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.

KS3 SATs were only Maths and English so wouldn't address lack of teachers in other subjects.

And Science.

Ah I thought science was ditched early, must have been thinking of KS2.

I do very clearly remember finding out SATs were being scrapped, from watching BBC Breakfast and then having to go into school and explaining to my Y9 class that I didn't know any more than they did about what was going on.

It was the first time I realised just how political education was.

I’ve messaged Staff on here and on Skype, have had no reply. When I searched she last posted in mid August I think.

I hope she’s got some new, wonderful life which doesn’t leave time for fiddling about on here…..

@noblegiraffe

Ah I thought science was ditched early, must have been thinking of KS2.

Definitely not ditched until the others, the number of mock papers I’ve had to mark is testament to that!

@Mistressiggi

Form tutor time should be contact time, surely. It is for us.

Yeah, that's what I mean. So a full contact week is 27.5 hours in most secondaries, minus whatever PPA you get.

I hope Staff is okay, too.

@CarrieBlue

KS3 SATs were only Maths and English so wouldn't address lack of teachers in other subjects.

And Science.

And ICT! Did them for a few years back then with the Year 9s. Was a nightmare to organise.

KS3 SATS are before my time as a teacher, so I only really know of them in terms of the levels which we continued to use to judge attainment, in one of the schools I worked at.

We're going to need a new broom cupboard or staffroom soon - hope Staff is ok.

Two weeks till half term. I've reached that point where I've run out of pre-prepared stuff! Have to write an assesssment for my Y8s this weekend, along with the usual lesson prep. But can't find the motivation.

What on earth did they examine in an ICT SATs?

Had one of those weeks to welcome me back after covid.
We seem to be having lots of staffing issues due to covid and other bugs but we don't have many children out.
The dfe and politicians are so out of touch. I work silly hours trying to teach the contact hours I have now. Upping the hours is in no way going to improve learning for children, just lower the standards of lessons.
Inspections with no notice at all is barny. Ofsted will turn up and find that an SLT will have no time to speak with them all day. Our head had meetings with parents, teaching, covering lunch duty for missing staff etc all day yesterday. I doubt she even got time for a wee.

On the home front. Ds is really happy in Y7. He had a first friend over to play last night. I am thrilled that his good taste in friends is continuing!

There were three online ICT SATS tests back then with its own ‘platform’ (remember the ICT teacher skills test alongside the Maths and English one? Very similar).
We had to set up the accounts and then complete in different sessions as not enough computers for 210 in one go!
Basically used to test what was on the old ICT GCSE.

Goodness, I can’t even remember doing that! Maybe it wasn’t compulsory? We used to give a level at the end of Y9 which we did as best as we could (given we only saw them once a week and much KS3 ICT was delivered by non-specialists) and then checked against Maths and English. If in doubt the English level swayed it.

It was about 2005/6 I think until it was scrapped along with the others just a couple of years later when every subject then came up with their own way of giving levels in Year 9. All a complete waste of time!

I suspect we missed (or ignored) the directive on using the online platform and just set our own tasks then! In fact Y9 ICT was always a mini version of GCSE insofar as they did a series of projects based on GCSE coursework. (The current Functional Skills ICT is just a stripped down version of the old GCSE minus most of the theory.)

I did my KS3 Sats in 2003 and didn't have to do ICT. Remember doing OK on them and then they determined our GCSE sets but not sure there's any benefit on bringing them back. Plus the extended work hours is ridiculous, maybe they should work a typical teachers week.

I've just had to do some online modules for fire safety, manual handling and display screens (the assumption of this one being that I get to sit for an extended period at a computer, I'm lucky if I can bloody find one to use). Why are they do bloody tedious?

I did my KS3 Sats in 2003 and didn't have to do ICT.

Didn’t exist then I don’t think. It was only from about 2005ish to when they were all scrapped in about 2008 was it?

When were the ITT teacher maths/English/IT tests brought in, can anyone remember that? I don’t think I did them?

The current Functional Skills ICT is just a stripped down version of the old GCSE minus most of the theory.)

It is isn’t it?! I noticed that. We used to start the GNVQ in ICT around that time and pretty much prepared them for the godawful ICT SAT anyway

Am I the only one that remembers having to do the ICT skills test when training before that too was removed? That was excruciating as well!!!

Why are they do bloody tedious

Because they cover everything in excruciating detail and are littered with visual images aimed to aid those of the meanest intelligence.

Cross post Appuskidu - I did all three of mine in 2003 and they’d been around for at least a little while before then.

I did the ICT skills test in 2005 I think - it was in something that looked like Word but wasn't Word, wasn't it?

I did the ICT QTS test (see I'm not that young ). It was embarrassingly bad.

Wasn't the ECDL just the same test?

Yep-same as ECDL and also pretty similar to the platform for the ICT SATS (which just had a bit more colour and smiley cartoon people).

Nearly failed the ICT skills test first time when I couldn’t find a bloody button on the fake email they had and time had nearly run out, despite my computer science degree but thankfully found it in time

Through the 1990s there were initiatives to improve teachers’ use of ICT. Of course, it didn’t extend to providing them with easy access to computers and was greatly resisted by many who correctly saw it as much pain for little gain.
Our head of girls’ PE, however, took it on herself to attend one of my Y9 ICT classes weekly for a year and as a result became really quite competent. Unfortunately she developed a PowerPoint addiction as well and transferred her GCSE theory lessons to a series of slide shows in theme shades of puce and magenta, which DD used to complain bitterly about and blamed on me.