The Fifty-Sixth Republic - Who is up for a game of TAG?

[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

That's ludicrous Phlebas

Talking about football, as befits his role.

He was doing that on the Today prog as well. The only way to describe what comes out of his mouth is that it’s clueless wittering. I think he was meant to be talking about apprenticeships but naturally the interviewer wasn’t remotely interested in such things, and I don’t expect he’d have said anything sensible anyway.

Doing our daily twitter quiz tonight I asked my DS (11) who the Secretary of State for Education is. He said 'Gavin Williamson, I know because I hear you moan about him a lot'.

Gavin Williamson probably thinks the European Super League is a good idea.

Gavin Williamson probably doesn't like caterpillar cake memes

Gavin Williamson is the worst.

In other news I drew two large circles next to each other on my whiteboard today, with dots in the middle to represent the centre, in preparation for labelling parts of a circle.

Y10 boys fell about laughing at the giant pair of tits.

Nice work, noble
🤣

Rule, I hope you're ok and have a better night tonight! Functioning in less than 3 hours' sleep is hideous.

Nicely done, Noble. These are clearly things that secondary teachers need to be mindful about - I'm afraid it wouldn't have occurred to me in LKS2!

I had a great day with the children - one of those days where lessons just seem to 'click' and they get on and do fantastic work. Unfortunately, once they'd all gone home, a deluge of paperwork landed, including notice of formal lesson observations and multiple weekly learning walks starting from next week and continuously repeating until the end of July. FML.

On the bright side, I've managed to book my first jab for this weekend.

Spectacular first day back, was home in bed by 10 with a migraine. Surfaced again now. Email deluge but it will all be done eventually.

Support to those who need it.

Discussing Boris with my son (4) he now regularly refers to him as "that dickhead". It's the only time I don't tell him off for dickhead.

That's so rubbish Herc! I hope you're feeling brighter now.

Yeah Parents United has a really good post this morning about how Boris and Gav we’re delighted to make time to talk about football cos it was a nice safe subject.......

Rafa probably, I'm Cornwall so very south. And thanks to Cornish lanes my car is scratched to buggery. I must have reversed for over a mile all told.
On the plus side, just had my first online parents evening (on my day off - how rude!) and it went quite well. God bless the admin manager who scheduled in 2 min breaks between appointments!

Raaah, I've just finished all the work I was supposed to do over the easter holidays in 4 and a half hours. WHY DIDN'T I DO IT LAST WEEK?! I'm such a procrastinating twat.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation and @HarrietDVane I hope you're both ok after rubbish days for different reasons.

Yesterday was a hard one. Had Y11 twice - they start their final assessments next week and many just sat there doing nothing so frustrating! Especially as I am making resources etc for them to use for revision and I think many are doing no revision at all. Literally don't know what to do with them

On the plus side, appraisal review went well

It's our first normal school week here since December. 😭 Can I play truant? Anyone else want to come?

@phlebasconsidered

Apparently I still have to do a year 6 production, except just film it, edit it and put it on the school website. As well as do all the catch up in the world.

Fuck the fucking fuck off. No.

I have been quietly tired and away from online stuff but holy fuck that made me cross. Piss boiling.

I'm in the same boat but we can't decide whether it'll be filmed or a few nights with a (smaller) live audience until closer to the time. To be perfectly honest, I'd prefer filmed as you could just plan specific scenes on certain days and get them shot and ticked off rather than having to train the kids to do a whole 1.5 - 2 hour production in one go.

The stuff you buy in is never completely suitable either so it's time for the rewrite to begin.

@phlebasconsidered

Apparently I still have to do a year 6 production, except just film it, edit it and put it on the school website. As well as do all the catch up in the world.

Fuck the fucking fuck off. No.

I have been quietly tired and away from online stuff but holy fuck that made me cross. Piss boiling.

Same here! Tried it at christmas with a recorded christmas concert thing. Was terrible. Yet we still have to a leavers thing.

Last year, in Wales, we only had 7 kids in each day for the last 3 weeks, sitting a strict 2m apart.
Parents made an unholy fuss about their being no leavers event. No shirt signing because they weren't allowed to pass belongings across bubbles. They wanted to all come to school for a picnic and leavers service at a time when mass gatherings of over 6 was illegal.

We will give a recorded and filmed in bubbles little thing a go but it will not be a patch on previous shows. And if we put the time into it we normally would, we would be massively criticised for neglecting their academic work, which is well behind.

Eek...there!

Y10 boys fell about laughing at the giant pair of tits.

And consequently will remember so much more when it comes to the exam. Good work indeed!

LFTs given to millions of school children may have inaccurate instructions saying that you can use them if you have symptoms www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9486233/Lateral-flow-Covid-tests-given-millions-schoolchildren-WRONG-instructions.html

Crikey, schools need to be making it clear that this isn't the case!

What on earth is going on at the moment? Huge pressure being put on us to do and mark everything and ignoring the insane burden of the not exam exams for Yr11 and now students are just constantly being ridiculously bloody rude. Fed up with being spoken to like this (by both HoD, SLT and the students) 🙄.

It’s crazy isn’t it, Herdy?!

The insane amount of marking, collating, quality control and moderating on top of that (so twice the marking) of what we assessments we have done already and our Yr 11s and 13s are either completely switched off now or being so disruptive (with a few good ‘uns mixed in) that it’s not productive for anyone.

We’ve got to have two dept meetings a week for the next 4 weeks (plus two parents eve for yr10 and 12 in between all that) and minute everything and provide ‘buckets’ of physical evidence per kid and then double/triple/quadruple sign everything off.

And then we have the upcoming mini assessments (2 each per class, 1 hr) to do the same with all over again!

I’m wondering if my poor Yr 7s to 9s will get a look in this half term

Is this the DforE’s tactic to get us so busy that we forget about how crap the LFTs are and forget about being unvaccinated

DH came and collected my PSHE and RE books today. Yep, that's definitely the priority right now.. whether or not I've marked PSHE. Haha.

@ChloeDecker

It’s crazy isn’t it, Herdy?!

The insane amount of marking, collating, quality control and moderating on top of that (so twice the marking) of what we assessments we have done already and our Yr 11s and 13s are either completely switched off now or being so disruptive (with a few good ‘uns mixed in) that it’s not productive for anyone.

We’ve got to have two dept meetings a week for the next 4 weeks (plus two parents eve for yr10 and 12 in between all that) and minute everything and provide ‘buckets’ of physical evidence per kid and then double/triple/quadruple sign everything off.

And then we have the upcoming mini assessments (2 each per class, 1 hr) to do the same with all over again!

I’m wondering if my poor Yr 7s to 9s will get a look in this half term

Is this the DforE’s tactic to get us so busy that we forget about how crap the LFTs are and forget about being unvaccinated

I retract my moan about workload from earlier in the week. I don't have anything near this level of insanity to contend with. I'll be busy, but not this level of busy. You can remind me of that next time I moan.

I feel the workload pain. It's relentless and never ending. We have had y12&10 mocks announced straight after May half term and looking likely 11s will still be in school (hoping they vote with their feet). There is just no let up. Reports for ks3 due too.

Learning walk done Monday period 1 I found out. What the fuck are SLT (not) thinking?

Work scrutinies continuing as normal. I await the bollocking for not setting homework. Something has to give.

So just after completing my recruitment paperwork I had a complete nightmare of a lesson and have officially decided I can't teach!

Tbf it's the first time I've taught the class in 3 weeks, it was after lunch but jeez! Probably at least half didn't get the LO, behaviour was shocking no matter how many times I clapped to stop, used positive praise it was just awful. Also a few children with high needs at the minute and I have no idea what to do with them 🤷‍♀️. How on earth do you cope with no TA in the afternoon? I know I used to be that TA that was pulled out, and my (v experienced) teacher used to complain that it was hard but just things like getting everything ready, handed out, keeping on top of behaviour etc is so tricky.

If that's not bad enough, I've accidentally left my memory stick at work as I had to rush off tonight so can't do anymore planning for next week (apart from looking up stuff)

Feeling a bit stressed so we're having a freezer dinner and I'm sat cuddling the dog in the garden with a gin.

This is not the attitude that will get me my QTS I know

Another London academy school with a 12 year old white male Teach First headteacher in hot water :

twitter.com/Adusei_/status/1384620091212505088

There may be more to this of course but can anyone remind me : I am sure we have discussed this Foley character before.

I feel the need to flumf down on a chair and mainline wine and chocolate. Unfortunately, an order of summer clothes arrived, and oh my. I may have ever so slightly underestimated my everything measurements. Wine and chocolate will very much need to take a backseat to carrot sticks and the cross trainer.