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

Sounds nicely anti- social!

I have seen my first what will teachers be doing? in response to study leave and CAGs (on an HE thread). I nearly invaded the thread to be indignant! The idea that students leave on-say- May 21st or before and somehow some posters think we will be sitting with our feet up shows just how little people understand about how much workload has been passed over to us. It was such a crass comment! I don't understand what that poster thinks about normal study leave since many schools normally get rid of year 13s before that and don't have to mark and moderate their exams..

This was followed up by moaning about paying for exam entries (which seems to happen in some private schools) so parents also obviously don't understand that exam boards are still charging. The response to that was' well, I presume they'll be using the exam board's special exams' because making up their own wouldn't apparently necessitate a exam board fee. LMFAO.

A teacher on the thread did respond but very vaguely/ politely and defended unis (another favourite whine ) and exam boards, more than us. She also (incorrectly) said exam boards would be handling loads of appeals.

I also read of a schol doing its last assessments on 10 June - ermmm, how the hell are they going to get CAGs done by 15th?

I am prepping myself for MN expectation again that we should be providing a whole load of summer term/summer stuff to year 11s and 13s.

The wonderful David Olusoga on the race report:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/02/sewell-race-report-historical-young-people-britain

Says a fair amount about education.

twitter.com/tomhunt1988/status/1377931192180338692

Prepare to be re-educated. FFS. He was a day late for an April Fool. Are they deliberately trying to make themselves look like 1930s Germany? While they've got everyone looking at the necessary covid restrictions as some sort of dictatorial issue people are missing huge great and quite worrying warning signs. (and yes, I'm trying not to say red flags).

God, these post Brexit MPs are an awful breed. Tbh, the cabinet represents the more palatable end.

Morning! I’ve been reading that one too Rafa!

Interesting study for Sweden here and its ‘open’ schools and the doubling rate of teachers and their partners of catching Covid.

Someone underneath the chat, mentions is this why there has been a secret drive to vaccinate teachers these past couple of weeks. Must be so secret I have heard nothing about it

Thanks for posting the David Olusoga article.

Hello all, hope everyone has slowly recharging batteries, we've been off a week so im determined to mow the lawn and be productive today, although saying that I'm still lounging in bed

I've cleaned one bathroom. It might be time for another rest

I'm still in bed. Had quite a busy day yesterday with a long walk, might get up and take a long walk this afternoon. No housework done yet. But I did have a big heart to heart with dd1 where we've agreed that she's dropping out of uni rather than waiting to fail. She'll take a year to focus on her mental health, doing any job she can get. She says her ideal would be shelf stacking right now, as she thinks anything more intellectually demanding would still stress her out. Then next year she'll apply for an apprenticeship, as the applications have closed for this year.

Oh MissAD that's very brave and honest of her.

Your dd sounds as if she is making positive steps, MsAD - she sounds very aware of what would and wouldn't help her at the moment. I hope that you're all ok.

Yesterday I think I was still on teacher "productive" mode. Deep leaned and sorted living room, did loads of washing etc etc.

Today? Human jellyfish. Cannot raise the enthusiasm to do anything

@MsAwesomeDragon she sounds like she's hugely self aware and that's such a mature and brave decision to take. Hope it works out well for her x

I thought so piggy. She's tried uni for 3 years, and has pretty much had 2 mental breakdowns, so it's really, really not been a good experience for her at all. I went home at 21 as well, and it turned out well for me, so we're hoping it's going to be a fresh start for her as well (I was pregnant when I went home, so at least we don't have that complication with dd!!!)

Shocking stats within this article re numbers of both NHS and education staff with long Covid: 122,000 and 114,000 respectively.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/apr/03/nhs-feels-strain-tens-thousands-staff-long-covid

Funnily enough, when The Times reported that yesterday, they omitted education staff, I noticed...

That's good news MrsAD. Hope she feels relieved and safer having made that decision and knowing you're ok with it.

Can totally relate to human jellyfish. I keep do bits and bobs and then gravitate back to bed.

Yesterday I managed to mark a set of assessments by using timers - basically mark solidly for 20minutes then take 10minute break.

Just spent nearly an hour laying listening to meditation sounds and drifting. Hopefully batteries are being recharged for us all.

The Guardian also seems to mention education staff as an offhand remark when the numbers aren't that lower than the NHS who are a much bigger employer. What proportions are we talking about?

Funny how teachers were the headline profession when it was 'they're at lower risk of death'.

Yes, I noted that noble, as if they expected us to be more. It's an odd sentence after all the media denial.

Noble, you seem to have caused wrath for nothing on the Telegraph thread. Good work!

There's a higher proportion of teachers with long covid than health workers. Does anyone know whether they are using teachers as shorthand for all education staff, or if it's literally just teachers?

If it's just teachers and not everyone else in education then that's 25% of the teaching population (that can't be right!!!!). If it's all education staff that's 12% (sounds more reasonable). The NHS staff proportion is 9%. Of course, the data I found about education staff is the number of FTE staff, rather than just the number of staff, so there will be quite a lot more actual teachers since so many of us work part time. I couldn't find the numbers I wanted in a quick Google.

It's education staff : it was in The Byline Times article I published yesterday too.

On the long covid thing - is it basically that back last spring, when things were kicking off and nothing was being done about it, people in NHS and education jobs were surrounded by it all, huge viral loads, so got ill-er? Or is that nothing to do with it?

The Telegraph article is bonkers. They don’t like the UK government messaging or measures but ran this yesterday www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/thousands-dead-country-turmoil-brazils-countdown-covid-catastrophe/ re Brazil - more relaxed measures/no measures/messaging all over the place and 66,000 dead in March.

Thanks piggy. I thought it must have been, because the numbers were HUGE if it was just teachers. I think I missed the byline times article yesterday.

It could be rule I don't really know, but it sounds reasonable to me. I know that several of my colleagues were ill for weeks during the first lockdown and wouldn't have coped with full time work physically in school. BUT none of them were tested for covid because they weren't ill enough to need hospital treatment, and none of them were even off sick because they could just about cope with setting work online for a smaller number of classes (because obviously years 11 and 13 weren't being set any work as their exams were cancelled). They were better enough for full time in person school by September, but that's months after they fell ill.