The Fifty-second Republic - Beware of Education’s ides of March

[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 non-staff as it attracts the wrong sort of crowd.

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 do wear a mask.

I'm not even that surprised - our rates locally are still high, so it was almost inevitable that bubbles would burst before too long. I did hope to clear the first week though!

@Piggywaspushed - That is outrageous! Where do you even begin with an attitude like that?

WTF. Even for her that's bad Piggy.

She is a verified bona fide eejit.

Belated Happy International Women’s Day 🤦‍♀️

Evening all. We have had 20 kids sent home today. They have been back two days.

How annoying Harriet, the poor kids have only just gone back to school. Bless them (and you)

Blimey piggy, that's quite some statement for her to make!! I mean, I have a husband who brings in a salary, but it's easy lower than mine. Same goes for the 2 nurse friends of mine, their husbands are quite poorly paid (but lovely blokes!!!). What about all the nurses without a partner? They could do with some money to live on.

Bubbles popping all over the place.

That attitude is SHOCKING. In all kids of ways. And anyone who thinks they can get away with saying that publically in 2021 needs their head examined!

Bubble went here today.

I've wangled an opportunity to teach tomorrow .

My bereaved boss won't be in for a little while, she has one Y7 lesson tomorrow. Yesterday I emailed her boss (not known for his dynamism or for rushing to answer any emails), asking if he/'they' wanted me to cover it as I could cobble something together (gave some suggestions) but mainly just take a book trolley down so they can take out books for the first time since December. And remind them about Accelerated Reader.

No answer came.

Fortunately today I saw the cover supervisor, who mentioned she was down to do it tomorrow and she was wondering if there'd be work set. Aha! said I, let me ask that undynamic member of SLT again....

Of course he said yes!

Now have just got to remember how to work the lift and get book trollies in and out....

Stolen from Data thread - the Covid dashboard has evidently started showing PCR results separated out from LFT results:

Can already see the bump from "unconfirmed LFTs" - the School Effect, essentially...For example, for this Monday so far (so PCR won't be complete) - 3609 PCR, and 1,195 unconfirmed LFTs. (and 57 confirmed). So of the 4,861 specimen dates from Monday, around 25% are non-confirmed LFTs.

That MP!

Harriet hope you remain well

Riga wow - that is a lot!

No bubbles popped at my school yet (Primary, so no LFTs) - but did send a child home today with possible symptoms, so we shall see.

No LFTs for children I should say

Thanks all. I have a cracking headache but I think it's probably due to the stress of today. It took forever for parents to come and collect their children. I tested negative on the routine LFT last night so fingers crossed I'll be ok.

Things feel like they are slacking off with masks etc at my school. We're all 'wearing' them when we're supposed to, but as soon as there is any conversation to be had, we all 'eat' so we don't have to wear one. I had a meeting all morning today in a mask, and it's just hard going.

Anyway, after yesterday's reading yay-ness, today's maths 'ohfuck-ness'. Only one child scored over 50%. Erk. I taught all this live too.

My son is doing a full set of Y6 assessments this week. He is so frustrated. He just wants to do normal lessons in school with his friends and his teacher. It is so pointless wasting time assessing, especially in primaries, when a bubble might pop at any moment. While we can teach them face to face we should! We all know that the pigs are many different weights this year; we need to stop weighing them and just keep feeding them! AFL needs to be stronger than ever and just adapt to need as we teach. Grr!

I lost the assessment argument.

As a bonus for being a shouty boot about it last week though, I get to head up an assessment working group after Easter to look at ways of moving away from formal assessment outside of 'end of key stage'. Which is ace.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot I remember you posting that you'd tried. I am so happy that my head made the no assessments call. There are many children barely coping in school this week so relieved that we're not testing.

I hope you actually get to make some changes.

We’re going to give our exams years full mocks after Easter. Then apparently let them go... I get their reasons any but just feel really uncomfortable about it as feel they need us and school having missed so much time.

Dd had a maths test yesterday. She says it went terribly. I think her teacher is in the no testing camp but was overruled.

@MrsHerculePoirot

We’re going to give our exams years full mocks after Easter. Then apparently let them go... I get their reasons any but just feel really uncomfortable about it as feel they need us and school having missed so much time.

You mean they're going to finish school even earlier than they would in a normal year?

I thought the idea was to keep them longer and teach some kind of extra skills (was that something Gav said, I know I read it somewhere?).

I've signed up for another one of the virtual maths conferences that I did back in September. It's this Saturday. When I signed up for it I didn't know I was going back to face to face teaching this week. I'm exhausted, and not really up for being the swotty swot I apparently thought I should be. I'll probably do some of it, but pick and choose which to attend live and which to watch later or not at all

I am beyond appalled at what we're doing with y11 and 13. It goes against everything I value and is an insult to my professionalism and the work of the students. I feel sick.

@MrsHerculePoirot

We’re going to give our exams years full mocks after Easter. Then apparently let them go... I get their reasons any but just feel really uncomfortable about it as feel they need us and school having missed so much time.

I think that's a terrible idea. But I might change my mind after a few weeks of dealing with bad behaviour from year 11.

Our year 13 are doing mocks (postponed from January) in 2 weeks time. But then coming back after that and we'll do some sort of assessments at around the normal A Level exam time. We're thinking of using the stuff provided by the exam board when we get it.

Year 11 are currently being told "we'll be doing some form of assessments between Easter and May half term, but probably not full exams in the gym. We'll let you know full details as soon as the school have fully decided". I think we're planning on doing tests in lessons, one lesson a week, on the day when all of year 11 have maths in an afternoon (some in p4, others in p5). But we haven't put tests together or decided on anything really.