The Fifty Seventh Republic - the joy of bank holiday marking

[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

Jan Kongs are a range of very tough toys for chewy dogs. You can stuff them with food and peanut butter and your little 12kg of Bitey energy and muscle can chew, chew away at them and not your soft furnishings.

Many congratulations when

We had a bubble go down this week due to a positive LFT. However, the PCR came up negative - so lots of children in tears when they had to come back in the next day!

Fascinating to hear of false positive LFTs. I've only heard of umpteen examples of false negatives.

Well after what felt like the longest week with the whack a mole class I have only just woke up. DH is making bacon butties for breakfast and I'm planning in doing sweet FA all day.

IMy area teachers have only just been added to the spares list which is how I got one however we have headquarters for emergency services locally so think they have been prioritised. It's still crazy that I have friends WFH in the NHS who have had their second before I was anywhere close to my first.

Unfortunately booking my 2nd is proving a challenge, hoping some spaces open up locally as otherwise I'm public transporting to the nearest city.

I'm feeling pretty crap at the moment but I've just had blood tests that flagged up low iron so I'm hoping that when I finally get to speak to the doc about it I'll get iron pills and a magical transformation into someone bursting with energy.

Interestingly, when I was having my blood taken, the nurse said she noticed that I hadn't had an MMR and that they were jabbing people who hadn't because there's an increase in measles outbreaks. Bloody anti-vaxxers. I'm sure I must have been vaccinated against measles because I had any vaccine going, but I remember having my rubella at school so it was all separate back then.

Ooh low iron sucks noble iron tables should really help after a while.

eitak sounds like you really needed the lie in, whack a mole classes are exhausting.

We had quite a week in our whack a mole class too. I think it's not helped by the fact that we are a training school for the local uni and the trainees are hit or miss about actually following the behaviour policy 😑 Like, to the point of time out being the first step and the (recently ADHD diagnosed) kid saying "but I haven't had my first or second warning!" Indeed you haven't. I'm talking about things like making noise or fidgeting, not being dangerous or similar.

I think this week has been the longest 4 day week ever. Everyone seems to be very tired already (staff and students) and slightly on edge.

I have done housework this morning, got a bit to finish.

I have a presentation to SLT to finish for Monday as I have had zero time this week to look at it.

Trying to start looking at what needs to be done for Summer 2 so we can get going after half term and I honestly have no energy to think about it.

The timetable will arrive shortly so that will be another thing.

The marking pile is like wading through treacle.

I feel bad for my non-exam classes as I don't feel like I am giving them the best I can.

I am generally quite positive but struggling this half term

All out positive LFTs have come back negative.

The iron tablets will definitely help. If you don’t get to speak to a GP you could just pick some tablets up from the pharmacy. They aren’t prescription only.

The lack of vaccination for teachers was a scandal. They really ought to have been done after group 9 at least. Especially combined with all the pretending there’s no covid in schools and lack of mitigation.

Oh yes. Still annoyed I can't have one yet. Also I am 30 so according to the news yesterday I should be offered an alternative vaccine, but lord knows if there will even be availability in my area.

My teacher has Friday afternoon off as co-ordinator time. It's a large year 3/4 class with lots of SEN and some "lively" characters. We'd managed to get all the work done to a reasonable standard, so I was feeling quite good........ Then a sparrow entered the room! Luckily it was not long until hometime, so we decided to get ready and wait outside a bit early. When I got back to the room, the sparrow had gone, but had left a fair bit of "evidence". I had to grovel to the cleaner.

Oh, last Friday there was a wasp in the room. It didn't come within 2m of any child at any point, but we might as well have just gone home.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

Oh, last Friday there was a wasp in the room. It didn't come within 2m of any child at any point, but we might as well have just gone home.

🤣🤣🤣 I teach in the massive hall - a smallish class and when any inset comes in, despite it being the largest teaching area and nowhere near us it’s impossible to teach them. I feel your pain...

www.tes.com/news/gcses-2021-dont-test-test-test-teachers-told-exams?fbclid=IwAR15MmD9NmKSd5QUtI9fqFxLAE-d1zg8T_mDHO31WrPu0-_LwfYyP8v-Dzg

Ofqual doesn’t want lots of testing (and revision, by implication) to be happening at the moment

Do they think that the tests we can do as close to the deadline as possible will mark themselves overnight?

Or be moderated.

Bit late to be getting more direction now.

Do they think that we should be teaching kids content that we're not going to assess them on in the middle of assessments that will give them an actual qualification?

Or should we be assessing them on the new stuff as we're teaching it too?

And why are they coming out with this guff when schools had to decide how they were going to approach assessment before Easter?

Ofqual had their change from Jan to March to come up with a plan. They fucked it up, so they can't complain now.

We're doing in class tests. Which are basically past papers with certain topics taken out, then put together to fit into an hour's lesson. How else are we supposed to guarantee that it's the pupils work we're using as evidence? We can't use homework, because they copy each other collaborate on that. We can't use classwork because they generally don't sit in silence to do that, they talk to each other and copy each other help each other with things they're stuck with. So tests it is. Or that's what it needs to be in maths. It's possible other subjects would be easier to grade without tests, I don't know. We have decent mocks from December, but there are plenty of kids who should have made quite a bit of progress since then, they need to have a chance to show how much they know now.

We're doing in-class tests which means the kids are sitting them at different times which means the later classes are (naturally) asking the earlier classes what was on them. I don't think this is particularly fair on the kids to be put in that position.

Same here @noblegiraffe, all assessments held in scheduled lesson times. I wish they’d have been given study leave and just come in to sit their assessments. They are so bored and becoming troublesome. We’ve had 3 fire alarms go off this week - Yr 11 setting them off to avoid assessments.

Oh crikey I’m glad ours haven’t thought of the fire alarms yet, apparently

@noblegiraffe

We're doing in-class tests which means the kids are sitting them at different times which means the later classes are (naturally) asking the earlier classes what was on them. I don't think this is particularly fair on the kids to be put in that position.

We've managed to avoid that in maths due to a fluke in timetabling. There are 2 days a week where they have maths straight after each other. Ie, half have maths P1, and the other half P2. So there's no time to do anything about knowing which questions are on the paper. I don't think all subjects are so lucky, but I know science have managed the same as us.

Ours are sitting them all at the same time for every subject. In other words, basically an exam timetable - except they're not in the hall, they're in classrooms (but with invigilators, not teaching staff).

Jumping in, hello.

We are running an entire series of lookie-likely GCSEs and A levels. They finish on 24th May. As yet we have no idea how we are supposed to turn scores per paper into grades. The process will be “holistic” apparently.