My child’s primary school is not doing any online teaching

[Yandle]

My dd is in year 6. There are no online lessons with her teachers. We are sent links to the Oak National Academy website with tasks put on a very old fashioned database called “purple mash”.
After all my friends who have children at other local schools in my area, told me about their children having online lessons daily, I contacted the head at my dd’s school and asked if they would be doing online teaching.
The answer was a firm no.
The reason given was that the school has a large number of children who do not speak English as a first language.
I don’t think this is an acceptable excuse and I feel very annoyed that the school is using this as a reason. Surely the school should be doing MORE for these children?
My dd has been watching the videos & doing the very small amount of work set but I feel she is missing out (along with her peers) when my friends children are having live interactive teaching on Microsoft teams.
Is there anything I can do? I know I can’t make them teach online lessons but I can’t help thinking that other schools in my area who also have pupils who do not have English as a first language, manage to teach online. They obviously care more about their pupils.

I think your reason for wanting live lessons is unfair - the school isn't there to babysit.

Being honest, if your dc are old enough to attend live lessons on their own they should be old enough to understand they must leave you along for periods of time to work.

Scotland. None here either. “Privacy”

Private school along the road - three hours of live teaching

Austerity gap anyone?

It's the lack of real time interaction with the teacher if you don't have online lessons. They can send through all the tasks they want but it's just like going through workbooks. They need real input from their teachers.

My Year 5 hasn't had any yet just class dojo. It's ok but lacking in that area. I have tried asking the school but not got any clear answers yet...

Be careful what you wish for. I'm a primary school teacher. At the request of parents, we are keeping live stuff to a weekly social meet so that those who cannot access them are not missing anything educationally. Other than that doing a mix of pre-recorded lessons, white rose Maths (which we already used in class) work uploaded onto Purple Mash (which is neither a database nor old-fashioned ) and printed work for those who want it.

Today was the first day I was working from home as I've been in class so far, so I kept my kids out of school too to help limit numbers. Ipent the day logging in and out of different MS Teams sessions. DC using their iPads while I try to work on my laptop but the children can't see the shared screen if they are on the iPad so then one of them takes my iPad. Then it kept freezing while DH was trying to deliver lessons to his Year 11s on Teams upstairs. Not to mention the 30-odd messages on the parents WhatsApp about how they couldn't log on etc. Barely got any of my own work done so now I have to do it after the kids are in bed.

Made me long for the days in Spring when I could put them in front of an Oak Academy lesson and just check their work at the end.

Our primary isn't doing any live lessons and I didn't expect them to. DS is in Year 6. Two 45 min Zooms a week where they all say hello, talk about what they have been doing, maybe have a bit of a story or a quiz, but I wouldn't call them lessons. Then every day they have maths worksheets, writing tasks and a topic video to watch, all put on the school web site. I am happy with all that - it would be nice if the work could be marked or at least if they could consistently put the answers to the maths up on the web site so I could mark it, but I don't expect live lessons. Secondary is another matter.

@Yandle

Even one live interactive lesson with my dd’s teacher a day would help. It would give me one hour a day where I can actually get some work done. It’s impossible right now. I will admit to feeling very upset that me and my DH are both working full time from home and trying to teach our dd, while friends who are stay at home parents get to stick their kids in front of a laptop for three (and often more) hours a day with their teachers! This would save my mental health which at the moment is on the brink trying to hold down a job and home school!

Why can't your Year 6 child just get on with her work while you work? If I just had my Year 6 child it would be no problem

Surely she can do the Oak Academy lessons and Purple Mash tasks independently?

We get immediate response online from teacher / TA which also prompts differentiation and provides feedback. It seems to be working really well.

I am also working full time from home and to be honest live lessons would be an absolute nightmare for me. We are sharing a laptop so I wouldn't get any work done during that time, and even if I did find another device I'd have to divert all my calls during that time or it would get too noisy. Instead we get worksheets, links and videos of the teacher talking through a PowerPoint, etc. Teachers can't win - what works for a family in one set of circumstances will be a nightmare for another.

Just leaving this here (you may live to regret your wish)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4132469-To-be-SO-CROSS-about-fecking-Microsoft-Teams-RANT-warning

Well if your child needs an adult physically present to engage in anything, you've nothing to lose from a live lesson have you? You'll be sitting with them either way. I could "park" my child in one just the way I can park her in front of bbc Bitesize, and presumably she's not the only one so there would be a benefit to some.

My older child hates the Oak Academy lessons. Again, gets on much better with live lessons, the few he's getting.

FFS schools can't win. If they're online everyone whinges and if they cater for people who can't get online, everyone whinges. These are the only two options but it's not good enough because Davina-down-the road's school has a teacher who beams themselves holographically to every pupil's house to one-on-one teach them and cooks the kids a gourmet lunch too.
Get a grip.

Purple Mash is awful. Its clunky to use and like something from the 70s. Today my dd was trying to do a writing task on there and the word limit meant she couldn’t write more than 5 words for one task! It keeps freezing and the layout is confusing. It’s horrible!

@tinierclanger

Well if your child needs an adult physically present to engage in anything, you've nothing to lose from a live lesson have you? You'll be sitting with them either way. I could "park" my child in one just the way I can park her in front of bbc Bitesize, and presumably she's not the only one so there would be a benefit to some.

My older child hates the Oak Academy lessons. Again, gets on much better with live lessons, the few he's getting.

The point is, for every parent who wants a live lesson because they can park their child in front of it, there's another who would find live lessons a nightmare and wants videos so they can actually get their own work done. School can't please everyone.

@notalwaysalondoner

I think at a minimum schools that aren’t doing any live learning should at least be doing weekly class catch ups so the children have some interaction. They should definitely also be marking the work. It does seem some schools are really taking the piss, it doesn’t take the full set of staff to supervise key worker children and set a few worksheets designed by someone else...

Our key worker children are being taught full time just like normal,not supervised. We have to plan those lessons and give feedback. We have lots of SEND children in with the key workers. Their provision is planned for too and they need to have everything evidenced to show that they are working towards their individual EHCP plans. That is before adding children who are home learning into the mix. You have no idea what circumstances and challenges an individual school is facing at the moment. It is not right to base your judgement on the small part you see.

If you have concerns about provision, speak to the school and explain your situation.

Our school is doing daily check in zooms plus 2 x afternoon zooms a week, not teaching, just maintaining connection. All optional
Friend’s primary isn’t offering anything due to shared devices. She has kids in her class with three siblings and only one device between them

My DC's child isn't actively teaching anything or giving any clues on how to teach something.
Only year 1. Today we had to draw the correct clock face for various times, never having learnt time / clocks before.

I felt like there should have been an online lesson or tutorial to at least introduce the topic and give an overview.

Live lessons or even pre recorded vids would be good.

Shocking. Northern Ireland primary - we're using Google Classroom with Collaborate Ultra for group teaching. The children have 3-5 hours of work every day.

I agree teachers can't win. It's a shit situation for everyone. Parents can't win either.

I'm just very envious of friends whose children are very successfully getting a full live lesson schedule. I appreciate it wouldn't work for everyone.

My younger child has to be supervised for everything and my older one still needs a lot of intervention, especially as the lessons being set by school are mostly too long. I'm trying to work, my husband is working in hospital but I don't want to use a school space as that's not fair on teachers either.

It would just be nice to have a bit of sympathy and understanding, rather than being told what's best for me by someone who ain't here to see it.

Ours isn't either. My 8 year old just has sheets to be printed and activities on the school website. My 11 year old has files on teams to work through and the teachers online to answer any questions all day but no online teaching - which I wish there was as I am working from home and dont have time to help them all day.

“Get a grip” because I want my dd to actually have some contact with her teacher? She doesn’t even get a phone call to see how she is getting on with the work, they don’t mark her work on Purple Mash (disheartening when we both work hard to do the tasks) and offer no live or pre-recorded lessons. NoOneOwns you might be happy for that to be your children’s experience of home learning but I’m not. I care about my children’s education.

Ahhh purple mash! Lockdown one memories 😂😂 I think it must be something to do with the amounts of kids still in school in primaries

@BrilliantBetty told be fair teaching time really is a parental job regardless of whether it's in the curriculum or not. To be fair it's in the curriculum to pick up the shit from the lazy parents.

Ofsted have said that schools don't have to provide live teaching because it's not the best practice.

Many families cannot access live lessons.

The government poured money into Oak Academy so that working parents would have video teaching to help them. Use it.

OP why can't you 'park' your DD in front of Oak Academy. Lots of the lessons are 30 minutes. That followed by the BBC daily lesson would give you and hour.

She can read a book independently then watch a history documentary- there's another hour.

White rose maths lesson including practise questions then times tables rockstars and sumdog- there's another hour.

We don't have live lessons for ds in Y5 and the head has said they won't be doing them. Safeguarding, availability of devices and broadband capacity were the reasons given.
Personally I'm pleased. All of us including the teenager in GCSE classes trying use our broadband at the same time for video calls could be too much for it to handle. We got the best broadband we could last time we switched but it's still a bit rural.