School demanding work completed

[Piixxiiee]

I'm a teacher and a parent. I'm in school on a rota 2 days usually then 3 days working from home. Dh working from home.
The amount if work our year 1 dc has been set is ridiculous. The school is demanding that certain tasks are 'must' tasks and have to be uploaded each day. Our nursery child also has tasks- most practical but still time consuming.
How much work is your school setting?
The school I work for is sending suggested tasks home.
My childrens school had sent a curriculum and topic grid of activities for each week, a maths timetable and an English text with comprehension questions and activities will be sent for each week to be completed after phonics and spellings..... I won't have time to work I'll be too busy doing fractions, spellings, comprehension, model making, fact finding geography and history files, pe and 'fun' science experiments, whilst entertaining my 4 year old and ensuring he is shape and letter hunting, learning the weekly nursery rhyme, completing top marks maths and writing his name, doing a dinosaur dig and making play doh, whilst cosmic yoga plays in the background!

Any other schools demanding work completed each day/week?

[wastingtimeworrying]

That does sound like quite a lot. Is the expectation that they attempt to access something during the week or complete it ?

[wastingtimeworrying]

Our school is setting tasks but no expectation that evidence of everything finished - just some contact weekly with some evidence that they have accessed home learning. There are maths topics, reading, art type activities, p.e through joe wicks or cosmic yoga etc. You would drive yourself (and your kids) mad if you tried to do everything (there will always be kids who are super keen and some who its a real push to get work out of. And there are fun learning opportunities that aren't traditionally academic that are perfect to fill the time at the moment (am thinking baking, gardening etc) the pressure on parents at the moment is enough without added guilt over not doing enough school work. We just need to keep them safe and happy .

[Piixxiiee]

My understanding is that its completed, it's an actual learning grid, split along subject and week, only maths and English (phonics, spelling & comprehension of the weekly text) will be sent weekly to complete in full. Then the grid has 3 'must' tasks, some recommended and some extensions..... not sure how this will work in practice- my dd is quite academic but still she's 6! She likes to play and I'm (neither is dh) not happy to force this....

[IndecentFeminist]

Our work for next week has just come out. Daily emails from teacher to parents for kids explaining what they have sent. Kids expected to touch base (via parents, primary age) a couple of times a week.

But school have said that if parents would rather not do anything, then that is fine too. The work is there to do if we want to do it.

[WhyNotMe40]

Fuck that.
(Also a parent and a teacher)
We are doing the nurturing / survival approach here with lots of reading, creative projects and garden playing

[LolaSmiles]

We are secondary, so obviously there's more independence, and have certain tasks that must be completed and other optional extension materials.

[wastingtimeworrying]

I work at my child's school and at the moment the balance seems right. We are always done with learning by lunch and there are tasks she can access without me on the days I am in school (on a 3 day rota too). I send the teacher an email twice a week with a photo and comment on what she has done and the teacher can see if she has accessed spelling shed/purple mash etc - she is ks2 though. There has been no push to chase parents who havent submitted work as long as contact has been made and there are no other concerns. It's only been 4 days since the official easter hols !

[Fishfingersandwichplease]

Our lovely Headteacher has told us to do what we need to do to get through this whole situation- she said concentrate on fitness/learning/life skills or just survival...just stay in touch every so often so they know we are ok. Worksheets sent home are optional. O feel so long as we read a bit, do some spellings and a bit of maths then it is all good.

[earsup]

What nonsense.. ignore it..child will learn more helping in garden etc ( ex teacher )

[LuluJakey1]

Both of us are teachers and have not taken much notice of the stuff set for DS1 (Reception) and DD (nursery). We ready with them ever day, do some numeracy stuff and phonics , and the rest of the time is things they enjoy and are interested in- playing in the garden, Joe Wicks, cycling, walking, art, baking, watching a film.

[AvonBarksdale99]

What are they going to do if this work doesn’t get submitted?

[HelloJohnGotANewMotor]

I've emailed my DC's school twice asking them to stop. He's secondary school though. Sending way too much. All different deadlines. All really boring variations on worksheets. All on different learning platforms. very poor instructions that don't work if you're having to do it on a phone...,All different instructions about whether teacher wants to see them( mostly they don't). Virtually no feedback.

[Mammyloveswine]

Just do the 3 "must" tasks?

[Mammyloveswine]

Also a a teacher, I've just done what I know my children need to be doing to still be roughly on track..

[Piggywaspushed]

The problem is that you can guarantee that this exact same scenario has produced a range of complaints from parents (although not always to the right person!) : too much. too little, too complicated, too easy, not structured enough, needs too much supervision, impossible to do while WFH , not stimulating enough, not academic enough, repetitive.

You must know yourself, schools can't win at the moment....

I honestly cannot tell form my end as a secondary teacher how much work anyone else has set in addition to me, and cannot tell whether I have genuinely snowed my students under, who is being lazy, who is struggling, etc. At least your school has the benefit of centralised organisation by the sounds of it. It is all groping in the dark.

[VashtaNerada]

We set a fair bit but have also made it very clear to parents to only do what they can. I would write to the Head explaining that as you’re working FT you’ll do what you can, but are unlikely to complete everything.

[JeSuisPoulet]

We are struggling with incentive - now she knows the teacher isn't seeing her work she isn't wanting to do anything. School have introduced a new maths app, on top of 3 others, which is a pain - so many logins and computer memory used and I have to learn how to use it to show dd. I just wish a one hour recorded lesson could be shared every couple of days, covering the main topics and setting work. It's basic but without real interaction it's so hard to get them to do anything.

[Fatted]

Both DH and I are still working full(ish) time. We've made the decision as their parents that the DC will do what they can each day. They're both still primary age. I'm not up loading anything for their teachers to see. The school know we're both keyworkers and we usually work with the school/are on board parents.

[thunderthighsohwoe]

We’ve provided three lessons’ worth of work a day (uploaded at the start of each week) - Maths, English and topic based and the associated resources. We will be using Seesaw to respond to questions and feed back on photos/videos uploaded....but in our newsletter it was made clear that it is entirely up to parents how much/when this is completed. We have also sent home extra resources and suggestions for SEND children to work on their targets. Again optional. Children and parents are also encouraged to use Seesaw to communicate with us just generally about life at home if it helps them, again no expectation.

In the meantime, we’re getting all of our statutory CPD done online so we can use INSET days to reshape the curriculum for when we return. We’re hoping that this strikes the right balance.

Unfortunately, everyone has a different opinion of what schools should be doing, so we expect complaints!

[phlebasconsidered]

I have set a reading, maths and vocab task for every day plus 3 writing tasks and 3 topic tasks for the week for year 6. Everything differentiated plus seperate work for the 5 SEN children.Realistically only about a sixth of the class do it and it's a huge amount of faff.

Both my kids are in secondary and I am only insisting they do maths, english and science as we just don't have enough laptops to go round and the different learning platforms all seem to crash sporadically.

I need my kids and my class to be mentally healthy so if that means playing online or in the garden then i'd rather them do that right now than complete every little bit of work.

[PumpkinPie2016]

I am a secondary teacher and a parent to a Y1 child. It's just such a difficult balance to get right.

At our school, we are setting work for pupils but not insisting it is uploaded. There is no doubt a massive range of engagement, from those who do nothing to those who go above and beyond.

My son's school have sent the work for the next two weeks as a timetable (i.e. if you were doing a full school day). I am ensuring we read and do a maths/literacy activity each day but we won't be able to do all of the other activities.

Just do what you can and explain to the teacher that you can't manage anymore.

[tiredanddangerous]

It baffles me that there’s so much variation in what’s expected. My year 5 has barely been given anything!

If it’s too much op, don’t do it.

[tootiredtoconga]

I'm a DSL in a secondary school, not in school on the rota but really busy working at home. DH also working full time from home. Our Y1 child has not been 'set' any work as such. School have suggested a variety of tasks based on the topics they would have been covering, have sent lots of worksheets (over 100 so far) and a list of websites we can access to help with Maths but they have made it clear that all this is optional. This is just as well, as there's absolutely no way we could properly 'homeschool' whilst also working and looking after a toddler. We're doing what we can, she's reading to us and doing some writing every day. But I feel guilty that we're not able to do more.

[drspouse]

100 worksheets!
We had about 6 downloads for Y1 DD per week but they are mainly MS Office files with other files embedded in them and some of those use Publisher, who has Publisher??

[Haggisfish]

Is it a state or private primary?