THE FIFIETH REPUBLIC!

[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 to others 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.

Am also fed up of people spewing the term 'cultural capital' without understanding that the person who coined it was a Marxist!

I didn’t know this Piggy - every days a school day

The school I trained in (only last year). Was obsessed with Blooms taxonomy. Felt like I was racing through lessons to try and get the kids to evaluate something. But I’d only spent 5 minutes actually teaching them the topic. Very stressful.

name hi, try not to worry, training year is always very stressful. Of load here if it helps.

Yay for Mr Piggy!

@piggywaspushed my DH had the entire list of possible side effects, but all other family members were totally fine. Fingers crossed he's OK with it!

I was jabbed yesterday morning (Pfizer). 23 hours on I feel absolutely fine, apart from a slightly heavy upper arm. And very grateful.

Come on you lot stop discussing educational fads and get on with militant plotting!

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14184566/militant-teachers-strike-to-disrupt-re-opening-of-schools/?utmmedium=Social&utmmcampaign=fabulousfacebook&utmsource=Facebook#Echobox=1614458660

I fully expect cover when my call up comes. I am not faffing about waiting patiently for a school friendly time slot.

I said this to DH last week. Not only do I expect teachers to be covered when they get their invite/appointment but it’s also another example of shortsighted thinking:

Vaccinating us in Half Term would have meant teachers would not be absent from lessons to get jabs later on. Duh!

It’s like, in the desire to ‘bash teachers’ and say they aren’t important enough to get vaccinated as a profession, those doing so fail to realise it may mean less teaching time for their children when they have to be off to go get vaccinated and/or have side effects that mean they are not on top form for a little bit.

And I never get the argument from some that it’s easier to vaccinate the police with leftovers etc when teachers are pretty much in the same place all the time!

I normally have a wry smile when I see teacher bashing but this really does look like a pretty harmful/dangerous consequence of it really.

Re the educational fads, I remember my mother talking me through the brain gym strategies when I was in sixth form and having a melt down over exams. I think the pseudo science soothed me enough to actually complete my papers and not just cry through them all

I quite like Blooms, but then I qualified in the year that the non-statutory framework was being written for my subject, so it was a useful reference for this level = this skill. I make De Bono work for my subject, but use it sparingly.

Remember SEAL and PELTS. I had a stand off with the deputy head for refusing to use the standard PPT template that they had produced. The left side of every slide had to have WALT/WILF/PELTS for the lesson and then you were left with the right hand side for your content. I refused. They went mad. I said I'd rather have the whiteboard and projector removed from my classroom than use the hideous template. That idea died a sudden death!

I’d forgotten about thinking skills and app sheets - ugh! DH still has to sit his kids in a kagan style.

I’ve done a few of the college administered cpd courses mentioned by a pp - mostly so I don’t look like a cynical old duffer who should be further sidelined but honestly they were a bit rubbish. They are level 2 courses so don’t really challenge much and are repetitive, dull and a bit patronising. I’ve a few certificates to put in my Record of Achievement folder (yes, old enough to have one of those ) but otherwise the time could have been better spent.

I have no idea what PELTS means! It is sometimes a good thing working in a very backward school! If it is dead and buried, though, this probably means our trainees are doing it.

Come on you lot stop discussing educational fads and get on with militant plotting!

Can I start after I’ve had another coffee please?

(Yay for vaccine Jan!)

I fully expect cover when my call up comes. I am not faffing about waiting patiently for a school friendly time slot

Totally agree with this. Finding cover for 1 (maybe 2 lessons) will be a lot easier than cover for 2-3 weeks if I get Covid.

Personal learning and thinking skills.

Cultural capital came from a sociologist.

It's taken a while to get my head around what it actually is, but it's come in for good reasons.

And they're not saying it's "go to all the main art galleries," it's about local cultural capital or that which is relevant to your school communities. So the importance of the local football team or local weird traditions or any significant festivals or traditions.

The tories devastated the arts as their own kids go to private schools and get all this from home. So I do think it's important.

culturallearningalliance.org.uk/what-is-cultural-capital/

PLTS are/were still alive and kicking in Apprenticeships at least until recently. The annoying thing about most fads is there’s a grain of truth or usefulness in there somewhere - who wouldn’t want people to develop personal learning and thinking skills - but it’s the crack handed way they’re imposed and implemented that renders them useless, if not damaging.
I had to laugh in a hollow and bitter way when at one point in the early years of the century the mapping to Key Skills bit of an A level spec I was teaching was longer than the actual subject content. It was at that point I decided I was going to ignore anything I thought stupid, and it’s stood me in good stead.

My least favourite was a whole day of ‘positive pants’ CPD. I don’t have positive pants, I have sarcastic pants. I am a very jolly person with the kids - as so often when working with SEN I am all singing, all dancing in order to get good attention and engagement - but I reserve the right to be full of black humour away from the kids. Some days are just shitty pants days and I think it’s ok to acknowledge that rather than trying to put a shiny spin on everything!!

I think I'm so worried as the last lesson I planned wasn't great for the other class. And I was told in front of others. I'm happy for any feedback though is knocked my confidence a bit as my mentor couldn't really find fault with my lesson.

Is there anything that always comes up in job adverts? I know they always look for safeguarding but what can I write apart from i know of the importance and how to report?

Still trying to find the oomph to get up.

And I was told in front of others that’s pretty unprofessional! Why did the unprofessional swine say it wasn’t good?

SEAL was Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning.

It was Tom Bennett who set up ResearchEd which was the move to bin all this faddy unevidenced Brain Gym learning styles type shit from classrooms and replace it with stuff that’s slightly more research-based.

Although tbf at the second ResearchED conference Dylan Wiliam did a talk about how teaching will never be a research-based profession and pointed out the poor quality of a lot of education research.

Cultural Capital is Pierre Bourdieu. A Marxist cultural theorist really.

He definitely saw it as a bad thing : a thing that the elite exploit to keep the proles in their place.

I do just find it funny to see these really quite Conservative/right leaning pedagogues extol a Marxist term!

Speaking of which , if this si anyone's 'thing', I highly recommend Darren McGarvey's class wars on iPlayer.

name ahve you had safeguarding training?

@SmileEachDay

And I was told in front of others that’s pretty unprofessional! Why did the unprofessional swine say it wasn’t good?

Even the differentiated work was too tricky as they couldn't read independently (not a reading task so I read for my lowers in a group so they could concentrate on the actual learning). I'll never get the hang of it. But never mind like I say all feedback is useful. Was just slightly knocked by it and now have the wibbles about this week's lessons.

@piggywaspushed

name ahve you had safeguarding training?

Yes this year in Sept. And in my previous role. Also know what to do / say (not say) and how to log.

@namechangedyetagain when applying for NQT jobs schools don’t expect you to know everything, they are looking for someone that can fit with their school. Imagine you were the person appointing - you don’t want a know-it-all, you want someone who is flexible, willing to learn and take on advice, and quick to pick things (policies, routines etc up).

I’m secondary but we look for people who are passionate about their subject/teaching AND like children. We have not shortlisted before candidates who have raved about their subject but never once mentioned they want to work with children for example.

Obvs when you tweak it for every school make sure to find out a bit about the school and why you particularly want to work there at that very specific school.

Talk about what experience you have with that age group (voluntary stuff for example -anything outside of actual training placements) or of ‘teaching’ of any type that has led you to wanting to teach.

Think about what you would offer to them as a school, other than just being at the front of that class - could be things linked to your interests/clubs/personality (I’m less sure here how that works in primary but we look for candidates that have interests/hobbies that might related back to school or clubs or just personalities that will fit). Also what are you strengths in the classroom - what are you really good at that even if you’re not so strong elsewhere would really benefit those children.

Any specific examples of when you’ve taken on feedback and then used that effectively perhaps?

I would make notes on all the above. Then work out my structure eg start with x, then move on to y...

Yes, don't necessarily write that in your application but certainly highlight that you ahve recent training and that you were safeguarding trained in a prior job.

No need to make a big thing of it in a an application : just be prepped for a WWYD Q at interview!

Considering they don't want anyone to be "anti capitalist," it is rather funny they're using it.