The Sixty-fourth Republic - good luck to those still gliding towards the holidays especially after euro final

[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.

We are still waiting advice on chairs and masks but keep the windows open. You don’t have to upload LFT results during the holidays.Do not sit on the chairs and do wear a mask.

Did anyone lose sense of smell slightly?

Just feel like maybe some things smell less.
I can definitely smell tee tree still though.

Back in hard lockdown. All down to arseholes who behave as though the rules don't apply to them.Though be fair they've emerged from the NSW lockdown which means all shops are open and essential workers are, er.... what the employers thinks.

Fuck me. So annoyed. Students are so pissed off too.

Long covid stuff here:

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/15/long-covid-has-more-than-200-symptoms-study-finds

This sounds so much like my various ailments : but how would you ever be diagnosed if you were never diagnosed with covid?

Wouldn't it be wonderful to collect people's stories in documentaries or something. I'd love to interview fascinating middle aged women and counter the 'invisibleness' a bit. I think people just assume we're boring and have always been so.

I would love to do this, and I agree about people assuming that middle aged women are boring.

I showed my Y8 the Susan Boyle BGT audition in their final lesson - had gone off on a tangent a couple of lessons previously but was a bit worried about parents complaining about how I used the time in the lesson, so left it till the last day (most of them were learning remotely). Told them to watch the audience reactions carefully and rambled a bit about how people think of middle aged women as irrelevant and invisible. Love that piece of telly. And was slightly bemused to realise that they were 1 yo when it was broadcast!

One kid googled her and told me she's worth £44 million! I was in HK in 2010 and was gobsmacked to see posters of her plastered all over the MTR (Underground)... I bet she'd never imagined how her life would turn out!

Sounds like a good note to finish on Dreaming.

I know what you mean Piggy - I was extremely ill e/o January last year and ended up so unfit afterwards that I would have a racing heart and struggle to breathe just walking up the road for ages afterwards. I went back on asthma meds after decades off of them and I had all sorts of other ongoing symptoms along with exhaustion for a long time afterwards.

I suspect I had covid and that the aftermath was long covid. Given there was no testing available it was impossible to know though. Maybe that's another reason they want less people (particularly children) testing.

I've stuck next years timetable in my new diary and colour coded it and put all my term dates and such in I love the idea of being organised. Half of my groups are year 7s next year so can't have a clue about them till we go back in September but the others I can start having a look at.

Sadly stuck with a next level kid who it would be unfair to Bob's to call Bob iyswim. We need a name for those ones. I have literally no idea why he has chosen History for GCSE or how I can differentiate down to his level but I guess we'll see. That's a minor concern compared to managing his behaviour.

I've printed off curriculum overviews for the year (we've changed order of units and lessons plus I'm teaching a side of the curriculum I haven't done before. I'll stick it all in and have that naive sense of being all organised and on it that I always enjoy till everything gets changed and it all goes tits up.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to collect people's stories in documentaries or something. I'd love to interview fascinating middle aged women and counter the 'invisibleness' a bit. I think people just assume we're boring and have always been so.

I have an idea for TV programme around this - middle aged women's stories from around the world. I've done a half arsed pitch of it to a friend who works at the BBC, but since they only seem interested in Stacey Doolley doing stuff, or men doing travel, I think it's a non starter.

What's life like for the women who stay home while the Mongolian eagle hunter is out killing things? No male travel bod is going to find out. Palin might have done, but probably not.

What about the women in the Peruvian highlands? I have one of those snapshot memories from a bus ride where I looked out to see two women and a young girl standing by the side of the road in the middle of a barren nothingness. They were wearing big skirts, really stiff clothes, and bowler hats. Were they looking at the bus wanting to get on it? To escape? Were they content?

Surprise closure of my school to all pupils tomorrow, which should have been our last day.
5 staff positives overnight, each class was down to about 4/5 kids, with more being sent to isolate every lesson. It's not a nice end to the year.

I think I’d rather a surprise closure than limping on. It’s so shit in schools at the moment.

It's a hot mess

www.tes.com/news/there-covid-plan-schools-next-week

I didn't realise Test and Trace was being handed over next week.

@Piggywaspushed

It's a hot mess

www.tes.com/news/there-covid-plan-schools-next-week

I didn't realise Test and Trace was being handed over next week.

It's a joke isn't it? The whole year has been a total piss take.

@TheHoneyBadger yup. So pleased it's nearly over. Looking forward to teaching in our area next year, this year has been awful.

So annoyed. Isolation for dc runs in to holiday for 4 days. They wont let us keep the second week. And cant rebook as no spaces and even if you want to move

Choices
Lose 4 days and £450
Move it to 1-2w holiday later in summer but no spaces and charge a lot extra.

In my pigeon hole today, a box of heroes and a thank you card from Bob.
Investigations uncovered that the only other people bestowed with gifts were his form tutor and the man who runs isolation.
Bless him.

Hope that makes you feel better after yesterday, MrsH

Sadly stuck with a next level kid who it would be unfair to Bob's to call Bob iyswim. We need a name for those ones. I have literally no idea why he has chosen History for GCSE or how I can differentiate down to his level but I guess we'll see. That's a minor concern compared to managing his behaviour.

My vote is for Aaron (my current one), all the challenges of a Bob, without the hidden redeeming qualities, he's just not a very nice person. Or Tyrone (I don't know why, I've never met one).

Can we also have a name for girls who will argue black is white while speaking over you and huffing and rolling their eyes? I have a year 7 trio of these and they are literally on my last nerve.

The girl may well be a Paris. The boy at my school would be a Kian.

IME Aaron/Aron/Aruns are nice to naughty in the ratio 2:3 but almost universally academically challenged.
Huffy trios of eye-rolling girls always used to have at least two of the trio with the initial K (Kelly/Kerry/Kylie) but I think these names are out of favour though the Kardashians may reinstate K names, who knows?

Two of my dept have those K names!!

I'd vote Chelsea for girls, too but that's gone out now.

I've had a few Aarons who were very, very challenging in terms of their behaviour, so I'm happy to go with that. Definitely not Kian, I've only ever had lovely hard-working Kians.

I don't really have any gobby girls this year, which is unusual, or maybe they've just paled into insignificance in the deluge of naughty, arrogant boys I've taught this year. I'm sure they'll make a comeback next year.

Gobby girls have a variety of names here. Chelsea, Kayleigh and a Lacey. Also a Sophie but she is the only naughty Sophie I have ever taught (1/17).

I had a very challenging Richard once. High profile boys are often J names here but that could be the disproportionate amount of J names per year.

Millie, Penny, Kayleigh

Oooh, no had loads of naughty Sophies. It's just a common name. Sophia/Sofia too. Always haughty.

Naughty Sophie/Sofias here too. I'm also on board with Paris.