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

I have done absolutely loads of primary liaison and am always telling my colleagues not to baby year 7s.

I was a late entrant to the profession and got my first secondary job the year my son started Y7. I was astonished at how so little was expected of him compared to Y6 - pushy primary and relaxed secondary (mixed ability all subjects in Y7). I don’t think I’d have realised if it weren’t for him. DD was in Y4 and was able to have a go at much of the homework he was set. (Early 90s.)

I think by babying year 7 we set up so many problems. Genuinely. This is passion of mine but im a nobody. Would love to do my masters on transition to secondary school.

Drive in - glad you have had that support, it's so important with diabetes x
I would so love to take one class from yr7 up to GCSE. Half of teaching is relationships and to learn another 250 names a year really.doesmt help.wifh that
Even just having the same class 2 years running.is lovely.

If it is not about knowing the kids and the banter, well you might as well prescribe oak Academy.

Oh and nooooo to numberjacks! Seriously.numberblocks is so amazing and totally different. More like alphablocks.but better.

I have actually showed.some cbeebies science programs toy nurture yr 7 class.... Messy goes to okido and Maddie are both brilliant for science....

It's really nice to take classes all the way through enemy. I love it. I learn their names in year 7, then keep them til they leave. They get used to my quirks, I get used to them and the way they like to work. I know who the troublemakers are, but also what makes them tick so I can have a chat about puppies or tractors and tailor my examples so they feature the right interest with the name I pick (A loves horses, B loves his chickens, C only plays Xbox, etc). I truly love getting to know the kids. If course, the year I picked up the year 8 class from hell was awful as I knew they would only get worse as they moved up the school. Which they did, but actually, I got better at managing them because I knew them and could predict/prevent some of the major misbehaviour.

FFS typed out a huge long post.. anyway - the gist was that there was some research into whether young children could learn (languages?) from recorded videos as well as the y could from lessons.
Turned out (no shit Sherlock) they can't. There I something about building relationships that builds learning.
I really think having to learn about 150- 250 new people every year doesn't help.
Again, masters calling, noone listens to me in real life blah blah blah.
Suppose I should go to bed!

Night Enemy!

Numberblocks is amazing.

The last ever episode is a mathematical dream. So much in it! Makes me a bit emotional

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0007ll3/numberblocks-series-4-more-to-explore

Numberblocks is the reason my kids are arguing about whether infinity is a number or a concept. at ,4,7 and 9.am Awesome

I'm trying to convince them to watch Hannah fry

Apparently teen titans beats Hannah fry

Teen Titans Scroedinger’s Cat

Or Teen Titans double slit experiment?

I kid myself that all the episodes are like this and not about waffles.

I can spell Schrödinger. Not just Trash with the fancy umlauts.

🤣🤣
Today they watched one about how dogs sniff each others: bottoms after transfusions from beast boy.
I started cleaning.....

I’m still watching the Numberblocks finale on repeat. Pi! Fibonacci! FORTY TWO! Love it so much.

Missed out on Numberjacks - it came after ds's preschool years. Sounds ace, though.

Have they really not done area of a circle in primary school? Seems odd. We'd definitely done that, indices, quadratic equations, lines of graphs, loads more in a little extension group with the HT in year 5/6. I genuinely learnt no new maths in secondary until the quadratic formula in year 11 (fifth year).

I love KS3 as I believe it's so important educationally. Relationships are everything, too. In with the year 9 KWV children yesterday and the naughty, don't want to be there kids are still fine and respectful for me. A couple of new kids: really hard work.

In total agreement re number blocks.

Both ds's love it. It definitely brought on ds1's maths skills. The app is great too.

Dh keeps saying he reckons primary will be back on the 8th. I'm not so sure.

If we do what Scotland are doing for primary, it will affect y4 in first schools unfairly.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/03/covid-scientists-warn-against-bringing-forward-english-schools-reopening?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

Oh God why did I drink last night. Now have tons of work to do with a slightly fuzzy head.

Numberblocks is amazing and definitely the reason my ds has such a strong grounding in maths. Far superior to numberjacks. We use it to teach most of our reception (& quite a bit of y1) Maths and it works so well.

I’ve done quite a lot of training with Debbie Morgan who is the maths advisor on it - she is incredible in her single minded focus & sooooo intelligent.

@namechangedyetagain

Oh God why did I drink last night. Now have tons of work to do with a slightly fuzzy head.

Snap except I have a proper hangover.

Dh keeps saying he reckons primary will be back on the 8th.

Yep. I'd say I'm 95% assuming we're going back then. Have shifted around MTP accordingly.

I'm still in bed with a cup of tea brough up by DH

Apparently we are all working longer days to catch up, according to the latest policy announcement leak in the DM.

This will be fun to watch. No, I'm paid for reaching 32.5hrs a week so, um....yeah you're going to need to pay for the extra hours I suspect Boris.

I can see 🎉🎉 so much better (funny that!).

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation thanks for the Desmos. I’ll send you the links to our collections later when I’m on the laptop. They aren’t great but the first one you sent me really helped us get going and we’re loving it! Although we still need to work on it checking answers in tables (can check multiple choice now and ordering ones) and feedback to them!

MrsAD we do the same with our maths classes and I love it! We used to have fixed year seven tutors too - I miss that. Although I keep restarting randomly, partly due to my maternity cover being made permanent and holding onto the form.

@Floobydo

Numberblocks is amazing and definitely the reason my ds has such a strong grounding in maths. Far superior to numberjacks. We use it to teach most of our reception (& quite a bit of y1) Maths and it works so well.

I’ve done quite a lot of training with Debbie Morgan who is the maths advisor on it - she is incredible in her single minded focus & sooooo intelligent.

Am now confused, there are Number Jacks and Number Blocks?? I only know the former from when my DC were the right age.

And someone (sorry can't remember who) did quadratic equations in primary??

When I did my Nursery/ Lower primary PGCE, our Maths tutor was absolutely wonderful and certainly had the deepest approach of any of the subjects. Or maybe it just appealed to me more, there was more underlying educational theory than with other things. He was also a bit like Johnny Ball, fun.