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.

Good luck craxkle.

MATs have good and bad, the same with LAs. LA was very inefficient in lots of ways, yet so is the MAT in others.

Definitely more fat cats (literally) in the MAT than LA.

Morning all. Still not sure what today will entail - going for the ignorance is bliss line . I'm at home and teaching as normal. No idea whether anyone will drop in or whether I'll be asked to 'meet' with anyone. Might put a smart shirt on just in case!

We're still LEA. I worked fir a school that became an academy back in the very first days of 'outstanding academies'. They changed my working hours, my pay, and promoted family members. I left. I don't ever want to work for one again, certainly not a chain or trust. Will become increasingly hard to avoid though.

I don't mind ofsted inspections. The best inspection though, was an LEA one after we got a new inexperienced head and there was a lado issue (not about him, but it put 9ur head above the parapet). I had come back from mat leave to a new head and new English lead.. things had gone weird. It happened in the 3rd week of October, after 6 weeks of me failing to get any leadership or direction from the head, and during my 1-1 ( I was deputy), I just sat down and said "Help me". He was amazing.

I do feel like there's an agenda pushing all schools towards joining the bigger MATs- I do think there's a lot of money to cream off in those big MATs too.

Got our plan for next week yesterday. Testing 300 kids each day over the two weeks, which feels ambitious, especially during the staggered start.

All staff in on Monday to help organise this, apparently.

What would people see the issue is with trust schools?

I do feel like there's an agenda pushing all schools towards joining the bigger MATs- I do think there's a lot of money to cream off in those big MATs too

The MAT near me has a massive SLT structure. With chief execs, execs, head teachers, subject leads. They must spend a fortune on leadership wages.

Does all that actually make a difference? I bet many aren't actually teaching a great deal.

Testing 300 kids each day

We seem to be aiming for about 600!! All back in lessons by Thursday.

Cancelling Art and replacing with extra Maths and English for all. Interventions will take place during the other non core subjects.
No extra well being planned.
So disappointed in my school right now,

Good luck with Ofsted crackle.

I've only ever been observed in one inspection. A non-specialist (he had been an ICT teacher I think) came into the second half of the last lesson I ever had with a very low ability year 11 class. Their first maths paper was that afternoon and they were beautifully behaved (rare for them) but were panicking. I was downgraded because I stopped them learning to give them a pep talk. For the last 5 minutes, of the last lesson before their GCSE!!! I still maintain that was the right thing to do. Those kids needed my calming "you can do this" a lot more than they needed an extra 5 minutes of percentages.

We're still LA. There are quite a lot of individual academies around here, but only one very small MAT (2 secondaries only). I think a lot of the primaries are still LA, but I'm not entirely sure.

Has anyone seen any write up anywhere of the Ofqual consultation? We sort of know outcomes but I'd love to see the data.

We're trying to test c450 a day, 2 yr groups. But have built space into the timetable as we won't know, til we start, if the timings will work.

Ofqual consultation assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/965005/6747-1_decisions_-_GQ_consultation_on_awarding_grades_in_2021.pdf

@WarriorN

Does all that actually make a difference? I bet many aren't actually teaching a great deal.

They don’t seem to in my MAT. Our SLT is larger than core departments. They aren’t respected by staff or students.

This package of support from exam boards by Easter is too late. I'm outraged at the plans from ofqual today. We need to be able to plan now.

I’m checking in.

Best of luck with the Ofteddies today!

I had a really fab GTP mentor who was the head of a local school. They got taken over by a MAT and she was 'demoted' to 'Principal' (sp?). Within a month she was telling me outright never to work for a MAT, and that she was glad she was only a year from retirement. She never made that year, went off with stress.

To be fair, the CEO of that MAT is an absolute bastard. I know him personally, he used to offer me jobs quite often (offer - no interview), but no chance. At my GTP graduation, my mum said to him 'Oh, you're THAT ONE'. Which was great.

Today herc? Is there an update?

It does seem ridiculous. The exam boards literally have one job.
I know they are cross too that they got no heads up.

I am worried about the students. They could ahve entire days of assessments at the rate my school and no doubt others are going - for weeks on end.

Branwen Jeffries just replied to me on Twitter!

Thank noble. I have seen that : I was after something which clearly broke down what responses were. q by q. For example, I read something that said only 24% of students who responded wanted something (can't recall what) and I'd like to see that level of detail. We got it last year.

www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-how-gcse-as-and-a-level-grades-should-be-awarded-in-summer-2021
At the bottom here are files with the 'raw' data.

No update today, sorry bad grammar. I'm just getting very frustrated today!

I feel for the students too. So much ongoing assessment cannot be good for them. I'd rather a couple of 'mock' weeks tbh.

piggy Saw your tweet. My subject is the same. One official exam round and a Nov 2020 paper. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Is that a maths subject, herc?

I'm also furious at the government and Ofqual. Basically they couldn't come up with a solution so they have just dumped the whole steaming turd onto schools and exam boards and said 'you deal with it'. And of course that takes time, so students still don't know what's going on but now the frustration is aimed at us and not the govt.

Yup, same herc : GCSE and A Level ...

No standards at all to match against. I reckon they might just say use the 2020?

Yes noble. The one that used to have coursework and what the LDS would be far better use for than at A level.