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.

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I had my first dose of vaccine last November, I think. We're not expecting to be boostered as part of the trial so this could be "interesting"

Imagine another workplace or crowded environment where cleaning light switches and door handles regularly was only considered necessary when you have a novel pandemic? Maybe we wouldn't spend half the year wrestling with colds and bugs if these kind of basic hygiene standards were considered the norm. Maybe we wouldn't have norovirus breakouts annually. I don't think people comprehend just how grubby schools are.

Hmm way to punish volunteers Mrs H!

I must have misread. I was sure touch points was in the regular bit. Maybe in the pre-yesterday update version which I happened to read the day before.

The letter to parents that came out at my school in the last week of term referenced the ‘thermal comfort’ issue. There were quite a few complaints last winter about the classroom being too cold but we had ventilation being important to point the parents to and could advise their dc come to school appropriately dressed. That’s been ditched now, which pisses me off. We still had staff come to work in a single layer and complain relentlessly that they were cold .
We also have to have external doors closed, not because they are fire doors but because we have a child who runs off constantly. Their classroom last year was like an oven and I refused to work in it on the Keyworker rota. It was the first bubble that had to close when Covid skipped gaily through it, of course.

My point was that touch points in a crowded environment should always be a regular bit - shouldn't need a pandemic to have door handles and light switches cleaned regularly.

I presume it's budgets but I never saw more than a quick swipe of table tops and a fly by vacuum of carpets done by school cleaners. When I first started working in schools I developed allergies getting hives and constant sinus infections from the levels of dust and spores and god knows what else.

Well, now Dettol wipes are on our COSHH assessments I’ll be continuing to wipe down touch points, whether colleagues think that’s excessive or not. I always did that anyway, in my particular area that is used by other people when I’m not in. Norovirus is shit and I took precautions against it long before Covid.

I’ve also got in to the habit of cleaning the keyboards and mice multiple times throughout the day and will continue to do so, with a good side effect that I will hopefully get fewer colds from pupils sneezing onto their hands then touching their mouse/keyboards or just sneezing directly on to them-it’s always been gross!

I've always Dettol sprayed my door & handle and light switch and desk after watching a kid wipe their snotty nose on their hand then open the door. I keep a stash in my room 🤣

I think I'll be keeping my hand sanitiser clipped to my lanyard. We never did any cleaning of desks or keyboards or light switches at my school.

Yes I think the ‘thermal comfort’ concern points to U4T.

Extra cleaning of door handles lasted about a week at our school. After that the cleaner, who had been given some extra hours, decided she'd rather gaze out the window at the children playing outside, whilst tucked away on a comfy chair in the corner of the library. SLT informed many times that the job wasn't being done. They didn't care as they'd done their bit by employing someone. A box ticked. Really didn't matter whether the job was actually being done.

Apologies to the no doubt great TAs on this thread but sadly about 80% of our TAs sound like Lonelyplanets cleaner. The box is ticked, the kid has a ta but they may as well not be there.

You only really notice it when you get someone good who actually has a strategy with a child and is not just staring into space and occasionally rolling their eyes at you as if to say, 'what's the point of this one being at school' Then I have one who is overzealous and interrupting me teaching to shout at a kid for doing something I've already noticed but taken the choice to ignore for now whilst I finish introducing a task or because I know how best to handle that child so that things don't rapidly escalate and fuck the whole lesson.

I suspect I need to get a bit more proactive about managing TAs in my classroom but it is a very awkward dynamic at secondary I find.

I can imagine, Honey. No time to really build up a bond with a TA in your class all day as with Primary. Although I’ve seen the eye rolling, the bone idle and the overenthusiastically shouty there, too. They tend not to last long (one of the upsides of rolling contracts - oh dear, you’ve been cut to 4 hours a week, what’s that? You don’t want to stay? Bye then!)

I say bond, it can be more of an uneasy truce
But TAs are there to take the lead from the teacher. If they think the teacher is going about something the wrong way then they need to speak to them, or their senior lead or whoever. The majority of teachers I’ve worked with have been fine with collaborative strategies. The ones who treat TAs like indentured servants also don’t last long (the upside of temp contracts again……).

I just don't know what I'm meant to say to somebody who thinks the limits of their job are to just sit in that classroom somewhere in proximity to the student they're meant to be supporting. I'm not their boss, I can't say hey could you fucking do your job please or anything like that.

I had one student this year who is allegedly illiterate and can't read or write and tas who just sat looking bored or at my request directed him to a video I'd asked him to watch and some questions for them to read for him that he could answer via voice software.

Then suddenly one day I have a TA with him who has a little screen with a screen pen and writes his answer on it and gets him to copy it down into his book She makes him formulate his answer, she models writing it then he copies the writing and I'm like wtf? I was told he was completely illiterate and couldn't write at all and she was like yeah well that's not my experience and I'm not having him sat doing nothing when he's capable of upping his literacy skills. She's gobby and I doubt many are particularly fond of her but I was impressed! She's literally the first proactive TA who'd decided an approach and was enforcing it that I've seen. At secondary it is more likely to be the TA than the teacher in some ways who is more aware of the students abilities and needs as they're at all the meetings and planning sessions etc. It's never really made clear to teachers what the role of the TA is, what the role of the teacher is in directing them etc.

I think it's an awkward position for the TA too. We have one who was a teacher and she's brilliant. The school leaver age ones aren't great. I have had awkward conversations with ours but a lot of the time I think they're badly trained.

That’s a terrible set-up, Honey, because you are their boss for that 50mins in your classroom. I can see how lazy arses would find it an excellent environment in which to do sod all and it’s not easy to monitor as they follow the child. I can’t comment on who should be monitoring performance as I suspect it is very different from Primary. Ours is Teacher-SENCO-Deputy Head, with KS Leader for anything that comes under “clash of personalities/slagging off a Trainee teacher to the class while they are stood there”.
Those poor dc at secondary like yours!

At our school the support staff working in your lessons organise a brief meeting with you to discuss how best to work together in your lessons - we have a little form to complete. Literally what you do or don’t want TA to do, whether they have capacity to support other students, where best to place them and student in room and anything we need to know/provide in advance of lessons etc… we often do it week 2/3 and it’s really helpful.

There’s no discussion with TAs at my school, you only get one in your class if there’s a kid with an EHCP that pays for it, and if you have 5 kids with EHCPs you still only get one TA. It won’t be the same TA every lesson and some lessons they just won’t turn up (sometimes for weeks) and you’ll have no idea why.

No way you can plan for them.

We have the same issue noble. I was lucky to have the same person for every y11 lesson last year, but that was only because the student's EHCP had such a lot of money attached.

Yep similar here. Plus once it was assessment and exam season they all disappeared to provide the support entitlements for that. No communication to let you know no one would be there to support x. It's a bit shambolic.

Ours used to be department based which did help a bit. However it did lead to one department using theirs as admin, display organiser and general dogsbody. Someone in the dept clocked one week the TA had supported 5hours of lessons and the rest was dept stuff. They're now centrally deployed which leads to inconsistencies.

Our SENCO is awful at communicating with staff. Strategies listed are generic for each child which don't really help.

Ours all disappear at exam time, apart from the support for one student whose mum complained about it (rightly imo).

How hard would it be for the SENCO to email all staff. They won't because it's evidence they aren't providing EHCP support.

True. It would mean putting it into writing that they don't fulfil EHCP conditions.

You will never pin down a SENCO on whether the support funded is used as it should be .