Will schools have a more coordinated approach after Easter?

[ColouringPencils]

I know they had to close very quickly without much chance to work things out, but do you think we can ask any more of schools after Easter? They seem to vary so wildly in how much work and contact they are offering.

My DC in year 5 is asked to do 30 min maths and 45 literacy a day across three websites the school has accounts for. There was a small amount of project work set initially, of which he has picked and done the bits he was interested in.
We have had no contact from school since 20 March. There is no suggestion that the work will be marked, which is understandable but also quite demotivating for a child.

In contrast, my colleagues' child of the same age has daily work set and marked, daily interaction with teacher and classmates. Another child I know, also in year 5, has weekly tasks set across the curriculum.

Sadly, it doesn't come as a surprise to me that both live in more affluent areas. Our school is great, normally. But I feel a bit let down by this.

That's good to hear @FredaFrogspawn

@noblegiraffe obviously I meant to write *assure, not assist

It would be good to have more standardisation I agree. Schools are coming from such a wide variety of starting points on this though.

My point was, colouring that whatever schools do is getting complaints. There is no easy answer to whether schools should be setting loads of work and allowing kids who don’t do it to fall massively behind, or setting, as yours has, some maths, English, and activities.

Schools were told they would close the same time that the public were. There was no time to prepare.

@Blackbear19 I hope so. I understand it must be very hard to set work when you can't actually teach the children.

No. Honestly. Schools have been left to do their own thing.

This!
LEA control/ guidance is non existent as far as teaching and learning goes any more!

It's been like this for many years.

At the start of my teaching career, every school in an area belonged to and was lead & managed by it's LEA.

Each LEA had it's own team of advisors and each area had a training centre for all teachers.
We went on T&L courses run by the LEA regularly and consulted with the LEA education teams re. curriculum (as well as everything else).

LEA don't have 'control' the way they did in the past.
The current government cut LEA town hall jobs to the bare bones and the majority of education services have been privatised.

Then along came academies... LEAs have no control over their curriculum. They are owned and run by private companies.

To put it simply, HTs / Ts are on their own.

Just to add, in your situation I would contact the HT and ask why there has been so little contact/work set.

@noblegiraffe yes I can see that. I just worry the kids in my school will be left behind their peers in neighbouring schools (and they were already behind). That's why I thought a coordinated approach would help, so all children of a certain age can be expected to do x-amount and certain things are put in place to make that feasible.

Why don't you email the DfE and ask them? Most schools are now academies, and therefore directly under DfE not LAs.

The academy I work in has provided work for the last two weeks of term in all curriculum areas, hard copies for children without computer access. Also access to my maths, etc. We have a mixed catchment with about 35% Pupil premium.
The academy my DD attends have provided five lessons worth of work a day via their online learning environment (normal timetable, not video teaching). She has done everything provided. Her school is about 20% PP.
The independent school DS attends have provided two weeks of work in a variety of computer based/book based formats for all curriculum areas (including pshe and PE). He has done about half of the work. No PP, obviously.

Have you also considered that your son's teacher may have been ill with the virus, or had illness or bereavement in their family, and that's affected their involvement with the work set?

DS is in Y5. School sent home 7 weeks worth of work, one sheet per week, most of which is the same, copied and pasted over to the new week.

That's been it, no email, no updates, but I'm not sure I was expecting any if they gave their hands full with other kids.

We've been doing what we can at home but it's minimal, as both working, and DS struggling generally.

I adapted the handouts to suit DS but it's hard going. We'll be following the BBC website closely from next week.

Hopefully schools go back for the final half term and a sense of a normal routine will reset things.

As a teacher, I am setting one piece of English and maths work for my class a week on a website they have log ins for. They also have logins to time table rockstars, phonics play and many other websites. I also sent home a pack of home learning for the parents on the last day which had about 3 weeks worth of work.

The teachers unions are very strongly advising against teachers having to mark and complete online lessons. This is new for everyone and each school is handling things differently. We are also having to work different hours and different patterns, I worked good Friday and bank holiday Monday looking after key workers children - so my head teacher has told us at some point in all of this we are entitled to our two weeks holiday which we should have had over Easter. There are many children who do not have access to computers, tablets etc or households do not have enough for everyone if there is more than one child in the household.

We are also doing other work, such as writing reports for parents, building a new and inclusive curriculum etc so please don't think teachers are sat at home doing nothing as most are not. I do think it's odd you've had no correspondence from them though... but there is so much online you could do! I wouldn't worry about the gap as when we return to school it will be a nightmare and teachers will have to pick up where they left off as everyone will be at a different stage. I have a parent with triplets and another child - how can she possibly split herself enough ways to teach them all? Just enjoy this time with your child? Brush up on mental arithmetic, spellings and reading! What year is your child in - more than happy to help if I can

I just worry the kids in my school will be left behind their peers in neighbouring schools

Entirely understandable. From what I understand, the rate of return of work isn’t great for kids who are set it so those schools will be in a mess of having to catch kids up too when they go back.

It’s a shit situation all round. You have to do the best you can by your kids and hopefully the BBC will help with that.

Maybe I should contact someone, I just feel like a bit of a twat doing so!

Rather than singling out my specific school, I more want someone with an overview (if they even exist any more) to be wondering what all the children in the country are doing and if they are all receiving equal treatment.

@Butterymuffin I obviously hope that is not the case, but I don't think it is. We received a pack on the last day of school with the web addresses and the project sheet and there was no suggestion of work being handed in, so it appears they are following their plan. We haven't heard from anyone at school since. Maybe we will next week.

Read this:
www.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/14/education-was-never-the-sole-focus-of-schools-the-coronavirus-pandemic-has-proved-it

Finally, I would implore everyone, parents, governors, the entire public, to go easy on schools. They cannot be perfect at this time. Children will be upset about cancelled exams. Not every school can stay open for Easter. One may have sent home a whizzy digital learning package, another may have sent textbooks and a wish of good luck. When the world changes in nine minutes, it rarely changes equally.

Do you just have the 1 child, OP? I have 2 primary-age DC at the same school. Provision between the 2 classes has been totally different. It's just the way it is.

State education is not "the same" across the board - it can't be. So if your school is usually good, get in touch with them and ask - politely - what's going on. It could just be your particular class teacher, who might have their own personal reasons for not being on the ball. I don't think you can reasonably expect it to be a universal offering in a time of crisis, though, unfortunately.

If you can fill the gap, and you have the resources to do so, you're one of the luckier ones so focus your energies that way.

Rather than singling out my specific school, I more want someone with an overview (if they even exist any more) to be wondering what all the children in the country are doing and if they are all receiving equal treatment.

We have a Tory government, and it's been austerity central for years with funding cut all over the place. I'm sorry to say that there is not anyone with an overview who gives a shit about this in a centralised way. "Equal treatment" is certainly NOT the Conservative manifesto promise.

Whilst it sounds lovely to write letters to the children in my class, I wouldn't be able to get those 30 addresses and who is going to pay me for the 30 stamps and envelopes?

@Pinkflipflop85 yeah maybe it was a bad idea. I assumed that the school office could send them out, but really I am just thinking that any kind of contact from teacher to child would be extremely welcome. Digital would be easiest, but they are not providing that either.

@NoSquirrels interesting that your two children have had very different experiences. I also have an older DC at secondary school, but I expected her experience to be different, which it is. I certainly don't expect anyone to be perfect and I know we all had to react very quickly. That's why I was wondering if the approach may change now that we have had a bit of time to get used to it. I know the world is unfair, but I also think it's important to call out unfairness, not just suck it up, especially when we can see its impact on those who have the least. I do have the resources to support my child, so I will do that as well as I can. In fact I have just thought that I will download the work off my friend's child's school website.

@Shortandsweet20 that's all really interesting and it does make a lot of sense. We are also in that position of not having a computer per person (surely that is normal?), and my older DC needs to do work online and I have to work from home. In fact, the ideal for me would be if the schools could send work home in paper form, which I think would be fairest for all children. Or we could go and pick it up and drop it off in a socially distanced queue...? Being a primary school we all live very nearby.

We are back from Easter holidays now and the school have signed up to a website to host the daily activities per class. We have pe with Joe wicks 1 English, 1 maths per day then a topic activity. Weekly reading, times tables and spellings are expected as usual.

We're getting regular emails from the head and that's about it. But I'm happy with that, it's a good balance for us with 1 pre schooler a y2 and y5 with me and dh also juggling work, the school have made it clear we can work at our own pace through the activities or do something completely different instead.

We are being asked to use our daily exercise tomorrow or Friday to pick up more workbooks . They are moving to google classroom for key stage 2 and will send their work in on there too .

That sounds really good, @blackteaplease.
I would also really like an email or letter, even if just to make contact.

It has highlighted how fragmented the school system is in England, with private schools run for profit, private schools run as charities, academies, free schools, church schools, maintained schools. There is the national curriculumm which some schools can opt out of and ofsted which doesnt inspect all private schools. Then some school really arent as good as others even if they are the same type.

They reallly are basically flying solo and making it up as they go along. It must be very difficult. And each cohort is different so if something works in one school it might not in another.

If its a long term situation it would be much better for some central leadship of what to do and how but there isnt a body to do

Mine went ‘back’ to school yesterday. All are at state schools.

17yo is at a tertiary college and is having group video lessons as per the pre COVID timetable.

13yo (yr8) is at a secondary school. A revised timetable is being produced on a weekly basis with work set accordingly via ‘Show My Homework’ and ‘School Gateway’ but with no time expectations. Evidence is to be emailed once set work is completed. A comprehensive list of moodle type links for each subject has been provided.

The 10yo (yr6) is at primary school and gets work set daily via Class Dojo. This includes a literacy, numeracy and topic task. They are also expected to do daily PE (Joe Wicks or otherwise) and reading. The class teacher is interacting in real-time as work is uploaded with feedback, comments and suggestions.

I have actually been really impressed with how all 3 ‘schools’ have put something in place very quickly but it probably helps that the apps were in place already and we had an early Easter so only 1 week of lockdown home schooling before the holiday. I think this gave SMT chance to work out how they were going to tackle this unprecedented situation.

Thank you, Shortandsweet20, I think your response is exactly what many of us needed to hear.

I'm a uni lecturer, and the fall out for ur students is awful, some of them are struggling in ways no one could predict.

The fact that my 9 year old is at home, fed, entertained and cared for is the priority - education will still be there in a few weeks time.

*our