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The staffroom

Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.

Original poster

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

999 replies

Staffdontblowitnow · 02/02/2021 12:46

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

OP posts:
Thread gallery
17
DreamingofBrie · 05/02/2021 00:22

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

I had a parent formal complaint today because "my child can't access the teams chat" and is getting no feedback or help when stuck.

I replied gleefully with screenshots of me saying in every assignment, if you're having teams problems, email me.

She then said "oh no he can see the meeting chat, he just doesn't want to say he doesn't understand in front of his friends so can you have a private chat".

Me "here's my email, I'm not doing 1:1 chats with him. He wouldn't get that in a classroom either" fuck off

Herc, I think I might teach that child as well... in two different years!
Mistressiggi · 05/02/2021 00:23

Yayyyy half term! I have had gin. I still have work to do. But nothing live for a week! BearDaffodilStarGrin

DreamingofBrie · 05/02/2021 00:23

@borntobequiet

Private Eye (again)
Does anyone remember the "slap Michael Gove" game you could play on the Internet? We had great fun with it on the PGCE.
DreamingofBrie · 05/02/2021 00:24

Congratulations for making it to half term, mistressiggi!

noblegiraffe · 05/02/2021 00:39

Half term envy, Mistress, I'm just trying to make it to the weekend!

Enjoy!

ChloeDecker · 05/02/2021 07:19

Does anyone remember the "slap Michael Gove" game you could play on the Internet? We had great fun with it on the PGCE.

I feel bereft at not having had that in my life! Grin

MrsHerculePoirot · 05/02/2021 07:23

It was amazing that game 🤣🤣🤣

TheHoneyBadger · 05/02/2021 07:26

Happy half term mistress. One week to go here.

About to go walk the dog and make coffee then I really must wash my hair. We're allowed casual clothes at school but I don't think that includes beanies.

I will use Jans allocation of fucks. Verbally that is! No energy or inclination for the other. I literally don't give a fuck Wink

ChloeDecker · 05/02/2021 07:26

I had a parent formal complaint today because "my child can't access the teams chat" and is getting no feedback or help when stuck.

I replied gleefully with screenshots of me saying in every assignment, if you're having teams problems, email me.

She then said "oh no he can see the meeting chat, he just doesn't want to say he doesn't understand in front of his friends so can you have a private chat".

The lying from some parents is quite prevalent in my communication from them too recently and caught a couple out this way. I’m more than happy to reapond to a request that will help a child but the accusatory tones, lies and attacks from some parents is just so unnecessary Hmm
Yet advice to sometimes not believe everyone word your teen or pre-teen tells you is apparently an attack on all young people on MN and proof teachers think they are above everyone else, eh!? Grin

MrsHerculePoirot · 05/02/2021 07:33

I emailed a parent about her sons lack of engagement in lessons. He is a pain behaviour wise in school and frequently logs in then clearly goes off. Doesn’t respond verbally, doesn’t even go to the whiteboard sit me and on the rare occasion he does doesn’t do anything. I removed him from a lesson the other day - sometimes this prompts them to return but not him. I’d called his name and tagged him the chat but nothing for twenty minutes. In school his mum said he was behaving as he was because his football team wasn’t running outside of school (this apparently makes us ok to do what you like in school) and in the live lesson he doesn’t like looking at a screen and kept trying to join my lesson but I wasn’t letting him in. I acknowledged it’s hard on screens but pointed out all the breaks we had put in for everyone and that there was no way he’d tried to get back in my lesson. It’s just so infuriating that she won’t just tell him to get his act together. If he tried he could be smashing too set but as it is his in the mixed strand because he doesn’t care.

MrsHerculePoirot · 05/02/2021 07:33

Sorry so long^ but quite therapeutic 🤣🤣🤣

Piggywaspushed · 05/02/2021 07:34

Have we seen this?

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/school-special-coronavirus-ysgol-deri-19729659

ChloeDecker · 05/02/2021 07:41

I agree MrsHerculePoirot. Young people really do have it tough at the moment and parenting teens right now is definitely a struggle. On the flip side, I feel that there is in some, a self fulfilling prophecy situation going on that means some young people now are in a catch 22 situation where the less they do, the more they realise they can get away with something. Lots of people doing what they can to help but often that help is being ignored.
The news story about the teen verbally abusing Chris Witty in the street and yet has only had his PlayStation taken away from him by his Mum, sums it up really Grin
There’s a lovely thread going on at the moment on MN about young people coping as well as they can at the moment and it’s refreshing to not see the ‘thrown under the bus’ narrative just the once!

MrsHamlet · 05/02/2021 07:42

I watched the documentary about that school - it looks amazing!

ChloeDecker · 05/02/2021 07:46

[quote Piggywaspushed]Have we seen this?

www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/school-special-coronavirus-ysgol-deri-19729659[/quote]
Shock
Those poor staff. Makes me so cross when the usual suspect posters are still pushing their agenda when actual lives are being affected so badly in this way.

Piggywaspushed · 05/02/2021 07:55

I am noticing an increase in this lockdown of teenagers saying to school and parents that they are 'struggling'. I do wonder whether a lot of it is them picking up on the narrative that they should be (and projection from parents!). The 5 or 6 sixth formers that tell me they are struggling were struggling before lockdown, either because , in one case, of known MH issues, or because they were lazy sods/academically not up to scratch/both and are now using their 'get out of jail free ' card. Same with the six or so year 10s I can't get work out of.

Bu, also, as a school, we are , for no real reason, working them far harder this lockdown and some of them are reacting against it. I genuinely don't believe those who decided 5+ hours of live lessons a day is the same as 5 classroom hours a day can have taught, or been a pupil in, 5 hours of school lessons in school for a very long time.

Appuskidu · 05/02/2021 08:02

Actually, all my own kids are very happy to be at home but my sixth former is annoyed with other kids in her lessons who, when the teacher asks-‘shall I go through this or do you want to just end the lesson now and read the PowerPoint yourself’, all leap on chat and say they’ll just go off and read it themselves. She said it makes so much more sense when the teacher chats through it, but doesn’t feel able to say that out loud and go against the majority.

Apparently there is pretty much a class WhatsApp group for each subject, so there is a backstage conversation going on continuously through the lessons on there, and any questions the teacher asks is decided en masse on WhatsApp, before anything is answered on chat!! Sounds hard work to me!

ChloeDecker · 05/02/2021 08:03

Bu, also, as a school, we are , for no real reason, working them far harder this lockdown and some of them are reacting against it. I genuinely don't believe those who decided 5+ hours of live lessons a day is the same as 5 classroom hours a day can have taught, or been a pupil in, 5 hours of school lessons in school for a very long time.

I agree! It’s just too much and not necessary.

Maybe they had been reading the millions of Mumsnet/Twitter/Facebook posts of complaining parents of ‘no work’ and have responded to that-some posters need to be careful what they wish for sometimes! Grin

MrsHamlet · 05/02/2021 08:14

Three weeks ago we were getting "too much work" complaints so we took homework out of ks3 and reduced the length of ks4 lessons.
Now we're getting complaints about there not being enough work.

Piggywaspushed · 05/02/2021 08:40

MN have moved on form griping about live lessons now to blaming us about vaccinations.

Monkeytennis97 · 05/02/2021 08:41

@ChloeDecker

Does anyone remember the "slap Michael Gove" game you could play on the Internet? We had great fun with it on the PGCE.

I feel bereft at not having had that in my life! Grin

I remember this! Yes I played it many a time.
TheHoneyBadger · 05/02/2021 08:43

We can never win. That's the rule of the game.

Ds managed to get up, have a shower and get out the door on time so the mega sleep session was the right call. I was expecting him not to want to go in. I think he'll just go in on Fridays now.

I'm still procrastinating about getting in the shower. I actually hate washing my hair and having to dry it. Don't know why except that damp hair makes me hot and flushed and brings out the peri in me.

CallmeAngelina · 05/02/2021 09:09

@Piggywaspushed

MN have moved on form griping about live lessons now to blaming us about vaccinations.
What? Eh? That's our fault, why? Unless it's because the fact that some people (not teachers) latched on to the idea that teachers being vaccinated might mean schools opening sooner? That could well mean that in addition to being lazy fuckers, we are now sharp-elbowed queue-jumpers, even though we didn't ask for it.
JanuaryChill · 05/02/2021 09:23

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/mental-health-children-lockdown-covid-b1796281.html?fbclid=IwAR2mEHnBuziEhnvFGIv0NsZrAb-TVCImlMs3pZeRgfbNnpp_zQwKHwfweYs

Pointing out again the links between Covid deniers /rush to reopen schools / poor MH services to begin with.

thecatfromjapan · 05/02/2021 09:29

I can't summon very much care about the 'live lessons' conversation.

I just think we're all - parents included - getting a lesson in why schools have evolved to deliver education in the form in which they do. It's ergonomic.

Any hastily-cobbled-together alternative is inevitably going to be less ergonomic.

We had a bit of a debate about this on our PGCE. One student was very hung-ho about how the internet and computers had the potential to transform education. There's a video on-line about some millionaire putting a computer in a wall in a slum somewhere. Apparently, this would end global inequality.

U.K. education was stuck in the C19, still in thrall to the days we produced a clerical class for the East India Company.

And so on ...

The debate was quite lively.

I also attended a zoom meeting where Mary Boysted pointed out that live lessons weren't going to be a magic bullet. She made many obvious points.
But it was her face that told the real story. She just had the wry, slightly weary, look of someone who knew experience and research were behind her position but she was talking about a government who were nonetheless gojng to push on with recommendations based on present popularity.

I think Cassandra must have worn the same expression at various points in her life.