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

Balls, we know electricians. We do not know appliance repair people. Thanks for the info @Piggywaspushed.

On the plus side, my culinary ineptitude means that I have cooked three meals for DP in 13 years, so the organisation of this falls to him.

Evening all,
Not posted much recently had a break! My DDs school is part of that study with daily testing. Following a discussion with DD we have not given permission. She preferred isolating

@HerdyGerdy - that is a disgrace and gives some groups undue advantage which they could use for appeal if they found out!

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot - still not able to book here but I keep checking daily for DH. I managed to get mine a few weeks ago under dubious circumstances

Sorry to all those struggling at the moment. I have to say though our 11s have really stepped up. Even our worst have got their heads down and are doing their best - I am so bloody proud of them.

@Sureitwillbegrand are you a NCer?

honey when anyone makes me feel like I’m being directly told off I feel awful. Must go back to childhood. Feelings of failure and shame closely followed by self justification and anger. Anyway in your case it sounds like you did absolutely nothing wrong!!

My Bob hit someone with a stick at break time, was instructed to go to the head's office at lunchtime, but outright refused. He then howled and hooted and shouted in the corridor just outside my classroom until we got his mum to come and get him at half 2.

I then wasted an hour after school putting together activities for him for next week, and making a star chart timetable.

Every time he hooted, one or more of my other darlings echoed a quieter version of the same noise.

Oh Rule, that sounds intolerable!
for you.

[quote JanFebAnyMonth]@Sureitwillbegrand are you a NCer?

honey when anyone makes me feel like I’m being directly told off I feel awful. Must go back to childhood. Feelings of failure and shame closely followed by self justification and anger. Anyway in your case it sounds like you did absolutely nothing wrong!![/quote]
Yes I'm aware my level of upset wasn't rational or fitting to the situation and probably stems from elsewhere but it's just so bloody difficult as a teacher that no one ever seems to say well done or notice when you've put in double your hours to sort out a problem that helps the whole department or have gotten great results with a group assumed to be incapable of doing well. But people will happily sit around tone trolling emails or nit pickingly trying to find fault with you.

I have to step back and apply a large dose of fuck it to this nonsense and just focus on the kids and my actual job (teaching funnily enough though people seem to forget that).

My week ended with a day of parent/student conferences. I'd forgotten how exhausting it is to sit at the laptop all day. On my non-working day!!.

I'll get the TOIL though, and can parlay it into a week off later this year.

Envious of the looming half term in the UK, as we have nine weeks to go before the winter two-week break. We do get the Queen's birthday, though. 👑 Gawd bless you, yer Majesty.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation

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

I was EYFS before SEN. I expected a home learning sheet to go home and come back each week and at least 5 comments in the reading journal from parents. Of course, I often didn't get either of these things from some.

@KatherineOfGaunt This year I've had 3 'batches' of evidence uploaded to the online platform from nursery and that's it. I don't know whether to expect parents evening or not? Nursery is part of the school but parents evening is reception to y6. I know this year is odd because of covid but I feel so in the dark about anything he does. I assume if there were concerns they'd be in touch? He seems really happy at nursery and tells me about his friends but no adult has ever confirmed he's OK there.

[quote JanFebAnyMonth]@Sureitwillbegrand are you a NCer?

honey when anyone makes me feel like I’m being directly told off I feel awful. Must go back to childhood. Feelings of failure and shame closely followed by self justification and anger. Anyway in your case it sounds like you did absolutely nothing wrong!![/quote]
Don't think so but did discover I had another account Was here at the start but don't post very often.

[quote HercwasanEnemyofEducation]@KatherineOfGaunt This year I've had 3 'batches' of evidence uploaded to the online platform from nursery and that's it. I don't know whether to expect parents evening or not? Nursery is part of the school but parents evening is reception to y6. I know this year is odd because of covid but I feel so in the dark about anything he does. I assume if there were concerns they'd be in touch? He seems really happy at nursery and tells me about his friends but no adult has ever confirmed he's OK there.[/quote]
I don’t think that is normal. I‘ve only got reception experience, but my ex housemate was a nursery nurse. 2 year old room in a day nursery is different, but they had a written ‘report’ every 6-8 weeks and a couple of parents evenings a year. School nurseries will have a completely different staffing ratio so I wouldn’t expect this, but nothing except work uploaded in batches seems a bit rubbish. I’d expect an online parent’s evening to talk about how he’s settled not long after starting at least.

Before you all start panicking about the reports, it was a landscape A4 sheet of paper with a box for each area of learning. A sentence or 2 about progress made in each area and then a target for the next 6 weeks for each area. And they have a ratio of 1:4 so she didn’t have hundreds to do.

DH (44) received his text to book his appointment via national site!

herc when dd2 was at nursery I didn't get any communication from them at all. She was dropped off and collected by our lovely cm, and I believe they talked to her about daily activities etc but I had nothing at all. About 6 months after starting there we went to a birthday party where the nursery owner was also there. At that point, 6 months in, at a birthday party, she told me that dd had started talking to one of the other children. I had no idea that she hasn't been talking!! Apparently she hadn't said a single word to anyone at nursery for almost 6 months and nobody thought this was important enough to contact me and express concern. I'm happy to say reception were more pro active when she went there.

for all those struggling. It's very tough -I feel like Easter is a distant memory.

It's been a hard week organising all the Y11 papers for next week including access/special arrangements, clashes etc. Mammoth task! Doesn't help that the KS4 co-ordinator doesn't seem to have any sense of urgency at all and has pretty much done nothing to help

My Y9s were lovely yesterday and we had a nice lesson talking about density.

Y11 on the other hand were less lovely. About 50% of the class were great. The other 50% were just being plain lazy the bloody assessments start on Monday and they were sitting doing nothing despite my efforts to help. Maths said the same - about half bothered with the practice papers over Easter.

Anyhow, I am having my hair cut today so feeling excited

[quote HercwasanEnemyofEducation]@KatherineOfGaunt This year I've had 3 'batches' of evidence uploaded to the online platform from nursery and that's it. I don't know whether to expect parents evening or not? Nursery is part of the school but parents evening is reception to y6. I know this year is odd because of covid but I feel so in the dark about anything he does. I assume if there were concerns they'd be in touch? He seems really happy at nursery and tells me about his friends but no adult has ever confirmed he's OK there.[/quote]
Long time lurker here and EYFS bod. I’ve taught in a couple of school nurseries and at both we still did parents evening on the same evening as the rest of the school. We didn’t have any home school communication books in either setting and we didn’t send observations home on a regular basis - they had a chance to look in their learning journeys at parents evening. This was pre-Covid times so we would mention anything important at pick up. If there were any issues or concerns then we would phone parents. If you have any concerns, questions or simply want to know how he is doing then I would contact the office and ask the nursery teacher to phone you back. It’s not unreasonable. It is so important to build relationships with parents in early years settings.

Anyhow, I am having my hair cut today so feeling excited

Woohoo! My appointment is 1st May (my salon must be v popular as couldn’t book any earlier back in March) and I cannot wait to feel like a new non grey woman!

Ahhh sweet lie in this morning. Bliss.

@motherrunner

DH (44) received his text to book his appointment via national site!

Love this! I’m hopefully soon then!

@RigaBalsam

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.

I had the same conversation with my class yesterday. None of them are Bobs but they had to go through every word I said that was ‘in northern’. I could hear them practising the words all day. I’ll join you all on the bench too. I don’t want to sit on the other bench anyway.

@CallmeHendricks how is your dog now? Is he fully recovered?

Sorry for those of you on various benches. Can’t work out which one I’d most fit on - probably a bit of all of them sometimes. @TheHoneyBadger I think you did the right thing speaking to you head about it tbh. They sound a bit like mine - where they are quite defensive and would never apologise for anything, but sometimes after things are raised (and fully defended by them) change does subsequently happen.

Sorry lots of people are on various benches of shame.

I’m not quite sure which one I belong on. Definitely not on the “nailing it” bench.

This weekend will be full of marking and planning. already sick of this half term.

This weekend for me will be full of writing reports and writing worked solutions for various exam papers that year 13 are doing. I'm sick of this half term too, and I've only been back a week.

There’s a ‘nailing it’ bench? I’m getting my mum to complain. BustopherPonsonbyJones has never been allowed to sit on the ‘nailing it’ bench and some people were chosen twice.

Our Lower school (before they abolished our wonderful Middle School ) used to have a Captain’s Table at lunchtime - kids got to sit on it for a week when they showed good manners and helping others at lunch or if they hadn’t made it on for a while

We’d all be on it