Why can private schools manage it?

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I am aware there has been a lot of teacher bashing going on so I will ask for no teacher bashing or generalisations of a whole profession. But I wanted to ask with regards to teaching via zoom or similar specifically about the safeguarding element , I am aware not every child has access to the internet etc, why private schools manage to teach via zoom with no issues why there is such a safeguarding risk doing it with state schools? Genuine question.

@TheGreatWave any computer at all! We have many families where there is no computer or laptop. Just the parent with a phone and 4g. We have many, many families in this position.

Not school, but I'm in Guiding, we have to have two adults from our organisation in attendance of the zoom meeting. Safeguarding.

So I would also assume that in less controlled (possibly) situations it would be difficult because teachers would be even further stretched. Never mind the kids whose parents would force then to join in and might not be able to be 100% present themselves, who then may cause trouble.

And, having been on zoom with Guiding both for adult meetings and the usual kids sessions, it's a nightmare and I don't see how it would work unless they're was maybe five students maximum.

🌷🌻 for all the school staff out there.
My Ds's state school have been using live lessons for some subjects and not others, they are instructed to turn their cameras off at the start of the lesson having been told how to do it in advance. Regardless of how the lesson is delivered the quality has been uniformly good and I can5 fault their teachers.

Can5 should be can't of course !

Our school doesn't use Zoom. Microsoft Teams with the camera off.

I know kids learn in different ways, but for my y9s learning online/books is not a patch on having a teacher/tutorial/video lesson- they say it sinks in with a teacher (unsurprisingly).

Are those who have video lessons more advantaged? I'm worried at 6th form that those from private schools will be so far advanced that their GCSE grades will be far higher and that they will secure sixth form places at grammars ahead of state schi pupils.

My friend teaches at a small.independent school in Spain and is delivering video lessons, but only 6 in a class. He says they're all worried re the future of the school.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
I had to buy my own laptop for my school work, but we still only have 2 laptops between 3 of us, and my work takes priority, so my children would miss out on live lessons. They can catch up when I don't need it for teaching.
I've spent recent days having long meeetings about grading. I can't live teach at the same time as that so good preplanned lessons that pupils can attend to when they can access a device are preferable.

DS and DD in private schools.

DS's are sending pre recorded videos and also running onlne chat with a teacher available. Its all done through google classrooms. He's in year 3

DD is getting a full timetable through Microsoft Teams. She's in year 9.

Both schools decided not to use Zoom for safe guarding reasons

DragonBoobs I'm surprised it is so low then, a lot of people don't bother with laptops now and just use a tablet.

I have a dd in year 9 who is having full online school and live lessons for some, not all, subjects. Other lessons set work, they have pen enabled tablets so work is corrected and marked very quickly. Online register everyone has to attend lessons and assembly.

It's hard to see how she can't be advantaged as the local state is doing very little, or lots of emails and worksheets so pupils can do them or not, a lot just aren't bothering. I'm not sure what the answer is though.

I think because of pressure from parents rather than because they think it is the best way for children to learn. Also as people have said , much greater take up of lessons from pupils for a whole range of reasons. Less money for technology. Number of staff in many schools, knowledge and skills of staff.

I'm worried at 6th form that those from private schools will be so far advanced that their GCSE grades will be far higher and that they will secure sixth form places at grammars ahead of state schi pupils

Don't they anyway?

Cannot speak for other schools or children.

DC was on Google classroom 8:40-4:15 from the Monday of lockdown. The school follow the exact timetable; right down to assembly, Headmaster's daily message and PE.

We have teachers that the children can see actually giving lessons, children doing experiments eg physics, children using chat to "raise their hand" and going on mic to ask their question.

We were offered a fee discount, but we are in a fortunate position so have waived that and it's going in a hardship fund.

School reviewed its approach during the Easter vacation and made tweaks so no need to print things and stuff for lesson is posted by 6pm the preceding day.

No complaints here. It's never going to be as good as real school, but it's a bloody excellent substitute.

Cuts have been made in state schools for 10 years now - the fat to be trimmed is long gone. Now heads are trimming away the muscle - teachers and other staff trained and qualified to work with children in these unforeseen circumstances.
I’d say in my school that this has an impact on the children as class teachers take on the full admin load of the changes (managing the IT upgrade, distributing passwords, providing IT support to parents, following up non responsive families) as well as providing the actual education.
We’ve talked about using Google meet-up in our state primary, not because we believe it to be better educationally, but to provide a more social experience for the children, and it may happen in the future once we are up and running with the new system. However again the poor pupil/ teacher ratio counts against us (1 teacher to 33 8 year olds anyone?), and makes it very time consuming to create groups of a size that make it actually useful. And we have to be mindful that about a third of children could not access these sessions, much higher if they were held regularly , due to other reasons mentioned by many other posters.

Schools which have been able to invest long term in keeping no of pupils per teacher down, have good in house IT support and a team of admin staff who could be redeployed on hand will of course find it easier to adapt to the change in circumstances than my school.

My private school has no ‘vulnerable’ children, no EHCPs, and few key worker children, so we’ve hardly had to have staff in schools to babysit. Some friends who are state teachers have been on a rota in school, how can they be teaching live lessons if they are doing that?

We have no children eligible for FSM, so have not had to spend time sorting that. Some state schools have been delivering food parcels, those who haven’t have had an admin nightmare with vouchers. Again, this takes priority over live lessons.

When school closed, a few children in my class had new laptops bought for them that week. The others already had one. Not all state school kids have this.

My very fast broadband failed on me on a live call last week. Most state school families won’t be paying as much as I do for internet, and therefore it will be even less reliable.

Plus, it’s simple. We have asked parents to pay almost full fees. A few worksheets uploaded on to an online portal doesn’t justify those fees. Parents want to see what they’re getting.

In my opinion, live calls aren’t always the best way anyway. I’ve quietly not been using them much as I think directing students to online videos for maths works better than me trying to explain with no whiteboard and my iPad propped up on books filming me!

Yes, there is a safeguarding element. I teach primary girls and feel the chances of them doctoring the video to humiliate me online are low. If I worked in a secondary achool I’d feel differently.

TSSDNCOP ours is similar. I've been really impressed.

I think directing students to online videos for maths works better than me trying to explain with no whiteboard and my iPad propped up on books filming me

Maths is one of the few lessons which isnt live. It works much better with work done at the pupils own pace, dd prefers this anyway

@Querlouse I'll tell you something else, the fact that DC and the room they are in can be seen means the child and the room are super-clean and tidy. I wouldn't put it past one of DC's teachers to run a virtual white gloved finger round my dado rails

Ds is private school year 6. He learns from google classroom. It’s mostly pre set or pre recorded work, and is quite a high quality standard. They have a google meet form tutor time 3 x week, and his “extra” speech and drama lesson is on Zoom - which I’m not particularly happy about. There is a strict code sent out to parents and pupils about safeguarding on live meetings, appropriate behaviour/ dress etc

I wouldn't put it past one of DC's teachers to run a virtual white gloved finger round my dado rails
THat made me snort

I wouldn’t be worried about white gloves teachers.

I got a shock the other day when I thought a scary middle aged woman was stood behind one of the kids on his computer during a lesson.

Turned out to be a mirror.

Poor kids share bedrooms 50 kids in my school have no fixed home so no wifi or laptops
these kids are not eating properly as not getting free school meals either
They are already behind in their school work and life chances so why make it worse by giving all their peers extra lessons??

I have been very impressed with the provision in my dc's school (private).

Full timetable with two tutorials a day for each child ranging from yr 6 to yr 11. They are using Microsoft teams and it is working very well.

But children have their own laptops so a lot easier than for a lot of families.

This is why no school is just do worrying for so many children.

I think that teachers are doing a great job but definitely in the private sector there is pressure to provide a good service when you are paying £££ with only 10% discount in our case.

I don't expect live lessons (secondary, year 7), but I would love it if teachers could pre-record and upload a 10-min video, explaining the concept/topic/exercise and then the child does the work independently (as now) following this. At the moment, it's like death by worksheet, and DS is starting to find it very monotonous.