The Sixty-Second Republic - Pop da pop pop, the beat don't stop until the break of 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.

Grumpy about what?

The government not fronting up, making timely decisions, sharing thinking, sorting things out.

Oh good, they need to be told to get their arses in gear and have a plan for September before we break up. Particularly if we need to be mass covid testing centres again, that delayed kids going back in March by a couple of weeks.

We need a plan for testing and for exams. When are they going to decide that?

Whatever happens with exams, Herc it won't affect maths. Guaranteed.

(Glad to see you have a usable username again!)

@CallmeHendricks

So, end school isolations because we're fed up with them? What about isolations for the general public? Are they going to continue?

I've made that point a few times on the cv board. If school isolations are ending, then same needs to be done with normal isolations. Why bother with test, track and trace at all?

Anyway. A child in my child's isolating bubble has now tested positive on pcr. Still waiting for the results of ours, but off to a supermarket to fill the freezer with icecream just in case.

This is not speeding our building work along :(

Is anyone's school offering catch-up sessions over the summer? Our local secondary (where most of our kids go) is setting up online tutoring, so naturally, there is now a clamour of parents asking if we are doing the same thing. are we chuff.

This is what I don't get. I understand that constant isolations are disruptive and financially punitive for parents and educationally and socially damaging for children. But they are exposed for FAR longer to positive cases than in almost any other situation one can be in. Contact is not fleeting or in ventilated situations or masked. So if kids are to stop isolating, surely everyone is? It's totally illogical otherwise.

My school is doing a two week 'catch-up summer school' for invited Y6 into 7. But there's covid funding specifically for that.

Who is staffing that, Noble?

School asked for volunteers. Mostly NQTs with no kids, I think.

It's totally illogical otherwise.

Yeah, but that logic thing isn't strong with this gov.

School asked for volunteers. Mostly NQTs with no kids, I think

My schools doing a summer school for the new Year 7s. It’s staffed by volunteers, the pay is actually pretty good. But very few people with kids are doing it.

Our year 6 transition summer school is also run by NQTs/RQTs/TAs all with no kids

Our school is also doing a summer school for new Year 7s but I haven’t volunteered because I need to spend all the time I can with my own kid for a change. For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel guilty about that decision!

I got volunteered to do something today. I said no thank you. Colleague said "but x, y and z can't do it. They've got kids"

I'm afraid I lost my shit a bit and asked whether said colleague was implying that their having kids made them less competent, or my useless womb made me more likely to give up my time for free.

Colleague backed away.

(Not that I think they're less competent but it could've been taken that way by the way it was suggested...)

It was either that or beat them to death with my laptop

Sorry MrsH - it’s insensitive to say what I said.
I’d have cheered you on in the corridor saying what you said. Well done.

I vote a beating to death with your laptop. I'd cover for you.

@MrsHamlet

(Not that I think they're less competent but it could've been taken that way by the way it was suggested...)

It was either that or beat them to death with my laptop

Schools have lost a lot of staff goodwill due to the DfE muppets and their shenanigans or school's continually saying staff must do this because Mrs Know-it-all, mother of Tom in Year 8, says that SuperSplendid Grammar down the road is doing it.

My reports are all done and if anyone asks for changes then they can do it themselves.

Our school takes isolation very seriously and we haven't had very much spread once a bubble pops. Definitely expecting some decreased attendance toward the last week but I'll be really sad because I'm not returning to the same school in September and I definitely want as much time with this class as I can get.

Speaking of. My senco and I have agreed that we will not yet tell my 1:1 I'm not coming back but the kids are finding out their teacher for next year soon and are starting to ask questions. When do you tell primary kids you won't be there, or especially when does a 1:1 TA do so in your experience? I want to put it as close to the end of the term as possible but need something to say in the meantime when they ask.

@ChloeDecker

Sorry MrsH - it’s insensitive to say what I said. I’d have cheered you on in the corridor saying what you said. Well done.

Not at all, Chloe!

I'm just fed up to the back teeth of people expecting me to do stuff because I don't have kids, as if my life is somehow devoid of meaning and can only be filled by extra pointless work.

Sorry, MrsH, if we all appeared insensitive. I think it's that our younger, childless colleagues have all volunteered; no one volunteered them to do it...that's not on at all.

(I could have volunteered, having grown up dc, but really don't want to/need the money )

Honestly, you've not offended me at all.
All our "pick me"s are childless (because they're about 12). I don't have an issue with offering my time, or with being asked. My issue is the expectation that I should do it because I don't have kids. It happens all the bloody time.

That's just so odd. I can't imagine it happening at my school.