The Sixty-First Republic - Covid the gift that keeps giving even in the last half term!

[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.

@noblegiraffe yes folder is in, all essays passed, moderation observation fab. Three days left in school, some training and then all meet here for a virtual celebration drink on the 2nd???

Hooray namechanged.

Fantastic Name! Well done!

Are you here Jan? I have come here to hide? I did teacher voice.

Well this is a worry for future English recruitment

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/19/novelists-issue-plea-to-save-english-degrees-as-demand-slumps

Well that's not a surprise, piggy, because noblegiraffe's thread for all occasions saw that coming a mile off.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/secondary/3765447-Gove-s-boring-English-GCSE-blamed-for-plummeting-A-level-uptake

Slump in A-level take-up, two years later slump in degree take-up. Thanks to Gove's boring GCSE.

I don't actually think that is why but, yes, I have been seeing it coming for years.

I'm not surprised that's happening on English courses. There's been such a strong message being pushed that anything other than STEM is useless for some time.

To all who have submitted grades this week have a or on me.

I know, piggy you said on the thread, I know your beef with STEM

That article says, though “Our research shows that the English language GCSE has been more problematic in putting young people off doing an A-level in English than any other factor.”

A colleague of mine said in a local girls' school they can't even drum up an A Level English class. He is a physics teacher so he though that was great on the whole. Yes, it is, if all those girls truly want to do physics, perform well in it, go on to fulfilling degrees and then careers.

In the last five years or so the binary (and still flawed) proposition that clever people either do art/hums and then law or sciences and then medicine/sciences etc seems to have shifted too.

My beef isn't with STEM in and of itself; it's with the undermining of anything else (Gav and his bloody 'dead end courses'). I think that research is flawed: GCSE Lang shouldn't really affect Lit uptake. A big factor is the dropping of AS.

I have a whole cupboard for tonic water MrsH. Not something I like to run out of and some I really don't like so don't like being forced to pick it up in the village. Coop tonic water is vile.

I am hormonally eating chocolate which makes my gym trip a bit pointless but then I could have not been to the gym and eaten chocolate which would be worse.

Well put piggy (Once I’d worked out you meant on Data!)

Probably should have just ignored but it was unnecessarily pass agg bitchy.

Oh, noble, you are amazing with your threads.

I have a fridge freezer in my garage. My tonic stock is kept in the fridge bit.
Mum now buys fevertree when I come to stay because I am a tonic snob! We're drinking Lidl lemon and lime gin tonight.

@thecatfromjapan

Oh, noble, you are amazing with your threads.

thanks.

This was my favourite thread I ever started, and it wasn't about education at all. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2942254-AIBU-to-ask-the-woman-next-to-me-for-her-gherkin

I never did find out who the poster was who changed their username to GherkinSnatch.

You can have all my gherkins, noble

Ah 2017. Innocent times.

Aww thanks, MrsH.

I read the thread. I want gherkins now.

You can have any gherkins that come my way too noble. I would never order anything that might possibly come with gherkins, but it's the thought that counts.

Luckily I really like tesco slimline tonic. It is lucky because I can't afford fancy tonic. I literally went sober rather than drink the coop stuff though.

HarrietDVane
You can have any gherkins that come my way. They're horrible things.
In fact they're sneaky. You think you're getting a nice burger. You're enjoying the burger and the salad and the bacon and the cheese and then POW! GHERKIN ATTACK!

Depending on the restaurant I will open my burger, take it all apart, check for the buggers and put it back together.