Is this enough contact from school

[Spry]

I appreciate that schools are in a very difficult situation at the moment. But I feel the primary school my son attends is not doing as much as many others are to support children's learning. Am I being unfair, or should I be pushing the school for more support?

Since lockdown began, my Year One child's school has sent us an email each night with suggestions of work we can do with our child the next day. The emails usually include the suggestion that we use online resources to help with this teaching, but they rarely signpost us to specific resources that tie in with the work for that day - they just tell us, for example, to check out BBC Bitesize.

I emailed the teacher and the deputy head, asking if we could be given links to relevant web pages - rather than just being given the names of some educational sites. They haven't replied.

We are not invited to send any work in to the school. Off his own bat, my son wrote a letter to his teacher a few weeks ago (he adores her). We heard nothing back.

Last week, the teacher called to speak to my son for a couple of minutes - the only personal contact we have had with her since lockdown began. She said she will call again in a couple of weeks. I asked if she'd received the letter. She said she had (she'd obviously forgotten about it) and a few minutes later she sent a short email to my son, thanking him for it.

I asked if we could send work in, or if there is any plan to re-start the house points system, which my son has always found v motivating. She said that these are things that the school is discussing.

I'd be grateful for views on whether this is good enough. Thank you.

[NuffSaidSam]

They should be providing clear guidance for the work that is set, worksheets or at least links to the relevant page, not just 'look at BBC bitesize'.

I would expect a response from the teacher/deputy head re. work set.

All the rest I think you are expecting too much (if this is a state school). I wouldn't expect work to be marked or teachers to be in personal contact with pupils regularly (unless those pupils are at risk). House points is just silly when no-one is at school and there is no chart to look at or assembly or anything. Just make your own house points system if your DS likes that sort of thing.

It would have been nice if she'd been able to reply to his letter, but you don't know what's going on in her life either at work or home. She forgot. She's human and it's a fucking stressful time.

[ExplodingCarrots]

Compared to my year one child I'd say they wasn't doing anything . Our school are regularly sending work, and we have a system called Hwb (only in Wales) where we upload the work and we can interact with DDs teacher on there and she marks the work etc. As well as setting work they also upload loads of links to helpful websites . We have also had a couple of online classes.

As long as you're doing something with him yourself I wouldn't worry about it .

[SansaSnark]

If people say this isn't good enough, what are you going to do? Unless it's a private school, there's not really any recourse for you to complain.

I agree that specific links would be helpful (although are these actually needed to complete the work?). I agree that the Head should have at least replied to your email.

I think one phonecall home is fine. No marking is fine- that's what unions have advised.

It is a shame the teacher missed the letter, but you don't know what else she is doing right now- she may be in school full time with key-worker children, or dealing with her own caring responsibilities.

Given that they will now be rushing to get things ready for children going back, unfortunately I don't think you can expect things to improve for the next two weeks.

[Ukmum1]

I’ve heard some schools are like this and I wouldn’t be happy. Some schools overseas are getting inspected on the online home learning, not sure if the same is happening in UK. Our school send in daily tasks, mostly worksheets the teacher has picked up from somewhere. There’s not really an explanation of how to do these and its left to the parent to teach, we are lucky though the teacher does mark what we send in. I have friends from both state and private schools who receive some sort of face to face online learning or even a weekly class catch up on teams or zoom, sadly our school doesn’t do this but I think this this would help my child. It’s not long now until end of term, hopefully schools will be back to nearly normal by September.

[CaitF]

Concerned about this myself - DD is back at school now which is good but I am worried about if it closes again because their lockdown work was sub par. she has already missed so much and i am not happy with the level of provision the school was giving over lockdown, although i know it was all at short notice. worried about her falling behind, as she is very bright and i dont want her to lose that spark due to lack of intellectual stimulation.

If schools shut again i would seriously consider pulling her out altogether and starting home schooling so that i can make sure she is learning... is that mad of me?!