The Sixtieth Republic - One half term to go - just need to survive Sports Day and Activities Week!

[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 for school staff to let off steam.

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. Finally, upload your covid test results twice a week on Wednesdays and Sundays.

I was think Matt meant if there are less infections (people testing positive), there’ll be fewer bubbles bursting. Therefore rule’s point isn’t relevant.

Fewer infections, Jan surely.

Sorry it was piggy who asked if he was confusing primary and secondary. rule suggested he’s implying that, post-universal vaccination, isolation of contacts will end. Again, if he meant there’ll be less infections, that explains it.

@noblegiraffe

Fewer infections, Jan surely.

...

Jan is silently swearing at you, Noble
Sitting waiting for our LFTs to process.

Aaargh. I always get less/fewer wrong, unless I stop to think!

We do close bubbles at out place if by bubbles we're talking whole form. Because in ks3 they are taught entirely in one class all week. They all go home for one positive case. Ks4 it's contacts in each option group carefully selected.

Not swearing at all! Feeling annoyed with myself!

Now I need to get off here and do something useful 😊

It is sunny (for once) and I plan to sit in the garden and do bugger all.

@noblegiraffe

Fewer infections, Jan surely.

Definitely a secret English teacher!

I'm going for lunch with a friend I've not seen for ages. It's a beautiful day here.

Bloody tipping it down here!

Oh no, it's been absolutely glorious and dry here all week. (Actually too hot for me a lot of the time.)

To be honest the rain is a welcome relief from the heat of this week. The only pain is that when we came back from camping we out our tent back up in the garden. We had bought a new tent, an air one, and we couldn’t get it flat again once we deflated it so we put it back up to take it down again. Needless to say we didn’t get round to it and now it’ll have to wait again to dry out!

Eurgh. That's the worst thing.

I've wasted half a morning trying to get my Fitbit working properly. It's stopped buzzing when I get to goal or receive any texts and has decided to only inform me of how many staircases I've climbed, instead of steps.

Need it sorted before I go out into what now looks like a bloody raincloud!

Well Ange, the obvious solution is to stay inside and climb your stairs instead of going for a walk.

Thank you. Yep definitely stressed today. Actually had a panic attack in the shop which I've not had for ages. Still feel very shaky now despite tea and toast.

They y2 but very low (a couple still can't write their name) and their writing is poor. Everything needs to be heavily modeled and scaffolded and quite often I'm without a TA even in the morning. I don't know how you all do it on I really don't.

If you add us together, name, we've been doing this for centuries.

Ange press and hold the side button and see if you’ve accidentally put it on do not disturb.

Keep breathing name. Nearly there.

I’m having a slow start today. Have lots to do at home and have one last set of assessments to mark but need a couple of cups of coffee and some mindless time first.

This week has flown by.

@MrsHamlet

If you add us together, name, we've been doing this for centuries.

I’m so old...

A few years ago when I waking DD to school she said “mummy you’re 39 aren’t you?”. I nodded. She then went onto say “when I’m 39 you’ll most likely be dead”.

Cheers love.

They y2 but very low (a couple still can't write their name) and their writing is poor. Everything needs to be heavily modeled and scaffolded and quite often I'm without a TA even in the morning. I don't know how you all do it on I really don't

As an ex KS1 teacher (fought my way out of Y2 kicking and screaming) I absolutely feel for you. The non writers at that stage are such hard work because their independence is still so low too due to age.

Depending on the text/topic you’re focusing on could you: follow some poor instructions to do/make something, look at good instructions and pick apart the features, make/so something practical, create pictorial instructions for the thing that was done/made, then turn these into actual instructions very slowly? With lots of stopping to check and edit. Non writers could have sentence starters to finish off, or their picture instructions copied so they stuck each one down in turn, then sound out and write a simple command next to it, with a CIP word mat to copy from, keeping it v simple - ‘Cut the paper’.

Sorry for long message - am a county moderator for KS1 still, so I got a bit carried away!

The lft are doing their job in my family today. My niece has tested positive, 4 times. So she's off for a PCR test, both of her households (Mums and dads) are now isolating, plus her boyfriend and the friends she went out with yesterday. I'm very glad my sister has been double jabbed, so she's unlikely to catch it.

When I first started teaching, we still had Breakthru sentence makers (anyone else old enough to remember these?!) which were actually brilliant for the Y1/2 that really struggled with writing. If picking up phonics is an issue-can you work on some sight word recognition as well-cut and order simple sentences and then copy?

Definitely a secret English teacher!

Every teacher is an English teacher, or so I have been told ad nauseam.

English words and phrases I have had to explain recently: “at least” “quarterly” and “per” (OK not English).

Apparently a staircase (or, strictly speaking, a flight of stairs) is 12 vertical feet, or 12 or 13 steps. Who knew? And I suppose that means that one could be one step short of a staircase, if sandwiches and picnics start to pall.