What are your children’s school doing to help children catch up after covid closures?

[Soubriquet]

My dc’s school are offering a free half an hour tutor session for children they believe are a bit behind because of school closures.

Ds was one of those children, and I signed him up straight away.

Already, he’s had an improvement.

Nothing as they both had full online timetables so not necessary

@Krakenchorus

I'm glad the OP has been able to access free tutoring for her dc. It would be great if all schools had funding to provide this.

But I do agree with PP that for primary students, much of that catching up can be done at home. It's about finding 20 minutes a day to read with your dc and another 10 to help with times tables/basic calculation/ time/money.

The idea that you need a PGCE to teach your 8-year-old how to calculate the passage of minutes and hours is ludicrous. Or to ask a few open questions about their reading. (Why did the character do that? What do you think they should do next?) I mean, it's basic conversation about a book.

But why does it matter if the OP could do it at home? It’s being offered by school and she’s taken them up on it. The government need to take some responsibility for the way they’ve fucked up education over the past 2 years, why are people so keen to let them off the hook? Also, it depends massively on the child as to whether it can be done at home. My friend is currently paying for private tuition for her 6 year old (no extra help being offered at our school) because her daughter (ADHD) will simply not do it with her mum.

We have various small interventions happening within school hours. Parents aren't necessarily informed formally about these as they take place alongside other catch up and intervention groups. It would be talked about during parent consultations etc or on 1:1 basis.

We also have more formal catch up groups (in core subjects and at different levels) that take place 1-2 times a week after school for a period of weeks each. Children are invited to these and parents sign up. At present though this is only for our year 2s - we are infants only.

Year 11. Most subjects offering 45 mins extra classes once a week before or after school

Our primary published their Covid catch-up plan and targets along with the exact figures received from the government and how it is being allocated on their website.

DS (Year 2) became behind in reading due to refusing to read at home during both lockdowns. He was so distressed at the total isolation (only child) and I was no substitute for his teacher. He now has 1-to-1 reading sessions for 10 mins three times a week with a combo of a volunteer/TA/teacher. I know he’s not the only one having this either and I’d guess there are other children having targeted support for other areas like maths etc.

If your school is doing nothing and you feel your child needs extra support then you need to be asking the school what they are doing with the Covid premium funding, and if nothing then why not.

We have always read daily with DS(7), both with his school reading books and at bedtime he has always had 4 books read to him since he was a toddler (now moving to chapter books so less but still the same amount of time, around 20-30 mins), plus doing phonics practice. For some children this is just not enough - they need a teacher and listen better to them.

With the best will in the world some children did not engage with parental support/teaching during the lockdowns and these are the children that need targeted support. If you aren’t getting it from the school then you need to push for answers - go to the Head or Governors. It’s not good enough to just get a shrugged shoulders response.

If your child is doing fine academically despite missing 5 months of school then you are lucky, but please don’t say the solution is just for parents to read at home because it’s not as simple as that (and the government certainly wouldn’t be giving money to schools for catch-up funding if they thought it was this simple).

@Soubriquet

Precisely. The school offered their help and it isn’t only my child. It’s a group of children. It’s the youngest btw who receives the help. The oldest is on track

We, along with the local juniors, have found that it's the current year 2s and 3s at primary most affected by the closures. They missed an awful lot of the basics, especially those who didn't complete most (or any) of the home learning for a range of reasons.

Travelling - they shouldn’t really be making option choices till y 9 anyway, ready to start GCSEs in y10. I’d be surprised if they were allowed to drop subjects at the end of y8.

Op - I wasn’t suggesting that you shouldn’t take up the offer of extra classes. But if none are available and a parent is worried they may need to be a bit proactive.

@Sittinginthesand

Travelling - they shouldn’t really be making option choices till y 9 anyway, ready to start GCSEs in y10. I’d be surprised if they were allowed to drop subjects at the end of y8.

Our school have always done this, my eldest made his option choices in year 8, and my DN made her choices last year in year 8. We were all ready for options evening this week until we had a letter saying it had changed and they would be choosing next year

Additional phonics support before school but this is by class teachers (God bless them!), lots of support in school. I think they have a healthy balance, still doing art, school trips, exercise. I was worried about a narrowing of the curriculum.

Not heard of anyone having tutoring.

Nothing extra academically I don't think BUT we've just had parents evening (year one, so early days) and DD is doing really really well, charting ahead in everything (like her book band is a year two one) so personally for her I am not worried.

I appreciate it's much different for older children though.

Also our school are focusing a lot more (for the young ones) on more social skills/play/emotional robustness etc. Our year group missed a lot of Reception and rather than then generally behaving behind in learning they're finding it harder than usual to follow instructions, sit on the carpet etc. They have a lot more behavioural issues in class. Teacher told me they're having more difficulties at lunchtimes too - sadly this group missed a big part of peer to peer interaction stuff so that's what the focus is on.

I'm happy with what they're doing, it seems to be working for my child.

School haven't openly said what they're doing to help the kids catch up. From what my dc have said there's a small group getting extra maths and English help a couple of times a week, but mine haven't been offered anything.

On another note, starting the GCSE course in year 9 (choosing options in year 8) is outdated and frowned upon by ofsted. I'm surprised schools are still doing it.

We use the govt funding to pay a teacher for a few sessions a week. She has groups of 3 and they are benefitting massively. Not all parents may be aware of this however and obviously there are some children who could really do with it but have just missed the cut.

Travelling - the change may be a policy update rather than covid related.

I teach primary.
All schools have been offered access to Covid catch up funding.
There are some rules about how the money can be spent e.g sessions have to be delivered by a qualified teacher or if delivered by a TA they have to attend a 10 hour training course.
The hourly rate paid to the school is less than a teachers hourly rate which means that some schools haven't been able to afford to top it up.
At the school I work at it has been used to pay for weekly catch up sessions with a teacher. We have focused on the children who are behind in reading/phonics primarily.
Parents haven't been informed so I'm not sure it would be obvious to parents unless their child tells them.

@whatajuckingfoke

Nothing extra academically I don't think BUT we've just had parents evening (year one, so early days) and DD is doing really really well, charting ahead in everything (like her book band is a year two one) so personally for her I am not worried.

I appreciate it's much different for older children though.

Also our school are focusing a lot more (for the young ones) on more social skills/play/emotional robustness etc. Our year group missed a lot of Reception and rather than then generally behaving behind in learning they're finding it harder than usual to follow instructions, sit on the carpet etc. They have a lot more behavioural issues in class. Teacher told me they're having more difficulties at lunchtimes too - sadly this group missed a big part of peer to peer interaction stuff so that's what the focus is on.

I'm happy with what they're doing, it seems to be working for my child.

Yes I work in that year group equivalent in Scotland and this is a massive problem. Yes they are behind academically but at this age it's not necessarily a problem. They're all in the same boat however the social and emotional and independence skills are quite worrying and harder to correct. It's a viscous cycle too as so many disruptive dc in a class along with staff shortages makes it very difficult to teach even the keen compliant ones. So much time taken helping with zips, coats etc. playground behaviour is poor.

Nothing, because all the staff are already stretched way over capacity. If my kids have a problem with something, I fix it myself.

they aren't running additional classes as they have in past years to help those struggling with the grades they need for 6th form college

Because teachers used to provide the his for no extra pay. The goodwill has run out after shoddy treatment from the government and quite frankly batshit parents who expect the earth.

Nothing here she#s supposed to be in catch up groups but has missed so much school due to illness recently they've withdrawn her place

It may well be, but it seems highly coincidental that they have been doing it for 10+ years and after sending out the invites to options evening along with options talks to the children, they have had year 8 assessment week and then they put the breaks on it.

We, along with the local juniors, have found that it's the current year 2s and 3s at primary most affected by the closures. They missed an awful lot of the basics, especially those who didn't complete most (or any) of the home learning for a range of reasons

Yes. I have a year 3 and a year 2. I couldn’t do much home learning with them as I was working.

@TravellingSpoon

It may well be, but it seems highly coincidental that they have been doing it for 10+ years and after sending out the invites to options evening along with options talks to the children, they have had year 8 assessment week and then they put the breaks on it.

What is a coincidence?

I have a year 2 and year 3. I can't fill in the gaps through talking, reading, doing a bit of maths and arguing our way through some cgp books.

It's a bit insulting to teachers and schools when people to say this is all that is needed and we're just not trying hard enough at home.

I'm fine talking about characters in a book, discussing similes, alliteration, expounded noun phrases, the parts of a plant or drawing bar models to solve a maths problem. I have no idea how to help when my August born y2 is crying because he can't remember how to write the letter f (and apparently it's definitely not the way I would write it).

I'm so upset for them with how far behind they are compared to where I'm sure they would be. My year 3 is in an intervention group but waiting to discuss plans for my year 2 at parents evening. They've just reassessed his phonics and moved him back to the book band he was on a year ago. (We read every day, have reading chest, books at home, magnetic phonics, completed learning sheets - but it just hasn't sunk in the same way.)

After the first lockdown, he couldn't tell me the name of any of the children in his reception class. He didn't transition well into year 1 and just as they were settling in, they were out again.

I'm with you op - I will take any support, intervention or suggestions that the school are able to offer!