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

www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n283

Worth a look, GPs calling for symptom list to be expanded. Mentions schools and KW children.

@lonelyplanet

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.

They’ll start splitting it by Key Stage when we do go back!

Thanks for the info about how many lessons you teach in secondary-I hadn’t really thought about it. Do most ‘bog standard’ secondary teachers teach 90% timetable and then have 10% PPA or does it not really work like that? Did you always have lessons where you weren’t teaching before PPA came in?

@CallmeAngelina

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!

That's so against the guidance (as in, those parents obviously have an alternative)!!

H doesn't teach
DH doesn't teach
4 phase leaders teach 0.9

When i was a DH I taught 0.4
H above didn't teach
Everyone else taught FT.

zeugmatic triplet

Every day’s a skool day. Never heard of that before. If in a quiz, I would have guessed something to do with multiple births, say one of a set of triplets born arsy-versy.

At my school mainscale teach 26/30.
Hods 24/30 (those two extra frees are taken up with meetings)
Hoys 22/30
Slt 12/30

@HarrietDVane

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.

At my school, non-engagers are given a paper work pack. IF the non-engager does the work and returns it - THEN the teacher will provide another paper work pack. This is the guidance from the HT. You dig your heels in firmly!

lonely any idea why secondary is just "attending" whilst other educational settings are "attending and working"?

I think those may be zygotic triplets .

@lonelyplanet

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.

Again, what on earth is the difference between educational setting, primary school, preschool, secondary? Annoys me they still split them up to make them look less that supermarkets overall. And people lap up the myth that teachers and school staff are no more at risk than anyone else

X post with chocolate - I agree. That too annoyed me!

Main scale 22/25 plus tutor time every day
Everyone else its a bit random and depends how important you are seen to be. In my dept we are over staffed but the shit teachers who do fuck all get off the lightest. Bloody annoying.

In my dept, there are 4 TLR posts (one for each ks plus hod who is part time) We also have 2 HOYs + me. 5 full timers in addition - but we're way over staffed so several full timers teach other things.
Maths have 4 tlrs and one ass hoy. They have 6 other staff but 3 of them are part time.
Most staff teach a full timetable. We have some odd extra frees for things like G&T, careers, sweet FA...

Do most ‘bog standard’ secondary teachers teach 90% timetable and then have 10% PPA or does it not really work like that?

Sort of yes. Out of 25 possible 1 hour lessons per week, I have 3 hours of frees. We have a two week timetable so my 3 frees are always on a different day.

I’m really feeling it with 22 1 hour live lessons per week plus registration. (And has two parents evening already this half term)
It so doesn’t feel that bad when teaching physically normally!

@Piggywaspushed

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

one for the English nerds

Ah, yes, those fields are very bathetic.

Why can I never find agreement about what exactly is zeugma and what syllepsis? Half of the websites define them as the opposite way round to my "Literary Terms Dictionary" (Penguin), bought for A level study.

That BMJ article basically backs up everything we've been anecdotally saying since September.

I don't really know syllepsis . I did 18th century at uni and my professor banged on about zeugma , hendiadys and bathos, basically ,while I nodded.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeugma_and_syllepsis

Well, either zeugma is a subset of syllepsis or vv, depending on what you read.

Do you always give the same example every time you define a literary term? "He lost his trousers and his dignity" is mine.

I used the honour and gold brocade one for while until children looked utterly confused

I also love When you come over, bring salad and your husband to eat.

I find it hard to properly explain why the U4T one is so ridiculous but I imagine Sue Perkins acting it out on a plane , on a mountain and then standing in a field looking anti climactic whilst someone on the script team shouts 'no, no, no -we didn't mean actual fields'

I'm feeling pretty proud of myself this evening - I got a post deleted. I might have to change my name to Noble

I thought actual fields. It makes sense to me.

I thought "fuck it that's enough" at about 3 today. Went for a long walk (2 hours, 4.5 miles including a stop at a supermarket). Feel much better. Tomorrow's lessons aren't entirely planned to perfection, but they'll do.

Why Sue Perkins, piggy? That is very specific.

@HarrietDVane

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.

How is sending more work going to engage non-engagers?

I mean, even if the child would like to engage, the non-engagement will have been for a social and/or MH reason and more work is just overrhelming.

It makes no sense at all.

I don't know noble. It is literally just who I can imagine taking the piss, politely.

@MsAwesomeDragon

I thought actual fields. It makes sense to me.

I thought "fuck it that's enough" at about 3 today. Went for a long walk (2 hours, 4.5 miles including a stop at a supermarket). Feel much better. Tomorrow's lessons aren't entirely planned to perfection, but they'll do.

Fuck it February

I taught some children in out-of-school settings a while back, and that was the advice I was given by SENCO and Ed Psych people.

So it's not just me thinking, 'Blimey, why bother?' There are good reasons not to bury them under a mountain of unread work.