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

@noblegiraffe

Daily Mail reporting that the NEU are demanding a pay rise for teachers before they will be willing to go back to school.

What's that all about?

Blimey, really?!

A pay rise really isn’t what we need to be talking about now. I’ve always been pretty happy with my pay, fwiw, it’s the workload I have the problem with. And Ofsted.

I wouldn't say no to a pay rise. The last one for top of the pay scale barely registered - obviously only 0.4 of the pay rise. I'd like a part time premium in recognition we don't actually get to only do the percentage that we're paid for and can't say oh sorry I can only do 0.4 of parents evenings and you'll only be able to give me 0.4 of the year groups so my planning is proportional and could you please just send me 0.4 of the avalanche of emails and 0.4 of the 'just' do this online training and that online training etc. It's my moonshot wish

I'm actually feeling quite good today strangely. Possibly because it was such a light work day and I'm still avoiding recording a couple of lessons that I'm dreading because they're so shittily resourced and badly put together that I really need to start from scratch. I'm just ignoring them for now.

Think I'm going to watch some Deutschland 83 before I'm too tired to read subtitles.

okay so the longer Christmas break is okay for Olivia and Humphrey jetting off skiing or to the Bahamas. But a longer school day and a longer term will be shit for kids - it just goes to show that all the mental health stuff is just lip service. Independents have a longer day but more holiday - there is a trade-off.

I know some parents have continued with tutoring over lockdown. Their kids have done every bit of work and some extra. So James and Philippa will be bored doing catch up because they are ahead!

Just seen this crap in the mail.

The union, which has described the pandemic as a 'turning point' in relations between teachers and Downing Street, has thwarted every proposal by the government to get children back into classrooms

Have I missed something? What proposals to get pupils back into classrooms? Where has this idea come from that unions closed schools and has worked to keep them shut?

Thanks for the new thread Staff! Just place marking while I go back and read from the beginning.

So I phoned my mum on the way back tonight and she said that schools are opening for children in the summer holidays?
Is this true or has she been misreading Facebook again

@namechangedyetagain

So I phoned my mum on the way back tonight and she said that schools are opening for children in the summer holidays? Is this true or has she been misreading Facebook again

Well, that’s what the Daily Fail are saying.

It seems like a stick to beat teachers with, as the unions will say it’s not happening and then the press/Gavlar can say that teachers are lazy workshy pinkos who clearly don’t have a vocation!

So here's the latest thoughts of the Catch up Tsar, Kevan Holland - no one's answered my question of last night, who is he, what do we know about him?

Come on, give me an answer or I'll have to pick on someone...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55984097

Used to work for the EEF.... I googled him 🤣

[quote JanFebAnyMonth]So here's the latest thoughts of the Catch up Tsar, Kevan Holland - no one's answered my question of last night, who is he, what do we know about him?

Come on, give me an answer or I'll have to pick on someone...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55984097[/quote]
Miss, miss - I can give you an answer: www.tes.com/news/sir-kevan-collins-who-new-covid-catch-tsar

Did you just lift your whole bottom off the seat choc?

What despite all the wailing form parents about how mental health is being destroyed? Did suspect that was projection.

I spent my afternoon dealing with a child tantrum situation at a distance. Refusing to work apparently, it's all too stressful and frustrating. I have arranged for some simpler stuff to be available for her to pick up from school, and made a couple of quick vids to support it. Then mum emails to say 'I can feel the stress lifting already, thanks so much' - oh, so it's YOUR stress, not the child's. Super.

@MrsHamlet

Did you just lift your whole bottom off the seat choc?

Nah - we school staff are far too lazy to do that. One cheek at most.

😂

I don't get the moving holidays - why would you move 2 school weeks from the autumn when the children do loads of work (except the week before Christmas, but you will still end up with a school week before the Christmas holidays whatever you do) to the end of the summer term when they are all tired and hot and want to be outside? Surely that will reduce learning not increase it?

@FlagsFiend

I don't get the moving holidays - why would you move 2 school weeks from the autumn when the children do loads of work (except the week before Christmas, but you will still end up with a school week before the Christmas holidays whatever you do) to the end of the summer term when they are all tired and hot and want to be outside? Surely that will reduce learning not increase it?

The more I think about this, the more I think it’s not a serious proposal, it’s purely to get people moaning about teachers and reminding them how much holiday we get which seems unfair. Parents have been much more supportive of teachers this lockdown and I doubt the government like that too much

The pay comment is because neu said pay progression should be automatic this year, presumably because of the difficulty of observation and accountability this year?

I'm starting to think there just needs to be a stock answer given by teachers to all threads about schools on Health.

We didn't shut the schools, that was a respiratory virus and the government.

We didn't 'not provide online learning' in the summer, that was the government.

We have contracts and deserve safe working environments, the same as the rest of you. Just because x puts up with crap healthy and safety, doesn't mean to say we should.

If you think it sounds cushy, just come and do it.

If you think we are awful people as a collective, feel free to home school because I've no idea why you want us to spend 6 hours a day with your children.

Also, February half term two weeks would be nice = longer, cheaper skiing holiday, neatly ignoring us plebs who holiday in the UK. A wet wintry walk in Blackpool anyone? Actually have been in Feb caravaning in Blackpool, the wind was so bad it was a veritable sandstorm, could barely stand up straight.

I bloody love skiing, it's the 'holiday' we spend most money on every year, and even I don't want longer winter holidays.

rule I just read your reply and it is excellent. So much parental frustration is blame shifting. Blame the people they can "see" rather than the government. Backed up in their thinking by said government who are happy to not take the flack.

So sick of hearing about how kids need to catch up and about 'lost learning'. Catch up to what? Everyone is in the same boat. Students learn at different levels online just as they do in the classroom. They don't need to fucking 'catch up' to some arbitrary academic nonsense target. And the thought that an extra two weeks of sitting in classrooms learning about the fucking battle of Hastings will mean they'll have 'caught up' is ludicrous.

As you were..

@Cantaloupeisland

So sick of hearing about how kids need to catch up and about 'lost learning'. Catch up to what? Everyone is in the same boat. Students learn at different levels online just as they do in the classroom. They don't need to fucking 'catch up' to some arbitrary academic nonsense target. And the thought that an extra two weeks of sitting in classrooms learning about the fucking battle of Hastings will mean they'll have 'caught up' is ludicrous.

As you were..

^^ This. With bells on. I am so sick of this government.

Gold rule

Nooooooo choc - we're not allowed to give rewards unless Ptolemy and Hermione get them all.