...

Ok it isn't. However it's very interesting to read their definitions etc (am sure several on here know this, but for those who don't:)

The definition of "them":

We speak for children of the United Kingdom regardless of birthplace or socio-educational circumstances. We speak for children in state school as well as those in private school.

We speak for them because unlike many other groups, children don’t vote or have unions. We speak for them because we are hardwired to protect them, and because we love them.

Am so glad they're speaking for state pupils as well as the ones they're obviously most familiar with, private pupils! And can you visualise which other group they're 👀ing at Who "have unions"?!

Now to their definition of "us":

We are people who care about children.

Grandparents, teachers, carers, guardians. Lawyers, academics and professionals spanning distance, geography, and fields. Some of us are parents, some aren’t

Why would you have lawyers and academics in there, I wonder? Hmmm.
Their mission page states:

We are a community of tens of thousands of parents across the U.K. campaigning to #ReopenSchools

Also, the Leadership Team only give their first names. Like they have something to hide.

spanning distance, geography, and fields.

No wordsmiths on their books then.

I am watching Firefly Lane on Netflix and would recommend it if you're in need of something 'light' ish and female centred.

Can you imagine lockdown in the 80's or 90's? No internet, no netflix, 3 or 4 channels on tv (one mostly dedicated to horse racing or wimbledon as I recall).

The idea of a generation so lacking in resilience that they will be damaged for life due to school closures in a world with the internet and playstations where you can live connect and play with your friends and the film and book library of all time at your fingertips is ridiculous.

I'm still forced by DD to witness the antics of the woefully un-safeguarding-aware (apart from when it drives the plot and shafts already vulnerable students to boot) staff of Ackley Bridge. But it is quite good.

It's shit and I'm not doing it.
The aht has actually said that she knows all the work is there but they want something else for these kids - and it's NOT an access issue.
Why should I waste my time on the feckless? Why should the kids who are actually bothering have my time stolen from them?
These are the kids who persistently desktop truant in schools. It's not a pandemic issue.

@noblegiraffe

I'll share that today I accidentally hit 'Deny' instead of 'Admit' to a lovely Y9 and he then couldn't get into the lesson and was messaging the other kids to let me know he was having problems.

You vying to be an Enemy of Educashun now?

distance, geography , and fields : goodness Alexander Pope would love the zeugmatic triplet leading to unintentional bathos.

one for the English nerds

@TheHoneyBadger

Seriously I was a slim, adventurous, well travelled diving instructor with a string of talented, gorgeous but brief (my choice) boyfriends 5 minutes ago. I wake up and I'm a fat middle aged teacher and mum who gets excited about screen short cuts and has just bought my first pack of full briefs in my M&S shop.

I need more gin.

Honey, this post has made me very happy Bless us all

Evening all

Another monstrous full time day in school with the "Keyworker" children most of whom seem to have at least one parent at home full time - I swear we must be the only primary locally which has all staff in, all the time. HT seems oblivious to the state of staff morale, while bubbles pop left, right and centre. We sent a child home in my bubble yesterday with symptoms but parent is refusing to have them tested so we're all still in.

Local Covid rates are skyrocketing too. I feel as if I'm on borrowed time.

I was asked to provide paper work packs for non-engagers too. I provided them, but it will come as no surprise to any of you that they still haven't engaged. I've been told to send home more but I'm digging my heels in until I see evidence that they've done something from the first lot!

Friday tomorrow. Let's cling to that.

They'd be stupid to open schools earlier. PHE are trying hard to hide the data by splitting up categories here, but even with schools only partially open they are still the most common location for people testing positive.

@noblegiraffe

I suppose I could write several statements in a word doc and flip back and forth.

Even better, you can write several statements in a word document and have it open alongside your marking so you’re just moving it across the screen instead of flipping between different applications.

Game changer: go to the bar across the top of word, click and hold. Drag to the left of the screen till your mouse hits the edge. At that point the word doc edge should spring to the middle of the screen and when you release the mouse, you have a half sized window.

Then you do the same to your marking, click the top bar and drag it to the right hand side of the screen. When your mouse hits the edge, it should also snap to the middle.

You now have two docs open alongside each other and can copy and paste between them with ease.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot it was this post from Noble that led me to the screens of splitness. Mind you I was fannying about so much that I think I have broken my laptop - very loud pitched shriek came out of it while I was in a meeting and I had to reboot the thing.

I've been told to send home more but I'm digging my heels in until I see evidence that they've done something from the first lot!
I once got told off for this - student had a long fixed term exclusion. Sent work home on day 1 via the person who does that stuff. Nothing. Week 2 gave more work to person. Nothing. Week 3 didn't give more work to person. Got told off by her boss for being unprofessional and not caring about the kid.
Turned out later that the woman had misplaced the work so the kid never got it.
She's been promoted since.

HoDs in my school are on 43/50.

HoFs about 40, unless English and maths where they seem to ahve magicked them down to an almighty 37.

HoYs are on about 35 these days. When I was one it was 38.

Mainscale do 26
HOYs do 20
HoDs do 22
Ass HOYs do 24 (except the young pretty female ones who do 20)
I have 20 - my job is trainees and NQTs and new staff and some cpd and literacy.
HT doesn't teach.
Dht1 teaches 8; DHT2 teaches 4
AHTs (4 of them) have 10
Pe staff teach 22!

Heads of year are non teachers on about 18k here. Hence the totally uninformed requests to 'just' send home paper copies or 'just' let them know x, y and z in the middle of a lesson followed by a snippy email as to why you haven't done x,y z when you're in the middle of your next lesson and you didn't get to read either of the emails till the end of your full day of teaching

It's not their fault but it's a fucking awful idea in my opinion to have pastoral on the cheap by using non teachers.

MrsH that sounds familiar - I sometimes think we have more slt than teachers.

Friend of mine works in a private school. She said a lot of the "KW" kids they have in at the moment are delivered to school by the nanny!

I'm glad my tragic descent into mundanity pleased you mistress