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

MLP is just weird, I never could fathom it. As as for the “bro” thing

God I really miss cbeebies!! I can deal with horrible histories etc but the utter guff the kids watch drives me crazy.

I used to love octonauts, puffin rock and Nelly & Nora!!!

We limit her to BBC when we've had enough of screechy American accents.

Random useless info: whilst massively sleep deprived after a long flight I watched back to back episodes of octonauts dubbed into Kazakh. It was strangely compelling.
This evening's discussion with the littluns was about whether I was making up that the lion king is Hamlet.

Cbeebies - happy memories (mostly!).

My DS loved chuggingtons, little robots, balamory- they're the ones that spring to mind!

One that used to drive me mad, but he loved, was 'me too'. When he was a baby, it was the first programme on in the morning. Lots of very happy people singing their way to work, singing at work, singing on the way home

Breakfast with the littluns and bloody barbie

I’ve got a four year gap so the oldest watched nothing but CBeebies for years and years but the littlest was weaned directly into Netflix 🤦‍♀️🤣

I loved Me Too, Although was always fascinated by the concept of a childminder who had children for overnights!

V interesting interview on R4 at 8.40: apparently there’s a BMJ article pointing out how the hygiene theatre might just to distracting from the ventilation which is far more important. Had a guy from a hospitality body on telling us how they’ve always bothered about ventilation in kitchens and dining areas so increased rules wouldn’t be a problem for them. But also one Fiona Godley, from the BMJ who at the end of the price pointed out that if the guidance was changed/enhanced it would have come too late for those who’d already lost their lives eg HCPs and teachers!

I think I’ve played a blinder by making my kid think CBeebies is the only thing we have! At 5, she still watches pretty much only that, apart from Disney films. It’s pretty much what educated her during both lockdowns!

I know far too much about the tech (how it’s made and what it does) and consequences of dealing with the fallout from many years of teaching the subject and as an ex HoY (when you see a kid fit on the classroom floor from 48 hours of constant gaming-it stays with you) that she goes nowhere near tablets and smartphones (apart from when on holiday and no tv, we pre-download lots of CBeebies on iPlayer on the tablet.)

I just need to sort out my addiction to it and Mumsnet!

A kid in her class is already addicted and in the struggling to function phase. I’m also trying to support one of my Sixth Form form with a gaming addiction, as they spent all of last lockdown doing nothing but gaming (and just pretending to attend live lessons) and our ‘friends’ at CAMHS are being next to useless. It breaks my heart.

Here we are, BMJ editorial, so quite short, the last para mentioned educational settings

www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n913

Oh wow Chloe.....

I wish parents of young children were given much clearer and louder advice about screens and where they can lead. I speak from experience.

Chloe That reminds me of some situations I've come across. One was heartbreaking because there was a Year 7 who gamed so much that they were buying a pack of energy drinks on the way to school, then going home and gaming more. The impact on their mood, behaviour and progress was worrying, but home weren't very supportive when several members of staff expressed their concerns.

I grew up gaming, DH grew up gaming so not of the opinion that it's intrinsically bad. Time limits set on devices are a must though.

Did anyone watch the Charlie Brooker show 'How video games changed the world' which listed 25 of the most significant video games? At number 1 was....Twitter. Social media is insanely gamified with all the hooks to keep you playing - likes, follows, notifications, and on e.g. snapchat streaks that you don't want to break.

That's what this child was missing. They had various consoles in their room and were regularly gaming until the early hours, talking to people on various chats and their parents weren't concerned.

It seems like some people think that once the bedroom door is closed on an evening, they have no more responsibility for what happened. In reality it's not good for children to have social media, endless notifications on group chats, gaming etc all night.

DH games a lot, and I grew up gaming. So I age with noble that it's not the gaming but the lack of limits on it that's the problem. Parents do need to take responsibility for how much time their children are spending on screens (to be fair, I think that much time spent on any single activity is unhealthy), and ensure they are actually in bed sleeping at night. My nephews are terrible for being online and gaming at all hours, but sil says she doesn't care as long as they aren't bothering her . You may be able to tell that I don't particularly like sil, as I do think she should be doing better for her kids.

I grew up gaming, DH grew up gaming so not of the opinion that it's intrinsically bad. Time limits set on devices are a must though.

What we grew up on and what kids can experience now is a part of the issue, I think. Even in the last 10 years, the programming and design of games (focusing on the psychology of how to hook you in, being paramount before the artwork, for example) is vastly different to what we grew up with and the advent of live gaming has brought up a few issues that some of our generation assume isn’t a problem because games back when we were kids (offline), were generally fine.

Gaming is just one part though and plenty of MH issues come from the fake worlds of Instagrammers and Youtubers that plays on the insecurities of teenage years and many other platforms that can be accessed online.

It’s why I wish MH was the focus of the current govt drive and not behaviour hubs specifically.
Why not treat the cause, rather than the symptom?
I never did get a reply from my (Labour) MP by the way on asking how they were going to focus on MH on children returning and if paying for onsite counsellors could be a solution.

Advice to parents is very important Jan but like many areas of parenting, it is not often well received.

I fully acknowledge I have gone probably too far the other way, but I know the worst case scenario and don’t want that for my kid or the kids I teach. I wish more parents were like noble et al and did everything in moderation and supervised.

I saw that @noblegiraffe! Social media was more addictive than gaming for those reasons and the impact is has on mental heath is astounding. I have an ex colleague who lives her life on Instagram. I remember one works so where she didn’t really participate, spent most of the evening setting up ‘shots’. If you viewed her fees you would see maybe 3 perfect shots and think ‘what a fab night she had’. She didn’t, so sad.

*works do

At number 1 was....Twitter. Social media is insanely gamified with all the hooks to keep you playing - likes, follows, notifications, and on e.g. snapchat streaks that you don't want to break.

Yep. It’s actually part of the ESafety curriculum that should be taught to Year 7s but as you know, in one ear and out the other!

Look at how Facebook has changed Instagram and in the future, will be changing Whats App. It’s why the co-founders of Instagram stepped down completely in the end. They didn’t like where it was going.
Likes, notifications etc are the drive of Tik Tok too. In fact, when you post your first video in Tik Tok, there are algorithms to ensure you get a large amount of likes for it-just to hook you in. Then the next few videos don’t get so many so you keep posting to get back to that ‘first high’ of getting a large amount of likes. Even Teacher Tapp uses the same method of hooking you in with streaks.
Our poor kids

@MrsHerculePoirot

I’ve got a four year gap so the oldest watched nothing but CBeebies for years and years but the littlest was weaned directly into Netflix 🤦‍♀️🤣

I have this too - younger dc has definitely moved up a bit faster through the tv programmes because of it! I genuinely don't know what dc1 would do if not for gaming. Won't read or draw or build stuff - loved outdoor stuff at school, football etc but that's not happening now. Have bought him musical instrument(s) to lure him off but to no avail. He does have some learning difficulties which I think I've used as an excuse really to allow him to do his one great love!

@PumpkinPie2016 here's one for you, Mickey John's teacher song from Me Too - for all of us who "whoop for joy when we go to school in the morning"!

Oh yes when I say advice for parents I suppose I really mean “a complete culture change”. It is tied in with the “children’s rights”, which I mentioned yesterday re them being used to actually remove some of what should truly be their rights, with parents being too busy to actually parent - some of which is real, some of which isn’t - time spent in cars more and moving less... it goes on and on.

When we were talking yesterday about our relationship with tech and also how it affects relationships, I carried on thinking afterwards. The very idea of electronic communication carries a massive shift that we haven’t understood fully yet. Texting, or emailing to a lesser extent, means that we can feel like we’re having a casual chat with someone, as humans always have done, but it leaves a potentially permanent record. The WhatsApp groups, Fb comments etc all follow.

Had completely forgotten Mickey John! What was the one about being late/clocks?

I'm not sure - was it the train guy? Lots of Scottish places in the program (must have been filmed here)