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 say right and ok way too much as well.

I agree, I had a South Park moment. I just need a Mr Hat puppet and I am all ready to go.

Which is why I never, ever watch recordings back. Ever. Mortifying.

One Show doing quite a nice thing just now on etacehr workload.

teacher.

Wow honey that sounds awful. I have no idea which colleagues are doing what, other than the ones who get spotlight on good practice. I also see random snippets of other subjects when my nurture groups add other attachments when they send me their "maths work".

I also know that I'm the only maths teacher who's done any live lessons at all. And my department are very rule abiding, so if we were told 45 minutes then that's what we'd do even if we disagreed with it.

Honey
Angelina

Keeping my fingers crossed for you Piggy !

It's lucky that DH isn't a teacher - his filler is "you know" which gives me the rage when I listen to him on work calls (he is wfh).

feels like half term isn’t really worth looking forward to

Dreading it.

feels like half term isn’t really worth looking forward to

Too damn right. I'm meant to be skiing - by which I mean, that's what we've done every other February half term for the last 15 years. It's the prospect of that that's the only thing that usually gets me out of bed in the mornings in January.

Marking place!

Gosh. Lots of us feeling really down at the minute . It's just so relentless isn't it. I had a day today for study but ended up planning and recording my first ever online lesson.

Also sobbed my way through the news about Capt Tom. I think because he kind of reminded me of my Grandad (not that he was a capt with a massive house) but they seemed to be made of the same stuff shared a love of a navy blazer.

Just want to cry again but I need to at least make a start on some work. I feel so worried about everything. Everything planning wise seems to take so long. I have to plan an English unit ending in a letter so need to think about that. I'm rubbish at thinking up good ideas.

I need a damn good sleep.

DH tried to cheer me up by saying, "think of how much money we're saving," but I'm just, "shrug." What is there to spend anything on? Can't go shopping. Not going out anywhere, not seeing friends. No point in buying clothes (other than more "expandable waist" stuff. Can't have hair cut/coloured, no point in putting makeup on or anything.
We're just hibernating and treading water. Only leave the house to walk the dog.

Not school related.
I cook every night because I like food and ex is a terrible cook. He always covers everything in pepper before trying it. I've learned not to rage. But tonight as I'm dishing up he looks me up and down and says "you look really fat".
I know I need to leave but rents here are stupid high (thanks students) and I love my house (but can't afford it on my own)
It's just shit piled on shit.

@namechangedyetagain can you base it round reading something and then writing a letter to a character or something?

@MrsHamlet well I think we can all see why he’s an ex. What a dick.

(Now worrying I’ve overstepped...?!?)

Yes I've got a book, so the last piece will be a letter from one character in the story to the other. I just need to work out what I need to cover in the steps before that. I'm not overly confident with planning, especially for English!

Sorry if this has already been mentioned: schoolsweek.co.uk/ventilation-moved-up-the-priority-list-and-5-more-updates-to-dfe-covid-19-guidance/?mc_cid=3627f9dea2&mc_eid=deff97ba3a&fbclid=IwAR0ck9uSmCO8i80X7A9AtFVWFS3vgeVA4lIu1CiUpfz5FpYKiX_BiL0QqFY

Hugs Guy
Really hit rock bottom today
I have an exceptionally annoying kid in one of my y7 classes who literally unmutes themselves every 5 seconds “I don’t understand “ that’s because I am in the middle of explaining “I'm at school and I don’t have my book” like i fucking said last week, what do you expect me to do about it ( except of course I can’t say that).
Then as you know I got told to do this masterclass thing, have spent ages planning it, sleepless night last night fretting over it only to be told in main department meeting tonight that everyone needed to do a gazillion extra jobs in order to enable their own classes to attend these blasted masterclasses and that floored me. We broke off into smaller subject teams and I had to redirect my camera because I was basically sobbing with it all.
Luckily I have some very supportive colleagues in there who were whatsapp ing me supportive messages guessing something was up, but I am literally on my knees with stress.
I have a 1:1 meeting with HoD in my free on Thursday, need to work on suitably polite way to tell him is is a shit plan. ( not that it will stop this one happening)

[quote MrsHerculePoirot]@MrsHamlet well I think we can all see why he’s an ex. What a dick.

(Now worrying I’ve overstepped...?!?)[/quote]
Not at all MrsHP 🤣

At my age, I think I thought I'd have my life sorted. It's all a facade of sortedness.

Sounds like my kind of running MrsHP.

Yes conscientious kids struggling Guy and other kids likely just switching off and giving up because it's too much. It really kind of annoys me when teachers think the school rules and procedures don't apply to them as it just undermines everything and makes liars out of the people sending out communications to parents saying we've heard what you're saying and all lessons will be 45 minutes so kids get regular screen breaks. He's just gone no, I'm going to do as long as like

Can anyone explain what the plan for schools returning is in Scotland-I don’t get it?

What I read suggested that early years primary 1-3 (is that KS1 equivalent?) and senior years would be back on 22nd February but schools would only have 5-8% of children back. That doesn’t sound right?

Oh Loshad, that all sounds very hard

So many of us struggling right now

@Appuskidu

Can anyone explain what the plan for schools returning is in Scotland-I don’t get it?

What I read suggested that early years primary 1-3 (is that KS1 equivalent?) and senior years would be back on 22nd February but schools would only have 5-8% of children back. That doesn’t sound right?

NS said it was for those who had course work type work to complete so it would not be a full year or school.

for all those feeling shit. Second to last week of this term is often a tricky one in normal years so bound to be a huge downer now.

I am teaching a maths topic to a year group who last covered this topic in lockdown 1. Going to be interesting by the time they get to next year. There just won't be time to go back over everything when we are back in.

My brain is busy pondering in which circumstances it would be better to drop a kitten rather than my phone.

Bear in mind that I only teach year 10 upwards, name

I'd start at the end - so they need to know:

• conventions of a letter
• their character and the one they're writing to
• how their character would write, so some languagey things

I'd be looking at how I could cover those things in the run up, abd looking at lots of examples. I did some work on the Darwin letters a while ago and they're fascinating - they might have some suitable primary stuff actually.

Ignore me if I'm off beam... but if you tell me I'm fat you're getting your dinner tipped in your bed.

@Appuskidu
Afaik - p1-3 (age or 5 up) back in full time. I assume with no extra mitigations. Though staff can get twice weekly tests.
Senior schools - staff and students can get tests. Senior (ie S4-S6, 15/16A+) to be in to do work necessary for qualification, with 5-8% in. To me that means they come in for prelims etc, not back in as normal. Again, nothing said about mitigations/distancing/masks.
I'm sure more info will come along. Feeling very concerned tonight tbh.

Thanks for the new thread - I was stuck in the broom cupboard and wondered why it was so quiet!

and for all in need of sustenance tonight.