How on earth do people afford to commute?? Seen a great Ed policy job in London. No remote. £800 a MONTH for a season ticket.

In case I’m misunderstood- if this goes ahead it’ll be disastrous. Teachers will not be trained to become education psychologists or psychiatrists; it’ll be training via PPT. THE KIDS DESERVE BETTER.

NASBTTs/ITTs concerns that many teachers are unprepared for rising SEND in schools, and further discusses gov plans to involve teachers & schools in diagnosis. Parent then complains her child was ‘missed’. W/O significant training this will burden teachers more 1/3

Dropped £70 at the vets to be told Luna would rather live on her own without Loki. Solution by vet? Get rid of both or one of them. Nearly walked out of the surgery.

The kid did good 😍

All of the things in Smells’ stocking, this £3 feet print of our cats is her ‘best thing’. Which is probably just as well, as they were not particularly cooperative in getting it done.

Annual Christmas Eve pizza time

Sainsbury’s want £9.99 for this or £3.69 with a Nectar card. Theres no way this is worth a tenner

The absolute joy of being off antidepressants. It took me the weekend to recover from school. I am not tired to my bones; up around 7am and bed around midnight. Feel absolutely fine. I am grateful that they got me through something really hard though.

@cantabkitty.bsky.social thought of you yesterday when I was in WHSmith (Jones??). Woman shopping with a man, about my age. Him: “I’ve no idea what to get her” Woman picked up a fluffy unicorn notepad: “What about this? She likes writing” Him: “I’ve left this a bit late, haven’t I?”

Had a cry in bed with Smells this morning over my eyes. I haveMA grad ceremony in Feb and I really wanted to recreate my Undergrad photo I had with her, but I can’t bc my left eye doesn’t move at all and right eye is wonky. The visual impact is one thing, but I look like sloth from Goonies now 😞

TikTok. Young male (trainee?) primary teacher claims ‘it’s not about the money’ and post following photo. Who’s buying PlayStation games for their teacher? And who’s going to tell him about the cost of renting?

This is Smells 20th Christmas and I shall never tire of taking delight in making her a stocking of all the little thinking’s I know she likes. However, she’s jipping off to Brazil over her 21st after uni so she’d better bring me back coffee and some absolute tat souvenirs

*lab phone rings* “Hi, it’s reception. We’ve got presents for you.” Me: “Is it Pedro Pascal?” Reception: “Err, no.” *5 mins later* Reception: “We googled Pedro Pascal and if he turned up you’d not get him”

If you’d have told me 3.5 years ago I’d be getting up half an hour earlier to enjoy a coffee in bed with a small, purring cat wrapped around my neck, I’d have told you to jog on. Yet here I am with her small toe beans pressed against my face.

With staggering regularity, the heating has gone . It is in unbelievable hard to explain to landlord, letting agent and a gas engineer that I am unavailable to talk on the phone during the day. Having to explain that, no, I can’t answer my phone during a lesson is bonkers.

I will not stop banging on about how brilliant my year 9s have become. The way they’re desperate to show me work; answer questions and take part in the lesson. What joy. They’ve asked if they’ll have me next year and I said I’d go on a one woman campaign to keep them.

My hot take on Oz’s social media ban is this: We, the adults, have failed the kids. We have allowed social media to be designed to steal away their attention and put them at risk of harm. We have allowed them unfettered access to this. They’re being punished for our inability to keep them safe.

Eye update! After deciphering letter this morning from this week’s hospital trip, my eyes are ok - no optical nerve or retina damage. Actual vision fine and no change to prescription (this has been stable for about a decade. Referral for MRI and orthopaedist for prisms.

How to p*ss off your new consultant: Go fully prepared to your appointment. I was asked to ‘go away’ to look at old photos to see when I could pinpoint the change in my eyes. I already had those photos saved in my notes app. She really didn’t like that and got cross 🤣 1/2

Being referred for MRI as NHS hasn’t actually checked my eye issue isn’t being caused by cancer or tumour. Advice for unstable and double vision? Learn to move differently and ‘cope with it’. In a lab x5 a day with 30 kids.

Had another hospital appt regarding eyes. I’m not after sympathy here, but I am sick of tired of having to tell NHS staff I can’t give them a family history because I am *the* oldest member of my family alive. After 9 months they’ve actually decided to do an MRI. Furious doesn’t cut it. 1/2

I am down one packet of chicken tenders because of him. He’s lucky he’s beautiful

My last word on this. I don’t advocate bribing kids to work. Now the atmosphere in the class is calm and purposeful, they’ve found their motivation - you can see the pride on their face when I say “That answer would be a 5 at GCSE” It’s not about 1/30 chance of getting a sweet anymore.

At the start of the year my year 9s were by far my worst class. On every level. They were rude, late; they’d scream and shout and not have a clue what was going on. It couldn’t continue. So I started selecting a few books at the end of each lesson to ‘mark’. 1/n

And his bless the lad who came in with a Quality Street tub full of this little sausage rolls and said “Gone in Miss, have some”

Some kids brought me an elf hat today. Bloody loved it so much

Year 7s and 8s constantly: “Miss, when can you teach us about dinosaurs??” Me: “We don’t really do do them, sorry” And that’s all you need to know about how crap UK science education is [according to me and some kids 🤣]

I have successfully killed off the 6-7 trend by being deeply embarrassing with it.

A parent complaining when a teacher posts about the importance of reading to, and with, your child at home.

Does she (it was a she) mean quiet or silent all day? Because our canteen is quiet; we can hear pupils laughing and talking, but no one’s screaming or yelling. I insist on a quiet classroom; it’s calm, safer and more inclusive. Sometimes I insist on silence too. She’d hate that I suspect.

What’s wrong with schools right now? This.

Far right lot are really getting to me over child poverty. According to them ‘protection are [sic] women and children’ excludes lifting the two child cap on child benefits and should also include child maintenance payments being made in vouchers so mums can’t spend it on ‘nails and filler’

Currently enjoying a cup of coffee in bed before I get up. Realised I’ve been off my antidepressants for a long while now. I’d needed them in my old school just to function, and was still on the verge of tears most days. 4 years of that.

Complained to hospital via PALS about how long it’s taking to get my eyes sorted yesterday. How double vision is impacting my work. Magically have an appointment week after next.

My hot take on this is, the kids are bored in school because they’re not sat mindlessly scrolling on phones for dopamine hits. Curriculum may be an issue, but phones are a bigger one

Snowed a bit today. I couldn’t remember the word ‘snow’ so told the kids it was ‘fat rain’. I have two degrees.

Things my year 7s complain about: • that I can’t start teaching them in break or lunch • that they can’t just stay with me for the rest of the day • that I can’t teach them about dinosaurs

I think we should be quite aware that, for the most part, pupils are going cold turkey with their phones in our classrooms. We also cannot compete with the constant dopamine hits they get from their phones and the subsequent withdrawal during school. The question is, what are we going to do?

Do people not know HMRC sorts out taxes for us? This call for showing pupils how to pay taxes seems bonkers. All they need to understand is gross and net pay; not actually how to pay it. If they end up being self-employed they have an accountant, no? Have I missed something??

Still waiting for blood test results for eyes - they’re looking at autoimmune disorders to explain lack of movement left side. It’s been 8 weeks. Meanwhile my ability to be safe in a lab is in question by occ health. I don’t know what happens now. No one seems to care.

I love how outraged kids get when you tell them to stop talking over you.

Teacher autonomy: If I can’t chose the questions *my* pupils need to do for retrieval practice then we have truly lost the plot.

I can’t keep dealing with the constant disruption from my Year 9s. I can’t even say who’s sat waiting nicely because I don’t think any are; the hand ful of nice ones seem to have given up.

Imagine booking a washing machine engineer visit for a Saturday. The company (Hoover) texting you the night before with a 7.30am-9.30am slot. Getting up at 6.30 and then engineer calling you at 9.30 to say you’re his first job and he’ll be around an hour.

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Career question: I’ve only ever worked in schools serving disadvantaged communities. But as time has gone on, things have got worse. I would like to be able to teach without constant interruption, too often it’s extreme. Lots of SEND in classes with no support. 1/3

Trying to do an online doctors appt via a series of messages is impossible. Crook of left elbow very hot and itchy. Thought it was a jumper I wear at work (started appearing about 4 years ago when I first bought it). Usually goes away when I take jumper off but hadn’t this time. 1/n

I really got in to hiking this summer. I follow a brilliant lady on TikTok who does all her walking by getting to her walk destination on train. She went to Lake District from London this week. £140, with my rail card. I can fly to the Italian dolomites for half that. Bonkers.

Someone needs to explain Jean sizing to me. Been trying to take care of myself - lots of eating well and gym. Current jeans now come off w/o unbuttoning. Went to buy next size down and I can’t even do them up 😩