Broom cupboard 4 - soon be time to think about heating this place

[TheHoneyBadger]

Will post this on the end of the other thread too but I have just found this:

If you are identified as a contact and asked to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace, including by the NHS COVID-19 app you may be entitled to a payment of £500 from your local authority under the Test and Trace Support Payment scheme. If you are the parent or guardian of a child who has been told to self-isolate you may also be entitled to this payment.

^Presumably that is all of the 'thought' that has gone into the situation I've been talking about. Still doesn't tell us if we would be seen as taking unauthorised leave or able to work from home or anything - need union specific advice on that.

Quote from today’s education committee (Guardian):

Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP who chairs the committee, asked if the witnesses acknowledged there was “low transmission” of Covid among the 12-15 age group.

Whitty replied: “That is not true, there is definitely substantial transmission happening in this age group. In fact the age group we are talking about is the one in which the highest rate of transmission is currently occurring, as far as we can tell.”

That’s Larkin for you

In your face, Halfon4Them.

What about a bit of Pam Ayres?!

My mother had a flit gun
‘twas not devoid of charm
A bit of flit shot out of it
The rest shot up her arm.’

There Are Hole In The Sky

There are holes in the sky
Where the rain gets in
But they're ever so small
That's why the rain is thin.

I love a bit of Spike. 'A Thousand Hairy Savages' was my favourite as a child. It took me many years to realise that the 'savages' were supposed to be people - I'd always supposed they were some sort of fictional monsters. Not really an acceptable poem now.

I read a poem a day to my class.

I think it was in Y7 but DD learned The Way Through the Woods (Kipling) and can still recite much of it now. We used to walk through woods so it was easy to relate to what she knew.

Just had a text - I've been picked to be sent an antibody test. It will arrive in the post in the next couple of days. What fun!

So the 10% threshold thing is definitely being ignored, isn't it? We have multiple classes with 6/28 or 6/30 kids positive. Noone even knows or is being told. Same at several other secondaries I know of. But two primaries are closed because of 18/30 cases etc

What about a Psalm?

I will lift up mine eyes into the hills
From whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord
Who made heaven and Earth
….

I have always loved the KJV archaic language.

Or
The Lord is my shepherd, I’ll not want,
He maketh me to lie down amongst green pastures ….

@SquashedFlyBiscuits

Just had a text - I've been picked to be sent an antibody test. It will arrive in the post in the next couple of days. What fun!

If it's the one where you have to fill a small vial I suggest you want a better plaster than the ones they supply...

@MrsHamlet

Fish

Oh
Wet pet

I came to say this, it was in the Anthology when I was at school

@DanglingMod

That Larkin poem kicks you in the guts, doesn't it?

He's good at that.

"Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring

In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse."

Bed in Summer

BYROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.

In summer, quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping on the tree,

Or hear the grown-up people's feet

Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,

When all the sky is clear and blue,

And I should like so much to play,

To have to go to bed by day?

I love poetry. We have a recital every year at school but give a lot more notice!

DD2 learnt the Jabberwocky off by heart when she was in Y4 and is still word perfect now in Y9.

Our Y5s learnt and performed MacAvity the Mystery Cat by TS Eliot a few years back and it was amazing!

My Y3s have done The Sound Collector by Roger McGough, Wordsworth's Daffodil poem and Shelley's Ozymandias in recent years. None of them is too long so might be ok for a quick learn?

As an English teacher, I am loving the poem posts!

@MrsHamlet I have taken a screen shot of the ‘mouse on the moon’. I think DD would like that one. Your grandad sounds lovely ❤️

Thanks for all the suggestions. I wish 1, the deadline wasn’t so soon but 2. five more guidance! For example, will sings be fine? Is Julia D too ‘young’ and therefore not challenging for Yr 6? I’m not sure what exactly is being assessed here. Is it their comprehension of the poem or a spoken language task?

Maybe I’m over thinking this ...

Thanks @HarrietDVane I did a bit of searching last night and saw that BBC2 had some readings of performance poetry and stumbled on ‘the sound collector’.

I think that’s another reason why I’m annoyed at this homework. Both DCs have spellings, timetables and an online English/Maths (alternated) homework task each week, plus daily reading. I don’t help them at all apart from making them sit at the table Sunday morning and so it. This is work for me!

Think of the effort you are putting in as a teacher and a lover of poetry. Then think of the effort the average parent in the class will put in (or be able to put in - not everyone has a list of poems to hand they can go through or the ability to find one).
Unless this is a highly selective school, it sounds like a rushed homework that isn't structured enough for most families!

@Mistressiggi Definitely not a selective school. I live in a typical middle class suburb but the school is very much a comp - there’s a council estate nearby and the school also takes a lot of ‘looked after’ children so the I take is very much the whole spectrum of society.

The more I think about it, I just think it’s NQT naivety and she doesn’t really know the class yet. Hopefully my email will trigger a chat with her mentor about giving more guidance and time.

Morning! Checking in so I don't lose you all and so I can catch up later, if I've not missed too much.

Am struggling quite a bit at the minute so head has been all over the place. Also have the worst sore throat and painful ears which is just glorious. It's only week 3 😱

,name not to be pessimistic, but have you considered doing a PCR test? My covid started as a sore throat. I really hope it's not covid for you, because it's crap.

We're on week 4. Bliss. I'm nearly halfway through the first term.

Yep, 4 more weeks to go here. Weird for me having a class where the supply teacher knows them as well as I do. By the end of this week, she will have taught them for 9 days and I will have taught them for 5. It will be like starting again when I get back. I am working from home and sending in planning and resources for a class I hardly know. Sort of glad to have covid out of the way for now though before the cases go barmy in my school.