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.

We're back this week and it's the same format as pre holidays. Contact daily through Class Dojo with a daily plan. Maths, English, Spelling, Reading and a specific Phonics website task. Plus additional learning ideas (which we often don't get to) and a weekly project eg Easter Story, Science/Engineering one this week.

That's plenty for my son, I also want the opportunity to use the time to teach him other things. We started learning to code on Scratch Jr, and want to plant seeds, make pasta, paint, start him on the piano. All the things we never seem to have time for.

We're also due a call this week from our teacher. We've been getting regular messages from the headteacher as well as our class teacher, so seems well coordinated across the school.

Meant to add, primary school has above average FSM, secondary the same - both are academies within separate clusters.

The college feeds from the entire county for a wide range of courses including vocational, degree level, A level, IB and core skills! It closed for 2 days while the home learning plans were put in place.

All 3 at the outset stressed that anyone without internet access should contact them so that plans could be made to provide alternatives.

At my school, when we closed we put 2 weeks work on the website for each year group - it was mainly projects or worksheets as it was short notice.

It has not been updated over the last 2 weeks as it's the Easter Holidays, teachers who are able to have been working in school looking after key worker children. When not in school we have been replanning work for the next half term so it can be done at home without too much emphasis on parents needing to teach. We are not using zoom or any live teaching as most children in school will not access it.

The children will be given weekly timetables via the school website with maths, English, topic and science activities to do - no worksheets. They have been given exercise books to work in. They can also email photos of their work to the school.

Teachers have written to their classes.

None of this will be available to the children Til Monday morning when term starts and will be updated every Monday with new work set.

All the parents not happy with lack of contact from school need to be more patient and wait Til school terms start again, some may have gone back yesterday but many are not due back until Monday. The teachers are probably still planning the work to be done. It is our holidays and there is no expectation to be working every day from 9-5 or whatever.

I have been in work looking after key worker children 3 days a week and apart from 4 hours every morning when I am planning lessons I'm spending time being a mum to my own children.

We had a government that wanted to take power away from local authorities and bring in the private sector. And this is where that strategy has most publically been shown to be a disaster.

There is no-one to co-ordinate schools' strategies now. No-one working to ensure consistency, no-one left to advise schools, management teams, and teachers. It's a nightmare for everyone concerned.

And what’s even weirder is that the BBC have put together a comprehensive programme of education for the summer term but there’s reports that the DfE have been planning their own online school.

noblegiraffe - I think the bbc are justifying their licence fee maybe

Yes but they are the public broadcaster so why isn’t the DfE using the public broadcaster and instead setting up in competition with them?

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.
This ^^

Schools are largely stand alone entities or part of chains now, if varying quality and size. Academies and chains report directly to the DfE and Local Authorities hardly exist in any meaningful form.

This was always going to be the reality of the academisation programme that's been going on for years.

I think you can expect more from Monday, OP. You are right that there will have been more time to prep than right after what I call “Shutdown Friday”.
For example, as a secondary teacher, I have been able to use the Easter holidays to prep work more closely related to what I was going to teach them in the Summer Term anyway (albeit it massively tweaked to cater for the current circumstances).
I’d see no harm and emailing your school if next week, what you have been provided with isn’t working for you and I am sure they can help.

there was a lot in the news about scrapping the licence fee just before this all happened so they weren't a public broadcaster any more so perhaps the bbc just wanted to show it could do it faster and better than the DFE or the DFE wanted to show it doesn't need a public broadcaster to get things done
Politics is a strange thing and nothing is joined up.

'There is no-one to co-ordinate schools' strategies now. No-one working to ensure consistency, no-one left to advise schools, management teams, and teachers. It's a nightmare for everyone concerned.'

This thread has been a real revelation.

How about if schools which are providing downloads/ worksheets and timetables for classes could put them on an open access area of their website, so people whose schools are not providing work can use them too. Would that work?

How about if schools which are providing downloads/ worksheets and timetables for classes could put them on an open access area of their website, so people whose schools are not providing work can use them too. Would that work?

It might be worth checking websites of other local primary schools - all the work we have set is on the website under home learning, anyone can access it

There isn't a neat, one size fits all answer.
I have two DCs in the same primary school. Teacher A is young with a few years experience, has one young child. The format of the work set has been more accessible than from Teacher B is older so presumably less tech savvy from the way that information has been set. I can tell that it's been done from home from the background of photographed workbook pages. They will also be supervising their two teenage children.

I'm giving feedback on the DCs work as I go.
Fortunately the DCs have access to a laptop each, but that's because of DS1's dyslexia and dyspraxia. I'm focusing on selecting and adapting tasks that he finds accessible plus working at a pace that is tolerable with his ASD.

@colouringpencils you could do that yes but the staff might not be in school. My school is a big 3 form entry primary, we have between 7-30 pupils coming a day so we are on a rota to be in school. I did my days last week and this week, as it stands I'm not due back in school until 12th May! So staff may not be there, I wouldn't worry about things been marked and checked - the best you can do for your children is keep them fit and healthy, get out on those walks or Joe wicks (if they haven't got bored yet), teach them real life skills and education will be there when the world comes back to normal.

Many parents were taught differently, I didn't learn to read through phonics yet I teach it daily, but so many parents are not confident to actually teach new concepts. I would focus on mental arithmetic (depending on your child's age?), spelling patterns, creative writing (again depends on the age! Keep it simple if KS1) and reading for pleasure! I have 7 packs that weren't picked up from my class and I doubt they will be now but I also put it on the school website. I don't expect to see what the children have been doing - work completed at home will be very different to being back at school. Think of it as at home they have you like a 1:1 they will go back to school and it will be back to 1:30 or 2:30 with a ta! Don't stress too much, like I say PM me if you like and if I have anything to help I will!

White rose maths are also doing lessons each day from next week which are fantastic for each year group! most important thing is your child is happy and healthy!

Schools are struggling for staff - some are off ill, some will be self isolating and some will be shielding due to either themselves or someone in their house being on the vulnerable list. Add in some staff being used for childcare for key workers and it's completely understandable that they are not providing a full time table. Also many will Also have their own children to look after,

This isn't a normal situation,

I would also imagine that it's a very difficult time to teach as not every child has regular (if any) access to the internet. Many homes will not have the technology to allow multiple kids access to lessons while also perhaps still working from home themselves.

Add in that many children are struggling with this situation and sadly a number of children will he dealing with a loved one being very ill or sadly have died and all of a sudden formal education doesn't seem quite as important,

Schools are going to have challenging times ahead - possibly more so when the kids do
Go back more so than now as they will have to catch kids up.

We are choosing to dip in to classes - my kids are struggling in different ways with the current situation and me getting stressed about their education doesn't help. They will catch up.

I'm not a teacher and I struggle to help them, especially my eldest, with certain subjects

How about if schools which are providing downloads/ worksheets and timetables for classes could put them on an open access area of their website, so people whose schools are not providing work can use them too. Would that work?
Not all schools are teaching the same material at the same time and there's no guarantee that each school has the same topics.

For example, one school's Y3 (picking random year here) spring topic could be rivers, but another school's spring term topic might be ancient Egypt.
Another school might be doing shape in maths, whilst the school 10mons away is doing multiplication and division.

For the vast majority of schools even following the national curriculum is optional. Many will still follow it, but they don't have to.

The ridiculous thing is that we have a National Curriculum in England. How hard could it be for some joined up thinking between DfE and BBC to produce some high quality materials useable by all children?
Oh yes, there aren't really many people left in the DfE any more, are there?
I wonder why that is?

www.senecalearning.com/
www.khanacademy.org/

Are both free sites that have relevant work on them - khan academy is US site but they are both on-line.

I will also be seeing what the BBC provide next week.

I'm more worried about my yr10 - and some of her teachers have been fantastic - than my yr 6 at primary who I do feel I just have to keep ticking over with the basics much more.

The ridiculous thing is that we have a National Curriculum in England
We do, but not all schools have to follow it because they are academies and free schools.

I know academies have some leeway, but I don't actually know of any that don't follow the NC.

Also, for all the years that have national testing of some form, there is immediately a subset of the curriculum that must be known by all children to get through the testing.

@LolaSmiles but if my school is not teaching at all, does it really matter whether I download the worksheet on Space or Vikings?

I know academies have some leeway, but I don't actually know of any that don't follow the NC.

There are a great many who don’t offer Computing/Computer Science anymore even at Key Stage 3 (which also means discrete ICT type lessons too) sadly.

Really Chloe? That's appalling.

but if my school is not teaching at all, does it really matter whether I download the worksheet on Space or Vikings?

Yes. Because if you download Space when your schools doing Vikings, your kids will never get to do Vikings. Then they'll have to do space twice.