What is the minimum primary schools should/could do to support children in years 2-5 ?

[RoomOnOurBroom]

I know all schools are different but what's reasonable to expect a school to do as a minimum, and what has worked well at your school to help keep children engaged with learning and look after their well-being?

No moans please about what your school is getting badly wrong (there are loads of threads about that already). I'm after positive stories and suggestions I can take back to my school. (I know they are in theory going back in September but I'm not convinced it will be full time consistently especially if we have another wave.)

[WhatWouldDominicDo]

Is this Covid related? Or do you mean support in general?

[avocadoze]

Positive? My (state primary) school has opened for all kids to attend for at least a day a week. They have online provision every day when they’re at home. The head sees every child every day on the class video calls or welcoming them at the gate when they come in. Ks2 children do lots of online learning, and the school has lent out tablets and 4G dongles to families in need. KS1 children are heard to read over videolink and have projects to work on. It’s all doable, but the school staff have had to work hard to make it happen.

[RoomOnOurBroom]

Yes coronavirus related ie for those children not in school.

Wow Avocadoze, daily head teacher on learning sessions, that's impressive! I'm guessing it's a small school?

[RoomOnOurBroom]

How many children on a video call/class? Do they all get a chance to interact and get feedback?

[UntamedShrew]

All ours have been going in part time. It’s made a huge difference to their moods / mental health / general happiness atmosphere in the house! It doesn’t have to be full time to make a huge impact.

I’d like to see either week on, week off or half weeks - something like that for all year groups locally. It does feel unfair that our (state) primary school is open for all and others in the same area are still only open for year six.

[ohthegoats]

Give them a laptop.
Loan them a laptop.
Show them how to work it and use Teams.
Give their family broadband/wifi.
Make sure the children have somewhere to work.

Provide what best suits around that.

[ohthegoats]

From a teaching perspective I'd like to be able to produce videos that fit with a work book for English and maths.

I'd like to do the same to guide them through a project book/scrap book on a multi-subject topic (like we did in the old days).

I'd like to spend my mornings recording these lessons while children are working at home. I'd like them to be able to complete a short quiz on how they have done in the morning's work, so that I can then group them for support 'Team meetings' in the afternoons. I have between 4 and 6 children for 20/30 minutes each - they can see each other, the support is live, I've got an idea of how they've done, we can talk through stuff on my whiteboard or on a visualiser.

At the end of the day I'd like to then do a live story reading or assembly type thing via Teams that they can either watch live (and see other children watching it live), or have recorded so they can watch the recording in their own time.

I'd like to be able to do this with a proper camera, from school and not on a laptop at home in my family room.

I'd like children to be able to have the support at home to do that.

This is cloud cuckoo land for my current school.

[ohthegoats]

I'd also like to be able to use a TA to run some of those support groups. The TA could also be running support groups in the mornings to go through work identified from the day before as needing it.

In fact, now I'm writing it down, it sounds amazing.

[justdontatme]

I would like all kids to be in part time.

[wonderpants]

Food deliveries
Food bank referrals
Safeguarding referrals
Provide safe place for vulnerable children
Offer of pens/paper other essential stationery.

Then, I plan 3 lessons a day. All resources available to collect weekly from school or available online. Separate lessons for the 2 year groups I teach so they are age expectations appropriate.

Sadly, most have little internet access, or maybe 3 or 4 children sharing Mum's phone with limited data. Resources are online for those who can get online.

Weekly zoom meeting for those that can access it.

Currently 1/31 is engaging with home learning. I am providing all this whilst still planning and teaching a different year group bubble.

[ohthegoats]

Food deliveries
Food bank referrals
Safeguarding referrals
Provide safe place for vulnerable children
Offer of pens/paper other essential stationery.

And that.

The bottom one is the only one that's actually my responsibility too, but we did that/continue to do that. Exercise books and stuff available to collect from school whenever.

[RoomOnOurBroom]

Ohthegoats that sounds amazing. Although it would be dependant possibly on having sufficient TAs? What is stopping the school from implementing it?

Justdontatme I agree. With you username too

Wonder pants I had selfishly been thinking about my own situation forgetting and not on the many children and families desperately needing support for the basics in life. Access to internet and tech will be a major barrier to education, especially if they are struggling to get enough food each day.

[CornishYarg]

DS is Yr 3. When the schools closed, the school came up with different projects that suggested various ideas of work centred round a theme. They also provided links to maths and English worksheets to supplement the projects. We could email examples of their work and photos in, which were put on the school website, but there wasn't any feedback given on the work done.

After Easter, they introduced a weekly Zoom call with about 6 children and the teacher. This was purely a chance to catch up and chat, rather than discuss school work.

After half term, they started using Google Classroom. DS is set English and Maths work each day which he sends back and receives feedback on (often just well done, but sometimes with a tip for improving). It's often White Rose or Twinkl worksheets, sometimes accompanied by a video from Bitesize or White Rose to explain the concept. The two pieces of work normally take him about an hour a day. The school have said they only need to do about 3 days out of the 5 per week and that teachers aren't expected to feedback on more than that. But in practice he does the work all 5 days and his teacher feeds back on all of it.

The Zoom calls stopped but they've now set up a weekly Google Classroom call instead. Again it's for a social, wellbeing catch up rather than school work. The projects are also still there to give additional ideas, so we're still doing some of the ideas in them.

[wonderpants]

Sorry, I had only half read the OP.
I just don't know I can do to support my children to engage at home more.
All I know is that the educational inequality and disadvantage is growing. And that come next year's SATS, we will be hammered again!

[ohthegoats]

What is stopping the school from implementing it?

The stuff in my post timed 14.03.

[RoomOnOurBroom]

@ohthegoats

What is stopping the school from implementing it?

The stuff in my post timed 14.03.

Ah, that makes sense. DfE need to pull their socks up and support schools to help children without the access to technology.

[noblegiraffe]

My DC’s school has a weekly newsletter which includes examples of excellent work submitted each week on google classroom. My DD was bloody delighted to see a photo of her work on there and it made her keen to try to get featured again.

[lorisparkle]

We are lucky in our family that we have enough computer access for all our boys. Our primary use seesaw to keep in touch with weekly assemblies and information. We can submit work through seesaw and the teacher always comments on it. We access work through the schools website. We print out relevant bits but the school will supply the resources if you can not access them or print them out. I think the amount of work is about right. 5 English and maths activities a week plus a science activity, a couple of PE and wider curriculum ideas. My boys have had no zoom/team etc lessons or input and have not missed them.

[RoomOnOurBroom]

Lori What's seesaw?

[lorisparkle]

Seesaw is a bit like class dojo or tapestry where you can share learning between home and school. My school uses class dojo which is fine but ds3's school uses seesaw and as a parent I really like it. Not sure what it is like from a teachers point of view.

web.seesaw.me

[avocadoze]

Small school, 70 pupils. Three classes. Year groups of 10, some video calls to whole classes and some to year groups. When they’re at home they do their work on Google classroom and dd has had comments on every piece of work she’s done. The teachers explain the work at the start of the day and are available via google classroom if the kids have questions during timetable hours. They do show and tell online so that the children do get some talking time too. I realise that we’ve fallen on our feet with this school - it’s because it’s small that they’re so used to doing everything on a shoestring and the staff are a fantastic team.

[ginforall]

My DS school have started a class blog on purple mash, which has been nice. The teacher sometimes posts videos of her reading a book/small bit of teaching. My DS and many of other children in his class have posted pictures of things they have been doing/ work they have done and they can all comment, staff and other students. All comments have to be approved by the teacher before they appear. They have also set tasks on purple mash which are commented on, along with tasks on matheletics and reading eggs. Work packs available to collect every two weeks.

They also did a zoom session last week, in small groups, about 8 kids and the teacher. The school have decided to close for summer a week early for yr r, 1 and 6 to allow for yr 2, 3, 4 and 5 to have some sessions in school in the last week. I am grateful for this and think DS will benefit from a bit of time in school.

I've been really pleased with what they have offered and continue to offer.

[RicStar]

My kids school did following: daily video from class teacher, daily assembly from slt, class activities on seesaw for key curriculum (maths, reading, writing, handwriting, spelling), work is commented on by teachers / tas.

Additional blogs for science and arts and pe with daily videos / activities from school staff (all optional).

Log ins for online activities to support maths / english and music.

Weekly zoom catch up.

Limited zoom teaching for children who need extra support / phone calls for the same.

Last two weeks of term years 2 - 5 will be returning to school (other years will return to learning at home).

It has mostly been well organised / communicated.

[justdontatme]

avocadoze That’s interesting, our school is 100 kids & I haven’t been impressed with their approach tbh.

[Keepdistance]

Teacher does a recording of a chapter a day.

I like the sound of seeing a selection of the kids work.
I dont like the sound of daily assembly.


A zoom a week of the whole class would be nice

We have maths/comprehension and topic stuff and handwriting.
We spend 45 min reading.
Really i guess there should be more like daily comprehensions etc.

Personally we have found bitesize better than oak. As dc is young. But tbh i domt think the gov can go wrong continuing them as they will be useful for classroom teaching etc.
We didnt do a proper topic this half term so if home learning contimuedit would be nice to have proper one