Failing school watching World Cup

[Mallowmarshmallow]

My DS' school, with no consultation with parents, showed the whole World Cup game this afternoon and allowed the children to colour while watching it.

The school has been considered 'requires improvement' by ofsted in 2019 and has failed, thus far, to make any improvement. Last year there were six different heads.

It feels like such a kick in the teeth that they chose to forego a whole afternoon of education, and indeed, didn't even take the opportunity to do a bit of a geography lesson in the mix.

There are a number of reasons DS still attends the school, despite the position it is in.

The majority of schools watched it. So what ? It's nice

I get you frustration OP. My son goes to.college about 25 miles away from house as closest college to do course he wants. He went in today only to do 2 hours then all students got sent home to watch World Cup. For goodness sake they could have recorded it and watched it later.

You can't record football and watch it later. It doesn't work like that.

I don't know why a college would bring students in for only 2 hours though. The game was only for about 2 hours. What happened for the rest of the day?

I would’ve been bored shitless if they’d shown that in the classroom when I was a little girl.

@Florenz, they had 2 lessons in morning after registration, then lunch then went to lesson but someone had made a late decision that all students to be sent home to see football and told they could work from home on assignments for rest of afternoon.

I can envisage a whole host of lessons encompassing the game across the curriculum that will keep those brains going for weeks.

literacy - reading match reports in the papers and writing their own. Or writing about their own reactions to the match. Numeracy - all those match statistics. Drama - role playing a reporter interviewing a player.

For goodness sake they could have recorded it and watched it later

😂😂😂😂

Our DD4 told us “I didn’t do any learning today, we watched a special football match ALL day”

as if she could sit for 90 minutes!!! 🤣

Now that would be a major milestone.

I can remember being allowed to watch Virginia Wade win the Wimbledon Women's final at Junior school, it's nothing new & it was only two hours that could lead to lessons in Geography, history, maths, current affairs. I know some of the schools in my area are doing projects while the World Cup is on, my local school have drawn & painted all the flags of the countries in the World Cup & have a giant map where they have red string lines from the competing countries to Qatar.

A failing school is an inadequate school, not requires improvement.

6 different heads though? Really?

Definitely not worth getting into a tizz about. My son was watching it in London on a Zoom call with his CEO . He was at primary school in 2004 and 2008 when the children watched matches …it really doesn’t effect their education and it’s good for morale.

Our school was rated good, was very close to excellent and did the same. Kids read in the half time break. No idea what those bored of football did, I assume read or drew. The next batch are all in the evening so as a one off I can't get my knickers in a twist.

DS' primary school showed the match. Each class watched it in their own classrooms. DS is a football fanatic and was really looking forward to it, however he came out of school extremely distressed and almost teary. When questioned why, he said the girls didn't want to watch it and were being deliberately disruptive and shrieking loudly. He couldn't hear a thing. One boy (SEN) kept yelling and going to punch at the whiteboard every time England missed an opportunity. The teacher had buggered off somewhere and the student TA couldn't control the class. Nobody was listening to her.

What a bloody farce. I'd rather the school DIDN'T show any football in future!

I find it curious that so many schools watched the football when they don't do the same for other sports, especially such a controversial World Cup. It appears that teachers were given the choice at my children's school - most chose to show it, notably the LGBTQ+ members of staff didn't. I don't think schools should have shown it, especially note (as was our case) without telling parents and offering an opt-out. Many LGBTQ+ families and people are boycotting the tournament and I don't think it's fair to put children in a position where they either have to watch it or have to make a point and ask to leave in front if their class. My children had no idea they would be watching it until they got to lesson, so it wasn't a decision based on ensuring attendance.

The issue is the class didn't have a decent teacher for several hours. Whether it was the football or algebra, leaving a member of staff who can't control the class alone for that length of time is what I'd br complaining about.

My son is autistic and it was very distressing for him to watch the football with all the kids screaming and shouting. I was really annoyed that he was made to watch it. He put on his ear defenders but it didn't block out the sound.
I also would rather they didn't show any football in future!

@SleepingStandingUp If it was a normal lesson then no it's unlikely their teacher would have disappeared for hours and left the student TA to teach.

@ofwarren I can understand. Older DS is autistic and thankfully he's secondary school didn't put the football on or he'd have been the same!

Precisely

It doesn't matter why he left one staff member who couldn't adequately do the job thrust upon her. I'd be complaining to the school the class was left inappropriately supervised rather than they watched the football. There's no inherent issue with watching it, if the teacher can manage the class

My children watched it - one in year 2 and whole class watched, one in year 5 who had the choice to watch the football or do something on Anglo Saxons - she chose football. I still remember people listening on radios and cheering down the corridors in my high school during France 98, but remember virtually nothing of what I was being ‘taught’ during that year let alone that day… school is as much about the environment/memories as it is about the actual lessons imo.

@Disneyblueeyes yes.

Started the year with a 'turnaround head', replaced by two heads job sharing on a secondment shared with their own school covering four days with the deputy covering the fifth.

They get recalled to their own school, turnaround head returns.

New head arrives from academy school is attempting to join.

That head leaves, replaced by another academy head who is supposed to be in for the following (this) academic year.

What is the correlation exactly? Most schools did this

OP, I understand.

DD is in a similarly dire school. But most of the schools here are terrible and no spaces anyway. People keep telling us to move house but it’s not an option, we moved here (200 miles from where we are from), as we couldn’t afford anywhere else!

I hope your school manages to turn it round. Fingers crossed the latest new head at DDs school has been there over a year now and had implemented some drastic changes (in our case it’s the area though).

Honestly op you're focusing on the wrong thing. Virtually all schools did this, it's half a day's learning (ours read in the break) and it's a one off.