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 Drina too! On a shelf still at mums! I have my aunt's famous fives here - they were at granny's and came to me when she died. I've said aunt can borrow them if she wants to read them

Hello all cannot sleep as too much whizzing round in my head. Does anyone know of a resource that contains lots of different starter activities for lessons (esp English). Anything that gets the children out of their seat and engaged is a bonus!

Can't sleep either. What is this Drina?? As a former book obsessed child and now school (asst) Librarian, how come I've never heard of her books???

Have googled and educated myself. Mabel wrote 170 books under 3 different pen names. No bells were rung for me.

(Better concentrate on my mole activities instead)

And sleep....

Well, new neighbour number 2, who's just moved in upstairs is worse than the one downstairs. Excellent time for band practice...not.

I'd go tell him to shut up, but apparently the woman next door went up the other day and he came down at midnight hammered on her door, yelling 'is this loud enough for you'.

salty I don't blame you. How are they dealing with the DfE guidance re 3 hours of work?

I completely understand flexibility. But to me there should be core tasks, like maths and English and if students aren't doing those, a follow up is done. Then the other stuff (finger puppets ) is optional.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

Well, new neighbour number 2, who's just moved in upstairs is worse than the one downstairs. Excellent time for band practice...not.

I'd go tell him to shut up, but apparently the woman next door went up the other day and he came down at midnight hammered on her door, yelling 'is this loud enough for you'.

Selfish git!!! You poor thing

I remember some books about Sadlers Wells but Drina does not ring a bell.

Childhood bookworms if you haven't read the Lucy Mangan book, you should. She writes about lots of the books you just mentioned!

@JanFebAnyMonth

Can't sleep either. What is this Drina?? As a former book obsessed child and now school (asst) Librarian, how come I've never heard of her books???

Oh I read all of these books as a child! I loved them (although looking back on it now, both Jenny and Drina get in relationships with much older men while very very young! I confess that I had no idea as a child that they were written in the 1950s. They translated well to a 90s teen here

Gosh, no, these books did not make it to the West of Scotland. No one on the 50 books thread has ever mentioned them either!

I don't know what the Sadlers Wells books were I read but it wasn't those.

Morning all. Sympathies for bad neighbours. I was driven out of my last home by noise.

Really must get some work done today but procrastinating when I should just crack on and get it done.

for all those in need.

Several of MEA's books were set on the Isle of Skye!

Drina's granny had a fab character arc, didn't she?

I lent all my childhood books to a younger cousin and never got them back .

Yes, I often tell the kids at school how we didn't have "YA" fiction or barely anything contemporary to read at all. It was Enid Blyton, horse or ballet series from the 50s and straight on to Stephen King, Victoria Holt or Shirley Conran (or whatever off your Mum's shelf) and also trying to read the classics far too early in some cases as there was nothing else. The Lucy Mangan book is lovely, I agree.

What, you didn't have Judy Blume?

Ralph! My cousin, 12 years younger than me, called her kid Ralph. Snigger.

Oh dear!

I went to school with a Ralph. Poor boy.

Oh, yeah, I think I did read Forever. And then loads of Mills and Boon. I was 9!

I loved anything in a series - the longer the better. Drina’s gran was great and I envied their lovely life in London and then all that travel too. I always try to get the non-readers into a series as they get the reading bug and often keep going. I don’t care if they are books which aren’t beautifully written. My teacher told my mum I’d run out of Enid Blyton’s eventually. I did but I found sixty Chalet School books instead. Now I have fifty essays to mark which doesn’t fill me with the same joy ☹️.

Lucy Mangan’s ‘Bookworm’ was really good. There were more of us than we realised at the time.

Also 💐 for those with noisy neighbours. So stressful.

Yes to no YA fiction, it was just becoming a thing when I was a teen but apart from Harry Potter it passed me by. My mum gave me a copy of little women to bridge the gap, then straight into classics and inappropriate chick lit. I read a lot of my nans stuff which on reflection was dire! Old lady romance stuff, can't remember the authors.

We took the cover off ‘Forever’ and stuck a Malory Towers on it so the grown ups didn’t know. It then got passed around all of Year 6.

I haven’t heard of Drina!

I loved Enid Blyton and read them all over and over-Famous 5, Secret Seven, castle/sea of Adventure, St Clare’s and Malory Towers. I think I then moved onto Trebizon, but never really got into Chalet School. I think I then did Danielle Steel and Jilly Cooper with a bit of Douglas Adams thrown in. I would have loved to read HP as a child.

I devoured all the classic boarding school stories as a child but Judy Blume passed me by. I went straight from Malory Towers and the Chalet School to Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier, largely because that's what my mum read. I also tried reading the classics too young and got bogged down in the prose. Reading them again a few years later I was astonished at what I'd missed!

I'd forgotten about Trebizon! I don't think I read them all though as our local library was a bit limited. As a really young child I loved the Famous Five, but reading them again with my DDs I was appalled by them!

My mum got 'Forever' banned from our local library...

Morning everyone. I do love a good book conversation .

Got up early to put all of my grades into the system. Almost done. Then just have two lessons to prepare, a set of tests to mark and a test to put together for tomorrow.

Did anyone read the David Eddings series growing up? I loved the Belgariad and the Mallorean - so exciting to have to wait for the next book in the series to be published. There was a big Waterstones in Liverpool and I used to go there on a Saturday and spend hours reading. Happy memories.

Ds was enjoying my old Terry Pratchett books (we're reading all of the Death ones to start with), but has been lured away by Tom Gates and Minecraft . I hope he returns soon. Younger ds was persuaded to become an independent reader by David Baddiel and is currently reading Frank Cottrell Boyce. Dd has always been a voracious reader and usually has about 3 books on the go.

@Piggywaspushed

Gosh, no, these books did not make it to the West of Scotland. No one on the 50 books thread has ever mentioned them either!

I don't know what the Sadlers Wells books were I read but it wasn't those.

Was it a series of books about a talented ballerina and orphan called Veronica who went to live with her cousins in Northumberland and her struggle to join the Royal Ballet School- by Lorna Hill? My favourite one was about her cousin Caroline, who became a flamenco dancer (‘No Castanets at the Wells’). Any fans of ‘The Swish of the Curtain’ series, about children who grew up to be actors - Sarah Greene, Blue Peter presenter and married to Mike Smith was in the 1980’s BBC production just before she started on BP? Also, we must mention Noel Streatfield’s ‘Ballet Shoes’, although I preferred the ice-skating one called something like ‘Silver Blades’. And no thread on this topic is complete without a mention of ‘Flowers in the Attic’, banned from my girls’ convent school and passed around the ‘third form’ (aka Yr 9) with great glee at our deviousness and rebellion.