The Sixty-Fifth Republic - The Covid School Phoney War under way so who will the gold medal and who will get the wooden spoon?

[Staffholidayclubrep]

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.

You can sit on chairs but keep the windows open. You don’t have to upload LFT results during the holidays. You do not have to wear mask - free choice

Most people I see are still wearing masks which is good.

I have arrived at a lovely holiday cottage in Devon for the next two weeks. Weather is lovely and I am feeling quite relaxed

It’s the same here. I’m glad. The only place I felt like I stood out was in a pub.

Yes it’s definitely restores my faith in people. I forget that MN is full of loud shouters, the ‘enough is enough’ foot stampy brigade but they don’t represent the majority. It sometimes makes me think perhaps it’s just because I don’t make friends and surround myself with twats in real life but then I hear from others saying the same and feel better!

It's like that MN survey that said most teachers deserve a pay rise and have done a good job during lockdown.

Also interesting about the LFT study was how many chose isolation despite being offered testing.

I'm not seeing that with masks. I use buses and trains in my commute. During the early morning journey, I'd say it's between 30% to 50% wearing masks. In the afternoon going home, it falls lower. I'm sat in a train carriage at the moment with 14 other people and I'm the only one wearing a mask.

I find that a lot of vocal MNers are Londoners who base their whole belief in people on London. London has lower vaccination rates, and a younger population. It also has more political activism and lower mask wearing.

I do think public transport has fewer masks than shops . Different demographic perhaps plus buses and tubes are bloody hot.

Buses seem to be hugely variable depending on time & who is on them. Can be anywhere between almost everyone wearing a mask and me being one of only a couple of people with masks. Keeping myself in FFP2masks for the bus could get quite expensive.

Enjoy your holiday @PumpkinPie2016!

Took a train to London from.the north west today and about 50% of people were wearing masks. Horrible group of loud, drunken men in the quiet coach, rappers who seem to have a record deal because they were playing their own music on a ghetto blaster. Ugh.

Quick Q. Got tickets booked to see an exhibition of the fight for women's rights at the British Library tomorrow. Any recommendations for anything else we should see? I've never been before!

Might have been a ghetto blaster, I had my back to them in reality, probably someone's phone and a speaker but it was loud!

The permanent collection at the British Library is interesting, and they have a fabulous gift shop 😂

@MrsHamlet

The permanent collection at the British Library is interesting, and they have a fabulous gift shop 😂

Dd loves English (language and literature), and will love the gift shop too I suspect! Thanks .

How long do you have? The old operating theatre is near the Shard (I think) and that was interesting. And the Globe....

All of tomorrow, although weather warnings issued. Will head up to the British Library in the morning, maybe take a walk along the South Bank in the afternoon.

Any recommendations for anything else we should see?

Just looking at the library website…

Magna Carta? Da Vinci’s notebooks?

You need to pay a Republic visit to Florence Nightingale’s original Diagram of the Causes of Mortality in the Army in the East

With regard to reading - DS can’t (or couldn’t) properly track left to right with his eyes so I encouraged him to use a ruler under the words when he read to keep him on the line (in the same way that I did when reading Maths textbooks at university, though not for the same reason). We only knew this because his teacher found (by accident) that he read better upside down than the right way up. He’s dyslexic anyway but this was an additional problem.
If you’d told me to use a ruler when reading in class I’d have thrown it at somebody. I’m the fastest reader I know (nothing else to do as a child).

I can’t believe that real qualified professional people set up and carried out that study (the testing vs isolation one). Well yes I can, in the same way that I can believe that presumably intelligent people are discussing it as though it has any useful meaning.

South and in general is lovely. There’s usually lots going on but don’t know what’s on at the moment! I love going on the riverboat tours/trips/river buses where they tell you what you can see!

Tower of London has been really quiet recently too as next to no overseas visitors. Could also do one of those tour buses that take you round the sights - open top ones would be well ventilated… although maybe wet 🤣🤣🤣

I mean I live south London on the Waterloo line and I look those things and Greenwich!

I read a study the other day speculating about why even though their were less cases in primary schools there were higher levels of teacher absence, there was lots of talk of primaries being smaller and maybe the teachers had to do personal care etc. Scientists analysing data and making conclusions they would assume were informed without seeming to be aware that teachers at secondary were virtually never considered a close contact unless they'd licked the child and that at secondary the policy had been to only send home the kids sitting within a meter of the positive case.

Literally paid to, and given all the access to data etc to, analyse things without any bloody understanding of the actual policies and practices that had been applied to schools.

Metre. American spellcheck?

The one person in Sainsbury’s last night not wearing a mask stood out like a sore thumb here.

Thanks for your suggestions MrsHP and noble. Will definitely keep us busy tomorrow!

Yes the Data thread discussion on schools study was v different in tone to the usual. Not sure if just because different bods were around to usual!

born, I’m the fastest reader I’ve ever met - well, DD seems to have inherited the ability, not DS though.

Challenge!

Piggy thought they’d want to discuss the data even if it was about schools…clearly not!

Literally paid to, and given all the access to data etc to, analyse things without any bloody understanding of the actual policies and practices that had been applied to schools.

And all thinking that because they were once at school themselves, they know how they work. Hardly anything could be further from the truth. Kids don’t notice what goes on around them.
I used to ask my ICT A level students to draw a hierarchical/reporting diagram of the school staff. They invariably came up with head>assistant head>teachers>pupils. They couldn’t differentiate between academic/pastoral/admin or indeed between staff and students, and were totally unaware of any staff roles other than teaching. Site staff were usually forgotten. And these were bright kids.