Teachers' Staff Room Thread

[zedr]

yeah agree with rutabowa. don't like discord at the best of times but being on it with pupils makes my safeguarding alarms go off. tho maybe they're older than my lot. personally wouldn't be doing that with ppl younger than 18 and even then i'd be quite wary.

i do know of a place where the kids had a school discord server and asked some staff members to moderate it, but that is a rare case and i don't think it's going great tbh.

 

[StoneRoad]

Sadly, this thread only reminds me why I'm so glad that OH took early retirement when a budget ***k-up and the advent of a local VIth form college cobbled everything up. It was just after a spanking good & shiny OFSTED, as well !
OH then did several years of supply teaching and EOTAS work.
Finally gave up on medical grounds [repeated gall-bladder infections requiring an operation then having a bionic hip installed ...]
OH has absolutely no intention of returning and has now fully retired ...

 

[Sweet FA]

Met someone this morning who's on an 8 week half term. Sounds like madness. I know many catholic countries have no half term holidays and very long summer and I don't know how they manage it tbh. I'm assuming they just have much less punishing systems

I'm currently on Week 7 with one week to go. Think Autumn 2 is the same.

 

[maomao]

Most of my pupils add me on Discord and we send silly memes to each other. It's also more efficient for telling them about cancelled or changed classes as they actually read Discord and never read the school system.

This would never be an allowed in the UK! And even though I'm sure you're perfectly innocent, not having those boundaries does create opportunities for wronguns. What's safeguarding like in Estonia generally?

 

[mojo pixy]

I'm a LSA at a SEN school, mainly English and PSHE, with occasional music and one-to-one 'whatever you feel like doing today' classes. More support worker than teacher tbh, but I do have to plan and give some lessons according to the syllabus, where possible, with the more able and willing students.

Sorry for being an 'on the cheap' teacher, but it's better, more interesting and more fun than my last job, and the kids are great.

 

[maomao]

I'm a LSA at a SEN school, mainly English and PSHE, with occasional music and one-to-one 'whatever you feel like doing today' classes. More support worker than teacher tbh, but I do have to plan and give some lessons according to the syllabus, where possible, with the more able and willing students.

Sorry for being an 'on the cheap' teacher, but it's better, more interesting and more fun than my last job, and the kids are great.

Get yourself paid as soon as you can. There are in work routes to QTS, make sure they are open to you. TAs/LSAs are salt of the earth and schools would collapse without you but at the end of the day if you're teaching, you need paying for it.

What kind of SEN school if you don't mind me asking?

 

[mojo pixy]

Get yourself paid as soon as you can. There are in work routes to QTS, make sure they are open to you. TAs/LSAs are salt of the earth and schools would collapse without you but at the end of the day if you're teaching, you need paying for it.

What kind of SEN school if you don't mind me asking?

There are kinds?

It's a very small place in the middle of the countryside, spread across 3 sites .. the school per se, a music/multimedia site, and a farm where some kids who need more space and less noise go. Also they do horticulture and animal care there. All the kids have an ECHP, and there are about 40 students in total, all secondary age, many of them referrals. Many have autism, ADHD, or other conditions that make mainstream school unsuitable.

Some do GCSEs, but not all. Mainly English and Maths but others can be set up for students with the focus and aptitude. The aims are more on learning to focus on (any) tasks, mix well with other kids, and hopefully learn some 'life' skills like cooking or managing money.

It's a nice place. Still unsure about the company tbh, but that's a separate issue!

I may get them to pay for me to do a PGCE. They will, but it depends if I want the extra stress / money.

 

[mojo pixy]

A lot of the lessons seem to be as therapeutic as they are educational. Lots of sports and outdoor activities, music, art, food tech, and the animal and plant stuff.

Everyone does at least some English and Maths, but some of the kids won't read or write, or even sit down for more than 10 mins, so it can be very slow going with lots of 'movement breaks'.

Anyway, most days I leave work with a smile on my face and that's rare.

I'd have loved to go to a school like this, but no such place existed while I was being smacked by teachers and given detention after detention as a kid. Things have improved since then!

EtA, but we have a very high fence and every door and gate needs a fob to open. No metal cutlery, glass or china on the playground, only cups with lids for hot drinks etc. That kind of place.

 

[mojo pixy]

Sorry my question 'there are kinds?' now seems super ignorant.

SEN with some referrals, quite high security as schools go, with biters, kickers and absconders and lots of swearing and venting. A couple of students who sadly look as if their only future probably involves prison. Some really traumatised kids, quite a few are in care, and some really do look neglected.

Anyway I'll stop now. It's a bit of a new world for me having been working in adult care/support for years and previously having only taught languages to adults.

 

[Happy Tree]

This would never be an allowed in the UK! And even though I'm sure you're perfectly innocent, not having those boundaries does create opportunities for wronguns. What's safeguarding like in Estonia generally?

In a normal school I'd not use it. But a lot of the pupils have difficulties communicating at the best of times. With some it's the only way they're prepared to engage with the school and remote lessons. The classes have their own group chats and I leave them alone. They need a space for themselves. The head of the therapy wing and their class teachers all asked me to talk to them on Discord. In some cases if I didn't do that the pupil would do nothing and fail to pass the year. Average class size is about 6 and I have a few individual learners who follow their own specialised program.

 

[maomao]

In a normal school I'd not use it. But a lot of the pupils have difficulties communicating at the best of times. With some it's the only way they're prepared to engage with the school and remote lessons. The classes have their own group chats and I leave them alone. They need a space for themselves. The head of the therapy wing and their class teachers all asked me to talk to them on Discord. In some cases if I didn't do that the pupil would do nothing and fail to pass the year. Average class size is about 6 and I have a few individual learners who follow their own specialised program.

I have heard great things about the Estonian education system in general:

Free lunches, brain breaks and happy teachers: why Estonia has the best schools in Europe

How did a small, relatively poor country become an educational powerhouse? Creativity, autonomy and a deep embrace of the digital age

www.theguardian.com

I think direct electronic communications with students is a great idea, we all did on Teams in 20/21 anyway. And it doesn't have to be crossing a boundary, there are records of communications in a way that there aren't with verbal communication. There's just always a reaction in the UK to anything that might be seen as social media.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

In college we use Teams for basically the same thing.

The educational version isn't bad.

 

[scifisam]

Haven't been a teacher for a long time, so I'm here mainly to watch along.

Also spanglechick, nagapie, Mation, to get started with

In a normal school I'd not use it. But a lot of the pupils have difficulties communicating at the best of times. With some it's the only way they're prepared to engage with the school and remote lessons. The classes have their own group chats and I leave them alone. They need a space for themselves. The head of the therapy wing and their class teachers all asked me to talk to them on Discord. In some cases if I didn't do that the pupil would do nothing and fail to pass the year. Average class size is about 6 and I have a few individual learners who follow their own specialised program.

Sounds like a good idea if it's a work account, not your own private one. Can be a way of modelling healthy online behaviour, really. (Hope they never encounter Urban! Much as I love this place).

 

[zedr]

I think the thing I worry about with discord at school (even if the adults is using a work account/email) is that the kids have access to any server they want and there are some really bleak servers out there.

 

[Miss-Shelf]

yeah agree with rutabowa. don't like discord at the best of times but being on it with pupils makes my safeguarding alarms go off. tho maybe they're older than my lot. personally wouldn't be doing that with ppl younger than 18 and even then i'd be quite wary.

i do know of a place where the kids had a school discord server and asked some staff members to moderate it, but that is a rare case and i don't think it's going great tbh.

I teach adults and I don't respond to their social media requests until they graduate

 

[planetgeli]

EtA, but we have a very high fence and every door and gate needs a fob to open.

I hate this. It's pointless. It's sold as safeguarding but that's rubbish. I've yet to see a fobbed door that can't be kicked or ripped open by a pupil. Or a fence that can't be climbed.

 

[mojo pixy]

I hate this. It's pointless. It's sold as safeguarding but that's rubbish. I've yet to see a fobbed door that can't be kicked or ripped open by a pupil. Or a fence that can't be climbed.

I think it seems maybe 95% pointless, but 5% of the time can prevent or slow down something/someone enough or allow containment, so that a potentially awful thing is mitigated or avoided.

That is to aay, I've worked in a mental health unit with a lot of security measures, safe rooms etc, where it's a bit like that. Because of insurance / staff safety / other service users' safety, and probably also just because it's a legal requirement tbh.

 

[rutabowa]

I don't think I'd want to work in a school with no locking doors and no fence! Just because its theoretically possible to climb over doesn't mean it doesn't stop virtually everyone. again I'm talking from mainstream school perspective though. Def think it is safer for kids inside the fence... the local area is currently not safe at all for them unfortunately (fine for adults, but not teenage boys)

 

[existentialist]

I'm a LSA at a SEN school, mainly English and PSHE, with occasional music and one-to-one 'whatever you feel like doing today' classes. More support worker than teacher tbh, but I do have to plan and give some lessons according to the syllabus, where possible, with the more able and willing students.

Sorry for being an 'on the cheap' teacher, but it's better, more interesting and more fun than my last job, and the kids are great.

When I worked in schools, most of the the LSAs were a lot more than "on the cheap teachers", and I found it useful to listen to them, because they usually had a better handle on what was going on for the pupils I was likely to encounter. There were some who clearly had a bit of an inferiority thing going on, and were a lot less approachable, but they were comparatively rare and fairly obvious.

I had good professional relationships with most of the LSAs I encountered.

 

[zedr]

Just saw this posted on another thread. The boom in home schooling

Obv its the FT so they're catering to their audience, but it really fucks me off seeing all the flexibility private schools can offer their students. The school used in the image is a newish school which offers kids the option to attend school in a hybrid manner (up to 4 days a week at home). Sounds great and love that its catering to an obvious need. However fees are £5k a term!

I doubt there is any chance of the current govt funding state schools to do anything similar.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Just saw this posted on another thread. The boom in home schooling

Obv its the FT so they're catering to their audience, but it really fucks me off seeing all the flexibility private schools can offer their students. The school used in the image is a newish school which offers kids the option to attend school in a hybrid manner (up to 4 days a week at home). Sounds great and love that its catering to an obvious need. However fees are £5k a term!

I doubt there is any chance of the current govt funding state schools to do anything similar.

It's the de facto arrangement for many of our kids. Only thing is, nobody has time to set them stuff to do at home when they're not in. And the timetable for the times they are in school will be a random jumble of subjects because it's not possible to do a custom timetable so that a kid who is in three mornings a week gets all their English and maths lessons or whatever.

Sometimes we do get asked to prepare stuff for kids who are out of school most or all the time but a) I don't have time to do that and b) most of the kids won't do it anyway, and have parents who won't encourage them to do it.

I do sympathise with the parents. School can be a crap environment for a lot of kids. But we do see a lot of parents who are pretty clearly trying to lawnmower any sort of effort or discomfort out of their kid's way. And there's often nothing we can get out of the kids when we do see them because the message they get 75% of the time is 'you never have to do anything you don't want to'.

 

[nagapie]

It's the de facto arrangement for many of our kids. Only thing is, nobody has time to set them stuff to do at home when they're not in. And the timetable for the times they are in school will be a random jumble of subjects because it's not possible to do a custom timetable so that a kid who is in three mornings a week gets all their English and maths lessons or whatever.

Sometimes we do get asked to prepare stuff for kids who are out of school most or all the time but a) I don't have time to do that and b) most of the kids won't do it anyway, and have parents who won't encourage them to do it.

I do sympathise with the parents. School can be a crap environment for a lot of kids. But we do see a lot of parents who are pretty clearly trying to lawnmower any sort of effort or discomfort out of their kid's way. And there's often nothing we can get out of the kids when we do see them because the message they get 75% of the time is 'you never have to do anything you don't want to'.

I'm assuming you don't use the Google classroom? If you do, all lessons can be posted. I actually think all schools should have to buy into a system like this, the benefits are also huge for Sen students in lessons.

I think there's a lot of assumptions about parents in this post. The majority of parents want what's best for their children but don't always have the resources to pick up the slack for a failing education system.

 

[baldrick]

SLT seem convinced we'll be inspected early November. I'm refusing to stress about it.

We had a mock inspection 2nd week of October and the real thing this week. Perfectly timed but everyone is shattered! Thank fuck its half term next week.

 

[petee]

parent-teacher conferences today.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I'm assuming you don't use the Google classroom? If you do, all lessons can be posted. I actually think all schools should have to buy into a system like this, the benefits are also huge for Sen students in lessons.

I think there's a lot of assumptions about parents in this post. The majority of parents want what's best for their children but don't always have the resources to pick up the slack for a failing education system.

A Powerpoint is not a lesson. I've done home learning presentations during COVID and they're very different from what you'd use as a teaching resource in class.

As for parents, no assumptions are required. I've got lived experience. Obviously there are many wonderful parents but the shit ones can still leave me utterly gobsmacked with their levels of fuckery even after years in the trade.

E2a: And in some cases parents prioritising their kid's mental health over getting school work done could be absolutely the right call. So it's not necessarily a criticism. But the vast majority of the work I've sent home has disappeared into the void. And I don't phone things in, if a lesson powerpoint or a handout is going to be useless without the actual lesson it's intended to be part of, I won't send it home for an absent kid. Many teachers will, and then tick that off as job done. Much better if the kid just has a copy of the textbook and works through that.

 

[nagapie]

A Powerpoint is not a lesson. I've done home learning presentations during COVID and they're very different from what you'd use as a teaching resource in class.

As for parents, no assumptions are required. I've got lived experience. Obviously there are many wonderful parents but the shit ones can still leave me utterly gobsmacked with their levels of fuckery even after years in the trade.

E2a: And in some cases parents prioritising their kid's mental health over getting school work done could be absolutely the right call. So it's not necessarily a criticism. But the vast majority of the work I've sent home has disappeared into the void. And I don't phone things in, if a lesson powerpoint or a handout is going to be useless without the actual lesson it's intended to be part of, I won't send it home for an absent kid. Many teachers will, and then tick that off as job done. Much better if the kid just has a copy of the textbook and works through that.

PowerPoints can be easily adapted, textbooks can also be okay.
I'm not sure about your lived experience but I've been a teacher for 25 years, and a good one at that.

 

[rutabowa]

A Powerpoint is not a lesson. I've done home learning presentations during COVID and they're very different from what you'd use as a teaching resource in class.

As for parents, no assumptions are required. I've got lived experience. Obviously there are many wonderful parents but the shit ones can still leave me utterly gobsmacked with their levels of fuckery even after years in the trade.

E2a: And in some cases parents prioritising their kid's mental health over getting school work done could be absolutely the right call. So it's not necessarily a criticism. But the vast majority of the work I've sent home has disappeared into the void. And I don't phone things in, if a lesson powerpoint or a handout is going to be useless without the actual lesson it's intended to be part of, I won't send it home for an absent kid. Many teachers will, and then tick that off as job done. Much better if the kid just has a copy of the textbook and works through that.

I agree that a scan or whatever of the relevant textbook pages is the best way for students not in class (probably with answers too, so they can self mark... tho I don't currently do this, but it's something I think I'll start doing)... but I'm lucky in that our curriculum directly corresponds to a textbook, in content and order, so it is really quick to find the appropriate part; it's an advantage of doing maths (and the department deciding long ago to follow the textbook; even if the textbook order isn't totally perfect, the advantage of having the core resource unchanging and being able to build up all the extra resources like revision booklets, unit tests etc etc over years totally outweighs any small imperfections in the textbook)

 

[SpookyFrank]

PowerPoints can be easily adapted, textbooks can also be okay.
I'm not sure about your lived experience but I've been a teacher for 25 years, and a good one at that.

I'm a good teacher as well and fuck you for insinuating otherwise

 

[nagapie]

I'm a good teacher as well and fuck you for insinuating otherwise

I wasn't, I said that because you said some teachers send unusable PowerPoints as a tick box exercise. As I had recommended that, it seemed important to point out that's not what I do.
I was making no judgement on your teaching but as you've managed to slam both colleagues and parents in a couple of posts, I hope you'll be less arrogant when you've spent longer in the profession.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I wasn't, I said that because you said some teachers send unusable PowerPoints as a tick box exercise. As I had recommended that, it seemed important to point out that's not what I do.
I was making no judgement on your teaching but as you've managed to slam both colleagues and parents in a couple of posts, I hope you'll be less arrogant when you've spent longer in the profession.

Fuck you pulling rank with your 25 years. And then call me arrogant in the same breath. Cunt.