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.

@CallmeAngelina

I got the loveliest, sweetest thank you message from a parent today, saying how grateful and appreciative they were for my/our hard work, support and commitment in making this lockdown so much more manageable and fun than it otherwise might have been. Almost feel like posting it in bold capitals on some of "those" threads full of posters who think we're all workshy leftie bastards and are glad we don't teach their kids.

Well deserved!

I’m I was just reading it Herc. I don’t think “catch up” is a helpful mindset but other than that it’s a sensible thread.

Well I for one have genuinely learned some invaluable life lessons during this lockdown.

I have learned that I can plan lessons when I am well and truely drunk and that I can still teach with a raging hangover

can I still have wine??

@smileeachday officially red but not white. Answer is obviously, yes!

Maybe we should have a thread of positive messages from parents.

Thank you, noble,** that's so incredibly simple! I get it now. I didn't even understand Spiegelhalter's explanation and I like him usually. You remember when that stupid woman journalist person whatever tried to make a big issue out of it?

So why is that a bigger issue with LFTs than with PCRs - or don't the latter produce false positives?

@Cracklefraggle

Well I for one have genuinely learned some invaluable life lessons during this lockdown.

I have learned that I can plan lessons when I am well and truely drunk and that I can still teach with a raging hangover

That’s my girl

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

Maybe we should have a thread of positive messages from parents.

I’ve had 4 video parents evenings this lockdown and every single parent has said the loveliest things. The majority really are fab! (And normal )

@JanFebAnyMonth

Thank you, noble,** that's so incredibly simple! I get it now. I didn't even understand Spiegelhalter's explanation and I like him usually. You remember when that stupid woman journalist person whatever tried to make a big issue out of it?

So why is that a bigger issue with LFTs than with PCRs - or don't the latter produce false positives?

For no other reason than we're now talking about LFTs I suspect.

The 90% false positive rate on PCRs was all the rage among covid deniers last summer.

Gaslighty twat head has announced today that there will be a learning walk on Tuesday (TUESDAY FFS!) to check on the quality of our learning environment and to ensure that all the EHCP children are aware of their targets. So our teachers have been madly printing, laminating and doing displays, sorting out resources for the shared baskets we were told we couldn't have, and filling cheapo pencil cases with stationery that the children are not to share but will as they are incapable of holding onto any pencil or whiteboard pen for more than 20 seconds

The other TA and I have been teaching Maths and English. What a role reversal!

Oh, and equally gaslighty but slightly less of a twat deputy head has been in the resources cupboard all day "tidying" and has sent out several snotty emails about people who Put Things In There.

smile Yes the catch up bit was the only thing I was a bit about. I've had many conversations this week about not using those words. I seem to be on a one woman mission though.

Oh corner.

Well, my GP today said she could see why I was anxious but that rules said I was not allowed a vaccine. I waited till she was doing a smear to hit her with data and fury. She said she would take it to practice. The bbc article about asthma patients being left out helped. I also demanded HRT. That was a no- apparently it takes more than one gp appointment. I said fine. Either book me another now or refer me to a clinic. Appointment booked for 2 weeks. I left still angry.

I waited outside for 35 mins to be dealt with by a fully PPE Vaccinated GP who wasn't even at the face end. To be told my vaccination would be discussed. It was made worse by this morning when I had a meeting with a remote social worker, a remote educational psychologist, and me and the child and family in a meeting room. I just get more and more furious! I don't think my rage is hormonal. It is justified.

I'm afraid I've been that parent at my children's school. What they've had has been woeful unfortunately, all over the place. It made me realise the value of decent, consistent online teaching (not full time by any means), which is what my own pupils have had. I'm glad they'll be getting back soon but I suspect it's unsustainable - at my school I will still be surrounded by hundreds of pupils as I walk between form and lessons, and again at afternoon registration where my only workspace is an open area which is a thoroughfare for 500 pupils across two year groups.

It was made worse by this morning when I had a meeting with a remote social worker - a remote, vaccinated social worker, I'll bet.

I waited outside for 35 mins to be dealt with by a fully PPE Vaccinated GP who wasn't even at the face end. To be told my vaccination would be discussed. It was made worse by this morning when I had a meeting with a remote social worker, a remote educational psychologist, and me and the child and family in a meeting room. I just get more and more furious! I don't think my rage is hormonal. It is justified.

It’s all such hypocritical nonsense isn’t it? From what I could see in my school hall today (more bodies inside the hall than I ever saw when I went to my local testing centre), plenty of school staff involved in health care, certainly more than the ‘behind a digital screen’ practitioners and yet all unvaccinated.

Anyone else got that end of term feeling today? My exhaustion levels seem to be that of and of term and I said goodbye to my bubble, yet Monday my whole class will be back. No TA support for me on a Monday and who knows what state they will be in. I have a number of very wobbly ones. What I need is government support now so we could employ additional pastoral support staff. Children are not going to 'catch up' (or learn at all) unless they are settled and happy.

Feeling like one of the lucky ones re SLT but still feeling very angry that we have cv staff and vulnerable (but not quite on the cv list) staff who will be in and unvaccinated. Also have a number of staff with household members who are at increased risk. Very angry.

and to ensure that all the EHCP children are aware of their targets
This bollocks should never have left 2010 yet alone still be inappropriately used in 2021

I was asleep in the chair at 4pm. So tired I could cry.

and to ensure that all the EHCP children are aware of their targets

I somehow missed this. File this alongside the "marking PP kids books first" policy and the "VAK lesson plans". Wow.

What I need is government support now so we could employ additional pastoral support staff.

Exactly what I asked my MP weeks ago (and still had no reply @noblegiraffe!) and what Vicky Ford dodged today on her thread.
They never actually want to do what to do to help them but more interested in sound it’s headlines that placate most parents.
Really pissed off!

In was in today in the hub. We still have a week of remote teaching and jumping through random hoops for management to justify not all being physically back in the building yet . I spent my break time moving my tables and squashing the kids closer together at the back to enable a 2m box around my board to be taped off. Basically, if i have to leave that zone to get closer to the kids i have to put a mask on. The HT was a proper denier at the beginning but now wears a mask when going around the school.

So when we do the 2nd and 3rd LTFs we take our whole class to the hall, wait until the first pupils have started swabbing, and then head back to our room with any non-testers to wait for the others to trickle back in.

I envisioning me and 10 non-testers traipsing through the 'socially distanced' testing hall to get to the exit, because otherwise we'd be trapped by the one way system.

There are other things afoot at my school, it seems the union meeting about redundancies has unearthed (well, I say unearthed, it was one of those 'published on the website but no-one reads' things), some things we weren't really aware of, that point to some rather 'interesting' things behind the scenes.

@SaltyAF, it's a tricky one, isn't it?
On all these school threads, we defend the profession as a whole. But I've been inwardly and outwardly raging this week about a couple of colleagues who are fucking hopeless and generating loads of complaints and I'm just thinking, "I'm not surprised!!!!"

Apparently the daily count of tests reported today is 1 million.