Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
The staffroom

Whether you're a permanent teacher, supply teacher or student teacher, you'll find others in the same situation on our Staffroom forum.

Original poster

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

999 replies

StaffRepFeistyClub · 15/04/2021 22:00

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

OP posts:
Thread gallery
7
TheHoneyBadger · 23/04/2021 16:57

Sorry rafals. Bloody people eh?

TheHoneyBadger · 23/04/2021 16:58

x posted mrsH. I hate this bench but somehow I'm on it and it doesn't matter how much higher my classes progress rates are or how well I manage behaviour etc I'm stuck on this bloody bench.

MrsHamlet · 23/04/2021 17:10

Let's adapt it so we can store gin in the base.
It's shit.

TheHoneyBadger · 23/04/2021 17:12

Apply anyway btw. Make them face it and try and justify it. I'm afraid I went back and to the HTs office and said actually I don't want this rattling around in my head all weekend and really don't understand why you're targeting me about this and got more waffle about 'i just felt' and 'it could be seen' etc.

In a case of very bad timing ds on the way to his after school detention crossed me outside the staffroom trying to go home. Ds just knows, and cannot be persuaded otherwise, when I'm upset and despite me saying it's fine don't worry was desperate to get home to me. He asked one slt can I go because I need to see if my Mum's ok (the patronising one who explained we can't all have the biggest classroom or top sets) and got shot down. Then asked the new guy who genuinely seems lovely and he understood and said he'd rearrange his detention and let ds come home because, as he said, he knew he wouldn't be able to wait if he knew his mum was upset.

I told the head that I feel like I've got a target on my back and can't do anything right. Not very professional of me but there you go.

motherrunner · 23/04/2021 17:14

I’m cracking opening the wine now too - on an empty stomach!

@TheHoneyBadger. Stay strong. It’s a turbulent time at the moment. Everyone is projecting their worries and anxieties into others - do you and you’ll be fine.

To all us feeling down remember what an impact we have on kids - I picked DD up from after school club today (at 4.45) and the school’s employed PE teacher was out on the playground playing football with them. He’s not part of wraparound but saw they were playing and went for a kick around with them - just because. My DD loves him. We should never underestimate our impact on kids. She would never tell him that he’s her fave teacher - but he is.

Mistressinthetulips · 23/04/2021 17:22

I think the "bench of being shit" is incorrectly named, it's more the "bench of not taking any shit" - the brown nosers' bench is surely a much worse place to be.

TheHoneyBadger · 23/04/2021 17:27

Thanks motherrunner. I feel like I was a really good teacher today in some ways - literally my year 9s had done nothing they were meant to when I was ill last Friday and I had to on the spot try and combine 2 lessons and overcome the fact that the bloody textbooks had gone missing and couldn't be found anywhere.

Last period I had a lesson on racism and the kkk in 1920's america and there was all this trivial written work they were meant to do but we started out by listening to Billy Holliday's, 'Strange Fruit' and everyone was engaged and wanting to take part. I allowed the lesson to be examining a few sources and having really good discussions which I managed well (and noticed and reflected on the fact that white kids are full of opinions and desire to pontificate on it all without any real consideration or awareness of their black peers and subtly turning things around and facilitating my black students to take part in the discussion). I got them to grasp this was a serious and sensitive topic that deserved respect and in the end we had some pretty nuanced discussion and exploration of the issues and how they related to prior events and modern situations.

That shit is what matters and what I trained for and what I'm allegedly paid to do and what I will judge myself by. Ridiculously it's also the bit that seems to have the least bloody influence on how you are perceived or where you fall in some weird pecking order. Meh! Sorry for my big rant and moan but it was, by real standards, a really successful day only to be deflated pointlessly by petty nonsense.

Piggywaspushed · 23/04/2021 17:28

I think I have the special bench of stirring shit.

TheHoneyBadger · 23/04/2021 17:34

Mine is the bench of, 'oh I see, my mere existence has managed to piss people off again'.

I should be used to it but ashamed to say it still bothers me.

MrsHamlet · 23/04/2021 18:10

I feel like that too: I shouldn't be bothered but I am.
Year 10 Bob was lovely today. He was moved into my class because he's a PITA but I really like him.
I know the kids like and value me but I wish my senior team did. I'm not loud enough or pretty enough.

TheHoneyBadger · 23/04/2021 18:32

The almost prison-like oversight of children’s time is really worrying – and not just in school. Wherever you look, you can see that from the point of view of children and young people, their lives have become more and more overseen, with less time and space to call their own

Absolutely. It's hard for the kids to believe that there weren't fences round the school or registers taken every lesson and immediate calls home and people running around looking for them if they weren't in a lesson when I was at school. Their lives are so controlled and overseen in comparison to my teenage experience (I'm 45). We talk about teens as if they're off the rails 'nowadays' but we were wagging school, daytime drinking, having sex, smoking weed etc and I honestly think way more off the rails than our kids today.

I'm not buying the idea that controlling the death out of them is doing anything other than create more immature, more vulnerable, more stunted kids. Aware taht may be controversial

cantkeepawayforever · 23/04/2021 18:53

@Piggywaspushed

I think I have the special bench of stirring shit.
Budge up! That bench is MINE! MINE, I tell you!
MsAwesomeDragon · 23/04/2021 19:03

I think I belong on the shit stirring bench too. I've been accused of that several times when I've pointed out a few double standards (mainly things like "gosh, another meeting, you have loads more than us, do you have a lot to discuss?" Shock).

I agree with that article, and you honey, that we are doing our children a massive disservice by structuring and supervising them far too much. I've tried to avoid it with my own dds, doing things like choosing a cm with a policy of allowing the children free choice of toys but no electronics, rather than the wraparound care at school which was a bit more structured with craft activities and sports (it wasn't massively structured but not entirely free choice either). Dd2 is now pretty free range after school now as well, now they're allowed to meet in small groups outside. Her and a little but changeable group of friends roam between the 3 parks within walking distance, and occasionally into each others gardens (not ours because ours is "boring" apparently). They were doing that back in September as well, and dd is positively thriving with the extra freedom. I have said I want her to do 1 extra curricular activity as I do think doing something outside school is good for her. At the minute it's guides, but actually that's not running as one of the leaders is ill. I suspect it'll change to puppy training soon, as our new puppy will be arriving at half term Grin

Timeturnerplease · 23/04/2021 19:32

Crikey, you secondary guys really are dealing with a lot at a the moment. Hats off to you, and I hope you’re all getting very relaxed tonight with liquid assistance.

Odd question - who repairs an electric oven? Electrician? Appliance repair person?

Ours has just crapped out. DP had a strop because he was looking forward to his dauphinoise potatoes. I have ordered a Chinese because it’s the only place other than Dominos that delivers to our village. He’s whining that if we have to get a takeaway it should be a curry, and trying to persuade pregnant me to drive and get one because he’s had wine already. SOD OFF.

HercwasanEnemyofEducation · 23/04/2021 19:51

I need a wee lace on the "taking no shit" bench. It gets me in trouble a bit but means people know I will fight their corner even if they won't. We have a culture of SLT favourites, they're young yes men.

namechangedyetagain · 23/04/2021 20:10

Joining you in solidarity on the bench and you have gin.

I too came home and opened the wine. Had a tutorial at 4pm which left me feeling a little deflated after having a really good lesson obs today. It's almost like you think, yes I'm going to make this, and then you're left feeling really worried that maybe you won't.

In other news, I have been given a pigeon holeSmile

RuleWithAWoodenFoot · 23/04/2021 20:25

Secondary sounds crap. Sorry.

Ive had a beer and a chippy tea with the inlaws, am freezing! Swam at 6.30 tho, so am tired and looking forward to bedtime.

HercwasanEnemyofEducation · 23/04/2021 20:31

Any EYFS people on here? What should my expectations of home school communication be?

HarrietDVane · 23/04/2021 20:40

I sit alone on the cynical 'Nobody Can Hear You Scream' bench at my school. Bubbles have made me even more invisible. I'm surrounded by super-keen youngsters clamouring for leadership and determined to Make An Impact. I have no such ambitions, and I can't help them realise theirs, so I'm neither use nor ornament.

Piggywaspushed · 23/04/2021 20:44

You need an appliance man for your oven!

Expert on broken white goods and all appliances here...

RigaBalsam · 23/04/2021 20:47

My Bob today decided to stuff the left over plastic from the revision guides we bought him into his mouth and chew in it. Then proclaimed we should have just given him the £17 instead of the AQA knowledge organisers.

He then proceeded to whistle every second until call out came. Could not prove it was him. The. He asked for me to play Kenny Rogers Lucille and the gambler to be played on you tube if he was good. My child hood songs.

Maybe me and Bob do have something in common after all. School isn't the place for him.

TheHoneyBadger · 23/04/2021 20:49

I'm sure you use to your students and that's who is supposed to matter.

I'm telling myself as well as you!

The first time I left teaching was back in 2005/6 and everyone assumed it was the kids - as in oh kids must be so difficult today. For me it wasn't the kids it was the staff.

It should be a profession of mutual support and solidarity but somehow we end up played off against each other or maybe the profession attracts people who don't want to treat fellow adults with basic respect, politeness and support. I do not know.

You guys all seem lovely and my teaching friends from other schools and parts of the country all seem lovely. What we seem to have in common is slt problems and lack of support.

RigaBalsam · 23/04/2021 20:50

Then my friend the teacher form the south came in and pronounced a bath rather poshly as Baarrthhh instead if us Northerers pronunciation of Ba Th.

Well Bob could not handle it and lost it.

To add due to year bubbles Bobs lessons are in a tiny meeting room with no windows.
On carnage ensued.

TheHoneyBadger · 23/04/2021 20:54

I don't even really need 'support' anymore ie. I can manage all my own classes, exceed expected progress, deal with behaviour and send problems etc. So it's not support to do my job but support as in a sense of sticking together and looking after each other and being encouraging and acknowledging, for example, how tough a year this one has been.

I think I'm just talking about plain old garden being 'nice' and looking out for one another.

Anyway it's Friday and we all made it through the week. Two weeks in here and with 5 to go but a bank holiday in the midst. I'm just going to focus on my kids and how they're doing and what progress they're making and how they're treating each other. The rest can do one