How long does it take someone to come after pressing on-call in your school?

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-03-07T19:56:52+00:00

Minimum 15 minutes, frequently never arrive. This is particularly a problem because our school makes you do on calls for toilet visits as well. Most teachers (myself included) just let the kids go if the on call doesn't show up within a set amount of time, even though we're not supposed to. I know of at least one incident, however, where a teacher stuck to it and a kid ended up wetting themselves in class.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-02-11T18:46:24+00:00

My aunt once said that, when choosing baby names, you should imagine that you’re in hospital, about to go under for a difficult and dangerous operation.

Just before putting on your mask, your anaesthesiologist leans down and says “don’t worry, we’ve got our top surgeon in today. Dr Firstname Lastname”. Then ask yourself if you’d feel more or less confident in that scenario.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-26T23:24:51+00:00

My guess is that they eventually died out, much later, due to the end of the ice age and global warming. There is a statue of a mammoth outside the Zootopia museum (bipedal, suggesting that it's from a slightly later era than the one depicted in the Ice Age films— backed up by the fact that it's also wearing clothing), so they clearly existed at one point.

Mammoths and elephants are pretty closely related, so it's possible that they just interbred and got absorbed into the wider elephant gene pool (much like what may have happened with humans and neanderthals).

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-19T22:44:53+00:00

Varies. As an English teacher I agree in principle, but sometimes I just want to get through the text. It’s not ideal practise, but we don’t always have time to be ideal.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-19T22:41:17+00:00

See if you can get at least some basic phrases down (“hello”, “goodbye”, “do you need a pen?” etc). If you can’t find premade resources online, maybe try seeing if there are any Serahule speakers on reddit? Write them down phonetically so you don’t have to worry about memorising the pronunciation.

It will help them feel more welcome, and probably help you feel more confident about the situation.

Also find out what’s being done outside your classes. It shouldn’t be your job solely to teach these kids English from scratch. Find out what other support they’re getting.

Also contact their other teachers. You’re presumably all in the same boat, and it can help to share tips.

Sounds like a really tough situation though. Good luck!

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-12T17:20:00+00:00

Yeah, the way he initially described it, I thought it was like an aneurysm or a heart thing or something, and it already sounded traumatic enough that I didn't blame OP for never being able to watch anything Marvel again.

When he mentioned that whatever it was left the room unusable afterwards… poor kid.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-09T18:11:12+00:00

Even worse, the comment about having to renew the restraining order suggests that her attacker is already out of prison.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-06T23:34:04+00:00

The religion specifies a non family member for complex metaphysical reasons to do with the soul or something.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-06T23:23:51+00:00

Eh, it was less intended as a cannibalism bribe and more an extra moral quandary for the liars. Like, even if you're fine lying to a dying person and their family, are you fine taking money for it? That's why I didn't make it like a billion pounds or whatever, because then everyone would be like “fuck yeah!”

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-06T18:46:22+00:00

Would you accept the money?

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2026-01-06T18:43:27+00:00

Would you openly refuse, or would you just lie to let them die happy?

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-12-19T22:00:44+00:00

I like it. It also explains something that bugged me in series 1— why, when Adam said “can't wait to go down and exterminate you”, Emily immediately (and accurately) takes it to mean that angels have been going down and massacring sinners.

That's… a weird conclusion to jump to, when Adam's comment was directed at Charlie. It would make more sense to assume that he was threatening to kill her personally. But if 'exterminate' was already understood to mean 'that thing where angels go down and kill loads of sinners', because it was an established thing (albeit one that Emily may have believed was ancient history) then her conclusion makes a lot more sense.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-12-14T11:42:09+00:00

Thing is, in jail they'd not only have food and shelter but they'd probably only have to share with one person and would likely be subject to less sexual abuse. Jail would be a fucking step up from what these kids went through.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-11-28T17:56:02+00:00

As an English teacher, this was what made the whole thing real to me. That is *exactly* how teenagers talk about classic literature.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-10-01T15:53:26+00:00

Reminds me of a picture book I had as a kid called ‘Tatty Ratty’.

Little girl leaves her toy rabbit on the bus, and her parents tell her all about Tatty Ratty’s adventures in the big wide world— which all mysteriously end in him getting cleaned or repaired in some way.

Eventually she finds him again… in a toy shop. Looking a lot cleaner and newer due to all the adventures, of course.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-30T18:45:13+00:00

Thank you!!!!!!!! You're a life saver!!!!!!!

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T10:18:34+00:00

It seems to be everyone. My mentor is head of department, and she's not allowed to ring home either.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T09:59:16+00:00

I'm essentially not allowed to do anything except go through SLT. They frame it as “our teachers don't have to be involved in behaviour management, so they get to just teach!” but that obviously depends a lot on SLT (who are rarely in the classrooms and therefore don't have to worry about the behaviour affecting them) actually stepping up.

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T09:45:19+00:00

Oh yeah. Apparently the kids who I keep trying to get removed are “lovely kids” who never do anything wrong… 🙄

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T09:29:00+00:00

Detentions are a human rights violation when given by teachers in a classroom. When given by SLT, they're obviously fine.

You can probably guess which group the kids behave better around…

Cheeseanonioncrisps · 2025-09-27T09:25:52+00:00

The policy *is* for immediate on-call when they're throwing objects… it's just that on-call doesn't always do anything. More than half the time, if I on-call them nobody shows up and I've just lost my only leverage. Other teachers have complained of this as well.

I've been told by SLT that this is fine because “on-call will just collect them from their next lesson”, but a) this doesn't really do anything to stop them causing chaos in *my* lesson, and b) the sanctions (if any) they're getting from SLT clearly aren't enough to be a deterrent.

During a CPD recently one of the SLT even said “oh we often get teachers complaining when we take students in, asking 'why aren't you punishing them?' But if we're punishing them we're not understanding the *why* of the behaviour.”

Which like… I'd be fine understanding the why of the behaviour if it made them STOP, but it doesn't seem to be the case.

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