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.

I don't see it as a sticking plaster, I see it as part of equal opportunities for accessing the arts, and not just the white male version of the arts.

I think there is a tension between Shakespeare and Stormzy which probably shouldn't exist. The proper right wing knowledge types would say Stormzy was just an example of wokery gone mad. The proper understanding of capital would include social capital which is acquired by understanding stuff like Social Media and telly and Stormzy and the media. Trouble is your JRMs of the world get along just fine without any social capital because of other privileges (and not just because they read Shakespeare at school and studied the classics)

Oh and another of my friends who is a GP and also had both jabs, was ranting on Facebook yesterday about all the adults and children out and about in ‘crowds’ yet she has repeatedly been dismissive of schools and is one of those saying teachers don’t have need to complain and saying there is no issue there.

The hypocrisy is so obvious and I had to sit on my hands not to reply!

NLP I'd forgotten that bullshit.

Cultural capital is something we seem desperate to foist on our students through low stakes quizzing on MC stuff we think they should know.

We took the cultural capital stuff to be about giving them the tools to access reading papers in eng lang. It was a given that you'd teach context for lit, but having kids do a paper about surfing, when most had no idea about surfing etc highlighted that exam boards had quite a narrow view of what modern kids would actually know about.

See also, the infamous AQa 'Swede' paper, which floored a great many kids who had never had to eat a swede.

In general though, most of the brilliant ideas seem to be ways of making us all teach the same. Often, it's based on good research- but then packaged into soundbites that don't actually work. I see someone else highlighted mindfulness as a case in point. It's all sticking plasters.

I did work for a head who wanted us all to teach in exactly the same way. I think my head exploded at the point where she wanted us to stop talking in lessons and just 'facilitate ' and where she rated one of my lessons outstanding, when I knew the kids had actually learned fuck all in it. She was actually pretty poisonous and destroyed a lot of people.

And that's exactly what it's not.

@SoFranCisco
‘Positive Pants CPD’ would have made me leave the building with sudden diarrhoea. I have suffered many dreadful courses but that sounds like the depths of Hell. Please tell me you were making it up and I’m too slow to have noticed!

But what is a learning bicycle, Chloe? I feel like my lessons could do with one.

Do not read the comments on the article in the Sun about strikes

I know this is a bit off the current topic - but it struck me that if it's too difficult to organise vaccinations for school staff because we're not part of a single organisation like the NHS - why was it possible to offer the vaccination to all staff in care settings?

The way I interpret cultural capital is by meeting the students where they are - and working out both the wider context they need in order to understand the work but also the wider context they need in order to access the world.

For some, that Shakespeare and art and music. For some, their world is so tiny, that talking about where their area is in relation to the rest of the city, or what fairy tales are or why it might be ok that the refugee child with no English does not complete the work.

It’s about building their knowledge base from wherever their foundation is.

Please could someone explain learning bicycles and NLP in simple terms? Then I can say I’ve done it already if someone tries to make it our CPD.

In general though, most of the brilliant ideas seem to be ways of making us all teach the same. Often, it's based on good research- but then packaged into soundbites that don't actually work.

This

Good ideas with good intentions get distilled into a bastardised version of what they should have been.

The proper understanding of capital would include social capital

That reminds me of that episode of The Thick of It where the minister has to watch a video of stuff like what’s going on in Eastenders so he doesn’t sound out of touch.

Didn’t David Cameron forget which football club he supposedly supported?

Lots of training sessions remind me of The Thick of It episode where they go on the 'retreat' to come up with new policy ideas. They aren't allowed to say no to anything so say "Yes and Ho...".

@chocolateisavegetable
We have flu injections at school. It is very, very easy. We walked down a corridor and they pretty much jab us as we go! Done in no time and we booked to go in our non contact time and breaks. They just don’t want to do it.

[quote BustopherPonsonbyJones]@chocolateisavegetable
We have flu injections at school. It is very, very easy. We walked down a corridor and they pretty much jab us as we go! Done in no time and we booked to go in our non contact time and breaks. They just don’t want to do it.[/quote]
Same here. Flu Vaccinator comes in from 8.30-4. All staff vaccinated. Priority slots of before school, lunch and after school given to teachers who may not have a PPA that day. Staff who are part time can come in.

Morning all - I've only just woken up

Lots of food for thought here regarding cultural capital. Our HT has recently taken to using the term contextual curriculum which I suspect amounts to something similar, but they've never actually clarified the point.

I remember doing a training course with paper snowballs but I confess I can't remember anything further about it. I've never used it in the classroom.

@ChloeDecker

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.

My friend is a sonographer. She’s had both vaccines and has now moved to the ‘spit test’ although she says she’s keep testing with LFTs twice weekly in top of this.

Getting the kids moving around the classroom (kinaesthetic, natch) by blu-taking the worksheets to the walls.

Yes and ho!

(Someone set this as cover work for a lesson I was covering. There weren’t enough worksheets to just hand them out. It was chaos).

The proper understanding of capital would include social capital

And that's a good point.

It's just all rubbish.

I can't believe that the curriculum the last Labour government got out just before they left has been lost to the past.

For primary It was really holistic and needed no extra cultural adenums added.

They'll come up with some new term to describe how their ten years of devastating education was actually all due to the pandemic and how we need to Do Something. I think they've started with Recovery Curriculum etc.

*Getting the kids moving around the classroom (kinaesthetic, natch) by blu-taking the worksheets to the walls.
*
Ooh, I do this all the time (or did, pre-Covid and having to sit still in rows) - different information pinned up around the room for them to gather up. I also like to use post its and sugar paper for sharing ideas!

I confess I quite like the 'diamond nine' oracy activity as well.

Am I on a slippery slope?

"Golden threads" curriculum.

Yeah, mine would just eat the blu tack.

@WarriorN

Yeah, mine would just eat the blu tack.

Mine steal blu tack but try to leave enough so that the display/resource manages to cling to the wall. They don't seem to realise that I know they are doing it because I can see them.

@BustopherPonsonbyJones true story - I think technically it was called ‘The Art of Being Brilliant’ but it talked a lot about positive pants and was run by a Doctor of Happiness (a real actual thing I think!?) - in fairness to him lots of the staff loved it - I am just too sarcastic to cope with that level of happy 😂😂