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

I assume when people, headlines etc say "no masks in schools" that mean "masks no longer compulsory in classrooms" - which is not quite the same thing. Off to find this gorgeous puppy picture

4 cases somekind? That’s not good. Best of luck avoiding it.

I’m so tired I can’t quite believe it’s only Monday. I swear behaviour isn’t getting worse at my place. Or maybe I’m getting worse at dealing with it.

No change at all for primary schools then? We've had staff wearing masks all along, so presumably they will continue. Some of us who work closely together have totally given up apart from in corridors. Place is a wind tunnel though, which is more important as far as I can tell.

Gorgeous puppy @MsAwesomeDragon!

I'm having my first jab on Saturday (had to reschedule my appt from two weeks ago for tedious reasons) so at least I'll have two days' protection! I can't believe they're doing away with masks when the Indian variant is circulating so freely in some areas. It feels like a mistake.

And precious office workers are also giving me the rage, especially the ones that were throwing strops about schools being 'closed' during lockdown.

I’m crawling out from under a pile of papers and TAG spreadsheets to say hello and WTF? Masks no more? We’ve had them in corridors since September and as soon as the kids are being let out to the wider community we’re getting rid?

mobile.twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1391819639429140484

A thread. TL:DR - now doesn’t seem to be the time to drop masks in schools. And you can’t use your common sense to protect yourself if you are a teacher.

Except our protection comes from them wearing masks.

I think that’s why you can’t use common sense. Boris can wang on about people using common sense, but if you are a teacher your job basically involves all the things you shouldn’t do I.e. being indoors with large numbers of people for an extended period of time.

Exactly. DH used to get irritated with me when I finished off all the sentences spouted on TV.
"The riskiest places are confined spaces with poor ventilation."
"Like classrooms."
"Masks should be worn when mixing with others."
"Except in schools."
"No more than 6 people in a room."
"Apart from in classrooms."

Oh, and WTF does Boris mean by "sensible" hugs?

@CallmeHendricks

Oh, and WTF does Boris mean by "sensible" hugs?

That's when you don't stick your bum out and wiggle it I think

A scientist explained yesterday - don’t hug everyone, maybe just close fam/friends; turn faces away; maybe wear masks; keep it short.

Did anyone pick up on how non committal they all were in the briefing about another lockdown??

@JanFebAnyMonth

A scientist explained yesterday - don’t hug everyone, maybe just close fam/friends; turn faces away; maybe wear masks; keep it short.

So no hugging random strangers

Brilliant.

Just wondering how long it normally takes for a school to send you a formal offer of employment? It’s been almost a week since the verbal offer but nothing sent through yet.

I need to resign my current post to allow them to advertise my replacement

"So no hugging random strangers"

Well, call me antisocial, but for me that's been one of the plus parts of Covid; not having to hug people I barely know, just because it had become some sort of social norm.

@CallmeHendricks

Oh, and WTF does Boris mean by "sensible" hugs?

Ones where you don't impregnate the person you're hugging and then abandon the subsequent child.

Yes piggy I was really surprised at that.

Thanks for that twitter thread Rafa..... so Whitty isn’t being truthful, great.

I’m kind of at the point now where I’m thinking that if people can go to pubs/hug/mix indoors, why on earth can’t our primary children all play together on the playground?

At the moment we have one adult out per class in separate coned off areas, and then they eat in their classrooms with one adults to serve and clean up per class. So that’s all teachers on duty every lunchtime, lucky to grab 15 mins to go the loo and set up their afternoon lessons.

Don’t even get me started on having them in rows with NO SODDING SPACE to move, or letting eight year olds bring pencil cases in and therefore spending a good 10% of each lesson choosing a pen.

I think it's basically it's hush, shhh, let's get some summer moolah into the economy time again.

To be honest I need the summer 'off' from covid so part of me is ok with that. I wouldn't be surprised if they suspect that actually we'll be dealing with similar next autumn/winter too but we need to get some cash in the registers and allow people to let loose a bit so they'll comply if needs be later on. I think they knew full well what they were doing last summer too and Boris was hoping to do the same for summer (open it all up to allow for spending knowing it wasn't covid wise but deemed necessary economy wise) but kent variant scuppered it.

was hoping to do the same for Christmas sorry. Tired and a bit grumpy.

Oh and I misread the bit about common sense thinking it said teachers can use common sense to protect themselves when in fact it was the opposite - sorry! See above for excuses.

@Timeturnerplease

I’m kind of at the point now where I’m thinking that if people can go to pubs/hug/mix indoors, why on earth can’t our primary children all play together on the playground?

At the moment we have one adult out per class in separate coned off areas, and then they eat in their classrooms with one adults to serve and clean up per class. So that’s all teachers on duty every lunchtime, lucky to grab 15 mins to go the loo and set up their afternoon lessons.

Don’t even get me started on having them in rows with NO SODDING SPACE to move, or letting eight year olds bring pencil cases in and therefore spending a good 10% of each lesson choosing a pen.

All of that stuff. Yet again I had to eat lunch in front of the kids after spending my 'break' dealing with child issues. They are desperate to play with other friends on the playground too - my class needs some other kids.

I said no to pencil cases. Have given them all a basket on their desk with everything they need in it. I never have pencil cases and I'm not starting now.

To be honest I need the summer 'off' from covid so part of me is ok with that.

Me too. Very much so.

It's going to be interesting working out who I actually want to see now that I can. Zoom coffee has long gone by the wayside (like about a year ago).

Ones where you don't impregnate the person you're hugging and then abandon the subsequent child.

noble 😁👍

I've now marked 15/265 tests, so that's got me started on my marking marathon. Year 13 sat the tests today and I've marked them this evening. I'm very relieved that there are improvements from the mock (which were dire and made me seriously consider whether teaching is really for me).