The Forty Fifth Republic - Can I get a hair appointment before the summer term starts?

[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

Oh and as DH has Irish parents, so although he has a Wolves accent, he slips into a lilt at times and his speech is littered with Irish dialect.

The most confusing accent is my friends partner who is northern Irish but was with the navy all over the place and has lived in England for a long time. I’m usually good with accents but somehow he totally sounds Australian.

@echt

I'm from the south-east of Lancashire and my late DH was a Geordie. This has sent me to my bookshelves and the amazing number of books on dialect, songs and old photos from both the north-east and my area.

Nithered is cold.

Where’s that from echt? Similar enough

Mithered is bothered, nagged. Nithered I've never heard of

Hampshire here although don't quite go into the thick hampshire accent my dad had. Dh is spanish but his mum taught him English (she's English) so he speaks 'posh' according to my Lancashire friends.

@JanFebAnyMonth

mistress doesn’t have a Scots accent 🤯

Fear not Jan, I've picked it up after many years here, I think I only revert now after a visit home

m.youtube.com/watch?v=vrIqSlt9PXg

For anyone visiting the Black Country so you can understand us.

Thanks mother! I was worrying about who had paid for, and ironed, all those t shirts- right until the last screen

All those returning tomorrow, don’t forget to test today.....

Oh good reminder. More tonsil poking and retching to be done.

Ha ha! I love that vid. Used to teach a dialect unit years ago and would always play it. For some reason Yr 7’s would always be tickled by ‘stripy ‘oss’! Tbh, I don’t think I’ve ever said any of those words but they remind me of my dad 😊

That’s brilliant @TheHoneyBadger

We will all have one voice in common though of course which is our teacher voice

So true @Mistressinthetulips. I remember once my friend and I took our DC’s out for a walk and they spent a good twenty minutes hill rolling. We wanted to move on so she called for them to get up and get moving. They carried on. I said the same thing in my teacher voice and they moved 😆

That's brilliant, Honey! Very clever

Ah, the teacher voice - it's a universal language. Actually, I wonder if it is? Do all teachers have that special tone regardless of the language they're using?

Morning all. I've been enjoying your regional chat. Southerner here so probably sound posh.

Sending big love to anyone returning tomorrow. I've got that Sunday evening feeling already.

For MrsH's garden.

They're perfect, noble
I managed to dig up a bloody peony earlier in the year. It had done brilliantly the year before - now it's dead.

I will never forget the moment that I used my teacher voice on some random teenagers that were messing about with the doors on the bus, holding everyone up and preventing it from leaving.

The look of shock on their faces as they moved to the pavement before realising they could shout back but by this time, the bus was already on its way.

Sweet sweet memories.

They're the kind of labels I'd need! I don't have a garden at this house thankfully just a lot of hedges to trim and a collapsed raised bed that was left here by the last tenant that she'd planted a Christmas tree in (a plastic lined shallow bed - hello!? Even I'm not that daft).

Managed to get rid of the dead tree and really need the collapsed bed removing completely. Landlords were allegedly going to do that but didn't. Then my friend had fencing done and sent her 'boys' round to look at taking it out along with replacing a grass and nettles patch around the tree at the end of the drive with a border and wood chip so I could just put potted lavender or the like there. She paid them and wouldn't let me reimburse her but they've never come.

Since the landlords have put my rent up I'm less inclined to try and sort out the mess I inherited or put myself through hedge trimming and dealing with the ton of trimmings or pay for others to do it. I dream of a big enough lottery win to buy a nice house with a little courtyard garden and having potted japanese maples and the like. Nothing hard work. I had a huge garden once and was going to grow all my own veg but gardening is seriously hard work!

Sorry I'm moany today it seems. Maybe the looming awareness that I'm back to work tomorrow.

I was at a national trust place with DH and the kids were doing something. I called to them but they couldn't hear me. I commented that I didn't want to use my teacher voice as there were other people around but when they'd gone I teacher-voiced it. Kids immediately heard and complied.

DH just looked at me and said 'Do you get taught how to do that??'

When ds was little and we'd have other little ones with Mums over I had to be really careful not to undermine or offend. It's very difficult when someone is having a very long winded, pointless, totally not being taken in by the child conversation about why that shouldn't be doing something and you know a simple sentence said in a clear directive tone is all that's needed.

We walked past a car park yesterday in town where three teen boys were throwing those squealing rocket things to one another and just missing parked cars. I said to DH "Just need to check they're not ours" and he said "Why?" and I replied "So I can tell them to pack it in!" (he used to teach but is retired and has lost that instinct to police your own students - and even others' - in public).

A rookie mistake I still make in the classroom sometimes but instantly want to kick myself for is phrasing something as a rhetorical question when I really didn't need to invite the child to answer back. eg. Bob why are you licking Michael's ear? Or, Why are you always the last person to stop talking?

It's an instant oh fuck.