The Fifty-third Republic - Ides of March Part 2

[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

Overheard by my colleague on his way into work:
Student 1 (maskless, up close to student 2) Oh man, I've just tested positive, got to go home now
Student 2: Mate. That's shit. See you this evening...

Thanks Jan. Fingers crossed. I just need to contribute in a big picture way to the whole school and I need to use my skills at project management and coordination (gained in other roles) to feel really satisfied by my work itms.

I love teaching and I know we all contribute to the whole school by upholding policies etc but I need some bigger scale project and responsibility to get my teeth into and feel like I'm making a difference. I'm not ambitious and it's not really about the money (it's a pittance and no allocated time) I just would love the challenge. It involves revamping and setting up something school wide that, done well, could make a real difference to the ethos and culture of the school.

Trying not to get too invested but I can 'see' exactly how I'd do it and how it would develop over time and how it would raise the reputation of the school in the local community and help us move towards being oversubscribed.

Fair bit of imposter syndrome going on though.

Well done honey. Brilliant news!

I’m not primary but god I loathe AR. It sucks the joy out of reading entirely.

My literacy predecessor introduced AR. He is why I have no budget.
It's shit. We dropped it.

A huge welcome 9pmcouchnaps!
Hope the NQT year is going as well as it can during a pandemic!

Well done Honey.

AR book level is such a rubbish way of levelling books. And I can’t think of anything worse for killing off a love of reading than a) having to take a test on them and b) being restricted to books within a book level.

Sorry, you can’t read that interesting book you’ve found. It’s a 3.6 and you are supposed to be reading 4.2-4.8. The fact that you’re in year 2 and it might be an entirely appropriate book doesn’t matter.

Pretty sure we were just given the run of the library with displays/folders with recommendations for different year groups/subjects. AR just seems to be a system for recommending books when you don’t have staff with the knowledge to point children in the right direction.

Yup re AR. Think it might possibly work if you've got
A) a knowledgeable person assigned to guide each child's choice (according to the system and their interests), as the system recommends but I guess no school can afford that;
B) all the books in the world, all ARd - if you get to Level 11 or so there's about 25 books, half of which were written over 100 years ago....

All sixth form remote learning now for the rest of the week!

Other students knocked out by two buses (not literally!) having positive cases on them.

I repeat : MAD TIMES.

But let us remember : it's all over . There are no outbreaks.

Just praying now that my own DS gets through the week at his school.

Oh no piggy. Not what they need at this point.

Touch wood we've still just got 35 year 9s out as close contacts of a positive lft. Was worried that by now parents would have lied and gotten pcr tests done for their kids knowing there'd been a case but no sign of that thankfully.

Not thankfully they haven't done pcr tests - I mean thankfully no more positives have been found. Though parents may be more reluctant to test now given kids are only just back in and Easter holidays are looming.

A recent unintended compliment I've noticed a pattern of is kids being really surprised that the lesson is nearly over. I'm saying ahh see that's how engaging and wonderful my lessons are, time flies! I'm of course joking when I say it but after repeating it twice today I realised hmm maybe there is something in that My lessons aren't that engaging but I guess other lessons could be even less so

I just don't want to be isolating over the easter holidays. There will be a massive tantrum if I have to. You'll all be able to hear it.

Hell hath no fury like a teacher deprived of their holiday?

Especially not this holiday.

Unsurprising piggy given the rate you were getting e-mails.

indeed rafa!

Oh my goodness I have only JUST twigged that @RafaIsTheKingOfClay is not Rafals The King of Clay.

Despite asking about the significance of your username on the other thread we 'share', and you explaining to whom it referred.

Despite people shortening you to Rafa.

😱

(Can you tell I'm not remotely sporty?)

Rafa is the king of clay!

To be fair , I think I may be rare in spotting it!

There is someone on a book thread whose name took me aaaages!

Jan me too!!! 🤣

They reward the number of AR tests done at DS’s school - which is ridiculous for high level readers who can’t access many as their level books are longer and more complex and can’t be read at speed like some of the lower level books, so he never gets any recognition for his reading so feels it’s pointless to bother.

Congratulations Honey

I'm a Primary TA, but am very good at helping children with their reading and comprehension skills. Can I join the new school?

Jan I once worked for a Primary that introduced AR. General consensus was that it cost a tonne of money, it took days and days to label all the books in the library, and for very little return.

In other news - I have been jabbed (due to age, nothing to do with working in a school). Pleased I've had it, but feel annoyed that younger family members with very tenuous justification got it before me.

It took me a while to spot it was Rafa too.

Hmmmmmm - just filled in a survey from my union which they have sent out because the government are thinking of getting rid of some of the school safety measures

Which measures

Jan. It’s only fair given the amount of time I spent talking to different people on these two threads before realising they were all you. Especially given the month at the start was a bit of a clue.

There are school safety measures?

PIggy - this is a quote from the email:

As the government looks to the next stage of the pandemic and potentially lifting some safety measures in the summer term, UNISON wants to make sure that the government does not roll back on restrictions in schools too quickly. To do this we need to know what has been happening in your school since full re-opening so we can use it as evidence to counter attempts to water down safety measures.

The survey was very focussed on face masks (almost as if a group have been campaigning against them).