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.

@Appuskidu

What about if a child or teacher has a household member who has covid. Will they still come to school?

Sorry if Gav answered this already!

Yes.

Neither fully vaccinated people nor children will have to isolate after contact with a positive case.

Hmm off topic again I'm afraid but I did a data dive on Science. 96% of year 9s are 'well below target' so it seems ds is in good company. Maybe they all just need more detentions? Worst department in the school according to the data - even MFL has better results. There are a grand total of 2 students who are working at their MEG - in the whole of year 9.

Hmm off topic again I'm afraid but I did a data dive on Science. 96% of year 9s are 'well below target

Bloody hell. What’s going on the the Science Department?

Although our Year 9s have really struggled this year. We’ve change this years curriculum to fill in gaps.
You would think year 8s would be in a similar boat but they’ve done well.

Is it a year 9 Science thing? Or is your department really struggling?

TheHoneyBadger

Do they have realistic targets? Just wondering cos my year 9 will all be below target. They have GCSE targets of say, 4-4, and their 'end of year 9 target' is 4-3! So ability to almost pass a GCSE one year into their 3 year course, with half a grade improvement over the subsequent 2 years! Madness!

The govt has utterly ignored the advice SAGE have given (mainly in a paper written in April) about the need to keep case numbers low.

If as was said today, there could be 100,000 cases a day by (?) the autumn, that’s one million every ten days.

iSAGE said a little while ago that a herd immunity strategy could result in 1/2 a million cases of child long Covid.

I’d be tempted to go straight to the Head with that sort of info AND a parental perspective honey. And threaten to involve governors?

Would that be stupid of me?

They have the same target setting as every other subject in the school and no other subject has anywhere near that appalling results. Bear in mind we're talking 'well below target' not just below and all other subjects are one year in to a 3 year course too.

Their results have been shit for a long time.

Given how impossible we've all been arguing it is to accurately grade Y11s given far more extensive assessment and data than Y9 have, Honey, I would suggest that your school's MEG system is not the most reliable.

Did they sit the same exams as Y9 last year and can you compare results between years?

Might be the nail in my career coffin Jan. 96% though. In ds's group there's no one within 2 grades of their where they should be.

It's tough for all subjects this year obviously but for comparison we have 44% well below which I thought was bad enough but compared to 96% seems great.

Neither fully vaccinated people nor children will have to isolate after contact with a positive case

Wow-so we will end up teaching children whose mum and dad are at home ill with covid?!

@Appuskidu

Neither fully vaccinated people nor children will have to isolate after contact with a positive case

Wow-so we will end up teaching children whose mum and dad are at home ill with covid?!

More likely to be siblings infected than parents but yes.

Worse Appu, teachers ill with covid can be teaching kids whose parents are on chemotherapy or otherwise CEV.

Did primary colleagues see that Gav said schools should be allowing parents into schools to watch activities during the last week of term?

@TheHoneyBadger

Worse Appu, teachers ill with covid can be teaching kids whose parents are on chemotherapy or otherwise CEV.

What?! So even if people test positive, and are actually ill, they still come into work?

Is that the same everywhere, or just schools?

I sort of get the thinking behind not isolating large numbers of close contacts but if you have tested positive and are unwell, surely you should be staying at home??

To be fairer and compare to other core subjects Maths are at 84% well below ( this cohort in ks3 had high, poor quality, teacher turnover due to recruitment issues and this year have had covid so understandable) and English are at 38% (well done English!). 96% is pretty stand out bad.

Double vaccinated over 18s and everyone under 18 will not need to isolate if a close contact of a positive. All positive cases should isolate but I guess if we have old symptoms we won’t be testing as assume it’s a cold but could very well be covid?

Good point - I totally misinterpreted that as vaccinated wouldn't have to isolate even if positive - duh! Still dodgy having close contacts in close proximity to CEV and kids with CEV at home.

Honey I've been arguing against this flight path stuff as made-up data nonsense on here for years so I'm wondering why you're so sure that the grades assigned per subject are reliable and why the target grades are reliable?

@noblegiraffe

Did primary colleagues see that Gav said schools should be allowing parents into schools to watch activities during the last week of term?

We're already having them in for certain aspects but it's tightly controlled and we've told them that we aren't changing any of it regardless of what is decided.

Gav can fuck right off.

@noblegiraffe

Did primary colleagues see that Gav said schools should be allowing parents into schools to watch activities during the last week of term?

No I didn't

I look forward to my union's response to that then

Gav can fuck right off.

Amen to that.

@noblegiraffe

Did primary colleagues see that Gav said schools should be allowing parents into schools to watch activities during the last week of term?

No activities to see unless they want to come and watch films with them. Only slightly joking.

FFS. Because you can rustle up a show in a week, while moving classrooms and playing cupboard jenga before the big clean.

I think if we suggested doing a parent event at this stage, there would be mutiny.

Oh dear, all our activities have been and gone. What a terrible shame.