Sixty-Eighth Republic - still under temporary guardianship…

[MrsHerculePoirot]

In the absence of staff and her fabulous thread titles and witty openers here is a 68th thread. The broom cupboard is overflowing so time for another Republic. Hopefully we hear from staff soon.

Stolen from previous threads…
'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.'

@TheHoneyBadger

I’m resisting the same bonkers compulsion MrsH!

Curriculum intent has made it to primary then? Lucky you.

Friday people! 2 weeks down and 5 to go here. Feel like we’ve been back months already.

It's been a thing since it featured in the new Ofsted framework so a good three years or so. But depending on when your window for inspection opened, I guess some schools may not have done anything on it.

Whereas it's great that the Complete Maths stuff is now free, it makes me very grumpy that our department have paid for it and because of that can't afford MyMaths any more, which I really miss!

I briefly heard on the radio this morning that apparently primary assessments aren’t fit for purpose and students should be assessed more frequently. Of course, let’s constantly assess and drive up teachers work load. It’s not like it’s been proven to not increase progress

@MrsHamlet hope you don’t mind, but I’ve PM’ed you about exercise books!

I don’t know why we just don’t keep testing them. Every lesson. We all know testing makes them learn more. Like weighing the pig makes it fatter. Keep up peeps. 🙄

In our school curriculum intent has the added bonus of around 50% of children not being with us for more than 2 years.

It still feels like every school is being made to do things separately that should be done centrally

Agreed-this is a massive issue that people aren’t shouting about enough. It would certainly help workload a lot if this was sorted out.

Its worth googling your subject and either vision statement or vision page @SquashedFlyBiscuits. Various primary schools have published pages stating their 3 Is, and one might be worth magpieing as there is no point re-inventing the wheel if it matches your thoughts on it.

We've picked a few schools we like the examples for and been given them as subject leaders to tweak to fit our school, which is useful as we aren't all starting from scratch. Thankfully we were given subject release time to do this, and staff meeting time to get all the teachers input on each subject, but this was all pre-Covid when we weren't all so stretched.

I think schools are all being expected to do our own as one of the ideas behind the 'new' curriculum in 2014 was that it was personalised for our school! But its a pain as we all really know the bottom line is NC content. One thing it will show is that you've thought it all through and did make subject Deep Dives in OFSTED a little less painful for us.

I hate all this justifying ourselves the whole fucking time. Class teachers should only have to do this for the choices they've made for the children in their class. Regard curriculum intent, everyone else should just be able to say 'we teach the NC and focus on x because of our context and add in y because of our context'. And that's it.

Also, all the asking of children stuff is mostly pointless in primary. I can't remember the details of every history unit - dates and shit - from one year to the next, why is an 8 year old going to remember it?

I'm in a bad mood thinking about going back to school. No energy for this shit.

Couldn't agree more Rule. Its all this hoop jumping that has led me to drop responsibilities and go down to just 4 days a week class teacher. Early retirement is in sight .

Who has had symptomatic covid and gone back immediately that your 10 days was up? How was it please?

I've said to my head that I'll be in on Monday - she's asked if I should be. I think I need to try it before deciding I should or shouldn't be. I can take it easy for a couple of weeks - just do the basics then go home.

@MrsHamlet

Why am I compelled to look at that maths stuff??

Professional curiosity? Look at the curriculum map! The entire maths syllabus all interconnected (it’s not a spiral it’s a ball) that you can spin around and any node you click on is a scheme of how to teach it.

Mark McCourt a few years ago said ‘we’ve got a problem that there aren’t enough qualified maths teachers so we’ve got people who aren’t experienced or necessarily good at maths teaching it. What we need is the entire curriculum mapped out so they can see exactly how it links together and tell them how to teach stuff, the mistakes kids will make, everything.’ And that’s what he’s made.

hobbers don’t worry about having paid for it, it’s only the curriculum that’s free, the ppts, worksheets and assessments are still paid for.

I signed up for Complete Maths out of curiosity and have had an email asking for a phone call so they can find out more about the people using it. I just wanted a nosy before I did anything else!

Everyone gets that Brie!

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

Who has had symptomatic covid and gone back immediately that your 10 days was up? How was it please?

I've said to my head that I'll be in on Monday - she's asked if I should be. I think I need to try it before deciding I should or shouldn't be. I can take it easy for a couple of weeks - just do the basics then go home.

I had symptomatic Covid over a year ago. On my penultimate day at home I started to feel better. I’m forever grateful that my Deputy Head said he wasn’t happy that I was only feeling well for one day and asked me to take 2 more days off. I was wiped out and those 2 extra days made all the difference.

@Rule nope I went back after 14 days. My bar was needed to be able to shower, get dressed, go for a walk, doing some light cleaning, make the dinner and not need a sleep. The extra 4 days really helped me. Went back Monday and was shattered by Thursday thankfully was not doing much today.

I wonder how easy it would actually be to do the basics and go home, out with an actual planned phased return. The minute you're back in you're usually treated as fully fit to work.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

Who has had symptomatic covid and gone back immediately that your 10 days was up? How was it please?

I've said to my head that I'll be in on Monday - she's asked if I should be. I think I need to try it before deciding I should or shouldn't be. I can take it easy for a couple of weeks - just do the basics then go home.

Don't forget it is actually easier to deal with a teacher 'still' being out or staying out than them coming in and then needing to go again or coming in for a couple of days then realising it's too soon.

If they've managed to secure cover they're better off keeping it and letting you recover properly than letting them go then not being able to find more itms.

Knackered. Down to 75 ks3 essays and 90 reports to mark by Monday now. That's actually solid progress meaning I've marked 75 and written 90 reports already. Still feels like a lot of hill left to climb though.

They've not got cover for me - the class has had 3 different teachers this week, one of whom is my normal 20% cover. The week before they had 3 different teachers over just the 2 days.

What makes the 'basics' easy for me is that I am 4 form entry - all the planning is shared. I've been on foundation subjects for the first half of this term, and I've planned the first 3 weeks - nothing for me to do until the end of the week for next week's lessons. Someone else has planned my maths, my whole class reading and my writing. I'll need to mark and make some scaffold adjustments, but it's not too bad. I've got resources I can dip into for those.

With last year's class - the high level of behaviour need - I wouldn't have wanted to go back until absolutely sure, but with this lot they'll take care of me a bit.

I feel shed loads better than I did even this morning. If tomorrow and Sunday are the same, I'll be fine. Everything crossed.

I've never had a sick day as a teacher though - I have no idea how you go back. I mean, I've not done my IEPs, I've missed my PPA this week, I've missed parents' evenings and so on - when am I supposed to make the time up for those? There will be additional stuff this week that's new onto the pile. Can't imagine you ever catch up.

I slightly concerned that my 10 days isolation finishes mid week. I assume a sick note would be needed if not going straight back due to already missing 10 days.
Going from isolation when I cant even go for a short walk to gauge my stamina etc straight into a normal few days of school seems bonkers.

I lf I feel great by Tues then fine. If not, I'm going to get in contact on an e consult and ask for a note for a few more days so I can potter and rebuild strength etc if needed.

Dd and dh still dont seem to have picked it up from me and fingers crossed it stays that way!

I was straight back to work and working from home before I went back too. Another teacher at my school who is about the same age as me, and got it around the same time, came back but was in bed by 7.30 every night for about 2 weeks after school. A third teacher ended up in hospital and is still not back.

@noblegiraffe

Everyone gets that Brie!

Did you arrange the phone call, Noble?

Unless the parents ask specifically, we wouldn't be expected to make up parents' evenings

@DrMadelineMaxwell - I emailed my HR to ask if I needed a sick note as I was supposed to go back on a Thursday. She said I didn't need one if only two days but would if I needed any more time off.
Worth contacting your HR to check?

Nothing lost then Rule even if you do end up needing to go back again. In normal times it's disruptive but if, as at present, they can't secure proper cover anyway it doesn't have an impact I guess.

I can't believe I was setting cover for non specialist day to day supply in the summer term for my colleague who'd been off since November on maternity leave. I'm not convinced they even tried to cover that though.