A week in the life of a teacher in lockdown.

[Goatinthegarden]

I’m a primary teacher in Scotland. I have no children of my own and my husband is working from home 8am-6pm so I have no distractions other than to do my job from home. I have a class of 24 7-8 year olds who are currently being homeschooled.

Let me tell you a bit about what my working week looks like at the moment.

Each day I get up between 5am and 6am to get lessons prepped and up online before 9am. Honestly, there are loads of great resources just now, so planning is not too hard, but we’re having to source things that ALL parents can do at home with their kids, things that require little instruction and limited resources. I can’t pull things from my usual lesson plans because they don’t fit home learning. I am trying really hard to think of fun and creative activities I know my families will enjoy doing together. I’m usually done by 8:30am so I shower and have breakfast. By 9am kids start communicating so I spend about an hour or so replying to them. They message at different times throughout the day, often until gone 7pm. I get alerts on my phone and I try to reply as immediately as possible wherever I am.

I’m usually at home for two full days a week. On these days, I’m recording and editing videos and designing interactive classrooms. This is all new technology to me, but I’m quite creative and tech savvy. I enjoy doing this, same goes for some of my other colleagues and we spend time sharing ideas. Some of my colleagues cannot use this technology and find it upsetting that we are ‘showing them up’ which is a whole other problem. In between, I do other parts of my job, still communicating with CAMHs, Barnardos, Social Work and various other agencies. However, these days are quite chilled. I’ll probably still be on my computer until 6pm-ish, but like I said, I have no other distractions, it’s fairly relaxed.

One day a week, along with three other colleagues, I drive to my local authority HQ at 11am and pick up food parcels. We’re out delivering until 5pm. It’s a chance to speak to our vulnerable kids and see how they are doing. These parents often need other help, resources and advice, so I go home with a follow up to-do list. Whilst away from my computer, I spend time in my stationary car, between deliveries, replying to my online kids via an app on my phone so they can have instant interaction during their school day.

Another day each week, I go into school and make packs of paper resources, pencils, reading books, etc. This takes several hours. I then go round delivering them to families who are not engaging with our online resources. Some families are grateful for these and some not so much. Some kids won’t touch them, I can’t really enforce that, it is down to the parents. Nevertheless, I am ensuring that my pupils know I care about their education and that they have resources they can access. I chat with each of the kids for a bit. I’m usually home by 6/7 pm.

One day a week, I work at one of city’s schools for key worker’s children. No children from my school go here. I’m in an unfamiliar school, with unfamiliar children trying to keep them all two metres apart. It doesn’t work by the way. I get touched, they touch each other. We muddle through the day spraying everything with various disinfectants. No one has ever given me any PPE. These shifts are either 8am-1pm or 1pm - 6pm. All other online interaction is maintained throughout.

In between all of that, I also have long running conversations via email with parents who are really trying hard with home learning and need various individual support and advice. I’m also asked by parents to do things for their children, write a personalised letter, give them a phonecall etc. We are NOT allowed to have video meetings but I can send video messages. I reply and comment on submitted work until 7pm each night and then, I switch off until the next morning.

I genuinely enjoy doing all of this. It’s keeping me busy in a horrible situation. I’m lucky that I have valid reasons to get out and about. In many ways, it is much easier than my normal teaching job... but I am also not sat on my arse doing nothing. I am lucky to be in good health, but I do worry about being a spreader. Some of my colleagues cannot do these things because they are shielding and/or not tech savvy. I know that they feel bad about this and it is adding collegiate difficulties to our workload.

I don’t really know why I decided to share this... the teacher bashing goes over my head most of the time because I know MY parents appreciate what I do for them. I guess maybe I just wanted to share with the ‘bashers ’ that actually, even though you might not see all of what we do, some of us are really just trying to do our best for your children.

Yes some are. Others not so much...

Thank you for all that you do. I've got an 8 yr old at home in Scotland and his teacher is also working hard.

It's really good you're doing all this, and I hope it helps people who are saying all teachers are doing nothing.

Also to help clarify things for some of the teachers who are working flat out and don't understand why some parents are so upset... At our 'outstanding' school, with 3 forms per year and only a handful of key worker kids in, so quite a few teachers to go around, we have had for our 7 year old:

• Until end Easter holidays: links to BBC website, Twinkl and a few others free websites for French and music and that is it. No guidance etc at all.
• Emails from each teacher to the whole year group once a week.

After Easter holidays:

• Link sent to Oak Academy for the week (all covering material previously done)
• Link to 1 or 2 specific BBC Bitesize links per week
• One video message for each class per week
• Two challenges to do over 2 weeks, both including levels. We can email them back to the school by June and will apparently get feedback 🤷🏼‍♀️

DH and I have been working in shifts from 6am to 10-11pm to keep both our jobs while caring for and trying to educate 4 kids from toddler to KS2. The lack of support has been so hard.

I am on the side of teachers about not rushing back to school, and I know many have been working so hard, often while trying to care for their own children. But it's also very hard for those of us who are also very frustrated with the provision so far to be tarred with the 'teacher bashing' brush.

This is an excellent representation of the unseen stuff teachers do. Well done for highlighting it! You're doing a great job.

Mine is similar to yours, except I have to upload my lessons for the week ahead on a Sunday (and I don’t have to get up quite so early!)

You sound like a good teacher.
We’ve had links to oak, twinkle and bitesize in the first week and then told the teachers don’t have email addresses we can contact them on.
Some teachers are working hard and doing a great job, others have completely wiped their hands of their classes.
I fail to see what my DC’s teacher is doing right now. She’s not marking, nor communicating, nor setting work. She doesn’t have her own children and the school closed to key worker kids so is not there either. The caretaker is delivering FSM so not there either. Parents are allowed to be frustrated at shit provisions but you are absolutely correct that not all schools/teachers are treating this as a holiday.
I’m sure you’re angry that you are working so hard and yet tarred with the brush of those failing to pull their weight in this situation.

@Ricekrispie22 I don’t have to get up so early, I just do in the light mornings. I prefer that to working til really late, or doing Sundays!

@Stuckforthefourthtime sorry, I didn’t really think about the frustration from parents where teachers have gone awol. It’s such a hard time because we have been issued very few instructions and what we do is coming off our own backs I guess. Like lots of people working from home, we’re not being held to account in the same way that we would be under normal working conditions. I do have colleagues who have kids and are struggling to keep up....and I have colleagues who are doing very little because they are getting away with it... I guess you get that in all professions? Luckily they are few and far between, but it doesn’t help the families that have them.

I don’t want to be thanked or told I’m amazing, I really am doing it because I love it and I want to keep busy. I just find the bashing a bit demoralising.

Thank you for your post in highlighting that teachers have not been at home during lockdown doing nothing
My husband is a Maths Teacher who is currently having to self isolate for 12 weeks and he has got up everyday to do a full days work
The same applies for the summer holidays, teachers do not have this whole time off, my husband continues to prep for the next years work, exams, marking etc

I am so fed up with people saying teachers have all these holidays without realising we are lucky to get anytime off together due to the sheer volume of work he has to do during these times

Teachers are expected to do so much more than educate and the abuse they take from students and parents leave my husband mentally exhausted and stressed so thank you for highlighting

My kids secondary school have honestly amazed me. From the very first day of lockdown, both kids (year 8 and year 10) have had plenty of work to be getting on with. They each have at least one virtual lesson a day and lots of structured set work and homework. We as parents are kept up to date via email and text messages.
I've emailed the school to thank them for everything they've done.

My son is in the age group you teach and provision seems to vary a lot, from what you've said.

We get a few worksheets uploaded into the school website every week, and reading is done via a website.

We've had one full class video meeting since this all started and no video lessons. The topic work is immensely dull.

It's not great to be honest. I've just taught my son stuff we're both interested in.

This is an interesting post. I have been in touch with my DC’s school to say how impressed I am with both teachers (I have a P2 and a P4).

The P2 teacher has had a steep learning curve in terms of using digital platforms but she has embraced it and adapted. She has the challenges of working with her own children at home too.

The P4 teacher loves tech and has been setting work on various platforms from the start. She also works in a different school with key workers’ children one or two days per week.

We have a virtual playground, class google meet ups, video clips from most staff, including PSAs and office staff, basically lots of interaction on top of the daily assignments. The school asks for weekly feedback and has acted on it. Really impressed and thankful, especially when I hear about the differences with some teachers/schools elsewhere.

@Goatinthegarden that's all that any of the teachers at the school are doing. Apparently it's so that nobody is disadvantaged if their parents can't help with learning at home, but the reality is that the most privileged kids are just doing loads of their own work at home while the disadvantaged fall further behind. Meanwhile we hear nothing, and do start to wonder what the teachers are spending their days doing, outside of their one (or zero) days rostered on with key worker kids.

Fully appreciate its not all or even most teachers, but it's a significant chunk. If they do want us to stay home to September we need a ton of improvement to Oak to make it a true home school, or more support from teachers like you.

I am really pleased with the provision for my year 8 child. He has been getting on with his normal school work through TEAMS, although I don't think he is getting much feedback.

My y4 child is given a list of websites to access during the week. That is it 😔. She has had no phone call from any member of staff and only gets occasional emails. We have chosen to follow bbc bitesize instead.

Thanks for that really interesting insight Goatinthegarden

My DS's school is more like stuckfortheforthtime's I think.

List of tasks and an email once a week.
Uploaded work not always marked or aknowledged.

I'm kind of not bothered though. I feel like its given us permission to go off piste a bit and do our own thing.

I do look at the tasks that come in on Monday and pick out the ones that seem relevant and helpful. Sometimes this is not much because DS is quite badly behind and just not capable of some of what has been set.

Appart from that, I have him do Reading Eggs, Teach your Monster to Read, memorising times tables and sometimes some shop-bought workbooks.

Then for "fun", I've signed him up for some classes on Outschool. So he can pursue things that interest him but might not be covered in the school curriculum.

I'm not always 100% confident I'm doing the right things but he does seem to be taking in some information and improving a bit. Albeit not in the particular skills the school have asked him to practice.

Theres a lot of resorces out there if you look.

I'ma bit at posters who seem to have really developed ideas on education but also claim to be unable to acess support without a lot of handholding and direction from their childs teacher.

It has more the flavour of customers complaining about a service than parents struggling in a pandemic.

I'm not defending anyone who is just being lazy, but there's a definite fear of upsetting parents by giving too much work. I know one teacher who is giving a skeleton amount of work out because that is what they are getting that from their child's school and thinks it is great.

I have another friend who's school imposed a fairly ridged regime with handing in and marking. The parents got together and emailed the school, asking them to back off.

I've tried to be a bit of a people pleaser and have gone with the option of putting up loads of different tasks and stressing to parents to only tackle what they want to. I then get piles of work back from some kids and nothing from others. The inequality is huge, but we have very little control over this. We will have to try and plug the gaps whenever we get back in to our classrooms.

It is interesting unlimiteddilutingjuice that you say there is a flavour of customers complaining about a service... I've always thought one of the best ways to be successful as a teacher in this age is to treat parents like customer. I don't necessarily think that it's right, but it stops all the firefighting and it makes it far easier to do the job of teaching children if you can keep all parents on side.

I have another friend who's school imposed a fairly ridged regime with handing in and marking. The parents got together and emailed the school, asking them to back off

Yeah. I sometimes think it would be nice to get a bit more interaction with the teacher...But if she did this, I would find it quite pressurising.

I've always thought one of the best ways to be successful as a teacher in this age is to treat parents like customer. I don't necessarily think that it's right, but it stops all the firefighting and it makes it far easier to do the job of teaching children if you can keep all parents on side

Yeah, I can defiantly see that. I find it kind of inappropriate to be acting like a disgruntled customer during a moment of national crisis though. I disaprove of it.

This is amazing and I can see you are doing a phenomenal job. I’m very happy with my dc’s secondary school which is setting daily lessons, with some feedback when work is submitted. My dc’s primary however had pretty much done nothing. Given a few links and random challenges. They will be the first to shout at the new y6’s If mock Sats results aren’t good enough ...

Theres a lot of resorces out there if you look

Thing is, we don't all have the time and resources to look through tasks, and 'go off piste', and many of us have fewer devices than children, or laptops that need to be shared with working adults, and struggle to supervise multiple dcs when there are younger toddlers around and/or we need to work.

I feel more like a 'customer' now after I've realised that we need to be our children's advocates, after a few years of trying not to make ripples and realising that my placid ds1 and DS2 with ASD were being vastly underserved by well-meaning but very overstretched teachers in the state system... And lockdown has exacerbated this, I am so concerned for the vulnerable young people who are going to be so badly hit by all this . Thank goodness for teachers like the OP who try to do so much more, but it's not sustainable for those teachers or the system - we need more in the way of resources regardless of covid, but especially right now, and once they have it, more standards around what schools can be expected to do.

Thing is, we don't all have the time and resources to look through tasks, and 'go off piste', and many of us have fewer devices than children, or laptops that need to be shared with working adults, and struggle to supervise multiple dcs when there are younger toddlers around and/or we need to work

Yeah definately. But the stuff that would actually alliviate that burden are all things that are impossible for the teacher to do.

They can't physically be in the room with our kids. They cant keep them on task. They can't check they understand.They can't be on hand to explain things when they get stuck.

They can set work, they can mark work and they can communicate with the kids/adults to a greater or lesser degree. None of that solves our basic problem of finding the time, resources and space to make them sit down and do something.

And it feels a little like mumsnetters are latching onto things that they feel would solve that problem, whether or not they actually would cough (Zoom meetings) cough

DS2 with ASD were being vastly underserved by well-meaning but very overstretched teachers in the state system... And lockdown has exacerbated this

Yes, this is the situation I'm in. ASD (and possibly ADHD) are the reason my DS is so far behind that the set work isn't relevant to him.

Hence seking out stuff more his level with Reading Eggs and Teach your Monster to Read.

But I do find the publicly available stuff less bother than dealing with the school. And I'm not very educated or engaged by mumsnet standards.

I agree with you about a lack of support at school. Its become increasingly obvious over lockdown that DS can only work with someione sitting right next to him, constantly redirecting his attention. And I've already been warned by the school that he won't be provided with a TA even with a diagnosis.

So, I don't know what the answer is. Several years of struggle to get what he needs within the system or pull him out now?

While I applaud you for everything you are doing (and posting this to illustrate that teachers are actually not doing feck all), why on earth are you replying to kids at 7pm??

I have a strict rule with my class - I will reply to any messages during school hours but if you message after that, it will be the next day before you get a reply and absolutely no contact at weekends (though of course I would be planning bits outside of those times). I would be driven insane if I tried to do the hours you are doing.

The Zoom meetings is an interesting one. Lots of parents seem to want us to put on a live stream show. Well, it’s use has been banned in my area now, so not possible. But prior to it’s ban, I did try to use it and just had a screen of kids wandering off doing other things. To use video teaching with little ones would require a parent sat at the other end of the screen keeping them sat still. Not ideal for anyone.

SionnachRua I’m replying via an app on my phone. Some children aren’t appearing until later and are posting their work later. I’m just trying to be flexible. Like I said, my job is currently much easier than it was before lockdown, I’m fitting in exercise in the middle of the day many days, I’m taking a lunch break, etc. It doesn’t take me much effort to send a response to a child, but it means a lot to them. I switch off at 7pm because that’s the time I’d normally get home at and start drinking wine making dinner.

Thank you for sharing. What a wonderful teacher you are!

I am happy with my dc's secondary school. It depend on each teacher how it's done, but some teachers has been wonderful. Giving my dc very encouraging feed backs for his work, responding to the question swiftly, etc.