The Forty Ninth Republic - Announcement Week - Roadmap and Exams - Be more Bob

[StaffRepFeistyClub]

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.

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.

@TheHoneyBadger

Are they angsting that we won't prioritise Tobias and Millicent? We know how much they 'truly' care about the disadvantaged till it comes to the idea of them getting something extra.

Said this to dh earlier as Gav started the presser going on about the most vulnerable losing the most from not being at school...

Wouldn't it be brilliant if they said to bring back, in addition to the socially vulnerable and SEN pupils, all the pp pupils and the "low attainers?" Basically, everybody except Tobias and Millicent. For like a month. See how much the average mn parent cared about "the vulnerable" then.

Poster on Noble's thread has just claimed that her DC's school has stated they'll seat non-tested children furthest from the teacher! Not sure if I believe this and am not sure they'd get away with it. Laudable though.... if the tests were more reliable!

Well, as long as we are not going to be strong-armed into doing it. I suppose if people want to volunteer that's up to them.

survey.alchemer.eu/s3/90316496/UCL-Explore-Summer-School-Teacher-module-proposal?dm_t=0,0,0,0,0&dm_i=1MZL,78LNG,O7ZN33,TC7SW,1

There you go Smile. I'm tempted but to be honest it would mostly get eaten by tax and Universal Credit reductions and I'm worried about biting off more than I could chew. Would like to do something looking at the overlooked contributions of women, people of colour and the working class in British history. There's really rich resource and interesting stuff that surprises people.

I got the wrong end of the stick Jan. Tend to agree with them - no way should it be compulsory for students or staff.

Dolly Is this the same news that makes our classrooms look like social distancing is taking place?

True. The gist I got was still 'look what Europe are doing better than us.' Might just be me.

Ooh random now that's an idea I could get behind. Not a forced, lose the summer holidays thing, but an acknowledgement that these pupils are most likely to struggle at any point and could do with some extra attention. I would love that (apart from having to teach my year 10 nurture group)

I love (not) the way aGav said at some point today that it wasn't about longer days but how we teach them when they're in school. As if without his wise direction we'd all be teaching macrame and pole-vaulting instead of basic English and Maths skills.

(And yes, I know macrame and pole-vaulting might do some of them more good actually!)

Bob is pretty good at origami... at least I assume that's what he does with my worksheets

that it wasn't about longer days but how we teach them when they're in school

That sounds like the early rumblings of a new Ofsted plan

I do wonder about interventions. You can’t remove them from English or Maths to do them, obviously. Can’t remove them from RE in a Faith school. So you are removing them from the ‘softer’ subjects, or PE, or assemblies (which are going to be a vital part of signifying normality for our children when we it is possible to have assemblies again).
Catch Up sessions can’t separate children from their peers any more than they did pre-Covid. Not in the name of ‘quality’.

Evening all... back from another day at the coalface to find people on here comparing how much they're getting laid and having inappropriate fantasies about Gav and baked Camembert. Have I slipped into a parallel universe?!

Happily I missed Gav on the tv. I'm sure I didn't miss anything useful.

We have "study plus" on the timetable in year 10 and 11 against every option block so it's theoretically doable for kids to be moved. Trouble is that kids like Bob are already in it, and some of them multiple times and the person delivering the "sessions" lets them dick about and do nothing so any new members would really not benefit.

Honey thank you.

I’d like to do a short stories module - it’s such an undervalued form and so, so useful and interesting across key stages -,but especially at GCSE.

I end up not doing interventions, because I don't want them out of maths and English, and besides that would mean them being taught by not a teacher. So then they need to go out in the afternoons, but those are the subjects that those kids usually succeed most in, so I don't want to take them out of those either.

Cue ridiculous amount of scaffolding down.

I have similar difficulties Rule - I'm not sure what the answer is. My SLT are very gung-ho for assessment and interventions immediately upon full return. I'd rather keep the whole class in together and adapt as needed, with TA and I circulating and supporting where necessary. Some may well need specific, targeted intervention work but I don't want them out of the classroom more than absolutely necessary. Forcing non-stop English and maths all day, every day as part of some spurious catch-up plan just means they miss out on the fun stuff and disengage.

When I was teaching science (pretty core subject) I'd have kids being taken out during assessments for achievement coaching - really pissed me off. They'd be like, 'is it ok if I take so and so' and I would be like well they're in the middle of an assessment that will inform their progress reports and whether they need intervention before proceeding to the next topic - is it really necessary to take them now? And they'd take them.

In one school I worked in, Y11 used to get pulled from my lesson for maths intervention, which was then followed by their maths lesson and the after school 'intervention' which was compulsory for all (yes, some pupils did have 3 hours of maths!). One afternoon, the pupils chose to make a stand and refused to leave my lesson. My lesson was totally derailed by the head of maths and the head arguing with the pupils to get up and go, while they argued back that they wanted GCSEs in all subjects, not just maths.

My favourite ever was when the hoy took a Bob out of my lesson to reward him for improving his poor attendance. It was his first lesson for weeks. He didn't come to mime much because I made him do work.

I missed Gav on tv too, I try to avoid the briefings! My head is spinning after a full day of live lessons, working through my littlest’s phonics/maths/writing with her and “encouraging” my bigger one to complete all his work to an acceptable standard to be submitted to his teacher! I have twitchy eyes!

Every time I go on social media and see another parent cheering about kids all back in on the 8th, my heart sinks. I know families are struggling with home learning (my goodness we are one of them!) but the thought of being in a small classroom with 30 not very compliant teenagers, unvaccinated, is so worrying...

Still no official plan from my school yet, which is fine, I know it takes time and would rather they thrash it out properly and let us know in full what to expect. Had to fend off lots of questions from my form/other groups today, with promises to let them know the answers as soon as I know.

The summer school issue is concerning!

Evening all. Thankfully I missed Gav.
Is it bad that I've drunk a over a bottle of wine, with the excuse of: well it's the last time I'll be WFH possibly ever this week? And I've got no lessons to record tomorrow.

Our plan is apparently to take a full week to do the first test for everybody, with years 11 and 13 first. Most years won't be back to actual lessons til Monday the 15th (and even then they'll miss some lessons for their second and third tests). I wonder how many parents will complain about that?

Ours are testing on the 8th and all in on the 9th.

Unison are not advising section 44 letters, but local branches can advise if individuals have specific reasons why it could be appropriate. They are meeting DFE tomorrow and will be issuing updated guidance on Friday.

Any news on what other unions are doing?

Err how many students do you have @SaltyAF ??

Pinched from Parebts United, on a thread about the press conference with Gav and Jennie today:

"I remember Some Mother's Do Have 'Em being a lot funnier and Betty sure as hell hasn't aged well 🤣🤣"

Just accidentally farted loudly half way through recording a maths lesson. Oops! I just channelled my inner Bob and kept going. I'm not even going to play back the recording to see if the mic picked it up. Life's too short!