The Forty Seventh Republic! Happy Valentines and get some half term rest

[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

@Viciouslybashed

I came here because they are discussing the schools all going back on march 8th and quoted Warwick report to me. Its just all such bullshit.

Lawyers share some interesting things.

Isn’t the founder of twats4themselves a lawyer?

Boris has said (Beeb website report) that any steps forward must be/will be cautious and "irreversible". Whatever happened to "we'll open slightly, take a few weeks to see the effect, then take the next step'?

I suppose they're not complete opposites, but it worries me.

Irreversible is a dangerous thing to say as he has no idea how things will pan out. However he frequently says things that he thinks will be later forgotten...

Boris is sounding more cautious and less Boris by the day though.

Was just reading a US news report that the UK govt have found that the Kent variant is more transmissible and (slightly) more deadly but they haven't announced it publicly, just put the docs on the government website. This might account for the suggestions from the govt about slippage around the March 8th date, and the increasingly strident MARCH 8TH reporting from the right-wing press. They are really putting pressure on him to stick to it, which means that there's a lot of pressure in the other direction.

And the existence of the pressure in the other direction doesn't make sense in the context of current case figures and vaccination progress unless you take the variant into account.

This article implies that it is more dangerous to children.
www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n383

Yes that does make sense.

@noblegiraffe

Boris is sounding more cautious and less Boris by the day though.

Was just reading a US news report that the UK govt have found that the Kent variant is more transmissible and (slightly) more deadly but they haven't announced it publicly, just put the docs on the government website. This might account for the suggestions from the govt about slippage around the March 8th date, and the increasingly strident MARCH 8TH reporting from the right-wing press. They are really putting pressure on him to stick to it, which means that there's a lot of pressure in the other direction.

Found this in the Daily Mail:

"A paper published by London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said the 'variant of concern' increased the risk of mortality by 30 per cent.

This applies regardless of the age and ethnicity of the patient."

By the way - do we fangirls get some sort of badge or something?

I despair of the drive to send all children back in. In reality it makes no lt much diff for my school day as we have a full class and too many adults in. But I don't want my kids to go back till it is safer.

increased the risk of mortality by 30 per cent

But that only means something like from 0.2% to 0.3% for women. Can't remember for men and can't find the bloody article I was reading on twitter.

@Viciouslybashed

I despair of the drive to send all children back in. In reality it makes no lt much diff for my school day as we have a full class and too many adults in. But I don't want my kids to go back till it is safer.

Nope, me neither. Especially reading about that alongside people wanting things like ‘eat out to help out’ to start at the same time. There seems to be people who think that now a few million people have been (half) vaccinated, that school bubbles and self-isolation for positive cases/contacts should all stop as well.

@chocolateisavegetable

By the way - do we fangirls get some sort of badge or something?

There's such a large slice of dismissive misogyny that comes with that description that's disappointing to see on a female-dominated website.

It does bug me.

What is the fangirls thing about

Noble, I presume you are criticising the poster on another thread originally using that phrase rather than choc (or indeed the rest of us pom-poms wavers)?

God yes, of course, Jan. The losers using it as an insult, not you lot using it ironically!

I feel like I drag you into the firing line!

My year 12 students would be fascinated by some of the "debate" in terms of the language used. It blows some of the genderlect theory right out of the water.

What's genderlect?

In some good news , DH has confirmed he is on the list for vaccine as Group 6. Charming receptionist said 'but not this week, though' like he should be grateful.

Oh that's a relief, piggy after all your trials with the flu jab!

The language of a gendered group.
Fangirl is interesting. It's what linguists call a a marked term because it has gender applied to it. "Fan" is the (male) norm so when we add "girl" it becomes outside the norm and - in this case - dismissive.
In here, we meet a lot of the "typical" traits of women's language in that we're cooperative, we've built relationships etc. We also nicely contradict the idea that women don't use taboo language but that's been outdated for a while ;)
Out there it's much more competitive, which is a more common in male genderlect. There's some interesting stuff about how online communication is different though... although that mainly says that men and women have different communication ethics, it also seems to be true that the medium changes how people communicate.
It's interesting.

Fascinating.
What taboo language do we use? I'd probably not know if it was outdated.

Does "Phwoar!" count???

What taboo language do we use

you don't, Jan!

When you say 'in here' and 'out there', MrsH, do you mean mumsnet and the wider internet, or the republic and e.g. covid threads?

Definitely a different style of communication on MN to other forums. Most noticeable coming here from TES Opinion which was very male dominated.

And yet "to fangirl" is used massively and unironically by gay men. And usually ironically by women.