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

@TheHoneyBadger

I'm applying for UPS next year and yes I'll be pointing out the percentage of my classes that made above expected progress, numbers who chose GCSE etc even if that isn't a narrative anyone in my department wants to acknowledge.

Definitely do it. Best of luck.

It’s just hit me how much work I have on my plate this half term. Feeling very overwhelmed.

It’s just hit me how much work I have on my plate this half term. Feeling very overwhelmed.
This.

Absolutely this.

I can see the mountain. And it's scary.

It’s just hit me how much work I have on my plate this half term. Feeling very overwhelmed.
Me too. I feel very, very overwhelmed about how much work there is still to do this half term.
Although, I'm in the enviable position of having NO MARKING to do tonight!!!! Tomorrow night I shall have enough marking to keep me going for days, but tonight I shall enjoy an evening off. I am currently in the house on my own as dd2 has gone to the park after school. I don't quite know what to do with myself i need to do some housework

🍷 and 💐 for all you markers.

At least one secondary in Bolton has agreed to keep masks from Monday (the report said “students agreed to keep”) because of worries about local case rates and the Indian variant.

(Knew there was something else.....)

And national attendance figures are down this week, 92% from 93% last week apparently.

Secondary attendance is down to 89%

Gosh. We've got quite a lot off with "tummy aches..."

I’m sure that’s just a coincidence. Nothing to see here.

and extra for everyone. You really have been utterly stitched up.

@noblegiraffe

Secondary attendance is down to 89%

Seriously? That’s really bad.

Maybe most of that is year 11? Ours don’t seem to give a shit. Turning up late to class everyday. At least most of them are turning up though.

Ours are seriously dicking about - but they are in. It's not them off at our place, its quite a lot of poorly 7/8s.

@Michino

I do two playground duties, and am on first aid for the others. I usually manage 15 mins to clean the tables, eat lunch, pee and clean the tables again before the children come back. All the dinner ladies are TAs too, but they get a protected 30 min break, either before ore after the official lunch time.

Oh interesting, at our school only TAs are on first aid, not teachers. We have dinner ladies but not enough for the right ratio I think so we have lunch duty every day.

I stopped and bought some wine on the way home, is the kind of day we had. Sigh.

Beachhuts90
Sorry, I am a TA. Though to be fair, the teachers take their turn with duties. All the TAs are first aiders, the only teachers that are teach EYFS.

Our year 11 attendance has been dire this week, and we've got more staff sick than at any point in the rest of the year. We're dead on our feet, all of us.

Our Yr11 are either stressed and anxious or have left the building mentally (& in some cases, physically).

Yr7 have been really high octane this week too. Lots of silly behaviour. Tired/ready for change after a year spent on one corridor?

Staff are on their knees.

Y7-9 are so reluctant to work. I think they're getting a diet of shit lessons staff have pulled together at the last minute because they are so busy TAGing. Not blaming teachers, I'm doing it too! Everyone's exhausted and cba to keep on top of ks3.

Our TAGs are driving me beyond round the bend.

We set assessments, make them out of marks that make sense to us: data guy insists on knowing which components they come from , applies mysterious weightings without asking what anything is out of...so that he can apply grade boundaries (no...) so that we can then argue with him about the grades.

DH maths teacher, says it makes no sense.

As an example, they are insisting on me recording a component 1 mark separately (which I put in to make both my assessments out of the same number) . This they intend to apply a weighting of 0.25 to. It's out of 5...

Another example : two papers out of 50 (but the second paper sat in two sittings because we were told nothing could take more than 40 minutes). He has weighted one double, because he ahs just assumed the other two in class assessments we did are out of 50 each. they aren't. I made them out of 35 and 15 ... for pretty blinkingly obvious reasons!!

I don't think you could come across a school that is so determinedly trying to sit exams in schools, including down to how the results are worked out. And then messing it up.

A class of year 8s were really gutted when I said we were hopefully coming out of zones after half term. I was really surprised - they moaned like hell about it at first and now they seem to have gotten used to their safe little zone.

I've just spent ages online trying to find things for my Mum's birthday. She has a nice little make up bag with some fancy hand cream, some pillow spray and some rescue remedy night to try (she struggles to sleep) and a tacky grandma fridge magnet from ds thus far.

She doesn't want big gifts but I don't want to be empty handed. My dad's birthday is in a couple of months and I'll buy him little bits as well and then when we're definitely out of lock down I'll get them some theatre tickets (if theatre still exists then).

Birthdays and anniversaries and the like have a been a bit naff all round this year.

I'm scared just looking at the amount of work some of you have to do. This is why I'm doing the silly jobs like looking for missing textbooks at school at the minute - I'm the only one in my department who doesn't have exam groups. Think I'll pop some pre-mixed g&ts or mini bottles of wine and chocs in colleagues pigeon holes at the end of the week.

This about sums it all up

twitter.com/soph_the_loaf/status/1392149880060194820

They sound like lovely gifts, Honey

@Mistressinthetulips

Just heard Scottish update and masks are for now still staying but will be reviewed. Relieved. My happiest news today has been that giraffes have arrived in the local zoo 🦒🦒

Good news! Giraffes are so cool (and noble).

We went to the zoo over Easter and got to the giraffe house and they were nowhere to be seen. But then they came out, snaffled some food, posed for a photo, then went back in again. It was very considerate of them!

There are 5 pages left in the broom closet if you run out of room here.

I just wasted another load of time looking for pigeon hole gifts I will do just about anything to avoid housework it seems.

We also went to the zoo over Easter and saw giraffes. One waited until loads of people were watching then did a really big pee! Ruined a lot of people's photo opportunities, but I found it hilarious.

Now you're both just showing off about already having giraffes
good time for me to mention that we have pandas

Hello everyone - just checking in. Long day here with a horrible safeguarding situation which swallowed my PPA and the rest of my afternoon/evening.

Hope you're all ok and the TAG-ers are keeping their heads above water.