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 know of one of the schools on the list - one of the primaries. It's very highly thought of, for its values, approach to teaching reading and behaviour. And it's neither in an affluent nor deprived area, but distinctly middling. Also not in an academy chain. Well deserved, I think.

It's wazzing it down here. I've been making Lego. I really want my own Lego.

(Also not religious. But then I'm in a weird county where next to zero of our religious schools are actually selective on anything other than distance/siblings. And, in fact, the few Catholic schools are the opposite of sought after - possibly with slight racist intent, because they are the schools favoured by second/third etc generation Irish residents of the area and, more recently Eastern Europeans. They are usually undersubscribed and not massively successful. My area is very much not religious apart from the relatively recently incoming Catholics, quite a few Muslims and some Hindus. The CofE churches are dead and empty.)

It's tipping down here too. I had hoped to do more gardening, but I won't be doing that in the rain. Looks like I'm getting on with housework then .

Rule you could try a different school. I always read your descriptions of your class with awe that you are coping with it at all!! I hated teaching in my first couple of years and considered leaving teaching altogether but decided to try a different school and give it a year. I'm still there 15 years later. I know you're at a different stage of your career, but a change of school might help you hate teaching less.

Hello, slinking in (with a name change) for a comfy seat. On holiday here and going to paint a kitchen today so feeling purposeful On day 4 post AZ vaccine so trying not to read too much about potential problems and focus on happier things

I've been invited for my second jab on Saturday only a month after the first one. I'm very surprised they've invited me so soon!!! Maybe there are people refusing the second jab because of the stories in the news, or maybe they're just rattling through them second time round. Whatever the reason I'm just very happy to be having it. Dd1 has her first one yesterday (we assume because of MH problems and BMI) and doesn't seem to have any side effects as yet, so that's good.

Someone on Twitter did point out that a lot of the schools are actually middling and not very many deprived catchments. TB was a bit miffed at this being pointed out.

And my definition of middling - for this particular school - is that very few of the parents will be out of work and also very few of them will be university educated. (The housing type is very unmixed.)

Brilliant MrsA!

I’m definitely intrigued as to how successful these behaviour hubs will be in ‘teaching’ other schools and whether this will just be another expensive initiative that dies a death (and quietly gets forgotten about)

I rarely have to raise my voice in class these days. I must be an outstanding teacher (or could be that I teach in a girls’ school with very few children from derived backgrounds).

I rarely raise mine either. My reputation as completely unpredictable helps 😂

I know the Free School gets a lot of visits from people from around the country but locally it is viewed with some lots of suspicion. Not sure what it will therefore do for local schools, if that is even an aim.

Does anyone know if any of the other schools on the list have silent corridors/SLANT and prep? It does seem to be Gav's aim.

I’ve been teaching apprentices for the last 7 years or so. I’ve had to get properly cross about five times. One reason is that many are older and have grown out of teenage intransigence. Another is that employers will fire them if they don’t toe the line, and parents are (mostly) out of the picture. Works wonders.

Behaviour management has never been an issue for me but I remember once, our local behaviour advice team were invited in about a child who was creating havoc with some other staff and at breaks and lunchtimes. He was absolutely fine and respectful in class with me and we had a good relationship. They decided (on little evidence) that this was because he was wary of me, and that we needed staff consistency in approach and as he flatly ignored and verbally abused everyone else I needed to alter my approach to match theirs. I then was told to introduce a whole load of traffic light warnings (a 7 point scale, ffs) with 3 warnings for each movement down, otherwise he would kick off.
From then on, I was lost. He turned into a nightmare and would quibble and argue the toss ("you can't do that! You have to give me 3 warnings and I've only had 2" etc).
I've since heard he's been in and out of behaviour units in secondary, culminating in permanent exclusions.

I am sort of the same hendricks. None of this faffing about and systems and logging. I guess it often boiks down to confidence . I can't stick to bureaucratic systems. Too lazy/ rebellious.

Our school has recently adopted a more centralised system which could be great but it simply does not work for corridor stuff which is where I find kids most challenging.

We had a behaviour system where there was 7 stages and endless ‘de-escalation’ before you could kick a kid out of the class and only then to the class next door and it was a pile of shite. Efforts to keep a kid in the class just meant terrible behaviour continued. Now we’ve got a policy where you can kick kids out more rapidly, behaviour is better and we don’t often get to the point of kicking them out. Despite it being easier to kick them out.

The issue with corridors is not knowing who the kids are.

I've been quite lucky with behaviour, I think - most of our children are very well behaved. I have the advantage over a lot of my colleagues as I am older and scary looking so the children won't tend to push me. There have been a few exceptions of course - and one of my training placements was a nightmare for behaviour. They had a ridiculous behaviour policy in place, which, coupled with my inexperience, was a recipe for disaster.

Oh my goodness the not knowing names, nightmare! And them trying to give false names/ their friends’ names/ the naughtiest kid in the year’s name (which never works, as all staff will know that kid!)

Part time me, in the Library, can feel very at sea. But it gets better as you get more years under your belt and see into more areas of school. Been difficult in the past year as usually I see about half of each Y7 in their library lesson each fortnight (those forms that have their lessons when I’m in), but not since library lessons haven’t been happening in the Library.

Ive always been pretty good with behaviour - one of my strong points in fact. This year though, nope.

I spent some time looking at masters last night, and might have tge beginnings of an alternative plan.

We had a child (primary, this was through Y5 and 6 for him) who used to have impressive outbursts that, now I have a toddler, I see were essentially tantrums. No underlying issues, pretty ok family but they’d just always let him deal with his anger by throwing things.

He was ok at school when younger, but once the pre teen hormones hit he started this behaviour at school.

The advice of the behaviour expert from county was, I kid you not, to remove the class from the room and allow him to ‘get his anger out of his system’ by launching chairs etc. His classmates had at least one interrupted lesson a day for MONTHS until our head lost her patience and had some staff members trained in positive handling and started removing him from the class when this happened.

This, and several less extreme examples are why I am reluctant to trust so called behaviour experts.

Our local behaviour 'expert' seems to think a visual timetable is the answer to absolutely everything. They have their place, certainly. But a cure-all? I think not. The most tricky customers I've had behaviour-wise were those whose parents had no interest in supporting the school and who actively undermined the measures we put in place.

Tom Bennett v Michael Rosen on twitter again.

People seem to be equating TB with silent corridors and zero tolerance but I don’t think that’s what he recommends.

Noble it's not what he recommends. I like Rosen but I'd be wary of the amount of experience he has with disruptive deprived classrooms and the best strategies.

I know TB has some great ideas but he does not have a good Twitter persona: he mimics people's posting style, is sarcastic, smug, never reflective, and very defensive.

I honestly think someone who is a government 'tsar' should be quiet and dignified and just work hard at his actual job instead of publicly going for anyone who he takes against. Reminds me of Andrew Adonis.

Tbf TB tweets way less than he used to.

And it must be annoying to have everything you post be leapt on by people with a grudge (having had a taste of it) so I’m not surprised if he’s tetchy/defensive/blocks a lot.

I thought his take on Pimlico was bad, but given the NEU are pushing full steam ahead with ‘no exclusions’ type nonsense, I’d much rather Bennett had the ear of the government when it comes to behaviour than the NEU.