Sixty Seventh Republic - under temporary guardianship

[Hercisback]

In the absence of staff and her fabulous thread titles and witty openers here is a 67th thread. The broom cupboard is overflowing so time for another Republic. Hopefully we hear from staff soon.

Stolen from thread 66.
'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.'

Costa’s too posh. It has to be Nescafé. Yes, to cigarettes and pipe smoke too. You always knew when the Staffroom door was open.

Hobnob you are back. How are things?

I had a Teasmade as a teenager. I asked for it one Xmas. Bloody loved it. I just used to leave a little cup of milk by it overnight in a bowl with a few icecubes in. Used to wake to the sound of tea brewing. It also had radio- it'd brew tea and play Radio Caroline. Glorious! I'd love one now.

Ok when I win the lottery I will send you all teasmades. I'm a coffee person but have to wait for an hour after taking my thyroid medicine and have to take the dog out anyway so a by the bed gadget would be wasted on me.

Surely you could just take a flask of tea to bed though?

[quote HobnobbingAboutHobnobs]

Honey I take my thyroid meds at bedtime, works best for me! I don't eat past 8.30pm. I prefer it to waiting in the morning.

?? I take my thyroxine with a strong cup of coffee most mornings! And have done for 20+ years. Should I not?

@BustopherPonsonbyJones

Costa’s too posh. It has to be Nescafé. Yes, to cigarettes and pipe smoke too. You always knew when the Staffroom door was open.

To clarify: I bring my own proper coffee in a flask. The instant stuff in the staffroom looks like gravy granules 🤢

Welcome back Hobnob! Hope you're ok

Sharing this just in case any maths teachers are interested - I've advertised it on our Department Twitter. David Spiegelhalter with Manchester University Maths Dept lecture on the highs and lows of Covid reporting to the media.

It's on week Tuesday (9th Nov), starting at 6pm. It's free online and you can sign up here:

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2021-dame-kathleen-ollerenshaw-public-lecture-tickets-189642424597

We no longer have a staffroom. We have dept offices, some of which are big enough for the depts.

@borntobequiet no' leave an hour before or after tea and coffee and food. Caffiene inhibits thyroxine uptake. My endo told me this years ago.

That said, if you're doing this for a while then your thyroxine levels will be based on this by now i'd think. My absorption levels are always rubbish and i'm restricted to one type of pill so I need to be careful.

Nice to see you Hob! I was literally thinking of you and your great UN earlier today!

Phleb already said it Born. Meant to be an hour either side without food or caffeine, sugar etc. It's part of my routine to half wake up and go pills and take them then dose a while longer before checking the time and deciding I can stick the kettle on whilst taking the dog out and by the time I make coffee and it's cooled down I'll have had my hour. Things got more complex when due to my bowel surgery I had to use bile acid sequestriants and they had to be taken an hour minimum before thyroid meds so as not to interfere with them - though I did manage to get my working hours altered as a result. Touch wood I'm managing without the bowel ones now so it's gotten simpler again.

I never thought of taking thyroid meds at night but then again I do like my nightcap so it wouldn't really work.

On the thyroid topic I may have mentioned htat in the year or two of no medical care I've just been told my blood tests are in normal range, then finally I said actually tell me the number and it turned out their idea of normal was me being on the cusp of hyperthyroidism (I'm naturally hypo) and making the executive decision (not much choice when you can't get gp care) to cut my thyroid meds in half. No idea what my thyroid levels are now BUT my resting heart rate has come down massively and I'm not having palpitations Even outside of covid times I have felt like NHS care for long term conditions has been a bit of a DIY research and decide process and then just tell your GP what to do ie. with their prescription pad. Bit concerning that I could have been damaging my heart with too high a dose of levothyroxine for over a year but what can you do? Before covid kicked in I finally had a doctor who wanted to do some dose altering and look for a sweet spot then poof - on your own.

As said though if you have always had meds then drunk coffee your blood tests will reflect your absorption levels and if someone is actually monitoring them your dosage should fit with that. I confess, and am slightly embarrassed to confess, that I thought the lower the number the more hypo and it turns out to be the opposite.

Sorry long off topic waffle but I'm sure you're used to that from me by now.

Oh I’ve been on thyroxine for more than 20 years now and never at any point seen an endocrinologist! GP prescribed it nd I have six monthly blood tests (well the last year has been disrupted somewhat). TBF on work days it would be tea not coffee (I’d take the strong coffee to work in a flask) but seems that neither is better.

I keep my tsh supressed at 0 because otherwise my t4 is shite. I never get hyper symptoms though. If it gets above 1 i'm like a zombie. Finding a gp who knows anything about thyroid disease or autoimmune conditions is rare.

I take t3 3 times a day and that is my wonder drug. Big long fight to get it though.

Gosh...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-59024961

@BustopherPonsonbyJones

Teasmades! Are you all hankering after hostess trolleys too? Or those trouser press things you get in hotels? Each to their own (but everyone knows teachers should smell of coffee to the point that children recoil).

My dad had a trouser press in their bedroom until I was at least in my early teens! As a young girl I was fascinated, making it open and close.

Ah, the good ol' days.

Piggy although you should be able to debate anything, that text book will produce a lot of very negative responses won't it with limited real knowledge - no real need for the debate to be on that issue at all!

I don't like the task in that text book and think a different tasks could still have taught evaluation skills. My worry is that many students studying that course won't have enough knowledge to unpick such a controversial statement.

However what has annoyed me a little is that the mentor/youth worker in question couldn't have raised her issues about the particular exercise, instead she seems to have gone on a 'look at me' mission where she says she is concerned about about all sorts of bias, and how the UK thinks we don't have a problem with injustice. It makes me roll my eyes a little.

I'm quite surprised that task got past the proofing stage.

Same MrsHamlet. Someone should have seen the issues. They're quite obvious.

@Mistressiggi

Piggy although you should be able to debate anything, that text book will produce a lot of very negative responses won't it with limited real knowledge - no real need for the debate to be on that issue at all!

It's a bit like how BBC Bitesize (who I think are now getting revenge by writing about all the textbooks with issues!) decided that climate change needed two sided 'debate' though!

@MrsHamlet

I'm quite surprised that task got past the proofing stage.

There's is one in a GCSE Sociology textbook (same publishers) about Caribbean fathers that is even more obviously crass...