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.

That’s brilliant!

Not an ‘oops first day’ but ‘oops first month’ as I drive right into the back of a woman and wrote our cars off. Two days later I was meeting the parent of a lad in the troublesome Yr 11 class I took over and he was the ringleader. She was the woman. Tbf she was lovely and supportive and didn’t mention that I sat and sobbed at the side of the road.

*drove

Just spotted this in updated guidance

Staff who do not need to isolate, and children and young people aged under 18 years 6 months who usually attend school, and have been identified as a close contact, should continue to attend school as normal. They do not need to wear a face covering within the school, but it is expected and recommended that these are worn when travelling on public or dedicated transport

They have also slightly changed the bit about remote education : it's softer:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/schools-covid-19-operational-guidance

What do you mean they've changed it to make it softer?

Love that they need to wear a mask on the designated bus but can take it off on arrival at school if they're a close contact, but buses aren't listed on the 'close mixing' groups.

I am looking at the operational guidance rather than the contingency plan but it doesn't say 'high quality remote education if isolating'. It says something like, if they are well enough set them some work. I didn't think they had acknowledged before that kids might not actually be well.

@noblegiraffe

Love that they need to wear a mask on the designated bus but can take it off on arrival at school if they're a close contact, but buses aren't listed on the 'close mixing' groups.

I do bus duty. I have no love whatsoever for the idea that I still have to get them to wear a mask on the bus...

Oh the contingency framework has the bit about remote education for the kids if they are well enough (how the fuck are we supposed to know if they are well enough to need work setting) but the operational guidance needs a very close look at because it says

"Where appropriate, you should support those who need to self-isolate because they have tested positive to work or learn from home if they are well enough to do so."

So teachers will be expected to work from home with covid.

I loved double lessons -finally I could get sustained writing in. Less movement meant less wasted time from wandering Bobs.
Colleagues with y7 found it hard though.
We've not asked staff what they thought. A straw poll suggested we'd prefer to keep doubles but slt didn't like the behaviour issues that came from staff getting pissed off with behaviour around the hour mark and calling for back up.

Oh, I only read that as applying to students.

Full section

"Not all people with COVID-19 have symptoms. Where appropriate, you should support those who need to self-isolate because they have tested positive to work or learn from home if they are well enough to do so. Schools subject to the remote education temporary continuity direction are required to provide remote education to pupils covered by the direction where their attendance would be contrary to government guidance or legislation around COVID-19."

They do not specify pupils until the bit about remote education, and pupils would not be 'working' from home as opposed to 'learning' from home.

I would say they were working if they were doing an essay or some research, or if older.

You can't ask people who have an actual illness to WFH.

You can if they are asymptomatic would be the argument...we had teachers who had to teach via teams beamed into the classroom while they were at home isolating as contacts but well, why not with covid but well?

If I test positive I will certainly not be working from home in the sense of remote teaching!

Because it's employment law...

Teachers already set cover work when ill so I'm not sure much regard is paid to employment law there?

I've been going through further maths mechanics as teaching it for the first time thinking 'I just need to get my head around the maths because DrFrost will have decent powerpoints for the teaching' to find that OCR do Dimensional Analysis and Edexcel don't. Which means no DrFrost powerpoint and according to the internet, no other powerpoints either.

I might have to write a powerpoint. This is terrible news.

If I test positive, that's it - not working from home. It's stressful and shit, and the sort of thing that even if I was asymptomatic, would make me actually ill.

So not even setting cover?

U4T are pretending to be concerned about a drop in kids getting their routine vaccinations due to 'vaccine fatigue'.

twitter.com/usforthemuk/status/1430457058067947521?s=21

Maybe it's because of fannies like you mithering about vaccines not being safe?

Twats.

That's definitely a softer line on setting work for students.

If I test positive and feel completely normal, I'd WFH. Any hint of a symptom and no work will be done. Teaching must be one of the only jobs where you're expected to set cover.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4332161-What-are-your-predictions-for-this-school-year?msgid=110242180

Thread to keep an eye on 🤔

@Hercisback

That's definitely a softer line on setting work for students.

If I test positive and feel completely normal, I'd WFH. Any hint of a symptom and no work will be done. Teaching must be one of the only jobs where you're expected to set cover.

But surely we’d only be testing ourselves if we become poorly?