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.'

Even with the pitiful ECT funding, we can't cover the costs of doing their induction "properly". That will certainly be an issue in the longer term

Yet some schools will need to take on ECTs as no one else will work there. Probably good news for experienced staff seeking out a new job. I hope it makes some schools reflect on policies and practise that drive staff away, now it will be considerably better financially to retain decent staff.

I don't know about how anyone else feels about trainees etc this year, but I've refused to have any students - BEd or PGCE - I just don't want the extra work, I'm done in from the last 18 months. No teacher in our school wants a student. I got sort of told off about it, but I can't be bothered with the possibility of having someone crap. It's just too much work. I wonder if any other schools are in the same boat.

My thinking is that schools won't take on ECTs. Why would they, when it costs more to the school financially and in mentor time

I think it will be much harder for ECTs to get a job in future. There are areas of the country that are hard to recruit for though (deprived coastal areas).
They will still hire ECTs.

I'm not missing mentoring anymore. I used to love it, but had a couple of years where it wasn't enjoyable. I suspect the reason it was taken off me and given to someone fresh from their NQT year was because I asked too many questions when trainees weren't meeting the standards. Some providers seem quite willing for trainees to pass when they are being carried by their mentors and their class teachers. When I first mentored I loved it and I'm still in touch with people I mentored to this day.

Not to do a TAAT, but we had those bizarre ITT threads recently that I thought would be a perfect insight into when having an ITT student could easily become draining.

Hello a very tired and not on 30k ECT here.

I think you're right, I'd like to be mentored by someone experienced and in our school the ECTs are. However, there are so many of us it's causing issues with PPA/ECT cover time, the programme we're following is onerous in tlme expectations (and I'm pretty sure we're repeating parts of our PGCE).

The stuff I really need, for example, is to be shown how to successfully run a maths (or any other) lesson when your abilities range from YR to Y4 with no TA isn't forthcoming because no one has the time during the day. I know about positive praise, visual timetables, importance of routines etc and yet I've just spend HOURS this term going over it all again. Useful stuff, but nothing that is making the day to day job any easier or having any more impact on the children than it was already.

I am so pleased I trained, I was thrilled to be paid because i absolutely love the majority of the job and my class but the first term exhausted me. I'm still worrying about lots of things. how to actually help these children make progress, and the wellbeing of colleagues is also a concern. Feels like we're running on empty already.

Everyone says that the first term was much harder than first terms in previous years. Is this true?

This term is the hardest autumn term I've done namechangedyetagain. Even my challenging NQT year was easier than this.

I find the students are pushing boundaries more, there's substantially more paperwork and auditing than I've ever experienced, there's endless calls to catch students up which adds extra pressure. Students haven't settled as well as they usually do, there's a revolving door of staff and student absence, I'm having to set cover and cover lessons more than I've ever done. There's been days where I've lost my leadership time covering classes and then the knock on effect is I'm doing lots more work at home. My midweek family life balance is almost non-existent and I've always prided myself on having a healthy work life balance. If this year continues then I might not be in teaching, or at the very least won't be in leadership, next September.

Phew! Obviously as an ECT I don't have any other responsibilities but have found that the staff absence / covering / knock on effect / not knowing if you're getting your ECT time / unsettled children has been quite difficult. One ECT has decided to go to another school at xmas.
I'm going to try really hard this term to keep on top of things as much as I can as didn't realise just how shattered I was. Have spent a lot of half term asleep 🙈

It's definitely not you. It's a difficult first half term.

My approach to get to Christmas is to spend enough effort on what matters, pay lip service to things that will be checked but are really pointless/low impact, and ignore other things until someone comes to me and asks about it (because I'm sure 50% of these endless new initiatives that people are launching left right and centre are about their egos and looking good rather than having impact).
That's easy for me to say as a leader on UPS, but haven't got the time or energy to dedicate to things that someone talks about in a meeting, sends work out to staff and then never follows up. I always advise staff to think about what they sign up to, be mindful of where they are pushing workload when they have another idea, and offer to support, so I have a clear conscience about ignoring tokensitic things that won't get revisited.

Yeah I didn't think it was too bad but then I've literally slept most of this half term which would suggest I was more knackered than I realise.

Behaviour has been better than last year which may be partly just because I'm staying in one place most of the time rather than running around the school to unsupervised classes but I think there's also a bit of an air of gratitude amongst students and staff to have some semblance of normal and routine back. The atmosphere has felt quite positive but that could just be me projecting. The kids do feel more appreciative somehow - I don't know if that's just because I've been there 4 years now or if they too found last year exhausting and stressful and chaotic so are actually enjoying things being more calm?

Some really, really weak year 7s though and I suspect that the shortage of funding for tas has made them clump lots of sen into the same form groups so that in theory there'll be a ta but some of them don't seem to have even looked at student profiles and are being moved around so much they're not developing any relationships or insights with the kids they're there to support. I never know if there will or won't be a ta or which one I'll get. I'm beginning to wonder if there are better ways to spend sen funding than just allocating a number of hours of a ta being technically present in the room, particularly for those with major needs tbh. I mean no offense and I've worked with some great tas but some of them would literally just sit there and do nothing. I know I'm supposed to direct them but you need a bit of initiative and motivation to do more than just sit there passively.

I wouldn't fancy a student again this year tbh. The last one was such hard work and I agree there's an air of just pretending it's fine even when they're really not up to scratch and not reflecting and properly taking on feedback.

Sorry that turned into a bit of a rant. I think it went quite well and wasn't bad behaviour and atmosphere wise and yet I'm exhausted. Maybe it's a back log of tiredness and stress from last year.

We are all bloody exhausted here and all said it's bee the worst half term ever. Behaviour worse than last year though not by much. So much sickness. Staff and students. We've been affected by Covid more than ever and have taught doubled up classes, lost PPA (can't always get supply). Ofsted looming. Just on our knees all round.

And I have zero tolerance for unnecessary hoop jumping. I even resented having to be observed and pretend someone seeing one lesson meant they knew enough about me to get to judge me as a teacher.

One of the things the observer picked up on I just wanted to say yes, I did that deliberately because I'm trying to foster some more independence back into them and yes I did hold out on them for part of the lesson quite deliberately to force them to have a go at a bit of written work themselves. I did lots of talking and exposition in the first half (which was picked up on and praised) then had a chunk where they were getting on and I was just going around the room and encouraging them where stuck with fairly minimal input. They'd had lots of input in previous lessons and in the first half of that one and they need practice imo at 'having a go' and taking a risk. If I hadn't done that and had carried out with very teacher led all lesson it would have been picked up on that I did too much teacher led stuff. She was happy with the lesson apparently and x, y and z was great but they obviously have to pick up on something and you can't do everything in one lesson itms. We have series of lessons as well as one hour slots and context is everything.

It all feels like a silly game sometimes. Maybe been around too long.

Hi name I was wondering how you were doing. Glad it’s going well even if you are knackered (we’re all knackered).

I’m not surprised people wouldn’t fancy training up a student. I felt like my poor mentor spent 4 months training me. And when I was almost competent and useful in some capacity - I was moved to another placement. Lots of work and I’m not really sure what was in it for her (at least money wise).

I've done all of the bollocks ECT stuff that mine have to do so that I can tell them which bits are important and which they can fast forward. It's patronising at best.

@TheHoneyBadger

And I have zero tolerance for unnecessary hoop jumping. I even resented having to be observed and pretend someone seeing one lesson meant they knew enough about me to get to judge me as a teacher.

One of the things the observer picked up on I just wanted to say yes, I did that deliberately because I'm trying to foster some more independence back into them and yes I did hold out on them for part of the lesson quite deliberately to force them to have a go at a bit of written work themselves. I did lots of talking and exposition in the first half (which was picked up on and praised) then had a chunk where they were getting on and I was just going around the room and encouraging them where stuck with fairly minimal input. They'd had lots of input in previous lessons and in the first half of that one and they need practice imo at 'having a go' and taking a risk. If I hadn't done that and had carried out with very teacher led all lesson it would have been picked up on that I did too much teacher led stuff. She was happy with the lesson apparently and x, y and z was great but they obviously have to pick up on something and you can't do everything in one lesson itms. We have series of lessons as well as one hour slots and context is everything.

It all feels like a silly game sometimes. Maybe been around too long.

Exactly how I feel.

I remember being observed back in the day when rules were even more daft than now and we had to write the Learning Objective on the IWB powerpoint AND on the normal whiteboard, along with the Success Criteria. I duly spent half my break doing so.
Whilst I then told the children verbally what the L.O was, apparently I forgot to also read out the S.C, so the observer told me she couldn't give me an Outstanding.
I lost any (limited) respect I had for the whole system from that point.
My current HT told me last year, "Oh, I'm always passing through your room (because checking on ASD child) and I've never seen anything that isn't excellent so no worries if we can't fit in an observation this time around."
Now THAT system I can get on board with!

schoolsweek.co.uk/spending-review-ex-recovery-tsar-blasts-meagre-1-8m-catch-up-cash/

Kevan isn’t impressed!

@CallmeHendricks

I remember being observed back in the day when rules were even more daft than now and we had to write the Learning Objective on the IWB powerpoint AND on the normal whiteboard, along with the Success Criteria. I duly spent half my break doing so. Whilst I then told the children verbally what the L.O was, apparently I forgot to also read out the S.C, so the observer told me she couldn't give me an Outstanding. I lost any (limited) respect I had for the whole system from that point. My current HT told me last year, "Oh, I'm always passing through your room (because checking on ASD child) and I've never seen anything that isn't excellent so no worries if we can't fit in an observation this time around." Now THAT system I can get on board with!

Haha. A bit like our place.

It's an unspoken rule: the better the lessons are, the more frequently SLT pop in. They never visit some people

Same with us. I wander in and out of rooms all the time, I can tell from 2 minutes who is having issues/needs some support with something.

Everyone else at school has had an awful term, mine has been fine. Good even. I'm keeping that opinion to myself in the real world though. I've got a nice class for the first time in about 5 years. It's fun.

Our SLT mainly stay in their offices when they're not teaching. My room is literally at the extreme end of school. Very rarely does anyone make it over there.

Guess that's the thing with primary, Rule.

A really great class all day/year or a tricky one.

We get both extremes in one day/week!

I'm at the end of the corridor too, no one really makes it to my room.

Yes I almost daren't say it but I'm pretty happy with my year too. I haven't got any classes that I dread teaching and even got to make a positive phonecall home for a boy who was a nightmare last year but has been great in my class this year.

My timetable is evenly spread without trapped time, I'm mostly managing to avoid colleagues unless I actively choose to see them and I'm liking walking around the school and having friendly exchanges with kids I've known for quite a few years now who still say hi or have a quick chat even though I don't teach them anymore.

Just hope the NPQ is interesting and not to crazy workload wise.

I'm getting tempted not to apply for UPS just to avoid the stress. Is that a cop out? I can't decide if it's worth jumping through hoops and risking ending up feeling disappointed and pissed off or whether to just leave it another year and build up more evidence and irrefutable contribution.

@TheHoneyBadger

I'm getting tempted not to apply for UPS just to avoid the stress. Is that a cop out? I can't decide if it's worth jumping through hoops and risking ending up feeling disappointed and pissed off or whether to just leave it another year and build up more evidence and irrefutable contribution.

I felt quite justified in applying for UPS-the point of it was to keep good teachers in the classroom so why the hell shouldn’t we be paid for it. Do it!