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.

Oh and yes, hay fever is crap this year. Normally I'm a spring sufferer but this year it's dragged on and on. Luckily it's not too bad and an antihistamine sorts mine, but I have a couple of students who looked terrible today, poor kids. Despite eye drops etc they were really struggling

Thanks for thread.

@JanFebAnyMonth think mass testing coming back to schools in our area because rising rates and no kids reporting their results to the school so they can only assume they are not being done… doing them in school means they know they are done and they have the results…

Our head of department isn’t exactly on it so sends emails about changes to lessons/strategy several lessons too late when it’s too late but you have to try and backtrack and cover up the fact we had no information 🤷‍♀️ Just frustrating and creating crazy extra work.

Spent a couple of hours on the phone this evening with a recently qualified teacher who is struggling with the lack of organisation and no real management or support. I could and likely will give her additional time and support to make up for the lack of training and mentoring but it will go down like a ton of bricks with head of department. She seems to not manage stuff herself but get defensive and unpleasant if you try to pick up the slack.

Very awkward but I’m a long qualified experienced teacher and my instincts are to mentor and support (and colleague knows that includes nagging and pushing her to get organised and follow procedures and is ok with that but it’s not my job.

It’s really hard when you’re being poorly managed. My hod has just tried to completely change my targets and responsibilities agreed to and put in writing at the last performance review. I’m sticking up for myself and trying to say politely that it’s too late and I’ve already spent time reworking unit x. There’s no really professional way to say your hod is lazy disorganised and inconsiderate.

Like really should you be changing people’s targets for the year a few weeks before the end of term without any consultation? I’ve basically said no but goodness knows what comeback I’ll have to deal with. Really sick of bullshit

Loads of ours have had bad hay-fever today, lots of sneezing. I've been putting boxes of tissues on the children's tables!

Teachers have also had to write reports but haven't had computers for the weekend due to work on the network. Its ridiculous!

There’s no really professional way to say your hod is lazy disorganised and inconsiderate.

Are you sure you aren't me?!

The constant arse covering is wearing. At least mine accepts me mopping up the crap he leaves behind with good grace. I almost feel like I'm mentoring them through being HOD.

@GuyFawkesDay

That's awful. I have 4 sets to finish this week and two the week after. I loathe report writing, I'd far rather just have another virtual parents evening and actually talk to people

God yes! Parents evenings are so much better than written reports because the parents of the naughtiest kids don't bother coming. I have lovely conversations at parents evenings. I tie myself up in knots over what I commit to paper though, especially with SLT marking reading them.

I hate report writing. It takes 30 hours by the time you've faffed with them. An extra week's work just when you're lowest in energy and shit giving.

honey They sound awful to deal with. The union would have a field day if anyone had issues with performance management after having targets changed at the last hour.

I saw a tweet that said covid catch up funding would be best spent on air con for schools, given how much learning is lost in the summer due to insanely hot classrooms.

She just takes the piss and expects to get away with it. No doubt she thinks I’m a nightmare but ffs you gave me tasks and I’ve been working on them and you can’t just unilaterally change them because you’ve found work you’d rather I do.

I’m sick of nonsense so attempting to say no. She’s also suddenly declared, for example, that she wants us to conduct and mark 3 different year 7 assessments and mark and feedback on them before end of term. Also 3 to do with year 8s on their next topic when we’re just doing qmas now, this week and next, in the current topic.

It’s madness. She’s always at least a month too late

twitter.com/JamesWard73/status/1404556499574210566?s=19

Super!

Looks like I spoke too soon. Seems they're not blaming Boris for events being cancelled in schools after all. It's down to us lazy teachers and a lack of "where there's a will, there's a way."

Who’s that, Ange?

Sounds reminiscent of the ‘can-do attitude’ that suggested buckets of water in classrooms.

I should clarify - there's another bashing thread in Coronavirus section.

"What does this mean for schools?"

Oh lordie, yes. Buckets of water.
I wonder where that poster is now?

That thread started off quite neutral and then turned into the ‘lazy” narrative again as we have anecdotes of ‘well so and so’s school did that’. Funny how no two school are alike - wonder why?

I know we can’t do a lot of the usual summer events. We’re still doing bloody TAGs fgs! Nothing else matters at the moments unless it’s TAGs.

Our main secondary has cancelled all transition events. The current guidance they've had from the DfE says children from different schools need to be kept apart and all primary kids need to be away from secondary kids. It's all "should" so the DfE can get away with saying they haven't stopped transition happening but if you follow those guidelines, there's no way to make it work.

I can't find anything in the guidance about transition. We're supposed to be doing our usual two days but I think the back up plan is loads of different staff going to visit instead. Not sure.

Honey, your HoD sounds ridiculous. Of course they can't change your targets at the end of the year. God, my school/MAT sound so great compared to some of yours.

I think it was a different document. They send an extract to us so I'll see if I can find it when I arrive at school.

My incompetent hod is being replaced this year. By his even less competent second. Deep joy.

Oh well, maybe there isn't a will.

I said last year that having all kids back in school while everything else is restricted would make education purely utilitarian.

I never knew until MN that there were some parents who thought leavers' assemblies and sports' days were thrilling social events. No wonder they get all arsey when kids start secondary and all the social benefits of school evaporate (unless at a private school, I guess).

I do wonder if some of this is projected annoyance about the curtailment of their own social calendars. And because I work, I always found sports days and leavers' assemblies a chore to attend anyway. I think that thread might be the (limited) wrath of MN SAHMs.

Dangling
The part they have quoted says:
"DfE expects schools to plan these days with the bubbles system in mind, keeping children in their existing bubbles as far as possible, to reduce transmission risks. Children from different primary schools should not be in the same groups."