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.

You didn't think we'd admit to that out there, did you, noble?!

NEU here-I think all teachers in my current school are. It was more of a mix of that and NASUWT at my old school.

“Republicans are actually all Commies”

I'm NASUWT - cheaper plus first year free when I joined last year so that kind of cinched it. NEU was expensive when I was looking.

No rep at school but as someone else said you just get a regional in that case if you need them and that might be better than someone embedded in the school imo as they aren't vulnerable either through not wanting to rock the boat due to their own job security/desire for promotion or being indoctrinated in a certain culture that makes your problem seem 'normal' itms.

Found out that my colleague has also been 'tone trolled' by the HT (don't know if you remember my incident) and is convinced it is because she is female and little but has quite a loud voice that projects well and that what wouldn't be questioned in a man gets interpreted as aggressive or angry or whatever in her.

Female slt are not immune to sexism sadly. Men get away with murder.

Data thread is really going downhill atm, isn’t it piggy?

It's because someone mentioned children....

www.tes.com/news/ofsted-nude-pupil-pictures-not-safeguarding-issue

Apologies if this has already been shared but WTAF

I was just about to share that Herc WTAF indeed.

Stupid woman. A) it's sexual harassment and we should be safeguarding girls against that and B) there is a naked image of a child out there digitally which is also a safeguarding issue. There's also the fact that we should be looking at the fact that overtly or aggressively sexual behaviour and inappropriacy can be a sign that there has been abuse.

How bizarre that she doesn't know any of this? Just because girls might 'laugh it off' doesn't make it not an issue and laughing off this level of harassment enables escalation and normalisation.

Doesn’t seem to be at all worried that the girls are just laughing it off either.

Well, she is really opening the door there to the good old 'blurred lines', isn't she? The girls they spoke to had left school and so were talking from a different vantage point.

She might have been better off asking 11 year olds who hadn't been groomed into this nonsense already how they'd feel if a boy sent them naked photos and whether they would have someone to tell and talk to.

Girls who've already gone through the whole of secondary getting used to this shit are not the litmus test she seems to think.

Inappropriate sexual behaviour in children isn't a safeguarding issue? What?

Are we not supposed to be safeguarding the girls who really don't want to be receiving dick pics?

OMG that's horrendous. How on earth can that possibly be considered anything other than a safeguarding issue. I'm significantly older than a teenager and would hate to be sent a dick pic (which is what they're talking about isn't it?). Both my dds would also hate to receive one, although they would also say they don't want to be drawn into safeguarding situations either. But it's not the girls who need to be having the safeguarding conversations and interventions is it? It's the boys who are sending the "nude photos". They're the ones who need to understand the seriousness of the action, they're the ones who need to understand that the girls are disgusted and it's not appropriate (not to mention illegal) for them to be sending such things. Why would anyone think the girls should have any more involvement than a quick "miss, X sent me this, I don't like it" and then the teachers deal with the BOY (unless of course it's the girls sending unsolicited nudes, which seems rather less likely but still possible)

Anyone finding lots of their children are sneezing constantly? Assume hay-fever but still not great.

I'm a bit feminist ragey at the minute. I really do think male and female members of staff are being held to totally different standards at school and in my own department it's like a 1950's marriage in terms of how much work is dolled out to female staff and how it never even occurs to the HOD to ask the senior males in the department to contribute.

To read that the head of ofsted thinks boys sending unsolicited dick pics to girls is a non issue hasn't really made me feel more positive!

I also found out that the role I went for that I didn't get has indeed been given to the last remaining very young member of the PE department who didn't have a tlr yet and that they are indeed using the ideas I gave them at interview.

I'm fully resigned to the fact that I'll never get more hours or promotion at this school now and that being female and experienced and having any kind of opinion puts a target on my back. It is what it is and I'm not going to let myself lose sleep over it but it's still shite.

Moan over

One of mine was off with hayfever today and I'm fairly sneezy too. I take an antihistamine every day all year though, as I have general allergies that trigger my asthma. Back when I was a teen you were able to get a long term acting injection at the doctors for it, but they phased it out and now I pay for my own since they stopped prescribing it, even though I have it for perennial allergic rhinnitis not just hayfever.

My classes today were full of sneezing, itchy-eyed, bleary kids struggling to concentrate in the heat. Which made me think is this really the best time of the year to hold GCSEs and A-levels?

DrMad I take one every day too for similar reasons and so far my doctors are still prescribing it and I have a medical exemption due to my thyroid condition so don't pay. Guess I should get ready for them to stop prescribing.

I also found out that the role I went for that I didn't get has indeed been given to the last remaining very young member of the PE department who didn't have a tlr yet and that they are indeed using the ideas I gave them at interview

Oh honey I’m so sorry. I’d be livid in your place. I seem to have posted a random picture from my camera roll. Sorry (at least my phone is dick pic free).

Given the recent discussions about whether girls should be wearing modesty shorts in the summer, I'm not at all surprised at the dick pic announcement. It's depressing that we've hit this point.

Honey that is a real kick in the teeth. You are right to feel angry

I was trying to work out the connection between that photo and the article

Not even livid to be honest. Just resigned to it and finding myself with anthropologist hat on observing the culture of the place and how it reproduces itself.

All of these people being promoted also have in common (aside from being young and malleable and pe teachers with plenty of spare time) that they are married or soon to be married and on track for the same married with 2.4 children, 2 cars on the driveway, doing very well financially thanks centre middle class, very middle of the road don't rock the boat or get passionate about anything, white, bland, very little in common with our intake lives that matches perfectly those who are currently in positions of power.

It's all very samey and safe and anything that is different cannot be allowed into the club.

I'm possibly being very cynical.

when I did wonder how that photo related to unsolicited dick pics, lol. I may have spent some time looking for the dick in the pic . To make you feel better about it I'll post a completely random photo from my camera roll too 😂

Honey I feel your rage!! I'm sorry you didn't get the job but they're going to use your ideas, that's completely crap!! Our last remaining PE teacher without a TLR has just been successful in getting a hoy role, so I think that may be a very common thing. He didn't steal my ideas to get it though - I would HATE to be hoy, they have so much to deal with!!

There's a lot of lip service given to diversity but in reality any difference is squished or made to feel out of place and wrong and at their core (and power base) schools are still very white, very middle class, very conservative and sexist places to be.