The Fifty-fourth Republic - Easter holidays anyone?

[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

JCQ had about as much notice as we did.

I get what you mean Herc absolutely but the sentences for Computer Science at least m, could have been rolled out in an afternoon and we could at least have had them released shortly after when the announcement was made which was a few months ago.
I mean, they even include actual non words that aren’t really part of our exam syllabus. It’s jaw dropping stuff. Apparently ‘societal’ constructs are apparently more important than how a computer works.

Oh the maths ones are shite, as are the stats ones. Grade 9 is just "better than 8" for everything.

I think they shouldn't have bothered. Unnecessary, not useful and yet again the timing of the release has pissed people off.

Hope none of your appliances step out of line tonight then, y'angry Scots woman!

^^ addressed to piggy, obvs

I loved it, but I don't think it worked for average/lower ability kids

I started teaching in the early 90s (late entrant to the profession) and we had SMP materials lying around which were used occasionally, but not for the students you mention. It hadn’t worked for them.
Many departmental meetings were spent struggling with the requirements of the new National Curriculum with its (I think) 13 attainment targets...if you tried to lay it all out in grid format it covered four tables...all handwritten in those days. The department had one computer, which was kept in a cupboard. But we did get sets of new National Curriculum text books! However they quickly became redundant when it was realised the NC was impossible to manage and horribly over prescriptive. You spent all your time ticking boxes. It reduced experienced, expert teachers to tears.

www.school-maths.info/downloads/Maths_National_Curriculum_1989.pdf

Skimming that again, it’s clear they mostly just gave up at levels 9 & 10!

Apparently ‘societal’ constructs are apparently more important than how a computer works.

Follow the zeitgeist and have all your students self-identify as high achieving.

Many apologies, having now read the relevant part of the new Guidance, it doesn't say anything about after Easter, just that masks are to be worn until Easter and will continue to be reviewed.

I shouldn't have trusted a poster on Parent United!

@borntobequiet

Apparently ‘societal’ constructs are apparently more important than how a computer works.

Follow the zeitgeist and have all your students self-identify as high achieving.

I raised a glass to this born absolutely!

@DreamingofBrie Thanks for asking - today was better - children were mostly well behaved today, and I managed to avoid all contact with SLT which helped. Unfortunately I have brought home a vast amount of work for the weekend though. Some things don't change.

I'm going to try to get it all done tomorrow so I at least have one clear day. I've worked too many hours this week. I also have a scratchy throat that I'm trying to ignore. If I still have it in the morning I suppose I should get tested.

Four more school days to go... Happy holidays to everyone who has finished for Easter.

@DreamingofBrie

It's an overseas school who want someone to do 6 hrs a week at £30-50 ph delivery 2 x 2 hr history lessons for their very able primary age kids. One is at the weekend and one midweek. Presume it's a boarding school?

That sounds interesting, Honey. Let us know how it goes! I would love to teach in the Far East, but can't see it happening now, at least until the dc are independent. We're too settled!

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot, @HarrietDVane and @eitak22, how has today been? Hope you're feeling better.

Thanks for asking rule. Today was interesting, children are tired so behaviour isn't great but not the worst its been. Plus felt like the class teacher and I were able to teach and have the children learn something so definitely feeling more positive. Hope today was OK for you.

Got 2 applications to do so trying to stay positive.

I meant brie. Clearly very tired.

It was there, Jan, I saw it! It has been changed back. Which is really weird.

@JanFebAnyMonth

So have your loca PHE agreed this process??

No idea. No mention of consulting anyone other than the parents of the close contacts. It was the advice we were supposed to follow if we'd gone back in January, but that's definitely been changed. I'm not sure anyone at my school is reading and understanding all the changes in guidance.

The jcq grade descriptors were always going to be rubbish and meaningless, but I had kind of expected a little more than we've been given. I feel ok about giving grades to my year 11s, but that's mainly because I don't have anyone who is borderline grade 4, they're all either solid 5s or aiming for a 1/2. Year 13 on the other hand, I hate the thought of having to give them grades without the exam board being there to take the "blame" for the difficulty of the exam or the accuracy of the marking. There are some kids who are going to miss their uni offers because I won't have any evidence that they are working at that high a grade, and they won't have anyone to blame but the school (we are making it very clear at all times that it is the school as a whole rather than individual teachers who are making the decisions). It's not as if they'll blame themselves for not doing enough work, is it? Of course it's reasonable to expect an A even though you did nothing during lockdown

@noblegiraffe

It was there, Jan, I saw it! It has been changed back. Which is really weird.

I definitely saw it too. Sounds like it's back 'under review'...

Incidentally if you are looking for the birth of the Republic, it all started here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_staffroom/a3883670-Lets-boycott-all-school-threads-outside-of-Education

with the first proper Republic thread here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_staffroom/a3893542-The-Teachers-s-Republic-Refuge-solidarity-comrades on 28th April, so that will be a date for the diaries.

Major, major thanks to @StaffRepFeistyClub for kicking it all off. So many of us have relied upon and got support from these threads in frankly awful times

Question: at what age does minor discomfort or low level pain not seem like the end of the world? I have many many kids who are seemingly unable to deal with a few minutes of their palm smarting after a minor playground fall or similar.

My immediate (snarky ) answer to that would be "after you've had a baby", although I'm sure in reality it's somewhere before that! But it was having a baby that eventually gave me the guts to start donating blood, after all, I'd been jabbed that many times in pregnancy, one more needle wouldn't make any difference!

Where are these grade descriptors of which you speak?

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Summer-2021-Grade-Descriptors-GCSE.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwirosDt-c_vAhVnQUEAHbbyBXUQFjAAegQIAxAC&usg=AOvVaw0YIL22LcFzmhSXTfzgHM5l" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Summer-2021-Grade-Descriptors-GCSE.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwirosDt-c_vAhVnQUEAHbbyBXUQFjAAegQIAxAC&usg=AOvVaw0YIL22LcFzmhSXTfzgHM5l

Thanks. Those are interesting for my subject because they specify actual content, rather than skills, so in theory if they haven't done a (teeny tiny) bit of the spec , they can't get grades!

piggy Similar for Stats. There are bits I haven't taught that come in the grade 8 descriptor. But ofqual clearly says they don't have to have been taught the whole curriculum. I think they are a guide rather than a tick list.

I booked on the over 40s cancellation list for my area this week and had the call yesterday, got my first jab today (no ULC). Do other authorities have these?

Morning all. I have a poorly dog this morning, my usual bundle of energy has woken lethargic and trembling.

@SaltyAF

I booked on the over 40s cancellation list for my area this week and had the call yesterday, got my first jab today (no ULC). Do other authorities have these?

Ours has specifically said they don’t, and no turning up on the off chance with someone being vaccinated at the end of the day. I’m getting very bitter about it now when I hear of 30 year olds wfh getting invited.

The history ones leave out a load of skills and over-rely on judgement and source consideration and the grades don't feel at all clearly differentiated.

The exam board markscheme is very clear on things like 'there is evidence of a line of reasoning but some passages may lack coherence' which really help you to pin point where an essay is at because they're nearly at a grade eg 7 but yeah they do go off track and don't quite hit that so it's eg. a 6 but even though it's not totally coherent all the way through I can see an attempt at a line of reasoning that is mostly sustained so it's not a 5.

I'm not being clear obviously but I'm glad I'm not grading year 11s.