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.

That video looks great noble. Going to forward to our SLT link so they can see its not just me being an arse!

Video looks interesting will have a look in a bit.

DD's PCR has come back positive. 😔

Sorry sure. Fingers crossed she feels ok with it, and the rest of you can avoid it.

Our reports have effort, progress, homework and behaviour. No comments just numbers and codes. Progress is on track, above or below. Not very personal but can't say I miss having to write loads about students.

Is anyone going to struggle with getting to work because of petrol?

I think I'll be OK until Weds and hoping the situation has improved by then.

Literally none left round here (rural Norfolk.)

I might struggle with open evening. I travel by public transport normally but open evening needs a car because the times don't align... I'd be home very late!!
If the drivers can't get to work tomorrow, that could also be a problem.

Secondary people, do you not write things in the maths books then?

Sorry to hear that @Sureitwillbegrand. Hope she feels better soon. My DN has it too, atm he's just very tired.

Im unaffected by fuel issues as walk to work but imagine a lot of my colleagues will be hit if they cant fill up and supply staff will be affected. Planned my first lesson in 8 years which I'm teaching this week. Brought back all my teacher training nerves.

@Iamnotthe1
I write stuff as I circulate, usually a method or ticks.
I write and photocopy a whole class feedback sheet. This is stuck in every students book.

I can get the train to work if I want to. I never want to because I go to the gym on the way - it's literally by the side of the road to work. I was on vapour Friday morning though, so filled up at 7am before everyone went mental.

I don't blame people for being a bit nuts (not the people filling loads of jerry cans, they ARE loons) and queueing. Just can't trust a word this government says.

Thank you so far headache, tired and a bit of a cough.

Maths - Just whilst live marking so make corrections, discuss errors (verbal feedback) and tick/check methods. They get a good 20 mins to work independently so ideally plenty of time to circulate and check/correct. I tend to get them to try a question for me to check before they continue. I will stop them as needed if several have issue with the work. Eg reminder how to round numbers.

I'll be ok Mon/Tues, I'm not convinced about Wednesday. I kind of assumed things would be back to normal by then, that the queues would have died down. I hadn't really considered that they might all run out of petrol.

Maths - we don't mark books, they mark books. I mark an exit ticket every few lessons with ticks and crosses and reteach anything that needs it. Silly mistakes I correct as I mark. We do end of topic tests and end of term tests, again ticks and crosses, silly mistakes corrected and whole class feedback and follow-up questions on common mistakes.

We don't mark homework, waste of time as you learn nothing from marking it.

My DS has tested positive too.

Am feeling quite murderous towards Boris et al.

to all testing positive/with children testing positive. It's shit that there have been no attempts to keep us all safe.

Hope everyone gets through it ok.

@JanglyBeads me too. We have managed to go all this time to be thrown under the bus. DD2 is suffering with social anxiety so this won't help with her worrying.

Thankfully big tank half full and short commute so have about 2 weeks worth of petrol 🤞 it's all sorted by then!

Thank you. Very different to what we do. For us in Y6, every piece is marked, usually live but catch up for any you didn't get to or got to first and so have more work for you to review. Questions/comments written when appropriate like:

• why must this be wrong?
• what would happen if...?
• what alternative approaches are there? Etc.

The only time the kids mark their own work is if it's a pure fluency session and most of the kids are doing the same questions.

That feels disconnected from what they could be doing in secondary and maybe we do need to reduce the amount of marking. I just can't help but feel we'd be criticised if we did.

I've just marked the 2018 A2 Applied paper and it's taken me HOURS. Lots of feedback, marking to mark scheme and we'll cover a question or two in the next lesson. I don't even have many pupils in that class, but I did the paper myself before I marked it, because I remember the yeargroup that sat it coming out of the exam hall in various states of upset (but glad that their A-level Maths was over!).

I've got a Y8 homework coming in tomorrow and they normally mark it live in class (and ask questions at the time), then I overmark it and add feedback. For a class of 20, it takes around 30 min to do it this way, can imagine it might take me 60-80 if I had to mark it from scratch and they wouldn't read it anyway or have forgotten about it by the next lesson!

But if you mark homework, you're marking work that parents have done, that kids have copied and that has been rushed on the bus that morning.

What do you, as a teacher, get out of it?

I can see the value of marking the A level stuff, the kids do actually read it and absorb it - I tend to give questions as feedback. The lower school marking is best done in class. I can get a sense of how they're doing by looking at their work in class and when it's self/peer marked.

@noblegiraffe

But if you mark homework, you're marking work that parents have done, that kids have copied and that has been rushed on the bus that morning.

What do you, as a teacher, get out of it?

That's why I've never given homework. I learn nothing from it.

For me and my subject, I definitely need the homework included - even if a parent or Google is involved, as I just don’t have the timetable time.

If I was lucky enough to have even 3 hours a fortnight, I might well be saying homework isn’t needed because that extra time could be given to the type of work I set for homework and even able to do decent tests even and go over them etc.

Sometimes if a half term is 6 weeks, I might only have 5 hours or so to teach, if one of those lessons is missed for trips or something, whereas some subjects get 5 lessons for just over a week, yet am expected to still cover the full curriculum, so something has to give and it’s homework for me. I’m getting them so well trained though, that it is making the transition to GCSE and A Level so much better.
Oh to be even given one more lesson a fortnight though!

Managed to fill up one car so will be doing fuel conserving driving in that and hoping DH manages to fill the other less efficient car this week for the school run. Just what we needed!

See this - apart from kids being 1:3 cases, look at the M to F ratio, ages 30-49 - female school staff, mums, childcare?

Schools don't drive transmission...

My colleague's daughter caught covid at school. The original child at that school had caught it via a kids club over the summer. Colleague didn't have to isolate obviously. Her husband now has it, as does his mother - both who had to do childcare while my colleague had to come to work. She's now off to do childcare.