Has anyone been happy with the home schooling provision provided today?

[MollysMummy2010]

Just that really. I have been very impressed with the provision - I think that the teachers must have spent a lot of time over Christmas preparing for this. Yesterday was a planned INSET anyway but at 9am today my daughter had a recorded English, maths and geography lesson ready and a live assembly on Teams. All the lessons were interactive and the teacher was available via messaging. She struggles a bit with maths and the teacher has scheduled a breakout with her tomorrow.

They have offered to provide laptops and internet if households are struggling with having to share devices or internet service.

I am so impressed with her far they have come since the last lock down and just wondered how other schools are doing?

(just found out science is live)

Small village primary. All seems good today except they’ve linked to Oak Academy for the maths this lockdown, which seems to be over complicated waffle and left my DD8 utterly confused.

Yes, very good here, reception age.

Thanks to all the teachers working hard to provide this and key worker provision.

As to teachers only being told a couple of days ago, my teacher friends were all preparing for online learning over Xmas, just in case, as they should have been, being professional people.

That's what I had assumed that all schools were doing. Seemingly not ours, though

My DC are Yr 11, year 9 & year 7. I'm happy with the provision.
I am a TA for year 6 and the 90 children at our primary have excellent provision.,

The expectations that has just been emailed to me in regard to the remote learning is so outrageously full-on I’ve just burst into tears. We are now so far removed from caring about the children’s mental health and well-being and seemingly all we now care about is turning home into school and cramming as much into home learning as possible.

I’ve no idea how I’m going to make this happen and I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I’m legally obliged to make it happen. All work including assignments have to be handed in by 4pm every day, completed to the same standard that would be expected at school.

Honestly I feel sick.

Two out of three of mine have had excellent provision (reception and year 12).

The year 10 provision seems fine.

Yes very impressed, live and pre-recorded lessons this time (state primary). A million miles better than last time.

Been really happy so far but DD says they've just been told its being cut back from next week - bit concerned as she's y10 though will see what that means. Govt have just announced should be 3-5 hours but I'm hoping it will be 5 lessons a day for y10 and y11 as its GCSEs. Previous lockdown it was 3 and if you didn't add to it yourself kids fell behind.

Nope. Year 4 here.

All work has been set on Google classroom which for reasons unknown we can't get to work for love nor money on DDs tablet. Schools response was "can we not just use a laptop". No as we don't have one.

I have some CGP books and they advised what pages to do. That took all of half an hour for her to do.

Then for art this afternoon they sent some YouTube links for videos to watch before doing your own version of whatever the task was. But the links weren't watchable on YouTube kids.

Waste of time.

No. One live 'lesson' and 3 worksheets on Google Classroom.

They repeatedly emphasised in the class that 'your parent is there to help you' - without checking whether there is any truth to this. I was on back to back work calls so that's a no.

I'm livid.

My DC’s primary school is much more organised than last time, at least so far.

DC1 & DC2 (KS2 and KS1) have had access to live online English and Maths lessons daily. Plus a live online PE lesson.
The school has also suggested timetables for each year group, with activities set daily using the online learning platform.
They’ve also listed alternative activities that can be done offline.

Yes.

Yr3 daughter starts the day with a live lesson, her teacher is then online for any queries and the children are all encouraged to do what they can without help but to submit everything they do attempt. It's less about being academically stretched and more about keeping them in the learning mindset which I think is perfectly age appropriate.

Yr9 daughter has a full normal timetable. First 20 minutes are live then remaining 40 minutes for actual work (except PE, that was 60 minutes live). They're to submit whatever has been completed at the end of the lesson, anything incomplete is still to be submitted but there's an expectation it will be done as 'homework'. So far only two classes have resulted in homework so I think the balance is about right.

@thismeansnothing the Google classrooms app is pretty bad compared with using it through Google Chrome...however having Google Docs and Slides as the app downloaded is better than using through Chrome. That's been our experience on DD1s tablet so thought it might help to share just in case it helps you.

Year 4. No live lessons. Today we've had a link to oak academy for English, a link to white rose for maths and a twinkle sheet for RE.

I'm not sure if live lessons would be better. I'm thinking of getting an online tutor.

Today there was a MS Teams Maths lesson followed by online tasks then the same for English. Teacher has fed back on the work already. There is a selection of topic work to pick and choose from for afternoons this week but I believe the afternoons will be more structured next week. Absolutely massive improvement from the last school closure. This is for year 6.

Secondary child has work provided but she is working on site with her TA keeping an eye on her as she has an EHCP. Her mainstream secondary school has been amazing throughout.

I've been very impressed with what my DD's school did today.

Struggling to find meeting links in time to attend 'lessons'; yr8 DS' whole class was on the wrong google meet at one point today. yr12DS had to click not-obvious metings. It feels like DSs are quietly falling entirely behind.

I nag but the 16yo needs more structure than I can provide.

That's what I'm doing mother, think the only way my daughter is going to get an education this year is if I finance it (twice, as I'm already a high earner and pay through tax)

I’ve no idea how I’m going to make this happen and I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I’m legally obliged to make it happen. All work including assignments have to be handed in by 4pm every day, completed to the same standard that would be expected at school.

You need to feed back to them. What happens for example in families with multiple children needing to access limited devices? DD's school has taken this into account and now they have all day until midnight to hand tasks in. Honestly I would email them and tell them this is impossible to do. You won't be the only one. Huge charges were made to the provision at DD's school because of parental feedback.

Secondary school here. The school already had provisions in place since September for children having to isolate/infected to access lessons via Teams. They saw it comining, hence giving them all their own books and arraning a laptop purchase scheme.

They moved fully online 8th December already as they had not enough staff on site to ensure safety and decent teaching. So they had several practice runs and while the original plans were re-written Monday evening DD had all her lessons live yesterday.

I can't fault the school at all, the head and teaching staff scrambled around finding ways to deal with the horrendous way the government changed their views on a daily basis. We were updated during the holidays and they made great provisions for vunerable children.

@HmmSureJan

I’ve no idea how I’m going to make this happen and I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I’m legally obliged to make it happen. All work including assignments have to be handed in by 4pm every day, completed to the same standard that would be expected at school.

You need to feed back to them. What happens for example in families with multiple children needing to access limited devices? DD's school has taken this into account and now they have all day until midnight to hand tasks in. Honestly I would email them and tell them this is impossible to do. You won't be the only one. Huge charges were made to the provision at DD's school because of parental feedback.

I stood in the foyer and cried. So I think that’s my feedback completed, lots more rational parents have indeed complained. The email we all received covering the home curriculum and expectations/rules was one of the most shocking things the school have done so far. And my god they’ve excelled themselves in this area over the years. I cannot wait until we’re free of them.

Year 12 dd has been working solidly online, in her normal lesson times, plus usual homework since Monday. She is engaged and happy, though still building her confidence in speaking to her classmates and teacher via teams. But very happy.

Ds year 2 has had a good amount of work sent and they want us to photograph daily what they have done. Its a mix of powerpoint presentations, bbc/youtube links. No actual printing required but you would need a decent tablet or laptop which we luckily have for each of us.

Am really impressed tbh, I am lucky that I have time to sit with ds and that dd is motivated to work. And that we have the resources to support both of them. With ds work, if a parent didn't have the devices school will print everything off for them.

Yes very happy. Secondary had 4 online lessons delivered by teachers and has been given homework. He is very reluctant to do it though but that isn’t the teachers fault. Think they’ve gone to a lot of trouble to do it. Primary is ok but not online yet and maths far too easy. There is a link to Oak ACademy for harder maths but is but is very convoluted. He refuses to do anything anyway!

@thefallthroughtheair

Yes, but DC in a very academic private school so I would expect nothing less. As to teachers only being told a couple of days ago, my teacher friends were all preparing for online learning over Xmas, just in case, as they should have been, being professional people.

Do you really think it's reasonable that primary teachers in e.g. tier 3 areas who were fairly sure they were going back to school should have planned two full sets of lessons over Christmas?

There's always people popping up on threads saying their primary hasn't had any cases, so in this case, assuming business as usual is pretty reasonable?

Equally, last term was absolutely awful for some teachers in some schools, and they desperately needed a break (which they don't get paid for, remember) to recover.

And of course, some teachers were very ill over the Christmas holidays...

There's always people popping up on threads saying their primary hasn't had any cases, so in this case, assuming business as usual is pretty reasonable?

Anyone who assumed any element of 'business as usual' post-Christmas is a fool. It was very clear that we were headed for another full national lockdown, the only question being when, not if.