The Forty Sixth Republic - online learning has killed the 'snow day'

[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 haven't even been on Twitter tonight but it's all over FB. Our local police force have joined in the banter!

Hope you’ve all seen the cat zoom video twitter.com/lawrencehurley/status/1359207169091108864?s=21

The kitten’s eyes!!

That weetabix thread is brilliant

@noblegiraffe I just came in to say “I’m here live... I’m not actually a cat”. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 cannot stop laughing at the cats face 🤣🤣🤣🤣

.....long pause......I can see that.

🤣🤣🤣 I’ve just spent the last 30 mins on that weetabix thread it is hands down the funniest thing I’ve ever read...

Love the cat one as well!

Bah. It's dark and I'm not only awake but upright because I have to go in today to have a meeting I could just as easily have remotely 😡

That weetabix thread has brightened up a cold Wednesday morning!

Harriet, how about Hagrid? Need lots of layers and a big pair of boots/wellies. Which is kind of my Look in school every day at the moment.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I will see what I can come up with.

Just been on FB to see that one of my friends has shared a video from U4T, so that's put me in a foul mood. Last time I looked, schools were not bloody closed and her child has not missed 12 months of education!

And breathe.

Hope you all have a good day. See you on the other side...

I have never wanted to be part time ever. I live in an expensive area of the country, house wise. But , also, I just wouldn't get any satisfaction out of being part time I suspect. The timetables of part timers are so full when they are in. I suspect I don't get the same fulfilment/satisfaction out of being in a classroom as some of you : I find it a bit thankless. Not sure what it is I like about managing people : maybe it is just a status thing. I certainly never set out at the beginning of my career to be 'just' a classroom teacher at the height or end of it, and yet this looks most likely. I find it depressing as I do , genuinely, think I am a leader. Just not maybe in teaching! I can't seem to convince a school of that! I think I should have changed careers a while back but my local area doesn't have a lot of opportunities and I never would ahve commuted into London with young children.

My biggest problem is that someone (used to be plural now, I hope, singular) on SLT hates me with a passion. Have never known why but it has been an ongoing thing that has blocked my promotion to jobs I am more than qualified for for about 10 years now. And has also prevented external promotion because of lack of range of experiences. So I got stuck.

So I am stuck in this situation now of not knowing whether I am actually a bit shit because I am so indignant : which may mean I don't reflect. My close colleagues reassure me that I am not shit but they would!

I think I also have an unrealistic view of SLT because ours are quite lazy compared to some I think and have such a lavish number of frees so I definitely don't get the impression that they work harder than HODs , for example, , or classroom teachers -certainly in my faculty : I think we are the faculty who have to work hardest in the school, which has never been satisfactorily addressed. Longer hours in meetings, yes. But that isn't the same thing. But then someone I really rate stepped down from our SLT two years ago because he couldn't stand it.

Sorry : self pity fest!

Wanders off to look at Weetabix thread.

Not self pity. There's a lot of personality politics in schools. I don't think it's just because they're cheap that the shiny young pe teachers get the tlrs at school but that they won't really rock the boat or make any of slt feel insecure.

I sometimes feel that my being experienced, not just in teaching but in other roles I've done, and coming across as bright and confident (note I say coming across as) works against me. I'm also pretty marmite like-some people in authority will love me and some take an instant loathing and it's always been that way. It seems to be that genuinely secure people like me and anyone who is less secure but not comfortable with facing that will hate me without being able to articulate why.

This isn't just my opinion, friends have observed it too.

The trouble is I can't just switch off and go right well I'm only paid to come in and teach not to concern myself over how things are working or what needs doing or who needs supporting beyond my classroom. I try not to but I see and care about the wider workings. I also wasn't trained in this era of minimal planning, turn up and teach what's on the PowerPoint and don't worry yourself if it's shite because you're covered because you're following the department planning.

I think I'm someone who needs responsibility but I'm not someone who'd get promoted at my school. The fact that I'm capable and underemployed makes some insecure about managing me and some very happy to let me, or make me, take on more work and responsibilities than I'm paid for without acknowledging or crediting it.

It's definitely awkward and difficult to handle and makes me really doubt myself and wonder if maybe there's some glaring fault or uselessness that I'm blind to but everyone else sees. The worst is when you work with someone who earns considerably more than you but does a lot less and doesn't do the basics properly so has to be compensated for.

Sorry that's a long one and I haven't read over it so probably full of mistakes

The trouble is I can't just switch off and go right well I'm only paid to come in and teach not to concern myself over how things are working or what needs doing or who needs supporting beyond my classroom. I try not to but I see and care about the wider workings.

That describes me to a T.

Many of my colleagues have pointed out that intelligent women are viewed with distrust in teaching (and on MN, noticeably!). Probably intelligent men, too, theses days but they seem to carve their niche more effectively.

Lots of people I know on SLTs are actually quite anti intellectual/ intimidated by debate/ don't think schools are the place for debate. I don't think that is just my school.

I often wonder how these outspoken Twitter types actually get on in their schools but some of them are pretty senior.

Have you looked into how you get into teacher training in uni piggy?

Sorry about the issues with SLT piggy sounds rubbish.

How many of those outspoken twitter types are women?

Ha! The ones who are aren't teaching , I think. Debra Kidd isn't in a school, is she?

I think because of years of focus on boys' underachivement and the answer to that lazily being seen as male role modes, it has resulted in men being over praised and promoted and women being criticised and over scrutinised, ignored or expected to be the soft gentle ones.
It was NOT like that in the early 90s. We have actually gone backwards.

Many of my colleagues have pointed out that intelligent women are viewed with distrust in teaching (and on MN, noticeably!).

Almost every female member of senior staff I’ve come across does that annoying, slightly flirty, subservient behaviour towards male members of SLT. These are capable, intelligent women who need to reduce themselves because of make insecurity.

Those who refuse to play that game - to clearly recognise that they shouldn’t need to behave like this - rarely get senior positions. It frustrates me an insane amount as they’re usually the staff that the position desperately needs. Sorry, rant over 😂

Urgh apologies for the typos.

Thinking of who I follow on twitter, the men are more likely to be ‘commentators’ and the women ‘resource sharers’. The women who are commentators aren’t teachers anymore. Like Laura McInerney, or Debra Kidd.

The only real exception is Katharine Birbalsingh.

@HerdyGerdy

Many of my colleagues have pointed out that intelligent women are viewed with distrust in teaching (and on MN, noticeably!).

Almost every female member of senior staff I’ve come across does that annoying, slightly flirty, subservient behaviour towards male members of SLT. These are capable, intelligent women who need to reduce themselves because of make insecurity.

Those who refuse to play that game - to clearly recognise that they shouldn’t need to behave like this - rarely get senior positions. It frustrates me an insane amount as they’re usually the staff that the position desperately needs. Sorry, rant over 😂

This is spot on.

I would have loved to honey but it is all in schol stuff around me now. Local uni is rubbish. Most people who work there ahve been there years. They appointed someone really so uninspiring form my school to work there part time and he has been there for years doing nothing. I couldn't work there. They would drive me spare! They are stuck in the stone age and churn out very unimaginative recruits. I did work in training n my school and really enjoyed it.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a need for male role models that has led to the over-promotion of men, but possibly the academisation and privatisation of education. It’s a far more corporate business-model, schools used to be more cottage industry.

My school is part of an ever-growing MAT and there seems to be an increasing layer of cross-MAT management jobs created that invariably go to men.

Men get promoted because they want to and are (generally) not burdened by childcare as women are.
As a single parent with elderly parents to consider as well, I wanted a job, not a career. I also enjoy teaching more than management. As it was I ended up as 2nd in dept for many years which resulted in me doing most of the work (no extra time for that) but happily not having to attend meetings.