Virus will further highlight the education gap between middle class & others....

[peppersneezes000]

Read an article that said the middle class children will not suffer during the extended school break at all & would continue to thrive at home. Disadvantaged children will suffer more both socially & educationally especially those in receipt of free school meals.
Dh argues many middle class parents will be working from home with deadlines to meet etc so the middle class children are also at a disadvantage.
I'll try to find the link.

I agree that it’s not so much a class issue, but an attitude issue. I know many middle class parents who seem to be taking pride in how little they’re doing educationally because it’s all about their children’s mental well being and spending time with family right now, and apparently you can’t possibly do work with your child as well as keep them mentally healthy.

Parents here aren’t being expected to teach, just keep their children’s skills up so that they’re ready to go back to school when the time comes, yet even that seems too much for many of them.

Has anyone else noticed the deafening silence over SATs? Obviously theres been a big disruption over gcses and A levels but not seen a single mention of sats. Is this the government conceding they were in fact an unnecessary stress on teachers, pupils and parents...?

Ha yes I thought that too! Turns out SATs aren't all that important after all. Who'd have thought it!?

You don’t remember the year of the SATs boycott then? They used teacher assessment to generate FFT grades instead. Absolutely bollocks they were, all over the place. It’s the thing that has most convinced me that teacher assessment is nowhere near as useful as an exam.

I wonder if they will do teacher assessment this time? They’re leaving it a bit late to tell primary teachers if so.

Ah no, I'd forgotten that year. Not sure if I wasn't teaching or I was just at a really junior level and didn't care so much about the data (my first HoD was very laissez-faire!)

I do remember working to fft targets. Unhelpful things.

I think it's not a class issue or a money issue, but an issue of parents' own educational level/the educational level of their friends. That does correlate pretty well with class, but not perfectly.

If you and your friendship group all have degrees, maybe teaching qualifications or postgrad degrees, you can probably source teaching expertise across a fair range of subjects. So you won't be worrying hugely about that. You may well decide your child just needs to play out in the garden for the next three months. But you could get someone teaching them a broad range of things, if you chose to.

I know people whose children are being taught by people who are experts in the subject and have teaching quals. Those children are getting one-to-one support that's probably better than what's provided at school.

But plenty of people don't have that. My MIL is super keen on education. She could not be more insistent about how much it matters. However, her capacity to teach is minimal. She doesn't really know what to do, and some of what she would try is actually detrimental, because she doesn't understand what she's doing (eg., her spelling isn't perfect but she'll 'correct' her grandson when he's got it right).

It isn't her motivation that's lacking - it's her education. And the same goes for much of my DP's extended family. And they don't know the limits of their knowledge (because by definition, you can't know what you don't know). So you see people worrying horribly and saying 'I made Jack sit down all morning and do his sums, so he will keep up,' but you look at the page they've photographed from Jack's book, and you can immediately see he's not remotely understood how to do them and nor has his mother who 'marked' them.

Also, this jumps out at me A bit of maths and some reading should be what they were doing for homework on top of 5 hours of schooling. It will keep them standing still at best.

This won't be true for children who're being taught very well one-to-one, though. Children are in school for hours because we teach in large classes and cannot tailor things to individuals very much. That's good for social development IMO, but educationally, a lot of the time in school children are being crowd-controlled rather than doing very directed learning.

That’s insulting to primary teachers who do a damn sight more than a bit of maths and reading. Other subjects exist, for a start.

No, it isn't insulting.

I agree there are other subjects, and I'm sorry if I wasn't clear that my comment was about the amount of time rather than the diversity of material (though I do comment on diversity of material in the post immediately above).

I teach. I am very well aware that excellent teaching involves compromises. As a country, we do not attempt to deliver one-to-one tailored teaching to every single school child (nor does any other I know of). Learning in a class is good for social development and has other benefits. But, a child who is taught one-to-one by someone qualified, is going to learn much faster than in a class. That is not insulting class teachers. It is just a fact.

‘A bit of maths and some reading’ isn’t ‘being taught very well one-one by someone qualified.’

Of course a kid at home with a primary teacher being taught proper lessons won’t be standing still.

I maintain that those kids actually doing ‘a bit of maths and some reading’ will be standing still at best.

No, but I did explain that? I think we're perhaps just talking cross-purposes here.

I really am trying to talk about the hours thing. I've already addressed the point about people needing the skills and knowledge to teach.

these threads make me feel awful. I have a degree and three post grad degrees, DH has an MSc yet we can't seem to do anything. I'm pregnant and exhausted and tv time is only thing getting me through, he is wfh and trying to pick up domestic slack in his free time. we do try and bake and play in the garden and do fun things but ultimately the days feel very long and I feel like I'm failing by not doing lots of work with her

You are doing fine! You really are. I don't know how old your child is, but baking and playing in the garden is still doing something.

holidayhuntress how old is your DD. I am an ex secondary core subject teacher (taught in England) and moved to a country where children start school at 6 or 7 when my eldest was a toddler. I can honestly say that despite absolutely no phonics or number work at English reception or year 1 age my secondary age children are ahead of the same age children I used to teach in the UK.

It'll be fine of your DD is small and you're reading her bedtime stories and ensuring she's outside and playing and going for walks significantly more of the time than she's watching TV, eating with you at the table using cutlery and having conversations in full sentences and being listened to etc. Chatting generally is hugely valuable and something many children don't get. Infant age children benefit from the socialisation at school but nobody's getting that now. They don't need hours of formal teaching.

She is nearly 3. I keep seeing Instagram posts of amazing schedules and non stop learning activities and I'm just so useless!

No, you're really not!

People are all over instagram at the moment cos they're bored, and because they want to keep in touch with family and show granny what the little one is doing. I can't imagine any schedule for a two year old that'd be better than baking and a bit of tv and a snuggle with mum.

holidayhuntress baking and playing in the garden, in fact just playing in general is exactly what a 2 year old should be doing right now! This thread is about school children missing out on teaching at school.

Yes. It's going to be awful.
DD is angry she isn't doing SATS so I have that to soothe over too.

Disadvantaged children will always suffer, it's such a shame and shouldn't be like this.
However, there's nothing to suggest wc and mc families will find one better than the other.
many mc families have 2 income working from home and haven't the extra time to help kids with homework, many wc have got the time, especially if furloughed.
Some schools have set work and some haven't, in both sectors.
And there are mc parents furloughed with time for their kids and wc parents still working with little time for kids.
You really can't generalise apart from to say the disadvantaged kids will still be disadvantaged.

holidayhuntress nearly 3! Bless you, she doesn't need to be doing "work". Where I live they aren't even allowed to start (completely play based, self care and socialisation focussed) kindergarten until after their 3rd birthday. Playing and chatting and reading stories with you is allshe needs. Anyone over structuring a 2 year old is doing it to give themselves as the adult structure - which is a legitimate way for a parent struggling with lockdown to manage their own mental well-being but is more about parent than child!

michaelbsubles same set up here. Both teachers but working lots from home & able to get the kids on task with a loose schedule.

bigfatchuckiedoll we're expected to work from home & set work & mark work. DH was in school for a full week the first week of lockdown & I have to go in this week. Why should we have to take a pay cut? Teacher salaries aren't big tbh & schools have already had the budget for the year.

Don't worry - school budgets will be slashed again big time come September to help pay back all the money that has been borrowed. So teachers will be lucky to keep their jobs, let alone get a pay rise.

OP it was my first concern when I heard schools were shutting. I do agree that disadvantaged will suffer the most. The rise in domestic violence is a big problem, along with parents struggling with helping out, lack of IT/WiFi and just generally being cooped up in a smaller house.

I do think some middle class parents will struggle though - they usually drop kids at various activities, eat out, put kids in kids club etc. Now they have to spend more time with their kids. There will be some difficulties there too.

@holidayhuntress please ignore the Instagram posts. No two year old needs a work scheme FFS, for that fact neither does a five year old. Many European schools don't accept pupils until they're six and it doesn't hold them back academically at all. My sister is an experienced Reception class teacher and moans about her 4 and 5 year olds who might have been hot housed to read like 9 year olds but can't tie their own shoe laces or change into PE kit without help

I don't know about this, I'm in retail and furloughed. Many people with better jobs than me will be working at home, so will have less time for homeschooling than me. My kids aren't actually old enough for school yet though .

Insta is the devil at the moment & the class WhatsApp group... Seems this lockdown has turned into competive one upmanship about who can do the most "fun educational" activities... Daily baking etc... I'm choosing to unfollow & don't feel the need to share any of our "fun"...