The Sixty Third Republic - as we glide into staycations the DfE whip up anti-school media storm

[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.

Unreliable tests story : teach a girl who had all the symptoms of covid last week. Responsible 17 year old so had done a LFT : negative. Two PCRs negative. Stayed off anyway as she felt ill.

Today she emails me to tell me her brother has tested positive!

I assume this means last week she had covid... and will have give it to her brother.

She is very stressed about the whole thing, poor lovely.

Talking about being viciously attacked (re Rowling), Katharine Birbalsingh has been tweeting some of the messages she gets on twitter and it’s absolutely disgusting. What is wrong with people?

I wanted to be a boy in primary age.
Even without all the adult knowledge of men/women being a boy seemed better and more fun i expect.
Even now as an adult if i could flick a switch i probably would. As an adult it is more about the physical that men dont have periods/laboutpr/breastfeeding. Plus other things. Also not fitting in with the women. I dont like make up etc. I dislike high heels.
I guess now it is more possible to change but the consequences of say not being able to have kids need to be clearly conveyed to kids.

Not too pleased with dc new teacher allocation. Weve had the teacher before and dc ended up not meeting expectations in one subject. (Though that may well have been age). But also dc is difficult and the teacher will obviously remember so no clean slate.

All the trans identifying girls I know of are on the autistic spectrum. Every single one. It breaks my heart.

Anyone read Cummings' fascinating description of Boris?

*The truth is [Johnson] is neither [a clown or a campaigning genius]. He is a much deeper and more complex character than the media generally portrays. When I saw pundits seek mysteries in Cameron, I said the hidden depths weren’t there, he’s ‘a sphinx without a riddle’. Cameron was simple but portrayed as a sphinx but with Boris it’s the opposite, Boris is complex portrayed as simple. Behind each mask lies another mask — but there’s no masterplan behind all the masks, just the age old ‘will to power’. He is happy to hide behind the mask of a clown, mostly unbothered by ridicule, while calculations remain largely hidden (including from parts of his own mind).

He rewrites reality in his mind afresh according to the moment’s demands. He lies – so blatantly, so naturally, so regularly – that there is no real distinction possible with him, as there is with normal people, between truth and lies. He always tells people what they want to hear and he never means it. He always says ‘I can’t remember’ when they remind him and is rarely ‘lying’. He trusts nobody including his own family yet bears almost no grudges. He will sacrifice anybody for his career yet wants to make up with people who have screwed him over. He will use anybody for anything but is more polite than most top politicians towards junior staff. He is totally untrusted by anybody in No 10 yet has a superpower for making people feel sorry for him — ‘I feel sorry for him like my old deadbeat boyfriend, I hate myself for it but I can’t help it,’ said one in despair after a particularly dreadful meeting. He’s almost as comfortable with living in chaos as Floyd Mayweather but panics all day about the media. He sometimes compares himself to historic titans (Octavian is a favourite) and regularly admits it’s ludicrous he’s prime minister. He’s hopeless at bureaucratic infighting and examines every room he enters for physical escape routes.

He is both much more useless than the media portray and much more capable of self-awareness and ruthlessness than they ever portray, or his enemies usually discern. He routinely says and does things so foolish that people are open-mouthed, and is so hopeless at getting rid of duffers, so determined to avoid difficult situations, that people are usually shocked when he suddenly moves with ruthless speed to remove them. He was desperate to be prime minister but has almost no interest in the job*

@JanFebAnyMonth

noble I’m sorry it’s just that you’re so grown up, I think. Or something like that. Not meek though.....

This has been niggling me all day, Jan. So grown up? What does that mean?!

Also, v meek.

I just don’t know how to judge Cummings, and, therefore, what he says. I would be willing to believe his description of Johnson, BUT - the “calculations remain hidden (including from parts of his own mind).” bit is so much the kind of thing my ex throws at me (‘I know you better than you know yourself’, etc*) that it makes me wonder if the claims about Cummings being a consummate narcissist are true.

And you cannot trust anything a narcissist says.

noble, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trouble you! I think I meant the way you stand up and are counted, the way you are (as you stated in the last 24 hrs) impervious to blows from the ignorant, and also very patient and caring. Does that help?

• He really doesn’t

Sorry, the missing step in my first paragraph above is that my ex was abusive and afai can judge, a narcissist! You all feel like old friends so I forgot I might need to explain that bit.

@Piggywaspushed

Oh, I see the DM repeating the whole year groups sent home because of one case. Sounds so much more dramatic than one class doesn't it??

I don't believe a single secondary year group in a proper sized school ahs sent a year group home because of one case.

We did, we sent the whole of year 8 home for one positive LFT and then got them all back again when the PCR was negative.

Despite them being in 'class bubbles' (they do mix at break and lunch as a yeargroup).

Boris just said that from the 19th there’ll be a different system for close contacts in schools, to be announced by Gav tomorrow.....

Didn't he just basically say they'll be scrapping it?

Wow frlrl I'm amazed. Ours all huddle at break and lunch in a small cramped space and we still only send home direct close contacts...

Well that’s a different system piggy!

Did you hear that peeps?”

Johnson: “..when the summer firebreak is coming up, with schools closing and all the advantages that brings.....” (my italics).

They all know about children spreading really, don’t they?!

Yes, I just said that to DH!

Chris Whitty also just said he would wear a mask in any indoor crowded space

These journalist just don't buy any of this, clearly.

Its hard as everyone thinks you should go inside. Trying to explain to 2 5yo you cant go in their house even though the rules say you can!

Of course they do. How could you fail to know? It's not even biology level let alone rocket science

Yes it was fab when they all nodded and said ‘yes, of course wise to wear a mask in a crowded inside space, especially when cases are rising as they are now’....

Johnson’s been held to ransom by his backbenchers, isn’t he? He keeps saying this is by no means over.

Absolutely, Jan.

Unfortunately, he pushed to stack his seats with harder right MPs, because Brexit meant he had to, but that has meant that they are far more demanding as backbenchers. As a leader, Johnson doesn't have the ability to inspire, influence or control them so he maintains his own power by bowing to theirs.

Massive catch up plan = one tenth of what your education tsar recommended. Hmm

Is anyone else seeing that positive cases are mainly in Primary? I looked at all the schools in the area that have had cases in the last 10 days, and 75% are Primary.

Feeling massively let down by school as a parent but they are my employer so??? Nothing anyone can say or do but need to vent it. I feel backed into a ridiculous corner and seriously pissed off by emails being ignored for a week then responded to with absolute waffle and ignoring of salient points.

Plus I feel guilty because if I didn't work there then there are at least 3 points in his time there where I would have been absolutely kicking off as a parent about how inadequate and not on things were.

And breathe.

Sorry don't expect responses just stuck in a really awkward position.

@Piggywaspushed

Wow frlrl I'm amazed. Ours all huddle at break and lunch in a small cramped space and we still only send home direct close contacts...

We did up to now, I guess the advice has changed in some areas?

Honey, feel for you . Some of my friends were amazed I hadn't kicked off and involved the governors and police with the incident involving ds and when they said that's what they would have done, it made me feel as if I wasn't being as good a parent as them.

I also got the feeling it wasn't dealt with properly because they felt it would be a better decision to upset me than the parents of the other children. As I mentioned, dh had to be really persistent in order to get them to consider the matter seriously.

You're doing the best you can for ds. I am one who also wonders whether the Cairo opportunity might be best for you both?