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.

But SATs are cancelled? Aren’t they?

Says heads are coming under "enormous pressure".

Yeah from the Us4Them fuckwits he keeps retweeting. Is Halfon for or against masks?

In shocking news I just had a text telling me to pick my 10 minute slot for vaccination this Thursday! I'm so surprised - clearly they've gotten to group 6 before age groups here. I live in one district council but have my doctors in another one itms and I knew the one I live in was going fast as mostly rural, low numbers of people etc and assumed where my doctors is would be way behind due to high population and thousands on my surgeries books so really pleasantly surprised!

@piggywaspushed

So some children in Yemen have missed out on six years of education.

What has our government done? Cut the aid budget by 50%.

I saw that news report.

DH and I said that should be played in every assembly and to every U4T idiot. My God those kids in those buildings. The resilience.

I'm kind of sick of being disrespected though. It's a weird one where I'll assume people think I'm thick but then they'll say or do something that shows they don't think that at all. I think there's something about being clever but not performing a certain version of middle-classed'ness that disturbs people. Add female to the mix. I don't know but I'm bored of it

One of my lovely colleagues has this. She’s very very pretty and has a very local accent. People - not at our school really, because it’s a pretty lovely place - treat her like she’s thick. She had a temp job at a supermarket and said it was the worst there. She has a masters and is a properly amazing teacher.

Fab news honey!

I think a few of us have Y6 children - hope they got the secondary places you wanted. Got our first choice but hadn’t realised how worried I was until I saw the offer!

@Piggywaspushed I also think I’d like to work with you! I think I’m a bit similar in some ways, but am getting better at holding my ground about other stuff as I get older...

https://unherd.com/2021/03/radical-policies-for-rishi/?tlinbound=1&tllgroups[0]=18743&tlperioddtype=3

Am I a female bastard for wondering why under 30 year olds should be given more than I earn for nothing?

I appreciate most of you will earn more than me and quite possibly therefore have taken on more financial ties than me but 20k tax free sounds like a fortune from my 0.4 single mum never even considered being able to run a car perspective.

Why under 30?

@SmileEachDay

I'm kind of sick of being disrespected though. It's a weird one where I'll assume people think I'm thick but then they'll say or do something that shows they don't think that at all. I think there's something about being clever but not performing a certain version of middle-classed'ness that disturbs people. Add female to the mix. I don't know but I'm bored of it

One of my lovely colleagues has this. She’s very very pretty and has a very local accent. People - not at our school really, because it’s a pretty lovely place - treat her like she’s thick. She had a temp job at a supermarket and said it was the worst there. She has a masters and is a properly amazing teacher.

In my first teaching post this might have explained a lot but I'm 45 and overweight now so should have shrugged this off by now looks wise. No one has call to be threatened by my youth and looks anymore. Class might still play a part but I think my mixed class background means I pass in most situations. It's something about not performing 'teacher' maybe.

I fear I may be in trouble next for following up myself parents who expressed real concerns during our 5 minute parent evening slots by phoning and talking to them. Calls have gone well and parents seemed reassured and grateful I've bothered but no doubt I should have handed it over to someone who doesn't know the child and to whom the parents didn't confide their concern and hasn't even had any training in child development.

I've given out really unprofessional reassurance like boys mature at different rates and some year 8s are still very child like and sensitive whereas some are much more robust and thick skinned.

Sackable I'm sure. I'll have trodden on the toes of someone

Wow! That's a lot of money

Blimey, yes, that bbc item on schooling in Yemen!!
Dh and I watched that little boy and his sister, both blind, following their mate home from a bombed-out school across boulder-strewn land, tripping and recovering. I bet they don't complain about their mental health.
God bless them.

I have y6. We aren't testing on return. Or doing mindfulness guff. We don't go back for another week in Wales, and will have them in for 2 weeks before Easter, which we will spend doing some relatively fun but still meaningful learning.

Then after Easter we have the delights of returning to all the units of work in Maths that we dipped into over the last term and introduced, but then left and moved on when it got too tricky to deliver them remotely (based on our hit and miss uptake) so we have several term 2 units to recap and forge on with.

It's going to be a huge job to get behaviour back in line and to have learning back as the main focus. Some of the kids who've been in school have clearly displayed that they have forgotten how to even sit on a chair properly, and they've been in part of the time.

Yes. For all the catch up talk getting them used to being up and out and expected to be with it at 9am and to be able to deal with a classroom environment is going to be the immediate challenge.

I'm still clueless as to what's going on in that I know, for example, that year 7 return on Wednesday and in theory I teach year 7 period 2 but no clue of the testing plan and whether any or all will actually be in my class. I'm still at the stage of having had more information as a parent than as a teacher and when I asked my hod she's all like oh I don't know I guess they'll call them out of class when they need them. I'm not convinced and would like to actually know what the plan is - there's fuck all point planning a catch up lesson if half of them won't be there or potentially none of them. She's very casual about it but I'd really like to see a plan and timings

That's because you're organised Honey. No point in telling me what's happening next Wednesday till next Tuesday tbh.

MrsHP dd got her first choice of secondary too. I hadn't been worried at all, because I know full well that we live soap bang in the middle of the catchment area, so if she hadn't got in none of her friends would have got in either due to the distances from school. What I hadn't realised was that dd was nervous about it herself. I took dh to work before she got up this morning, and by the time I got back she was in tears because all her friends were messaging about all going to the same secondary and I hadn't told her before I left. She's been quite teary all day tbh (not helped by the start of puberty, and a painful wobbly tooth as well). We sacked off school work this afternoon and went for a long walk in the woods where we just chatted and took photos of squirrels fighting over buried nuts (I didn't realise how vicious squirrels can be)

Honey so pleased about your vaccination!

@noblegiraffe

That's because you're organised Honey. No point in telling me what's happening next Wednesday till next Tuesday tbh.

That's me too. I much prefer it when they tell me a plan about a week in advance and then someone resends the exact same email the day before. I'd love to be organised, and make occasional efforts to change, but I've now got to the stage of just accepting that this is who I am.

My students wanted to do nothing today as they want to rest before they return to class.

me too I thought!

They just had half term!

and to all who need it for any reason.

Personally I think self depreciation is a more common trait in females. Possibly learnt behaviour from female role models at home/formative work places? I've got better at not self depreciating but can very easily flip too far the other way! It's a fine balance.

honey I've found out more by reading school emails on the website than anything from SLT. I can understand a lack of plan last week, now it's getting to the point where I'm mentally planning lessons/sequences of lessons. Decided to lower my standards for the next two weeks.

Has anyone else seen an attendance drop today? I think some parents are at the 'sod it they're back next week' point.

I reckon my own teen kids are going to really struggle when we go back. They’ve not been getting up till just before 8, have had lessons shortened, the school day finishes an hour early now and homework has been stopped so they’re done by 2.30.

From next week, it’ll be up at 7, on the bus at 8, full lessons till 3.30, bus/walk home by 4.10 and then start homework! They’ll be knackered!!

piggy you've been told to have tidy classrooms, we've been told to refresh all our display boards WTAF. So the TAs, who have sole responsibility for all the KWV children, while the teachers are at home, have to do the boards as well. When? When we are teaching the children? Or perchance in our lunch breaks (when the children are in the classroom) or possibly before or after school (when we aren't paid).

Gaslighty twat head thinks we should "have the school looking lovely" for the children when they come in on Monday. FFS.

corner there's no way I'd be doing that in my own time!

I'm going in to do display and printing on Friday. I've got to try and work out how to make the first week nice, while also doing 2 writing tasks, 2 maths papers, a reading paper and phonics assessments. Luckily I have PE on Monday first thing (usually a shit slot), so I've got the hall booked for nice circle time.

chocolate I'm not going to!
Hoping the teachers will come in on Friday to do some of it, as they've been told there won't need to be any live lessons that day. But we still have one classroom full of children all day, which of course, needs the most attention, as they've been picking at the display boards and generally Being In The Room.