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

Dad's school initially told parents y11 were not going to be leaving until late June. They have instead confirmed that they can leave at half term unless they hear differently from the local authority. Dr is still grumpy and moody about going and she's a relatively easy going child. I feel for any of you up against teaching y11s who don't even have exams to keep them focussed on this year.

Ours are doing assessments next week. It's horrendous.
They should've just done the bastard of exams.

*bastarding

Yes, the exams would have actually been less pressure and stress than what we're ending up with. Ours are doing 5 lessons of tests for maths, and a similar number of tests for every other subject they do. All in the last 3 weeks of this half term. The normal exams would have been much more spread out, and they would never have more than 3 exams in one day, whereas with this system some kids will have 5 lessons of tests some days towards the end of May. Poor kids.

I think it is easy to say they should have done the exams. There was a hell of a lot of pressure form government not to reduce content : if we had done exams as normal with the so called reductions, all of my film class would fail. I think if we are in a school relatively unaffected by covid it is also difficult to imagine how disruptive that has been - and could still be.

That said, the reaction of schools to this no exam system and the drip feeding of increasingly onerous checks and processes by Ofqual are utterly ridiculous.

I don't think many leaders care about the stress on middle leaders at all. The heads seem to care about the stress on heads and exams officers/ data people. No one seems to understand the added stress and workload for students and classroom teachers. And Gav just doesn't care full stop. As far as he is concerned it is all over , and he is on to the next thing. I read the other day that eh doesn't even check in with the bods at DfE or Ofqual to see how things are going.

@MrsHamlet

Ours are doing assessments next week. It's horrendous. They should've just done the bastard of exams.

Ours too.

We still don’t have guidance on what should be collected for additional evidence, we haven’t done any moderation in prep and people haven’t been told to look at the standardisation materials on AQA. I don’t know what on earth my HoD is doing, but it is not leading and preparing her team for this.

My Y13s were pointing out that they are being tested on pretty much the whole syllabus but will be done by May half term instead of their exams starting after half term so as well as missing out on school due to lockdown, they’re missing out on exam preparation time in school.

Just so long as he doesn't want to do A Levels and will definitely go to do his woodwork apprenticeship then life is good.

Tell Bob from me that if he doesn’t get at least a 4 in English and Maths he’ll be back in the classroom at some point during his apprenticeship, so he’d be better off making the effort now. And if he’s thinking of carpentry, to make sure he knows there are units of measurement other than mm available.

yes, and study leave noble...

I am FURIOUS.

HoD has just emailed papers for Monday’s exam. We weren’t allowed to know before but that was changed and she didn’t get around to telling us. Half of the cohort will have lessons that focus on appropriate content for the exam including her set, naturally. The other half of the group have already been taught, their teachers didn’t know, and they now don’t have any lessons before the exam. I don’t think I could be angrier right now. My poor kids.

That's par for the course in our place Herdy. It's disgraceful.

Feeling very proud of myself. I've been ignoring requests to go on an end of term 'rewards' jolly that was imposed on us by the HT with no consultation & no regard for workload. (CAGs, obvs, and in English so entire cohort x2). I was asked point blank at break to go on the trip, so I channeled my inner Phoebe and refused, 'because I don't want to.'

Well done @StationView 💪

Our Y11s doing exams/assessments in full exam hall scenario for these first three weeks. No clue what we’ll do with them after that. Everyone waiting for someone to tell them.... LA want to have all schools do the same. No-one knows or can make decisions. It’s shit for us. Shittier for the kids. Totally agree @noblegiraffe that they’ve lost out on that important revision in school time when it all starts to come together in our subject particularly.

Ps not posting much as have puppy 😱 (@Saucery will get me 🤣🤣🤣). But am reading to keep sane!

@HerdyGerdy

I am FURIOUS.

HoD has just emailed papers for Monday’s exam. We weren’t allowed to know before but that was changed and she didn’t get around to telling us. Half of the cohort will have lessons that focus on appropriate content for the exam including her set, naturally. The other half of the group have already been taught, their teachers didn’t know, and they now don’t have any lessons before the exam. I don’t think I could be angrier right now. My poor kids.

That’s terrible!

Am so done with this week. It’s been a crack open the wine on the bus on the way home sort of week.

I'm opening the drink...

You're about half an hour later than me...

I've just had my first cry at school for the whole school year. Not because of a class or workload but something the HT said to me. I was happily walking back across the playground to check my pigeon hole before going home. I had that lovely, 'I made it, it's Friday' feeling where you're cheerily talking to students and looking like an advert for teacher training.

Head stops me to tell me off about an email I responded to. It was a whole chain of staff replying to 'all staff' about something and I did a quick reply asking for clarification on an issue that had been raised - I only saw it this morning and needed clarification.

Let's say someone had started the chain saying here's a good resource on x that would be useful, someone else had said ooh not sure about that because of y, several others had replied saying no I don't think y is an issue etc. I was going to use x but then saw the replies and (in line with everyone else) did a reply all literally saying, 'what was the concern about y?'. Literally - that was it.

Apparently she 'felt' it would have upset a person and they'd have felt targeted etc despite the fact that mine just asked for clarification whereas others had been outright disagreeing and saying there was no issue and I was just trying to get a clear picture before I used x and unwittingly did something wrong. I asked and it was confirmed it was only me she was speaking to about it.

She had no issue with the people in the chain before me but took issue with me saying asking for clarification. (Person head claimed I'd targeted and upset has confirmed that I didn't and it was the pile on of people disagreeing that upset her and she didn't know why the head had targeted me either).

Crying is pathetic maybe but I felt really attacked and I think it was the contrast between feeling good and on my way out and then totally confused and then crushed out of nowhere.

I nipped out of school pretty sharpish today and have come home to the joy that is an empty house. I have no idea where everyone is, but am making the most of it by lounging in the garden in the warm sunshine with a beer.
I will make dh/ds concoct some gins and/or mojitos if they ever turn up (I suspect golf is involved).
Plans for next week are all complete and on the system, and a nice weekend lies ahead with an online quiz with friends tonight, a very posh (outdoor) lunch in a hotel tomorrow, followed by going out sailing on the south coast late afternoon and a dog walk and picnic on Sunday.
Can't wait.

Sorry to hear that honey. Hope you manage to put it behind you, congratulate yourself on making it through the week and then make the most of your weekend.

Sorry your head upset you honey. Try to put it out of your mind, and enjoy your weekend as much as you can.

I'm off to get my hair done First time since October. I'll be so happy to have it looking neat and tidy again.

Well if I wasn't on the shit list I am now because I did stand up for myself and query it.

Seems you're either on the golden list or the shit list with not much other than invisible in between. I shall endeavour for invisible I guess.

It's a straw that breaks the camels back kind of day I think, Honey. As I was about to leave, I asked one of the people I supervise if they could do something (part of their job role and not an unreasonable request) and bizarrely got a spiel about how I don't tell him what to do and if he needs to find something to do he'll ask X. It's not like it's literally my job role or anything.

It's stupidly minor, but with everything else going on and it just being a bit of a week of constant stupidly minor things it's tipped me over the edge a bit. After I'd finished picking my jaw up off the floor, obviously.

honey come and join me on the bench of being shit. I'm not quite sure how I ended up here either...
Perfect job has just been advertised in school. Loads of people assume it's for me. It's not. It's embarassing.