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

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.

New DfE guidance out apparently, masks staying after Easter and emphasised as
important.

ONS shows infection rate rising quite sharply in secondary age.

That people are proud to be selfish like that and pretending it is about autonomy DreamingofBrie is sad but not unexpected.

Finally got my feet up on the sofa! Nice to know I only have three more days next week but jealous DH’s last day was today! He had an early finish and went to Sainsbury’s. He bought two 1l bottles of Pimms for £12 each and remembered the mint. That’s us sorted for Easter!

It’s reminding me of this time last year when we were all shell shocked and struggling to adapt really quickly and getting a kicking from posters on Mumsnet. Seems like yesterday!

www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/schools-coronavirus-covid-19-operational-guidance

New DfE guidance out apparently, masks staying after Easter and emphasised as
important.

If so many of us are still going to be unvaccinated, it is the least they can do!

Two classes sorry, bubbles in my DD’s primary have closed today due to positive cases. I’m ashamed to say I thanked my lucky stars it was not her class. Too close for comfort though.

It’s reminding me of this time last year when we were all shell shocked and struggling to adapt really quickly and getting a kicking from posters on Mumsnet. Seems like yesterday!

It doesn't seem like a year, does it?

I know I've said it before, but so glad for these threads when I was really low a year ago .

Friend started chemo today. She'll have to shield but her consultant commented that as a teacher, at least she's had the vaccine.
Er... nope.

My day was better. I put the kids who can work independently and quietly, in another room on their own to get on with it (adjoining mine, before any lurkers have an opinion). Then me and the 1-1 TA dealt with the zoo. Lots of children got behaviour letters this morning after yesterday, so some were subdued about the amount of trouble they'll be in later, which helped. Head came and found me for a chat this morning too, so she took some of the trickier ones at lunch time to reduce potential for kicking off.

We're in until Wednesday, and work load is still nuts. I had a whinge about that this morning too. Has been crazy for the whole 3 weeks, when we should have focused on the children and teaching them nice stuff.

These threads have really kept me going for the past year. I feel so lucky to have such a lovely bunch of people around to chat to, during the good times as well as the bad. You're all lovely!!!!

When was the first thread?

@MrsHamlet

Friend started chemo today. She'll have to shield but her consultant commented that as a teacher, at least she's had the vaccine. Er... nope.

All the best to your friend, hope her treatment goes well.

There are so many people who think teachers have been included in the vaccination programme already! Including the person who arranged for our school to have some of the excess doses at a local hub. They contacted SLT and said “is there anyone who has missed their vaccination who would like to sign up?”. SLT were like....errrrr, yes, just about all of us!

@MrsHamlet

Friend started chemo today. She'll have to shield but her consultant commented that as a teacher, at least she's had the vaccine. Er... nope.

Hope your friend's treatment goes, MrsH.

How ill-informed of that consultant, though. The government has practically been bragging about how they are NOT going to vaccinate teachers. It was headline news for days.

I was thinking how chuffed I was today with our students. They've been, on the whole, brilliant about face masks (not always about the one way system, mind).

Ughhhhh

It's been such a week, behaviour wise.

I ran straight to the drinks cabinet when I got home 😂 4 more school days until Easter holidays for us.

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.

Best wishes to your friend, MrsH. I hope the chemo is successful.

And for Beachhuts.

I had an observation last week, where the observer described my lesson as "a good, old-fashioned A-level lesson", which made my day. Still remember being absolutely slated at a job interview when an NQT for "showing no creativity whatsoever" (every single child in that room came out of my lesson knowing how to convert between binary and decimal though), so I was glad to hear that old fashioned lessons are still OK.

I'm worn out! And we've only been back in person for 2 weeks in KS2 here in Wales. God knows how the foundation phase and England have coped with a longer re-entry into the madhouse that is teaching during a pandemic.

Hats off to us all.

Old fashioned lessons are back in fashion I think dreaming. They are at my school anyway (especially in the maths department). We like our lessons to look like: practice what we did last lesson/week/month, I teach you something new, I check you've understood, you do some to practise. That works with most ages and abilities for maths. Occasionally we branch out into some exciting problem solving, but everyday lessons are in the above format, which is almost the same way my dad used to teach back in the 70s. I was NOT taught that way. I was in the era of SMP booklets that you worked through by yourself with the teacher only looking at stuff when you finished a booklet. I loved it, but I don't think it worked for average/lower ability kids (I might be wrong, I don't really know how it worked for them, they weren't in my class).

Latest positive in my school, actually tested positive last weekend but only informed school yesterday afternoon. Close contacts not self isolating because "there's no point, they've been in school for most of the isolation period anyway". So they're now being tested daily until the end of the 10 days, agreed by all parents involved. Except, none of the parents of kids not deemed close contacts have agreed to their kids being in the classroom with pupils who should be self isolating, have they?

So have your loca PHE agreed this process??

It's weird time. I kind of wish we could do the independent reading, maths and writing tasks I grew up with combined with what we do now. Because that carousel and short task learning would be great now. Somethings from the 70's and 80's would be great- I have no doubt my KS1 and R colleagues would appreciate the biscuit, milk, blanket and nap on a rug I got in R and year 1 back in the day in the afternoon.

I don't think Fletcher Maths and the very weird ITA I learnt would be good now!

I used to introduce ITA to my students when I taught them how children learn to read and spell 😂

I still have some of my childhood ITA Ladybird books. Very, very crazy! It seems mad now. Learn this system- then this one! But I can still read in it! And phonetically it is brilliant!

Sorry to talk shop on a Friday night but fellow Secondary colleagues-have you seen the new JCQ grade descriptors for GCSE and A Level grades this year?
For Computer Science, I have never seen a more useless set of sentences.

Is this what they have taken months to work on?!

Fuck me.

They're utter bollocks aren't they, those grade descriptors??!!

So, so tired. Running on fumes.

I'm going to try and defend the indefensible here. The grade descriptors weren't planned months ago, JCQ had about as much notice as we did. They've had to be written retrospectively for a purpose they were never designed for. They are shit but I'm not sure what people expected from them to be honest. They can't be overly prescriptive, they can't be too generic, they have to be subjective due to the nature of subjects. No exam board is going to link "small steps" from each subject to a particular exam grade.

They're probably as frustrated as we are.

We can't get on exam board secure sites because of cyber attack. Walkers.

Do you know when you are so tired that you are just really angry ? That's me tonight.

(every single child in that room came out of my lesson knowing how to convert between binary and decimal though),

A woman after my own heart!!!!!!!!

So sorry about your friend MrsH. That even consultants have no idea