Are kids not doing the home learning?

[WhoWants2Know]

I may be a little naive, but my kids schools have been ok with setting work and/or Skype lessons to keep things going. We've moaned about some of the work but mostly plodded along with it.

My oldest completed an end of year science assessment last week and the feedback after marking mentioned that 67 pupils had completed it and 141 had not.

My youngest attended a primary transition day and found that most of the kids in her bubble hadn't been bothering with the work.

I knew that some kids may not have access to the right technology or support to finish the work, but I was shocked at how many. Is this happening everywhere?

My 16-year-old did nothing once we heard there were to be no exams-- not a single lick of work or checking in with the amazing transition programmes that the teachers had so carefully crafted. I am livid but I cannot withhold food, and if I'd withheld the Internet, it would rather have defeated the purpose. Roll on sixth form.

As a secondary teacher I have found there’s a big divide. Luckily most of my pupils have good a good amount of the work set and some have done it all. However, there are others who haven’t done a tap since March despite trying to make contact with them/parents. All forms of communication have been ignored. There might be a few cases where pupils struggle to access technology, but this isn’t really a very good excuse because my school have offered to print out all the work for these pupils for parents to collect or post it out to them.

Some parents will have now experienced a little of what we're up against.

Yes, it makes 6 months stuck at home, thousands missing education, and 60k dead all worthwhile if "some" parents learn a greater appreciation of teachers.

I work with teachers. You are generally good at motivating children. It's what you do. Your specialism. Like a mechanic is good at taking apart a car engine and putting it back together and a hairdresser can do a better job of my barber than me. It's not at all the same. I expect a teacher to be able to motivate, engage, and teach not because they are martyrs but because it's their chosen career. And most do a bloody good job.

Out of the approx 400 students I teach only 60 of them have regularly handed in work online or emailed me a photo of the work so that they can receive feedback.

The school have provided weekly paper packs with all of the work required for each subject to students without appropriate Internet access and I'm sure some have completed the work without being in touch with me but the majority haven't. The pastoral team work hard to get them involved and engaged but I'm not seeing the work on my end.
Whatever work your children have completed will benefit them. I know that the students that have been engaged have received far better 1:1 feedback than I'd ever be able to give in a classroom setting.

@Evelefteden,
I said: " It's actually no skin off my nose now if your child has done zero work since mid-March. At Primary level, I will never teach them again, and their future school performance and attainment is beyond my ability to help."
How much work your child has or has not done does not change what I said. I don't need to speak for all primary teachers to state the fact that we don't tend to teach the same year group twice. It does happen from time to time, but as a general rule, that's the case.
I seem to have hit a nerve.

My kids are sat at the kitchen table all day but I can’t say they’re very productive. My eldest (y7) has loads to do but nothing gets marked or no feedback so she’s lost motivation a bit. We’re working from home and have a 3yr old so difficult to supervise the oldest two.

My year 6 son has not done much at all. He had ASD And ADHD and I can't supervise him with work. Partner and d I both been working full time. A mixture between home and office

@SueEllenMishke

I’m in very affluent south east London commuter belt

Everyone as far as I know been committed to home schooling

Have both parents been working full time while trying to homeschool?
Do you think less affluent areas aren't as committed?

In many cases, yes

Affluence tends to go hand in hand with both parents working in good well paying jobs
Or one very well paid and the other SAHM.
It’s a mix here but as we have gone up the school, the balance has shifted so more both working

[quote LilyPotter]**@Evelefteden,
I said: " It's actually no skin off my nose now if your child has done zero work since mid-March. At Primary level, I will never teach them again, and their future school performance and attainment is beyond my ability to help."
How much work your child has or has not done does not change what I said. I don't need to speak for all primary teachers to state the fact that we don't tend to teach the same year group twice. It does happen from time to time, but as a general rule, that's the case.
I seem to have hit a nerve.[/quote]
I think you’d like to think you have but that’s what happens when you generalise. My kids have actually done well up untill a couple of weeks ago. However they go to a fantastic prep school so I’ve no worries where they are at academically. And no worries about next year either. Sorry.

We completed work but we have heard nothing back from our teachers, or Head. No feedback etc. No live lessons, just repetitive worksheets. My daughter has handed in lots of work and it doesn't even get looked at by either her teacher or TA who are supposed to communicating via teams. So we've pretty much given up. My DD year 5 loves school, is quite a competitive child and homeschooling hasn't worked for her. She's lost all motivation but it hasn't helped that the school seem to have gone radio silent.

My son's school (year 8) has been so much better, live lessons, feedback, phone calls home from form tutors to check in with the kids, live tutor time every week, student newsletters we've had constant updates from the school. Therefore, my son's motivation is so much better and he has completed all work set.

Mine have done a fair bit, I've been pretty impressed with them (especially DS who has SEN). But DD has done absolutely nothing set by school - some of it was much too hard (she also has mild SEN, no diagnosis though), some frankly tedious (a map with an instruction to learn the names of the continents in Y1) and some impossible to set up without masses of research and materials.
DS got work packs from school (we would have been fine with the work they were setting, online, but he goes to a small specialist school and some families couldn't print stuff) and some videos (no live teaching, but it really helped him connect). We did things from them most weeks (it was the first few weeks that were the killer as we got nothing then).
Now they are both back part time. But I had to fill something in to say what we did with DD... was pretty quick to do!

Primary child here - done v little as I’ve been working part time, but it’s very intense so I then spend my days off recovering or doing some more work.

My year 8 DD has not missed a single day or bit of work set. My year 5 DD has managed a few pieces a week as we have had to leave them at home both working outside of home.
Had I been furloughed or WFH I could have supported more from youngest but I’m guilty of not pushing it as all our mental health is suffering. I know she is reading and we are doing lots of maths sheets but I cannot be fucked creating a squirrel habitat after a long stressful day.

@LilyPotter

I will point out though, that more than a few kids "can't" get motivated at school either. Fortunately for you, the teachers have to persist in getting them to do the work regardless.

You sound surprised that someone who has specifically trained for a job they want to do, and who presumably has specific knowledge of their subjects, and strategies to engage learners, obtains better results than someone who hasn't.

I know perfectly well my DC's teachers and support staff do a much much better job of educating my DC than I do, and I understand why they can do this and I am grateful for it.

Luckily they also understand this and haven't been superior and shruggy about it.

(I should say that the only way my two have done a reasonable amount is that, despite our more-than-0.5-contracts, DH and I have been working about 0.5 each).

My DD and DS have both (years 9 and 12) been set work following the usual lesson timetable for every school day. At first it was largely by email, but now there are quite a few live lessons too. They have to submit work, it’s marked and feedback is given as usual. Work has been varied, reading, essays, comprehension, use of apps for some subjects, actual art projects and some science experiments. They have had remote exams and assessments too. And end of year reports. It’s a state school and I think it’s been excellent. Both have engaged well and got on with the work.

I feel we’ve been so lucky, I haven’t had to do much nagging and very little actual teaching. I help out with the science experiments! I am working from home, we all sit at the dining room table, start at 9am. The school is now winding down for the summer holidays- DD was told to watch a film for German today, this is fine, it would happen if they were in school too. If they were primary age I would not have been in this position, I’d have had to prioritise my work over their learning.

ata I'd be very interested in how many of the families you know that have been able to be fully committed to homeschooling had a parent at home or one working part-time time.

All the families I know who have two parents working full time have really struggled to homeschool for hours a day. It's simply not possible - and household income is irrelevant.

My yr7 has attended all online lessons and come to me for queries but generally cracked on with her work.
My yr2 however is a different kettle of fish. She needs stimulation and works well for her teacher, has just got an exemplary report but homeschooling has been very difficult. Wfh means I haven't been able to sit with her all day and work through sheets, if left alone to read or do times tables she is easily distracted by anything. The constant battle to achieve anything has been so hard. I hope she is able to catch up next year.

You sound surprised that someone who has specifically trained for a job they want to do, and who presumably has specific knowledge of their subjects, and strategies to engage learners, obtains better results than someone who hasn't.

Of course I'm not surprised. How strange that you should derive that from my remark.

We've done 99% of everything set with both children, but I haven't got a clue what others have been doing.

Mine have done very little. I've been out at work most of the time and they've been in the care of their 16 yr old sister. Even if I could have got them a keyworker place, no work has been done there either, it's just childcare.

We've been doing one or two hours a day and are keeping it up through the summer holidays.
Reading Eggs, tt Roackstars, journal writing and the occasional Outschool lesson.
The school resources didn't work for us.
I'm the only one in my friendship group bothering. I think a lot of people set out with good intentions, maybe even overambitious, and burned out.

I have been working full time throughout...key worker half the week... university lecturer the other half. It has been tough. All our learning we t online overnight, we had to being forward theory blocks intended for later in the year etc...

I have done very little with my children. I can't teach inline and teach my children at the same time. When they have been at school the teachers haven't been allowed to teach them, lest they give them an advantage over non key worker children.

I am stressed to hell and desperate for a break. This has been an absolute killer for me. So no, my children haven't been home schooled, whatever that means.

redeye you have my absolute sympathy. I'm a university lecturer too and I'm completely exhausted ( and stressed) but still have so much marking and planning left to do.