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.

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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.

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)

What is the actual learning? Did the feedbacker talk about how you could have presented it differently or did they just say “they couldn’t access it”? (And actually, planning to read the instructions/text to a lower group is a perfectly fine scaffolding technique)

@JanFebAnyMonth

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

Yes, exactly this for me. I just slept REALLY well though. If that's a side effect, then every day pls!

@SmileEachDay

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)

What is the actual learning? Did the feedbacker talk about how you could have presented it differently or did they just say “they couldn’t access it”? (And actually, planning to read the instructions/text to a lower group is a perfectly fine scaffolding technique)

It was to join two sentences using a choice of conjunctions (provided). So reading both clauses and matching them up if they made sense. Drawing a line between the two parts mix and match style. No writing involved just reading and discussion between us 🤷‍♀️

And did the lowers do it, once you read to them?

name in teaching you can get a lot of shitty unhelpful feedback. If the point they made was valid and helpful, use it to improve. If it wasn’t, in the bin with it and give it no more thought.

Yes that's what I was getting at warrior. It tickles me!

I don't mind the focus on cultural capital.

The thing is, even many MC kids don't have much of it anymore as they're too busy gaming all the time, too (not that that can't be cc in its own right). It's important that we stop and take time to explain stuff they haven't heard of, that we use material from a range of cultures (eg music lessons aren't all contemporary to appeal to the kids so they never hear classical or jazz or world music), we put things in a wider context, we fill in gaps, we take them on trips so they know how to behave in (say) a theatre. If thinking stuff like that is important, then I'm part of the problem, too, but I don't care really.

Did you read that stuff about all black artists and composer being accidentally removed from the Music spec and then hurriedly and shamefacedly reinserted random?

So now all families to be offered lateral flow tests twice weekly.

The gov must have a shit ton of these to get rid of!

Question - why do the nhs only have to swab nostrils?

@SmileEachDay

And did the lowers do it, once you read to them?

Yes, we then moved on to looking at the (written down) sentences and started to join them using one word that they wrote themselves (chosen from a list). Heavily scaffolded but they did it and I was really proud of them🙂

I'm happy for any feedback though is knocked my confidence a bit as my mentor couldn't really find fault with my lesson.

This bugs me but you could have five different people observe your lesson and each person would have their own opinion on it.
Take it with a pinch of salt and remember that children are not a one size fits all and you planned a lesson for your class in mind and it’s not your fault if it didn’t work for the other class (although I refuse to believe that’s the case with your entire lesson)
It’s why I think those lessons that people try to flog on TES as ‘this lesson gave me an outstanding judgement, buy it for £10!” is rubbish because there are so many factors that contribute to the running of any lesson.
I prefer staff who can adapt if necessary (rather than blindly follow a lesson plan to the bitter end that often makes the lesson overrun anyway) and also keep thinking what went well and what might need changing for the future.

Chin up chick and keep going-don’t let someone eat away at your confidence.

Is cultural capital for or against teaching mainly dead white men?

@piggywaspushed

Did you read that stuff about all black artists and composer being accidentally removed from the Music spec and then hurriedly and shamefacedly reinserted random?

No, I didn't see that specific example.

I'm not saying that the govt mandating a pale, stale male curriculum is the way to go, but I also don't believe the opposite is. I looked around a school for ds a decade ago that prided itself on basically teaching the kids stuff they already knew (iyswim). Everything was "relevant to their lives" Well, what do they need school for, if you're going to make every example pop music, football, gaming etc. Nonsense.

I don't know why NHS only do nostrils. They are the worst on MN for patronisingly telling teachers we are wrong when we say nose and throat!

MY understanding is NHS do PCR tests.

I am not going anywhere near my throat if I can help it.

Yes, I've had many NHS friends tell me we're lying when we say ours are nose and throat.

This was jazz random. They took jazz out of the curriculum. It came form a good place as they were attempting covid curriculum slimming but they hadn't even realised what they had done!

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/20/music-a-level-exam-board-wrong-drop-only-black-composer

Yes, we then moved on to looking at the (written down) sentences and started to join them using one word that they wrote themselves (chosen from a list). Heavily scaffolded but they did it and I was really proud of them

This sounds like a well thought out lesson. I don’t think you need to worry about what Mr/s public feedback said.

Don't take jazz away! Jazz is life.

Tom Bennett would like to contribute to this thread. What’s a learning bicycle?

Cultural capital itself isn't 'for or against' anything : it is s a theory and something we posses. the (fairly unproven ) idea is that we can take uncultured young people (especially working class ones), stuff a bit of culcha into them (ignoring the other forms of capital essentially) and their lives will turn out just fine and dandy.

I am a bit cynical about that even though I myself am 'well read' etc. It is basically saying ' you can learn about what the elite have but it still isn't actually yours' if done badly. And it has now got itself tied up in clumsy white privilege /BLM announcements from Tory MPs.(and Calvin Robinson).

But I’m assuming that the culture we want to stuff into them is Shakespeare and not Stormzy?

@noblegiraffe

Tom Bennett would like to contribute to this thread. What’s a learning bicycle?

Oh goodness, that is a blast from the past!

It was actually at the school I did my PGCE training with, and where Tom Bennett was still teaching at (back in the days of his TES community posts as the behaviour guru) that I had to attend an INSET day talking about learning bicycles!

I’m thinking back now to if Tom was one of the staff at the back muttering obscenities about it

But I’m assuming that the culture we want to stuff into them is Shakespeare and not Stormzy?

Nope. Stormzy has appeared in lots of my lessons.

I mean not actual Stormzy, that wouldn’t been bedlam.

I was thinking like re cultural capital that till I got more involved in reading about how it's being used, but the arts are my "specialist subject."

And that's the point, stormzy as much as Shakespeare.

I dislike some of how it's being used by the tories.

To be honest the arts council has been arguing a lot of all of this for years. Ofsted decided to stick it in their remit when the realised how schools were abandoning a lot of the arts stuff that used to go on (primary schools.)

My SiL who works at a hospital (but has been working from home most of the year as clinics not going ahead in person) tests twice weekly with only the nose one or the spit one apparently.

This may have been before vaccinations though (she has had both jabs now) and I haven’t spoken to her in a couple of weeks.