Is school being unreasonable?

[CinnabarRed]

Background:

• 3 DCs aged 12, 10 and 8. All go to the same school (private).
• I’m a single parent. XH pays the DCs school fees, which I couldn’t come close to affording.
• XH is a very good, hands on father and has the 50% of the time. The way our arrangement works means that during lockdown I home-school the DCs on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays.
• XH has married again - the DCs’ step mum is truly lovely, and has two older DCs of her own (17 and 14) that my DCs really like.
• I work full time, currently from home obviously. I only started my job in February, so haven’t built up the capital/trust that I had in my old job. It’s demanding, and I have a team to manage remotely and keep occupied.

The school has mandated that, from the start of term on Monday, all three kids must be on separate Teams meetings from 8:20am until 4:45pm for live lessons, with full parental participation throughout. I only have two laptops, including my work one, so will have to give the third DC my work phone to access Teams. My rural WiFi isn’t great, so I have no idea how three live streams simultaneously will work.

The DCS are following their existing timetables, which include exercise time, but none of them back exercise scheduled at the SAME time so I can’t take them out for a walk during the day.

The DCs can’t be in their bedrooms for safeguarding reasons, but do have to be in separate rooms. I’ll have to put one in the kitchen, one in the living room but then I run out of non-bedroom rooms and so will have to somehow create suitable space on the landing. I don’t know how yet.

The school has effectively wiped out my ability to work for three days out of five. I’ve explained to the school that this won’t work for me, and that keeping my job and a roof over our heads has to be my priority sometimes - they couldn’t have been less sympathetic. In fact, I have to provide a written explanation daily for any lessons missed.

I can see that their proposals would be great for their more typical family set up - one or two children, dad working from home, mum not working and able to help. But I just can’t see how I can possibly keep going like this.

This is ridiculous.

Write them the same letter every day - in fact, don't. Tell them to fuck off.

You're paying for the privilege - tell them they need to magic up 2 more laptops and a personal virtual teacher for each of the kids.

The most important thing right now is that your kids are safe and cared for and it sounds like you are doing an excellent job with that. Just keep doing what you're doing and the school will have to suck it up, they don't get to throw their weight around like this during a crisis.

That's insanity. You won't be the only parent unable to comply with their demands.

School are being completely unrealistic. There must be other parents in similar situations? How are the teachers who have small children at home going to teach online all day?

It’s making my cry, I’m so stressed and upset. I was actually just about coping until now, but the school is close to tipping me over the edge,

I know we’re lucky in that I still have my job and we’re all healthy.

But the stress of trying to work full time, in a new job, and home-school, and keep the household running with no other adult to help share the burden, and the loneliness when the DCs are with XH - I’m breaking.

I'm a teacher. They are being utterly ridiculous and failing in their duty of care to your family. I'd be writing a strongly worded email about their lack of flexibility and completely unreasonable expectations.

And you are paying fees for this? They are being totally unreasonable!

Oh Jeez.

What is the situation tech wise at your ex's? Can you find 3 laptops between you (leaving you with one for work) that can travel between your homes?

I also wouldn't have them in seperate rooms if you can't do it, just try and get them sitting a reasonable distance apart to cut down on feedback between the devices. Headphones or headsets would also help.

Write them an email in the morning of each day saying that they are set up and ready to go and you are now working until x time so not able to sit with them but they can give you a call if there are any issues they need you to help with.

To be honest. I think the school have said this to justify the fees.

I would just tell them that your broadband won’t support it and that your children will do regular sessions each week in core subjects but that’s it. So only have 1 or 2 of them logged on at once max. You need to be able to work and earn money.

Also this is shit and stressful so just do what works best for you, not what works best for someone else and makes you all miserable.

That's insane. We live rurally. Our WiFi is showing signs of strain. It copes fine with one Skype/facetime/zoom stream, but starts to freeze if two people try to do something like that simultaneously. ... Or even use something like Netflix at the same time.

Schools need to be realistic.

They are definitely doing this so parents don’t start asking for refunds for the time their children weren't being educated in school.

It's utterly ridiculous. They cannot expect everyone to have the set up for this. A computer for every child plus multiple reception rooms and a parent who doesn't need to be working on another computer whilst all this is going on?

Why can't they be in their bedrooms? What is the safeguarding reason? (Sorry if I'm being thick lol)

That’s insane. There’s no way I would be able to supervise that-I’m a teacher myself we only have one laptop and I will be teaching from home, using that laptop from tomorrow.

Sadly at the moment a lot of independent schools are having to justify their existence in order to carry on charging fees. My friends who still work in private schools are mega stressed by the parental pressure that has then been transferred onto SLT and therefore the classroom teachers.

We’ve been told in our state secondary school that we should only be doing a maximum of one live online lesson per subject per week and have been explicitly told not to expect all pupils to be able to attend all live online lessons due to personal circumstances. I’ve been recording mini explanations of activities and putting them on google classroom alongside written instructions so they can access it at anytime during the day.

🌷don't be upset, be angry! Don't allow their idiocy to drag you down!!

What an absolutely ridiculous bunch of demands!

However, I do think they all need their own laptops. Can ExDH help with that?

I also think they each need to comply with their own teacher/timetable and you'll have to go for a walk outside of school hours. Do you have a garden for their PE breaks?!

What does your EX DH say about it?

Is any of that possible at his house? Could he have them in the week & you have weekends & half term?

If that doesn't work then write (another) letter. Be very firm that there will be an adult at home, but that adult will be working.

Just set the kids up where you can (put them in bedrooms if that suits you, just put them where you can't see the beds 🤷🏻‍♀️ Tell them if they're asked to say they're in the 'study' (it IS for now!!)

Get Ex DH to send it/sign it.

I find them to be 100 years behind the times & the husbands word carries far more weight. 🙄🙄

Can XH or school help with a laptop, you have to prioritise your work. Put headphones on them and set them up in the kitchen, maybe with one outside in the garden (close to house). If you need wifi though for video conference during day they need to come off teams. I would start with the premise that your work laptop is the priority and go from there.

Is it actually your laptop or one from work? If it is a work laptop obviously the school can have no access, if not a work laptop would you be able to borrow one from work?

I think I'd try to buy two more laptops (see if your ex can help). But push back completely at the suggestion that you should be around all the time. Tell them you are in call for emergencies, and will check in on the kids every hour or so, but expect the school to do what you're paying them for and teach them. Three video chats at once probably will overstrech your WiFi. If they can do it via just the audio that may help. You will not be there only family with two working parents - the large majority of women with secondary aged children work.

I think they are trying to justify the fees too, many smaller private schools don't have huge cash reserves and are now facing some year 11 and 13 parents not wanting to pay the term's fees now exams are cancelled, parents losing work and unable to manage fees. My DC's schools are doing similar and TBH it works well for us (DH out of the house working and me WFH) and I really appreciate them keeping my DCs busy all day. But both schools require laptops and do a lot of online work normally so it has been an easier transition. They have not specified parent participation at all (mine are older though). You need to tell them this is totally unreasonable for your circumstances, register them in the morning and just do what you can, you won't be the only one with these problems.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52341596

Our school has the children online all day in full school. However they're both secondary.

Ignore it for now for the 8year old and the ten year old and tell them you simply don't have the laptops and can they lend you a couple. Until they make the laptops available your primary children will not be able to do online schooling on those days.

Then stick them all in the same room. Mine have been sitting here with me at the dining room table and we are all working at the same time (with headphones on where necessary).

They are just trying to put structure in place and that's a good thing but they do seem to think all members of the household are at school. our school sent out a long booklet about how school would work including a rule that all members of the household must be fully dressed ready or registration at 8.30 every day. Not a chance that I'm getting out of my PJs for the school! I left school many years ago!

Pressed send too soon.

Coronavirus lockdown: Laptops offered for online school lessons at home.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52341596

You can’t not work for 3 days a week so 8-12 year olds can be online for almost 9 hours. I imagine the school are being arsey to justify their fees so maybe a counter attack would be to say “please justify your fees by providing work via email for my child to engage with while I work from home on the family laptop”

If they miss lessons, then do what they ask as write in to say why. “Jack missed French and maths and biology as I was using the laptop for work. Helen missed drama as I was unable to supervise as I was supervising matilda’s PE lesson”

I wouldn’t worry about not being allowed in the bedroom, just make sure the camera is pointing at a neutral space like a blank wall.

Maybe go through your dcs timetable and decide what the most important lessons are, come up with a schedule that allows one child to be in ‘school’ at a time and forget about the rest. You might be able to get them to have the majority of maths, English and science and submit your excuses for pe, drama, dt, art etc where a virtual approach isn’t really a substitute. When it comes down to it the live lessons may not fill she whole time and maybe more of a 5 min intro and get on with your work type thing.

You will not be the only one. Huge numbers of people are still working and most people don’t have spare laptops and loads of empty rooms. Many people will have very small children to supervise and people need to do things like shop for food. Quite a lot of people are also ill and/or in mourning too.

Yes this is to stop parents claiming refunds. They are terrified they’ll go bust, with good reason, but they are going about it badly.

Their demands are SO unrealistic however I would question whether they are badly communicated? Depends how much time you want to spend discussing this with them.

Having read several discussions on here about schools and remote teaching I have formed the opinion that many folk think that education is somehow not supposed to be affected at all by this situation.

Simply considering the teachers’ side of it (they are supposed to be simultaneously live teaching AND providing childcare for key workers) starts to show up how ludicrous this idea is.

Then you only need to read some parents’ discussions complaining about the impossibility of them being able to both work AND supervise their kid’s remote schooling to realise the ridiculousness of it all.

The other parents I’ve spoken to are actually very happy with the arrangements and fully supportive of the proposals - they think, rightly, that school is better at teaching than they are.

We (or rather XH, he pays!) have been given fee discounts of 20% for Y7 and 30% for Y5 and Y3. I actually think that’s very reasonable of the school. I guess most of their costs are fixed but some costs will reduce (school lunches, field trips not happening, insurance, electric) but not by much.

They’re doing their best, and for most families it will be an improvement. Just not for single parents like me who work.

Great idea to talk to XH about laptops. He had a chromebook that should work better than my work phone. (For those who asked, I have a private laptop and my work laptop - my work supports Teams so no issue there.)

My 12 year old is accessing his work through TEAMS independently, so if you can, I would let your 12 year old get on with that.

However, my 8 year old is only doing around 2/3 hours of actual schooling (not including creative things, playing with toys or music) as that is all that is really required at this age.

If they want the children on devices that you do not have, they need to supply the devices. Have any other parents said anything?

FWIW I suspect that the school will soften up on this after they realise how hard it is to fulfil these requirements. It doesn’t matter how rich and well equipped they think the kids are, for example- if the broadband isn’t up to scratch there is nothing anyone can do about this right now.

I work in a secondary school (state) and the school have lent out laptops to families who didn't have one/enough.

They should be doing their best to help and support you and your dc here.