The Sixty-Sixth Republic - Who will be the medal winners on Results Day? Grade inflation predicted again

[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.

Our local GDST (independent) also has High School in its name.

The education system here must be totally baffling to newcomers. It's confusing enough when you've grown up with it.

"High school" in some counties means the girls' grammar, the boys' grammars are just called "grammar school." The non-selectives in these areas are never called "high school."

The older I get the more I think that our political, educational and judicial systems are designed to be as confusing as possible to those who haven’t been schooled in the way they work, compounded by the fact that we don’t actually teach about them in school. I’ve occasionally been involved in delivering Citizenship lessons using resources that weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. In fact I ditched them and made my own.

Article for piggy

www.independent.co.uk/voices/alevel-university-stem-students-dominic-cummings-b1902654.html

Thanks....

I noticed today that quite a few of our girls got AAC in ALevels. The C being in a science.....

Will read article tomorrow!

Also the fact that a “College” can mean any number of different types of institution, and the full range is not commonly known.

My all girls’ grammar has ‘high’ in its name. The surrounding schools are all comprehensives, interestingly they don’t have ‘high’ in their names. Didn’t even think about that! Ofsted reports also name then am comprehensives. In our Ofsted we are called a ‘non fee paying selective’ but as I said up thread we do have some very bright girls but rest would be on a par with ‘middle sets’. In English this year (in a cohort of 144) we had 31 grade 9s, 42 grade 8s but we also had 2 grade 5s and 1 grade 4 which is typical to past years.

Read the article now . Andrew Marr also laments Britain's 'non scienceness' throughout his book The Elizabethans'and suggests the 20th century saw a move away from innovation and science (it was the main thing that annoyed me about the book, actually). It is an ideological thing, for sure. In the Times the other day was a short article about the fall and fall of English A Level.

Conversely, if one reads The Authority Gap, one might be put off as a female from working in the STEM sectors! She does recognise the tension between wanting more women in STEM and how this will improve this sector and the fact that women in the sector are routinely bullied, belittled,underpaid, and ignored.

It's a tough one. I want students to pursue what they are good at, enjoy and can thrive in; I have a very idealised view of education.

Interesting how all these leaders with history, lit, classics , philosophy degrees seems so messianic about sciences and technology (although I am not sure in schools it is is STEM really : not much sign of huge uptakes of technology subjects, or engineering flourishing), more Science and maths. (and mainly science). I guess the message is that the arts and humanities are for the frivolous elite and the 'thinkers'; utility is for the plebs. Not sure how that works for any of us...

I’ve noticed the phenomenon of STEM enthusiasm bordering on worship from art and media based people. It comes from a deep misunderstanding of the world and how to think about it. It’s essentially a religious viewpoint and essentially these are people who operate on belief rather than factual knowledge and understanding. I think that science as we now know it was better served in the days of “natural philosophy” when there was little differentiation between the arts, the sciences and technology and the people practising it had a more holistic world view (as well as considerable practical skills).

Very cross with a local high profile Exec Head and what he wrote on twitter. Someone tweeted that pastoral leads ought to include info about incels in safeguarding training . It was later pointed out in the thread that young men use incel language all the time (if teachers can't recognise this language then there's an issue right? Simp is one that I now know after having heard it in my room a while ago and had very embarrassed kids trying not to explain it to me)

This head wrote that any calling out of lack of inclusion of info about incel groups in safeguarding was a massive overreaction. FFS.

Someone else (female this time) wrote that speaking about them 'draws attention to the,'. Ermmmm.... yes?? I despair of school leaders sometimes.

All 16 and 17 year olds to be offered first jab by 23rd August giving them "two weeks to build up immunity before return to school" in England, says Sajid Javid.

Here we go again, forgetting counties like Leicestershire which go back around then/last week in August.

It's as if they think there's exactly one set of school term dates, one size of school, one system of primary/secondary. One model for everything. Not good enough.

Our 16 year olds are back by 2nd Sep.

Not at my school but others in our city are too! One school also does the 5 week summer and goes back last week in August, like Leics, too!

There I was thinking they’d picked the 16th and not the end of August for releasing children from isolating because the Leicestershire/Leicester schools go back on the 23rd. Obviously I gave them too much credit and whoever said they picked it at random was right.

I also note they’re only that they’ll have had their first jab or the opportunity to book an appointment - hardly equivalent in terms of COVID protection!

Ie they should at least have a future appt booked by the 23rd.

At the moment, they're only getting one jab. A decision may be made for a second, but unless they're CEV/CV themselves or live with someone who is, it's one jab and done.

Dd had hers last week. Our county in Wales was way behind vaccinating at the start but now has an efficient system that you can easily book online. So we are all done now in our household, which feels like a relief.

I'm caller number 26 in the queue for my GP surgery to chase up DD's vaccine ... 4 minutes 30 so far, anyone want to place a bet at how long it takes to answer?

21 minutes now, lots of "helpful" requests for me to look on the facebook page.
Caller number 5 ooh !!

Our surgery has a recorded message saying 'don't ask us about vaccines'.

noble ours might as well have a message saying "just don't bother us at all"...
But I have learnt the magic incantation to say that they understand and will allow you to get a few words out before they try to get rid of you!

The education system here must be totally baffling to newcomers.
Yes 😅 Staying in primary education forever, at least it's slightly less confusing.

I phoned up our GPs the other day and part of the lengthy spiel you're forced to listen to, says that if you're phoning to ask when your 2nd vaccine will be, don't, as you will be contacted when they feel like it.

Hope everyone is ok been absent for a few days as have been doing house things and amusing DS.

Today has been school uniform shopping day -the joys! DS is primary so Sainsbury's is usually my go to for everything except a logo jumper (for photo day!) and PE t-shirt/shorts. Only they had no red polos shirts today so also ended up in tesco for those Done now thankfully!

Is the weather anywhere else still rather rubbish? It's raining on and off here and not very warm at all