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.

I thought they would be offering a PCR test to close contacts in schools

When contact tracing got handed over to test and trace, school contact was redefined so as to only include extended social contact like sleepovers (so T&T wouldn’t need seating plans). It is assumed that these would be the only ones advised to get a PCR.

However in the contingency framework we now have ‘groups that mix closely’ including friendship groups, after school clubs and classes. If we have 5 cases in these groups they acknowledge it as evidence of in-school transmission (and we’ll then have to consider measures like outdoor classes), but given that those groups won’t be asked to take a PCR it’s unlikely that it will be picked up.

‘Asked’ to take a PCR is the key bit, not ‘required’. Tbh, I’m that pissed off with it all that I will be declining the offer of a PCR since it makes no difference to what I’d be able to do - what’s the point?

How do T&T contact close contacts that the person doesn’t have contact details for, like a work colleague? I’ve no idea how they do it.

So they’re not going to do anything until there’s 5 cases all at once? With my youngest’s year group who seem to have it particularly bad in Summer2, it seemed to go across the year but in 1/2/3s at once. It was spreading, but not 5 at one time, in one year group. Does that mean there wasn’t really any covid!?

They just want it to rip undetected through schools, don’t they?

"They just want it to rip undetected through schools, don’t they?"

I think that has to be it, yes. There's no other viable explanation that I can see.

There has to be 5 cases who have all 'mixed closely' who test positive within 10 days of each other for it to be acknowledged as in-school transmission.

If that happens (which we know is unlikely due to lack of testing rather than lack of covid) then we have to consider whether we could improve ventilation or maybe clean the door handles.

And that's pretty much it.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9908593/Britain-facing-similar-crisis-Israel-coming-weeks-months.html

According to the DM Israel are vaccinating teachers to prevent their 4th wave. I do t hold out too much hope for us!

Vaccinating with the ‘booster’.

www.tes.com/news/assemblies-why-they-matter-and-how-improve-them

It is also recommended at this critical point in the pandemic, to have more assemblies, in order to maximise the risk of covid spread, to all.

Our government will leave us till last as a punishment for being a unionised profession. The Daily Mail readers will rejoice because we are never in school anyway and teachers in 1953 would always have put other people before themselves (after walking 94 miles in the snow to teach).

@Hercisback

The wellbeing charter has the potential to be good, but some school leaders can't identify "unnecessary workload". Instead they'll claim red pen on everything and triple marking is "necessary".

Exactly.

We've gone batty over providing evidence, reams of planning etc.

I physically cannot re write the medium term plans again. Have done some or all every year for 7 years now. Basically written the whole school's plans for two subjects, several times in that time, on 0.4. I feel literally sick at the thought. Days and days of extra work. And it means I can't get on with reviewing and working with staff on building their skills and knowledge, to enable them to be able to make judgments on how to approach the subjects for their own classes.

Assemblies are vital because they're a form time where I don't have to do anything.

From that Daily Mail article "It emerged yesterday that a mass booster jab campaign for the over-50s in the UK is now unlikely to begin next month."

So teachers over 50 who had their jab ages ago won't be getting their booster any time soon despite working closely with an unvaccinated population.

Definitely no way would they be offering them to teachers. Some bloke from the JCVI was asked on the radio a while back if they'd be offering boosters to teachers and he said no, he couldn't see why they would given that they'd decided not to priority vaccinate professions previously.

We were planning to go back to assemblies but I think that staff may well push for teams assemblies a while longer.
We're keeping rows (which I hate)

We're keeping rows (which I hate)

Long live teaching in rows. I hate having to teach in an English classroom where they're all in sodding groups, chat all the time and can't see the board.

Willing to fight to the death over this.

You can have my rows and I'll have your groups!
I don't use the board much, and I hate them looking at me.

This last year having to traipse around classrooms used by a variety of subject teachers has led me to suspect that maths is the only subject that actually writes on the board very much at all.

So many teachers were dumping piles of crap right in front of the board that had to be kicked out of the way before I could get close enough to write on it.

I think you're right. I see a lot of spangly PowerPoints, and maths tends to use iwb software at our place. Not much board writing at all, except in religious studies.

Agreed noble.

All this "new" trend of modelling working out/writing to students really is like teaching a maths teacher to suck eggs. Ppts for maths are mostly a waste of time unless they have questions on.

All this "new" trend of modelling working out/writing to students really is like teaching a maths teacher to suck eggs.
You say this.... but I genuinely have had to explain this concept to some of my colleagues. See also... differentiation/behaviour management/marking....

Oh yes I can believe in other subjects people need to know it. I sat through a geography teacher "live modelling" something like it was the best thing ever. All I could think was "I've been doing this since I started" and "why aren't other people doing this?".

PPT is great for some stuff but overused.

I would love to know how many board markers each department gets through. Maths must be at the top.

It explains why they were so casual to announce that we were going to have to log into teams and teach the kids at home at the same time as the kids in the class. This is easy if you are just talking over a powerpoint. Bloody nightmare as a maths teacher.

I'm usually the berk at the front telling people to do stuff (like modelling) thinking "I'm a knob, because everyone knows this" and then I realise that some people genuinely have no idea that you need to show the students how to do stuff.
Our maths dept are going to love my literacy session at Inset 🤦🏼‍♀️

Oh gosh, literacy sessions. I actually wish someone would go "you know what maths, spend the 40 mins coming up with some sensible literacy ideas for your subject". Rather than sit through 40 mins of how to structure an essay. I'm not bitter...!

I once sat through an English teacher doing a numeracy across the curriculum inset. Just why.

They published the operational guidance for schools in Wales for september before we broken up for the summer.
Despite the press talking about no bubbles very little is set to change unless you choose to ignore the guidance.
Rows facing forward. Keeping learning groups as separate as possible to minimise interactions - so no assemblies yet and still having to segregate the playground.

All they seem to have done is stopped close contacts from having to isolate which was interpreted as the lack of bubbles. But the learning groups still are supposed to be kept separate.

And they have banned shortened days and staggered finishes..for which I am selfishly glad. I teach in ks2 in our primary. All year we have taught 15 mins more than Lks2 every day due to the staggered finish, and 30 mins more than the infant classes, with no recognition of that.

Well that seems still not great, but slightly more sensible than England, Maddie. Do you know what happens if there's an outbreak?

And do you get any money for ventilation?