The broom cupboard 3 - for briefly stranded republicans

[TheHoneyBadger]

First in tops up the gin supplies and turns on the tea urn.

Must be said that I'm really liking school being a bit more normal. I think I had the most normal teaching day today since early March 2020. All lessons taught, all work marked, sorted out same day intervention, sang a song, they went to assembly, our stationery order has finally arrived... quite nice. No cases in school as yet, which is obviously good.

Head has told us though, that we don't need to report LFT results to her anymore, but MUST report them to the NHS. Why? Makes me not want to bother doing them at all really.

Ditto rule. It was so nice to be in one room for the day with glues and scissors etc at hand.

Haven’t heard anything about us testing and reporting. I gave up reporting ages ago. It’s more hassle than the test.

Oh and we didn’t get tests in our pigeon hole just a brief mention in inset where they were if we wanted some. I don’t think my school is interpreting it as mandatory or essential. Nothing to do with the cost of supply I’m sure!

I've only taught one lesson so far but it was great to have everything to hand, and to be able to move around the room.

I'm very jealous of your "I've only taught one lesson" smugness. I've taught 20!!!!!! With another 4 tomorrow and 4 on Friday.

Went for my PCR, the testing site was very empty. Not sure if it's empty all the time now or if it was just because it was later on.

Interesting teaching Y8 today, they didn't know how to come into a classroom properly, exit routines etc and were surprised that they were expected to take their book home. So used to teachers coming to them and the teacher not 'owning' the classroom.

I'm so jealous of those of you with their rooms back. We're still dragging ourselves, books, resources etc. all over the school to different year group zones, where we're greeted by unsupervised, unruly pupils!

SLT love that there are no 'out of lesson' behaviour issues to deal with, though (there can't be; they're barely ever allowed out of their classrooms!)

Normally I'd have done more than that... but all the kids aren't back til tomorrow! Wednesday is my frees day too...

MsAD hope you’re ok. PCR false negative rate is 30%.

I’m learning that the way to distinguish between the Y7s I don’t know, and the Y8s I don’t know, is to quickly assess confidence level/ eagerness to please!

@JanglyBeads

I’m learning that the way to distinguish between the Y7s I don’t know, and the Y8s I don’t know, is to quickly assess confidence level/ eagerness to please!

That's a good strategy. Nervous and keen are year 7. Year 8 have lost that keenness, and are far too confident for their own good.

I have to tell my form tomorrow that they aren't allowed to play football at lunchtime with the year 10 and 11 boys, because they're literally twice the size of my little year 7s and there have already been injuries amongst the year 7s 🤦

@noblegiraffe

Interesting teaching Y8 today, they didn't know how to come into a classroom properly, exit routines etc and were surprised that they were expected to take their book home. So used to teachers coming to them and the teacher not 'owning' the classroom.

Well, unsurprisingly in my school, the behaviour stuff like this is a focus for T 1 and 2. Just constant low level being idiots. My class this year is much more gentle, but still lots of what used to be called 'low level disruption' - they've just been around parents for so much longer than they usually would be, they've forgotten how to a) do anything themselves, b) shut up.

@JanglyBeads

MsAD hope you’re ok. PCR false negative rate is 30%.

Is it as high as that Jan? That's pretty high

I am also enjoying the more normal feel of school.

I taught 3 lessons today and it was so nice to be in my own room with all of my equipment to hand.

Actually really enjoyed today. Shattered now as it's been busy but it did feel good to be back in the classroom.

My new Y7s are super excited about Bunsen burners tomorrow so looking forward to that 🙂

Yes, it’s a fact everyone has seemingly forgotten. I think this is because a) it pale into insignificance besides the possible LFT false neg rate of c40-97%, and b) - in fact a different way of expressing a) - the PCRs came to be known as the ‘gold standard’ tests!

I'm so jealous of those of you with their rooms back. We're still dragging ourselves, books, resources etc. all over the school to different year group zones, where we're greeted by unsupervised, unruly pupils

Oh poor you. I think SLT considered keeping the Covid classrooms. They loved the reduced behaviour issues outside of class.

Thankfully science and tech lessons put a stop to that. Also, there was a good chance the staff would have mutinied.

We never moved around last year, the kids did, so our 8s up have great corridor/transition behaviour.

It's still nice to have normal Classroom rules, though. No cleaning. Allowed different seating plans per teacher etc.

Our in-school testing turned up 11 positives - and the testing that many students did at home instead of coming in turned up 33! I wonder how many more there are who didn't test.......

Evening! Looks like lots of us are getting back in the swing of things this week and experiencing some knock on effects from last year.

I had a chuckle today. Last week, we were given the news that split lunches were to stay because they were easier for SLT to monitor (we have plenty of places for food so not an issue with all pupils getting to eat) despite most staff explaining how noisy it is when teaching then and how hard lunch clubs etc would be.

Today, SLT were overheard worrying about how they were going to deal with wet lunch with no form rooms for pupils to go back to!

moment

Wet lunch today. No adults appeared in my room apparently. I had done a runner into the staff room.

My year 3s have the bladders of peas. That's a significant fallout from the last 18 months.

Apparently our LA has decreed our children need to go back to having lunch in the hall (have been in classrooms since Covid). I am but a lowly ECT, but I didn't realise that was the sort of thing they would be interested in. Not looking forward to that.

Why - won't it be nice to have your classroom back?

I have three lessons in a row tomorrow and pathetically am like yikes how's my voice or my sanity going to handle that? Clearly gotten soft over summer and extended inset and staggered return.

Rule we're back to no one being allowed to the toilet in lessons unless they have a toilet pass (secndary obviously). Makes things so much easier than the endless requests because there weren't enough zone toilets and they couldn't access them at lunch. Kids faces when you say no are a treat though! They need to readjust.

Phew, im knackered. Starting with a snotty nose already. Highlight of the week has been being gifted a clicky thing to move ppt slides on. Now I can actually move away from a boxed off space at the front and walk amongst them it's fabulous. How have i never had one before?

Not really @TheHoneyBadger, I'm SEN and need to be with them for medical reasons for the first 30 mins of lunch (the actual food bit), then have my 30 mins preparing, reporting, general admin lunch in my classroom whilst they are taken out to play by another team. It is actually easier to stay in our classroom!