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

I briefly lived in a flat when we moved back to England. The council put in a girl beneath me with a baby and she swiftly had another baby. Tiny little flat - we couldn't have stayed long anyway as ds's bedroom was barely big enough for a single bed and a small chest of drawers. She had the same size flat downstairs and the noise of ignored crying was awful. There was black out sheeting on the windows and she seemed to spend her life smoking in the kitchen and ignoring them.

I had to leave because it was torturous hearing babies left crying for an hour and knowing what it was doing to their brain chemistry and emotional development and life chances before they were even big enough to walk. HA didn't care and NSPCC didn't think there was anything likely to happen just from what they said would be seen as low level neglect.

Last I heard she has 3 babies under 5 in that tiny flat and another on the way. I'd say she's about 22 and has never worked a day in her life and smoked and drank through pregnancies.

That kind of 'parenting' can't be overcome by education.

Feel free to think me a monster for judging but listening to those babies and the pitch of hysteria they'd reach in their screaming was soul destroying and knowing she was just going to have more and more....

Obviously there's no longer a duty to rehouse people and they have to 'bid' on properties and sort out their own swaps but if it was intended to discourage the above it isn't happening and seemingly the 3 child benefit cap didn't stop her either.

There's really no meaningful child protection despite all the tick boxes of training. Nothing they can or will do for kids who are just ignored and neglected and being emotionally damaged like that.

Haven't been near a hairdresser since before I got married 10 years ago
Cut and colour DIY style here. Sometimes it goes wrong, sometimes very wrong.

My Covid style is pig tails so my mask doesn't hurt my ears. Very forgiving of dodgy cuts. Last year I dyed each tail different colours as I'd promised my year 7. My HT just shakes his head at me these days .

Honey I completely agree. There is a big enough minority of students like you describe who just haven't been parented properly. I don't blame the parents, they were probably treated the same.
I watched the women on tag programmes on bbc3 and the women on that were just broken by shit childhoods. No school could have provided enough support to keep them away from drugs/crime and problematic men. They all had children taken off them which you just know will repeat the cycle.

Agree @TheHoneyBadger. There’s an article on BBC today that stated school had been a lifeline to many children this past year. Surely we need to be questioning why?

Schools can’t fix all ills. I grew up in poverty. Lived in a council house, on benefits, but my parents really pushed me to take every opportunity thrown at me. Neither wanted their life for me. In someways I was better off than my middle class friends as I had my fees paid for and had a grant, though it was the 90s when I went to uni!

@Piggywaspushed

It isn't that long since Gav said (to a different paper) that behaviour was much improved.

It doesn't say much for parenting does it if time at home makes kids wild and undisciplined?

Exactly. Gav really needs to go. Sad thing is, he’d probably be replaced by someone worse. Priti Patel? Or...Gooove!

Last year I dyed each tail different colours as I'd promised my year 7. My HT just shakes his head at me these days
A TA was forced to leave my school a few years ago because she wouldn't change her purple hair!!

As the social worker at my last school said, "it's a cycle of shit".

Thanks for the new thread.

Just listening to LBC. There’s a dad on complaining about his teenagers being on their phones late at night and getting up at 4pm.

I blame the schools

What was the man's point about mobile phones?

Was he saying his lax parenting is why they need to be banned in schools?

The thing that gets me is that none of this is new. Gav thinks he is leading some crusade.

Let’s be totally clear here. We are not talking about the controlled use of a tablet or a laptop in class, as part of a lesson,

Where oh where are these mythical tablets and laptops of which Gav speaks?

Since we're still trying to teach computer science in classrooms without computers, I'd like to know where these mythical things are....

We've had a phone ban for ages. Who does he think he's talking to? Does he really think we need telling basic stuff like this by a fireplace salesman with a whip?

As Bob would say "who dafuck cares what 'e finks. Wanker"

Ah Bob... so true.

MrsH we are normally like that too. Everything has relaxed since covid - anything to cheer the place up I guess.

Gav is quiet for ages then suddenly spurts some crowd-pleasing shit like he's trying to justify his job.

Luckily Laura McInerney is on hand with Teacher Tapp data to show most schools already restrict the use of mobile phones and that classroom behaviour has improved slightly since last year.

Was he saying his lax parenting is why they need to be banned in schools?

God only knows what his point was. They were his kids but they normally live with their mum. I think it was just a moan about bloody kids being a bloody nightmare. He was quite funny bless him.

LBC callers seemed to view Gav’s focus on phones and behaviour as odd. Schools are already doing it. Some more successfully than others.

Just when I think I can't loathe Williamson any more than I already do, he comes out with even more offensively patronising nonsense.

I've never dyed my hair, as the increasingly liberal sprinkling of silver demonstrates. Our school dress code forbids 'unnatural colours' which I've always found mildly irritating. The dress code itself is bonkers anyway. It appears to have been written by a raging misogynist sometime in the mid-1950s.

Smartphones aren’t usually the problem in schools (although plenty still have the issue of pupils filming sneakily in class) but outside of schools.

How many of us always have to deal with cyberbullying/arguments that have taken place outside of school hours, usually in their homes?!

Mumsnet doesn’t help when, if someone posts a thread asking for advice, there is usually hoards of posts saying ‘contact the school’ and they think that’s enough. It can be part of it yes, but too often, conveniently absolves any other adult involved, of any responsibility.

Hello, everyone and thanks for the new thread. More and more time is spent on dealing with things that happen outside of school, Chloe. We need to be tougher and start saying ‘no’ to all the extra jobs we have picked up in the last fifteen years.

So true @ChloeDecker. So many times we have had to deal with bullying from a WhatsApp group that is happening in the evening. I’m sorry but I’m actually parenting my own children then, where are their parents whilst this is happening? It is happening younger and younger now too. Only two days ago there was a parent complaining that their 7 year old had downloaded Snapchat without their permission. Didn’t see the problem in them having a phone though ...

I share an office with the DHT and hear a lot of conversations about messages/pictures/etc - 99% of which happen at stupid o'clock at night when they have their phones in their beds.

"He asked me for a naked picture and now everyone has seen it" - well yes. It doesn't matter how many times they get the dammed drama company in to do the box ticking "don't send nudes" play, the kids don't think it applies to them. Until it does and the parents are kicking off.

Gav is probably feeling the need to justify himself after Alan Duncan called him a self-serving little shit the other day

When did parenting start to be perceived as the school's responsibility? Genuine question: I came late to teaching and it seemed to be a fait accompli by the time I qualified.