What happens to years 7,8,9 secondary school

My children are in years 8 and 9 in a private school. The child in year 9 full boards. Neither are going back until September and for boarders I wouldnt be surprised if it's January...
However, being a private schools they are working to their normal timetable, all live lessons, homework and end of year exams... I have incredibly impressed but we are paying school fees. The fees are only discounted by 12% off day fees and 25% of boarding

Ours have just said that only a very small number of year 10s at a time will be able to go to school pre September and due to social distancing / staffing problems it will be very few students at a time. They plan to continue home learning. Not sure what plan is from September though think that's tbd.

It looks like all secondary children bar Y10/12 home until September at the moment.

As a teacher, it's pretty clear the government priority is childcare, not education IMO.

I think there are a few reasons to keep secondary children off, though:

-Lots of secondary children use public transport to get to school and the government is trying to minimise numbers on public transport.

-Lots of secondary children use LA transport and it would be difficult to make this safe for all children.

-Secondary children, in general, can work independently and most of them can stay home alone for longer periods.

-Secondary children who make their own way too and from school might be more likely to visit a friend's house, breaking lockdown (we have actually had this issue with one of the key worker children in school).

-Secondary teachers could be used to help care for primary children.

-There are lots more children in even one year at secondary school, and lots more adults, so more people to potentially infect each other.

I'm not saying this is right or wrong, just the possible logic behind the government decision.

From an educational PoV only, I'd want Y9 and 10 back first, before any primary aged children, but this wouldn't help people return to work much.

We’ve been told that y7 definitely won’t be back before September at the earliest, and that year 9 are unlikely to be back before September.

Year 7&9 here and school has confirmed off til September

1 year 8, 1 year 9 - assume not back until at least September now and then as its half class sizes presuming it'll be half time at most. Mine are both getting work set on show my homework - nothing live but that's fine. Ours get about 3 subjects a day and more optional work. Both mine are doing the school work or alternatives so not falling behind and they are covering the curriculum they would have been having if at school. My year 8 is ASD so I need to do all the work with him, the year 9 just gets on with it.

My year 7 and year 9 are doing a full day's work. A mix of zoom, videos and learning offline. The year 9 has also quite a lot of homework on top. It's actually really full on to thr point where he has had a couple of meltdowns. I think mainly as he thought he was relaxing whilst school had different ideas.

I'm assuming that yrs 7/8/9 won't be back this term now as they haven't been mentioned at all. DD3 is in year 9 and quite disappointed by this, though not sorry to miss end of year exams!

She is at private school and pretty much following her normal timetable on zoom (except games). However, she does find it more tiring than being in a classroom because you have to concentrate that much harder. The sessions are 40 minutes instead of the normal hour and some lessons in each subject have been replaced by free periods to give them a break, so they probably aren't covering the ground at the same rate as they would at school. Also there are often technical issues eg with lag/connectivity problems/kids not able to access the zoom meeting for some reason etc which also take up a fair amount of time.

They have homework as normal which they have to upload and it is marked.

On the social front, she and her older sisters seem to be texting their friends as much as ever!

Our school have said that the earliest that 7,8,9 will be back is September and to expect a combination of online learning and part-time school attendance.

My dd is getting a small amount of work - but it’s all end of term stuff ‘find a word for every letter of the alphabet’ make a crossword... no new learning. Not one thing has been marked in anyway and it’s all pointless. Half an hour of each subject a fortnight. It’s a grammar school but they seem to be playing the line of not stressing the kids - but boredom is dds main problem. I’m a teacher myself doing full live timetable on teams so it is particularly annoying! I’m teaching new content so this term won’t be as good but it won’t need to be repeated - private school v high level of engagement.

DS in year 9 with a 3 year GCSE course so like others has no live teaching just using the school portal to download work, complete it then upload it back. They also use online Educake for science and Hegarty for maths so it breaks it up a bit. I’ve helped here and there but I’m no help with computer science at all! It’s going to be a long haul till the end of the summer term in July. They did adjust the amount of work set after the Easter break to lessen the load as there had been lots of feedback that there was too much to complete depending on family circumstances and access to computers etc between siblings.
I think DSs school are doing the best they can but can’t help but think the live teaching part is really missing.

Ds is in year 9, they are covering new content, some of it I recognise as stuff his brother did. For English they get what would have been the powerpoint presentation on the board so it lays out the learning objective for the lesson and asks you to think about things, such as the role of women in the 16th Century for Shakespeare . They are doing English lit and lang work.

They complete the work set and upload it in Google Classrooms. History is the same powerpoint that would have been on the board but they have a video with a teacher talking them through setting out their work, ie the technique to answer the question. Basically walking them through exam question answering techniques.

Some stuff is on Seneca and sometimes they have YouTube videos to watch to help to teach them content. No live lessons via any medium.

I genuinely think the school are doing the best that they can in the circumstances but this is an outstanding school in a MAT that has a lot of resources with experienced staff that definitely go the extra mile normally.

DD (Y7) is getting plenty of work from school. Some is better quality, eg new teaching rather than copying out text.

But I know that many of her peers aren't completing the work. I'm sure there are many valid reasons for this (lack of support or resources or motivation etc), but this will mean that the children who have worked hard this term (and end of last term) will be repeating the work in Y8 and, as previous posters have commented, focus will rightly be on key years and my DD's year will be negatively impacted again.

More than that however is my fear about her socially. She is an only. She's naturally shy and struggles with friendships. She was a superstar during transition to secondary, but I fear her efforts will have to restart. I'm encouraging her to use her phone to keep in touch. Against my better judgment, I figured it best for her to join the class WhatsApp group. But the language and subject matter on there is a real eye opener!

We've all got to do our best and support our kids however we can. I just hope I get it mostly right.

I have 4 kids in 3 different state schools and most of my children's specific teachers are all are doing a really excellent job but provision can even vary greatly between classes or departments/teachers in the same school.

The problem as I see it is the unevenness of the provision. So some schools are offering full on structured day's learning and others very little.

So, on the one hand, we should be able to say that the cohort are all in the same boat, but we can't.

I think in the private school sector it's markedly different - but there again they need to demonstrate value for money given the fees they charge!

It's not a private v state issue, some state schools are doing stuff akin to good private schools and some private schools are doing f all.

I have a year 9 DS and as of this week he has been doing his school work (that is set daily from school) whilst facetiming his best mate. It is actually working quite well. They are motivated to get it finished and help each other understand stuff, far better than I can!! I am listening in occasionally to check they are actually doing work and also know that when it is done the FIFA can start 😁.

My slight concern is some of the children are in years which aren't "key years" this year and won't be next year either so they potentially risk being at the bottom of the pile for quite a long time. So this year's Y10s will go back first (and rightly so) and next year I'm guessing that the current Y9s will also have lots of focus on them but mine is Y7 this year (and one in Y4) so they will potentially be overlooked 2 years running.

In all fairness it is not completely clear what is happening with Y10s

For DS (Year 7) the quality of the remote learning has been mostly excellent. Good balance of live and not live lessons (which is good for us as his brother has to share the tech a bit), and lots of teacher and tutor contact and extra fun stuff which has been really beneneficial for his wellbeing. I think the provision between schools has been very variable though. DS is at an independent, but I know other parents in state schools who are also very happy - plus others in both independent and state who are not happy at all. Because of the provision we're getting, I'm not too worried if DS doesn't go back until Year 8, but obviously I'd be feeling very differently if I felt he wasn't getting good quality teaching at the moment.

Mine is Y8. She has a lesson plan from school and work set by the teachers but I have no clue what she's doing. If I take time out of the day to homeschool her then I will need to wfh into the evening. I'm already finding it hard to fit a full working day in.

She is supposed to do 5 hours a day but she's appearing downstairs far sooner.

Like a pp said she's an only and getting little contact with other kids. We can't do this for another 5 months.

Amazing how one week's term time holiday was thought to do lasting damage to their school career, yet 6 whole months with zero education is just fine.

Yes I saw that Zoom/Teams have been deemed to have safeguarding issues... this doesn't help.

Presumably private schools are willing to take the risk then?

Also on the live teaching vie teams/zoom- the Scottish government has put a total ban on this due to "safeguarding" Not happening. They're not even happy about teachers pre-recording lessons for broadcast.

There is a chat function thing but it's like the 1990s ICQ or instant messenger when kids type a line and the teacher may or may not reply. It's shit. And we're a lucky family in that the kids all have free access to laptops and tech. A family with two parents working from home and three kids all fighting to get on the laptop at the same time is fucked.

That's interesting and helpful to know.

DS has no siblings at home and I'm worried too that he's getting very isolated. I have mentioned to the school that only children might need more input, especially when parents aren't able to help with school work (we can't - we're working FT from home) but there hasn't been much of a response.

Well we're in Scotland so the years are different but I have an almost 12 year old who is starting Secondary in august, a 17 year old who should be doing Highers right now, and one who will be doing Nat5s this time next year.

We've had no online classes at all. School have been issuing homework through sites like Show My Homework and "Glow" - which I think is a Scottish government portal. The homework is very minimal and mostly stuff which the teacher isn't involved in marking or looking at - sites like Sum Dog, StudyLadder, BugCLub, Bitesize where students take multiple choice quizzes to check understanding. They are missing out on a HUGE chunk of education - moreso the older ones. I have the skills to help the youngest with his P7 work and with some of the middle child's work. Advanced Higher Biology though and I'm lost.

Schools have handed this spectacularly badly, I know nobody had planned for this but everything has just ground to a halt. The lasting repercussions for children due to be sitting exams now, or next year are immense. I am not happy. But voicing any concerns abot how poor the provision is or how much children are missing out on socially and emotionally as well as educationally and you're shouted down as someone who wants to murder grannies by sending the kids back to school,