The Fifty-Eight Republic - Do no masks mean that Sports Day will take place?

[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

We're not MH professionals.

The lack of MH services is a scandal - and it's just not OK to think schools can somehow magically bridge a serious, serious gap.

(I feel really strongly about this. ☹️)

Ok, so I'm having a wobble. I have an interview this coming week at somewhere posh and serious in tone. I have planned my lesson but it seems a bit.... Not exciting? Im confident it is a good lesson, but is it enough without some type of wow factor. Just too bloody tired for any wow at the moment.

You don't need wow. You need solid pedagogy.
You are not a party entertainer.

wine Interview with your lesson as is. You want them to see you as you'll be day in day out. If they don't like it, that's their problem!

Good luck.

I'd go with solid.

You just don't want the wheels to come off.

You'll be great.

I think it is a tricky balance. Some students are tired of adults raising mental awareness. We have posters all over the place plus regular assemblies on it.

However one of my students is in real need of CAHMS assistance and is on a waiting list. He is year 12 I fear the clock will just run down until he is 18. On the other hand a couple have ‘played’ a mental health for their gcse basket assessments. Other students have said it is not fair and that their parents would not let them do the same.

Just back from a lovely, rare evening out at a proper grown up restaurant, with dh. Full of good food and wine. Dd was babysitting for a small fee, and turfed her brothers upstairs at 9, so she could watch Gogglebox in peace.

I've had one Mirena coil which hurt like hell when it was inserted - I think I didn't expect it, but I've become a bit teary and stressed about smear tests ever since. I also bled for 9 months afterwards without a break, so went back on the pill when it expired. Never again!

We aren't trained in supporting students effectively. I don't know what to say to students struggling with their mental health.

Nope, me neither.

Good luck!

Nooo, have just posted a comment I meant to put on here (re noble!) on that thread, blow!!! It kind of works there tho, fortunately. Have asked for it to be deleted which will make it look more sinister..... 😂

I thought I was providing moral support but no I was being sooooooo embarrassing and damaging Jan's street cred.

It's like I spat on a tissue and dabbed Jan's face with it in front of her friends.

I’m on my third Mirena. It’s very uncomfortable for me to have them fitted (and also smears) because I have a tilted cervix and uterus. I basically have to contort myself! I’m not sure whether it’s the tilted uterus or the fact m neighbour fits it (she’s the nurse at my clinic) that makes it uncomfortable! I love it though. My neighbour reckons the next one will be my last as should’ve gone through menopause by then.

Definitely agree about not knowing what to say to children who are struggling with their mental health. May I also add parents who are struggling with their mental health too. I just spend more and more time knowing that I am not enough and that I am not meeting all their needs.

[quote JanFebAnyMonth]Yes piggy I just came on to post it and will again as people need to read it. Was thinking of bursting into Staffroom and shouting “Wagwen!” to get your attention! They succeeded in blocking info in PHE report on Indian variant spread in schools just before the publication of the guidance removing masks in schools.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/22/no-10-tried-to-block-data-on-spread-of-new-covid-variant-in-english-schools?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&fbclid=IwAR29Q2q1HshlU1IKtpWSEboxLJZAEdNxH2OAI7pNt7Tuh_VYr9dKFUQZ5JQ[/quote]

How is this being covered up like this? BBC never mention anything, so I have written to them about the lack of transparency. What else can we do?

This stuff came out at 11pm

twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1396244823728926721

I don’t know how to help my dd with her mental health issues (anxiety), fucked of if know how to help other kids.

Go for the solid lesson wolf, good luck.

Exactly how childish is it to call a variant a scariant? Honestly MN might as well rename the coronavirus board the 'safe space for deniers'.

Fair play starting a thread jan but ostriches heads are truly buried...

Do we need to normalise life being a bit shit sometimes and actually that's OK because usually it gets better.

Yes absolutely to this.

We have a Student Services of sorts that has, in the past 5 years or so, become far too overwhelmed by those students/parents who claim mental health issues relating to worries about exams etc.
By overwhelmed, I mean students taking themselves out of lessons to visit Student Services because they say they cannot cope with upcoming exams or other similar stressful situations (it’s very rarely years 7 to 9).

I genuinely believe that as a school and also those non-teaching staff who head up our Student Services, we are not enough to reassure that it is perfectly normal to be worried about exams and that instead. we should be giving them tools to be able to cope, rather than missing more lesson time that would ironically, help them far better to be more prepared for exams/assessments.

The students who have MH issues surrounding depression or other symptom are being lost as they are in the minority and often on waiting lists behind other students who really, just need methods to cope with normal levels of stress.

I feel that this, along with chronically underfunded MH services and a reluctance to see young people face to face, has generated is the perfect storm for a MH crisis.

Have I explained myself well? I never want to denigrate any young person’s experience but I do believe that there should be less of the ‘attention’ that ‘catastrophises’ perfectly normal reactions that makes them worse.

Our well-being area is exactly the same. "Tilly-Floss had anxiety so she's going to come up any time she feels stressed about her TAGS and do some mindfulness colouring."
Perhaps she would be less anxious about her exams if she was in lessons learning how to do well in them?
I'm not unsympathetic to anyone who is struggling but I think we've gone too far with trying to protect kids from normal feelings of anxiety. Of course you're anxious about exams. That's normal.

Agree Chloe. I teach so many pupils who have a card that they can show if they feel overwhelmed and need to go to student support. What they are experiencing is normal stress. On the other hand I teach a girl who has missed 4 months of education due to surgery and at xmas all her family had Covid. Not once she had complained. My own DS is awaiting an ASD diagnosis. He started Beavers 3 weeks ago and doesn’t really enjoy it (yet!) as he had our social skills. Each week I set him a target. Week 1 I stayed all session and he held my hand. Week 2. I stayed and he couldn’t hold my hand but could stand next to me. I’m building up to leaving him for 10 minutes. Children need to experience stress.

*poor social skills

Fair play starting a thread jan but ostriches heads are truly buried...

As they have been through the whole of this pandemic, only really raising their heads when home learning fared harder than they could cope with.

I was talking to a colleague involved in SEND last week (outside in the freezing cold!) and she said that have had a large influx of private SEND diagnoses on children we have always struggled with and suspected reasons but some parents didn’t want to acknowledge. Those periods of home learning, we suspect, caused some parents to really see how their children are when learning and prompted these appointments.

Chloe I agree. You articulated my feelings much better than I managed. Re reading my post last night it sounded a bit like I was dismissing all MH issues and that's not what I meant.

Thanks also for the mirena advice. I'm still on the fence, copper is a known entity and I know how my body reacts. Mirena seems to be a bit of a lottery.

We had this problem and you now can't go or be sent to student services unless you vomit or are bleeding. Otherwise if we think it necessary we can email them and they will, if they can make it, come to the lesson and assess there.

Some kids have cards that allow them to step out of the room into the corridor for a couple of minutes but no more I'm allowed to go to student services or go and see Mrs so and so if I need to anytime I like.

I'd actually like to run a stress management, including meditation, breathing exercises and cbt type stuff 'club' at school. I'm not sure if it would put the wellbeing tlr person's nose out of joint though or if any kids would come.

Thanks also for the mirena advice. I'm still on the fence, copper is a known entity and I know how my body reacts. Mirena seems to be a bit of a lottery.

My husband volunteered to have a vasectomy after our last failed IVf and I felt I was too old to fairly have another (I am a child of older parents who died when I was too young) so I no longer have to carry that burden of contraception.
It’s amazing how that has freed up my head space after 20 odd years of having to manage all that (although I don’t like the hormonal face spots that I now get in my 40s!)