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.'

You can feel free to educate me about class, piggy, because I totally don’t get it. Some on here seem obsessed with it!

My parents were very poor growing up, so definitely working class, left school at 15. But very comfortably off in later life, managerial-type office jobs. I guess their children, uni-educated professionals would be middle class. Are they still working class or did the ‘social mobility’ happen for them rather than their children?

Them , I'd guess. But various people have reclassified class, so we now have things like the precariat rather than the old fashioned notions and certain systems used by statisticians have rewritten socio economic groups to account for eg Marcus Rashford types and well off trades.

DH is definitely more working class than me but his scholarship to private boys school DF would turn in his grave at the notion. His DM is proper Essex girl. But, because I am Glaswegian, it's amazing how many people think I am quite rough! Being half American does rather sit me outside all of this, although East coast Americans can be terrible snobs.

If anyone like the history of food (or just eating it!) and British obsession with class, read Scoff . really fascinating!

But very comfortably off in later life, managerial-type office jobs.

Ironically, this type of thing happens way less these days, without A levels/a uni education. And even then it's no guarantee. Maggie T wanted to get rid of class because she wanted to break up/down working class Labour voting communities.

DS1 is going to be the prime example of Gen Z being less affluent than their parents, I suspect.

I have just read 'The Shortest History of England' - interesting theory on the north/south divide and lots in there about class.

I think there is a 5% very poor, 5% very wealthy, and everyone else is middle class to differing degrees. I don't think it's much to do with what you do for a living.

My dad is an electrician. He left school at 15 with an art O-level. He went to a boarding school/children's home. My mum makes curtains. She left school at 15 with a cooking O-level. They are multi millionaires. I was the first one in my (massive) extended family to go to university and am a teacher. My brother went to uni, had a previous career, but now works as an electrician having bought my dad out. My dad still works full time for the business at 76. My mum still works full time too.

My dad feels that he is a bit stuck socially/economically. He lives in a village where he runs the investment club. The people in the investment club are on the Times top 500 richest people list, went to Harvard or Princeton or Oxford, are CEOs of the big companies and so on. For my dad, university is where things change and people change. He thinks that is the line between 'working' and 'middle' class, if they exist as a thing.

@DanglingMod

I don't think they're really bothering anymore, are they?!

They got me! Through my father in law. Don't have to isolate because vaccinated. I'm confused about child though.

I wouldn't classify Marcus Rashford as middle class despite the wealth, because of the background.

No, definitely not but new socio economic grouping was invented, mainly for marketing . My colleague is better at this than me.

This is really long , sorry :

www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/otherclassifications/thenationalstatisticssocioeconomicclassificationnssecrebasedonsoc2010

and then also :

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_British_Class_Survey

Am always a bit pissed off with where teachers come in that second one!!

Can't see them, only special needs teaching?

Seems to go off household income. So if your DH earns a fortune but you are a SAHM, you count as elite-by-association?

There are whole academic tomes on what social class Beckham is, with some defining him as the ultimate bourgeois... Rashford would never be seen in that way but quite a lot of Red Wall Tories tried to deride him in being soem kind of 'know your place, working class traitor' way.Twats.

@noblegiraffe

Can't see them, only special needs teaching?

Seems to go off household income. So if your DH earns a fortune but you are a SAHM, you count as elite-by-association?

That's because they are in the next one down... it doesn't make sense but Wikipedia is hacking it about.

The technical one? Where?

One of the many problems when we mention class is that “middle class” can mean something relatively neutral, like the more general US version, or it can mean very aspirational, ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ types, which will probably include trips to theatre etc.

The technical middle class, about 6 percent of British society, shows high economic capital, but relatively few contacts reported, and moderate cultural capital. Occupations represented include medical radiographers, aircraft pilots, natural and social science professionals and physical scientists, senior professionals in education establishments, and business, research, and administrative positions

I mean pilots and senior education professionals feel odd in here don't they? The whole category is a bit odd. Almost like these are really educated philistines.

Hello all,
I need to catch up with the thread but just dropping Alan Johnson's comment on education, which is in today's Times.

Labour have disappointed me for several years now, but I enjoyed this read.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/34db9aa4-399d-11ec-a14e-75e3a4bcdc4c?shareToken=3515e6add9982daade62c1d9d371becc

Yes, I read that too. Something annoyed me in amongst all the good stuff.

Oh yes , remembered. His preachy thing about the longer school day.... one thing I agree with Sunak on is that there is no evidence to support the impact of longer hours (although of course Sunak parroted that to avoid spending money on education).

Goodness. I have the fear.

Awful anxiety dream about school tomorrow. And I've spent a lot of the day trying to plan.

Can i ask does anyone in primary use white rose as a scheme? How does your planning look? I'm spending so long trying to think of what to write on the form. I've made all of my challenges for chn to take and work through for this week but stuck now on this damn form! Not to mention the pre teach section.

I actually didn't work much over the holidays so it's my fault I'm feeling stressed!

On this origin sin subject, what is Katharine Birbalsingh’s end game? I have never seen a headteacher appear in the media as much as she does especially on outlets like Spiked and GB News. How does she find time to do all this and run a school? I have also noticed that she mainly talks about ‘controversial’ topics especially on Twitter and slagging off people that are left wing and progressive. Didn’t she say that parents should back teachers that are accused of racism 100%? How are parents comfortable sending their children to her school with her views? She really doesn’t come across well at all. I wonder if her staff like her, but I am certain she only employs staff who think like her…

I think maybe she doesn't do much of the day to day school running? She does seem to have boundless energy...

I think there probably is a hive mind at schools like this.

Why does she get involved in all the culture wars and slagging off those who disagree with her? It’s just odd for a headteacher. Most headteachers stay neutral publicly even though I’m sure they have many opinions on politics etc…
There must be a reason why she does this. Is she an old school grifter?

Old fashioned hubris ?

She wants to be a politician.

Their school has a daily SLT meeting at 7.30am I think. There is a lot of work explicitly teaching staff about school values, how to do things the Michaela Way, observations to learn from each other. She shared about how it works in one of the longer interviews she did.

Well that’s not a good time for SLT members with childcare needs is it?