The Fifty-first republic - twice weekly tests and wear masks at all time till Easter

[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. Do not sit on the chairs and wear a mask.

Buckets didn’t have to do for that. There was no need for them to decide that you had to take both in order for English to be double weighted.

Media is also hard, though, for someone unlikely to get a 2/3 in English!

No - that's true.
When I look at the last few years, there are some kids who have been wildly disadvantaged by having to do two English subjects.
It comes back to suiting the people who are making decisions rather than the ones the decision is being made for.

@MrsHamlet

No - that's true. When I look at the last few years, there are some kids who have been wildly disadvantaged by having to do two English subjects. It comes back to suiting the people who are making decisions rather than the ones the decision is being made for.

Exactly this. Two English GCSEs looks ‘good’ but doesn’t help students. GCSEs as a system really needs abolishing an overhaul so that it benefits students at all levels.

@RandomGrammarPun

I also kind of think a single science option should be acceptable.

Especially if able but uninterested students were otherwise permitted to do, say, double languages plus double humanities, and less academically able students could do more useful to them things in the slot, too. (This is also true of English - really weak students should be able to do a mixed lit/lang GCSE or just one or the other.)

I did this at school. One science and 4 languages 😊 (excluding Eng!)

It was one of their odder decisions given one of the original stated aims of the P8/ buckets was it would benefit doing fewer GCSEs and spending more time on Eng & Maths.

There must be a whole bunch of kids whose time would be better spent on 1 better English grade and basic literacy skills rather than slogging through texts they don’t have a chance of accessing independently.

@TheHoneyBadger

Can I just ask why do all kids have to do two gcse's worth of science? Does it really drive up our stem industries? It's just such a huge chunk of the timetable for kids who have no interest or aptitude.

I'd love to see a sort of Science 101 that gave 1 gcse via say 3 lessons per fortnight for those who don't take it as an option and for those who take it as an option the 2 or 3 gcse's.

It's so bity and specific and for those who aren't taking it forwards. A 101 type of GCSE on the scientific method, the history of science and maybe a few basic units on say electromagnetism (fun building circuits), human anatomy and ?? the periodic table would take the pressure off of how many specialist science teachers you have to have, how many labs, etc and free up low ability kids for more basic interventions in literacy and numeracy. I dunno.

Hope I haven't offended any Science teachers.

I think you have a fair point tbh.

So much of science is pretty hard and doesn’t seem very relevant to a lot of kids.

I might be talking myself out of a job though

Oh no, don't get me started or we might fight and might need daffodils. GCSE English by itself is stultifying. I think people who don't teach it may not realise this.

I would leave teaching/ a school if GCSE literature went.

And that would clearly be an enormous loss to the profession.

get me with no exclamation mark

Noble my state school does Latin, which is genuinely lovely.

But neither of the people who teach it are specialists classicists in teaching because of an enormous bursary to teach classics to the masses.

Might me doing myself out of a job (I might not have one anyway!) but I'd be on board with a single science GCSE for those who aren't inclined. I don't think they need to know about nuclear decay, or the history of the atomic model, or the phases of mitosis, to be well rounded adults.

Oof, the live lessons have been a slog today. Not my gorgeous Y7, they were keen as ever, but all others were tough going. Think the kids are definitely done.

Also there were eight interviewees for the teacher of science position I interviewed for today. Eight.

8 wow! Are you somewhere with lots of unis?

I trained in Brighton and lots of pgce providers around plus a popular place to live at the time.

Bit different round these parts.

I wouldn't want to get rid of GCSE lit altogether - but there are some students who definitely would be better off not having to do two. Maybe 6 in the current year 11 of 200...

I don’t think we are suggesting getting rid of Eng Lit piggy. Most kids should be doing both for balance.

But but but I find the weakest actually like it... we did ahve the debate in our school a few times but it was always agreed that they got something out of literature.

Oh well.

We don't have sets any more so creaming that six off would also be tricky.

We had interviews for an English teacher last week. One applicant...

Loads of emails from SLT+ (is that what SLT plus other important people is called in other schools?) in last 24 hours makes you realise the enormous and complicated things they're having to organise at present, and all the different pressures. It's like the Krypton Factor in speed!

Science has so much content. I was frankly glad that DS2 didn't have to do his actual GCSEs as I couldn't see when he was going to get time to revise anything else.

In other news, I just cried in a lesson.

Because Martin Luther King is dead.

I mean I knew that already, obviously.

*on speed. Hope no one on here is too young to remember the Krypton Factor!

Oh and have now had an actual convo with my boss, my hours next week are back to only a couple over normal (actually because of a rejig of a rota by DepH) and it turns out she'd misunderstood something anyway.

We're good and I don't feel overlooked now.

@Piggywaspushed

In other news, I just cried in a lesson.

Because Martin Luther King is dead.

I mean I knew that already, obviously.

Oh Piggy ... are you okay? We sort of don't have sets. Except this year there is a bottom set in English and maths. Taught by non specialists, obviously.

Piggy cares deeply about diversity and uses emotional intelligence to engage her students (am assuming you explained the crying and they didn't think you were hormonal or something....)

Hugs Piggy.

Can I ask other secondary bods - what are your schools doing about the fact that Gibbs wanker said masks are not compulsory - so you can do absolutely nothing about kids who refuse to wear masks....?

I love the way jan keeps writing me references!

I am fine now. I covered by telling them I had had to pause for a few moments because someone had come in the room. Which was true so now DS also found me weeping over The Battle Hymn of the Republic. That's OK because he cried about Boxer.