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

I had banished most work thoughts but they're creeping back pre Monday. I refuse to do anything though, go in early Monday morning and check whatever I planned!

BigBob Are you feeling OK about your decision? rule I hope you find a way out.

rule I think we teach a similar age group, and have similar Bob challenges. I've only recently qualified (I'll have done 3 yrs by the time I quit this term). I'd planned to take some time out after my PGCE but then this job came up so I went straight to work. My public line is that I'm taking that time now to have the break I promised my family years ago. I do want to do some supply to develop my experience- I think it's a good point in my career to do that. I'm also hoping I might get to see some better schools from the inside, and that will make it possible for me to go back to teaching. I really don't want to turn to my family and say 'do you remember those hellish 2 years of PGCE and NQT? Well, it was all for nothing'.

I've got a plan! Going to do an MSc in strategic planning. Focus on planning for social, education, community stuff in new developments. Combines a bit of teaching understanding, and the civil engineering and surveying typs techie stuff that I did before I was a teacher. But it'll cost me a career development loan to do it, so will spend next year saving up, then do it the following year. Links with me being 50.

Right now I've decided to ignore some bits of the stuff I am meant to do at school. Part of what I find really stressful about this job in this school, is that I'm not given enough freedom to do things how I want. The kids aren't excited by how we are doing things either. It would be OK if I was excited about it, so I could big it up, but I'm not, so it's even harder work to keep things going.

@HercwasanEnemyofEducation
At this point I don't feel I have much choice. The stress this year has had a massive impact on me - cramps, lack of sleep. I have had a really odd holiday - completely incapable for the first 10 days, and even now am struggling to be civil if I get less than 8.5 hours sleep! I am burnt out, it's not fair on DC or DH.
It's partly COVID teaching that's the issue (less resource being stretched even further), longer teaching days to accommodate smaller bubbles.
But it's also due to management- no action to help w managing behaviour issues, and a complete redesign of English, History and Geog planning making workload unbearable. (Did the planning need to be totally redone in the middle of all this disruption?!)
I'm still optimistic that there are better schools out there (though I'm wary of any chasing / maintaining that magic 'outstanding' grade). But I don't have it in me for a job hunt right now.

Hello all!

Not looking forward to going back on Monday really. I've rested well this holiday though - unusually for me. I've been looking wistfully at Open University courses and wondering if I could squeeze some part time study in somewhere. I miss academic study.

I’ve found it really hard to get back into routine after the two weeks off. Bashing my face didn’t help though.

I'm not looking forward to getting back to school on Monday, but I've enjoyed my holiday. I'm not quite as burnt out as some of you, but I am dreading this terms workload. I have year 13 reports due next week, then year 12 reports the following week, and year 10 summer exams (where I don't gain any time while they're doing the exams but I do get to mark 2 classes worth of papers, yay!). As soon as year 10 have finished their exams we're straight into year 11 and 13 assessments which will be a massive pain in the arse. There's such a huge amount to do in this half term!!! I haven't even considered how/when I'm going to have time to do things like write worked solutions for revision tasks/mark homework/ plan revision for exam classes. I feel exhausted just thinking about how much there is to do, so I shall firmly put it out of my mind again.

Rule that sounds like a good plan, I hope you can arrange it reasonably easily.

BigBob you do sound burnt out. This year has been exhausting for everybody, so taking some time out and doing bits of supply sounds like an excellent plan. I changed schools after my first 2 years, and I had almost left teaching altogether. A better school where I felt more supported with behaviour, and I was trusted to teach/mark in the way that suits me rather than prescriptive policies, meant that I rediscovered the enthusiasm I'd lost. So I really do recommend trying a different school, and "trying a few out" on supply would be a good way of deciding which ones would suit you best.

I'm seriously getting the dread about Monday now it makes me sad as I do love the job, but this year has been insanely hard and this next half term will be very tough with TAGs.

I know every other teacher is in the same boat with TAGs and the difficulties of working through the pandemic.

I have managed to collate evidence for one appraisal target today. Will do the other tomorrow or Monday.

I think this is interesting:
news.sky.com/story/clean-air-for-schools-breakthrough-study-from-philips-12232625

That's a long Philips advert

More evidence of the prejudices in the Sewell report:

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/16/government-race-report-evidence?__twitter_impression=true

And this re the daily contact testing trials - hadn’t realised it’s all without parent or staff consent!

mobile.twitter.com/Zubhaque/status/1383061548919357446

Thank you @MsAwesomeDragon
Really reassuring to hear that I might find my place in teaching yet!

I've been in and out BigBob and now just do part time. A pgce is never a waste of time (so long as you go through with getting your nqt year and qts sorted which you've done) as you can always do supply or try and get something part time or go and work overseas or tutor etc. You can also go fuck this and leave it for years and then come back.

Having a break will be lovely. I took a break a few years in to do my counsellor training and re-evaluate what I wanted to do after getting quite burnt out. I did complete my counsellor training but also fell pregnant and had ds within the two years of the course so it turned into quite a big diversion.

Hi all,

Have been reading all of your posts, and hope that everyone's enjoyed some lovely weather this weekend.

BigBobBoots and Rule, I feel glad for you that you've taken the decision to leave, so sorry to hear about the impact it has had on your live recently, Bob. I think it's a brave decision to leave something that you know and are familiar with, to jump into the unknown. I remember really wondering whether it was a good idea to leave my job in industry.... 15 years of goodwill is hard to let go of. Ultimately a good decision (so far), but I can't see myself doing classroom teaching if my own family isn't bound by term times.

Been back in the classroom for a day and it was ok. Kids are a bit meh about being back as well, the weather has been too nice. Glad to see my colleagues, although everyone is stressed about TAGs.

I've got to reteach myself some A-level Statistics and have been putting it off all holiday. Teaching it on Monday, so will need to get on with it tomorrow.

I'm looking forward to going back on Monday, although I am a little nervous because this break I had to admit to myself that I don't have my asthma under control and I am still in the early days of a daily inhaler. Just hoping my current less than ideal lung capacity is sorted out by the time I have to be running around on the playground, or calling the ones ignoring the whistle to come in from forest school, etc

Well if any English teachers want to teach the Hero's Quest, just get your kids to watch Love and Monsters on Netflix for homework.

Also borrows heavily from the Wizard of Oz.

Quite good fun.

Morning! Essay has been submitted and I now have THE FEAR very strongly.

Final placement (same class) and suddenly feeling really overwhelmed with it all. I need to get better at evidencing the teacher standards in my folder and still have an essay outstanding. Think this term is going to be so busy and I don't feel I've had a holiday at all.

I did manage to have a day out on Friday and later today I'm getting jabbed - benefits of being old😉

Well done to those who have been struggling with big decisions. Life has a weird way of working itself out to get you to where you're meant to be.

Hooray name
Perhaps you can make the standards evidencing something you do every day - so look back over your planning for the day and just highlight one or two things which went well, then jot down why on a post it and stick it on. Ten mins a day... then you'll have loads to choose from at the end.

Well done name - I'm sure your essay will be great!

In terms of evidencing standards, I second MrsHamlet suggestion. I mentor an NQT at the moment and we update his standards file each week. It means we have more evidence than we need but it's quick to do every week and means we are not scrabbling for evidence when it comes to assessment forms. Also, we can quickly identify where he may have gaps and work to address them.

Sunday. Uh-oh

Going to do a bit of 'minimal' planning now ie. look through the powerpoints and send resources to the job box on the photocopier if needs be. Then I have literally only about 6 or 7 essays left to mark out of a class set that I've been procrastinating about like mad which I need to do.

I'll take some time this week to print off all CPD certificates from this year and to start an actual physical folder of evidence for appraisal. My mid year review one last week was very brief. I'm really not sure what is actually expected. I didn't have a proper appraisal my first year there as I was in hospital in the summer term and last year was lockdowns and no business as usual so it's my first proper appraisal in many years as I was out of schools or supply teaching for years before this role. Any tips gratefully received.

Honey In my place very little evidence is ever needed. (unless you're really shit or fighting your corner about something). I'd go minimal and then if you need more, add it later. As much as I moan about our SLT performance management is one thing they mostly have right. It's very much a write targets you do anyway and job done. The only time I needed more evidence was to go to UPS and someone lovely sat with me and wrote down everything I do.

School dream happened last night, first one all holiday so not fared too badly. We go on holiday the Friday we break up for May half term and I can't wait, its going to get me through the next few weeks!

I'm with Herc on appraisal evidence. We all just passed last year, and I suspect it'll be the same this year - but we have a fairly simple form to fill, plus the CPD log, plus the observation form. To go through the threshold, I wrote a letter which said "following two successful appraisal cycles, I would like to apply to go through the threshold". That's all that was expected.

I really, really don't want to go back tomorrow
I'm definitely going to be looking for a non-school job. Luckily I'm a TA rather than a teacher, so don't need to worry about resignation deadlines. Good luck to everyone going back tomorrow.

Thanks Herc and MrsH - have no worries about passing as there've never been any concerns about me as a teacher but I am planning on applying for UPS so thinking more evidence needed.

I didn't have the evidence last year and the head asked HOD to set targets etc that would enable me to apply this year.

For UPS we have to write about/evidence each of the criteria.