Do children still have to do work during strikes?

[JustWantedACat]

I was on the understanding that teachers will not be settling work or revision, nor will they be marking work done during strikes or looking at emails. I have been sent this from my dcs secondary school, which says they still expect students to be doing work when the school is closed due to strikes. .

We will be expecting our students to complete remote learning and are currently planning the details around
this. We will be in touch early next week with clarity about how your child should access this learning. We are
fortunate that our experiences during the pandemic have allowed us to build up a thorough bank of online
lessons and resources that are available on our remote learning gateway and will ensure continuity for
student learning. Any planned interventions sessions or appointments with external professionals due to take place in school on Wednesday will be rescheduled unless you hear from us directly.

My son's primary school are closing and they have reverted to remote learning. Although, I fully support the teachers strike, I don't necessarily support the home learning, seems to defeat the object to me.

However on that particular day, I have made plans to which I have already paid for in advance, my child coming with me is not a problem, will be great to have him with me but won't be able to log on to complete remote learning.

I also know of some parents who are taking their children to work with them so highly doubt they will be remote learning either.

(Some) teachers are on strike, not the students!

The idea to re-read the GCSE English texts in a calm and unpressured way is a good one. Or watch a film in the language she's doing.

I am on strike. I will not be setting work. I will not be marking work. My Y11s and Y13s have brains in their heads and they are fully capable of using that time to revise as they feel best suits their needs.

I have equipped them fully with these skills and materials which have been delivered in after school intervention since the beginning of the year.

If one day without teachers sends them into this sort of a flap, how are they coping with the chronic understaffing, constant churn of supply (we've had 3 staff off all week, all with y11 classes - core subject) and general instability that this strike is intended to highlight?

Half of our kids primary school is open and half of it is closed because of individual teacher decisions, they have sent a list of classes that are open and who will be closed. Both my kids are closed.

They have mentioned remote learning will be taking place but we don't know what that will entail.

I booked the day off to look after them, so my husband decided to also book a day of annual leave so we can have a random weekday off together.

We will be going to the cinema and out for dinner and enjoying being together for a day. So we won't be partaking in any remote learning.

Seems a bit of a farce to be closing the school and causing the inconvenience to then set the work online instead.

If it is anything like the 80s it will be the 'cool' teachers who are striking, so the alternative is to go all the way in for a few lessons and lots of cover teachers. My year 11 is quite happy to have an extra day of revision because the behaviour and levels are quite varied (no setting) and this means they can concentrate on their own revision and weaker areas. I am sorry your dd is so stressed about it but can you turn it into a positive? She has some time set aside to plan her own revision.

Print a copy of each exam syllabus, start with the weakest/ most important subjects. Get her to go through each topic putting green tick if she is happy with it, orange is ok but needs some work, red is don't understand. Maybe add black for haven't covered yet. Once she knows her weak areas see if there is a clinic at lunchtimes (on non strke days) and take her list along to cover the red topics, see if she can cover the amber topics herself.

We’ve been pointed to online resources but no work set as such. I will suggest to My teen daughter that she does three hours of work but that will include homework and revision for a test she has the day after.

Mine will get some online learning. Which I'm really grateful for as, as clearly, their teachers care about their education, even when they're on strike themselves.

This.

Why would your child not choose an area of her GCSEs that she is least comfortable with and go back through some past papers, just to practise?

Reread an English text. Practise some french vocab with a friend.

Just because the teachers aren't there for a day doesn't stop her working on her own.

I agree with the strikes.

The free childcare though is an unfair comment.
Many parents have arranged work and childcare around school times.
It’s not easy for parents to suddenly find childcare at short notice and they can’t always have time off work.
And let’s not forget parents are castigated and fined for taking dc off school for holidays or events.

What will teachers be doing with their own children whilst they’re picketing?

She could learn about workers rights, fair pay, trade unions.

Your daughters reaction is extraordinarily self centred. This is normal for a teenager but it is your job as her parent to gently explain the bigger picture. Not trash teachers online for her.

yes it will be marginally disruptive for her education. It will be awful lot more disruptive if her school cannot find a specialist to teach her a level chemistry (or whatever) next year.

No remote learning is being set here. Secondary school.

DC are expected to revise independently

Our secondary school is having years 7, 11, 1/ and 13 in school.

Years 8, 9 and 10 have got online learning. Full uniform and cameras on as it is live lessons.

Actually going to be a real pain as we no longer have the laptop DS used in remote learning so no camera. Also no separate space in the house to do so as everyone else will be at home.

DC's school has communicated that they will switch to remote learning and children must stay home and log on.

I'm fully supportive of the strikes and happy for them not to go in that day. However if the school can't accommodate them I don't feel they have a right to dictate how we spend that day. I have appointments that day and DC will be coming with me.

@queenofthewild I would say to the school that either they accomodate your child or mark as authorised absence.

You'd be better off teaching your daughter on the strike days about the history of strikes, why workers withdraw their labour and why they have the right to do so, rather than feeding her anxiety or playing into her idea that teachers should wait for a more convenient time (for her). The ONS has some great resources here. ^
^
Remind her that she may well be a striking worker one day. My husband and I will be on strike and we will be teaching our daughters- much younger than yours- exactly this. And going on a march that we are spending the weekend making banners for. Your daughter could show solidarity at a march or on a picket line. Or- It's cold right now- striking teachers would appreciate her bringing them a couple of flasks of tea or some biscuits.

And get her to listen to the lyrics of by Billy Bragg:

There is power in a factory, power in the land
Power in the hand of the worker
But it all amounts to nothing
If together we don't stand
There is power in a Union

Now the lessons of the past
Were all learned with workers' blood
The mistakes of the bosses we must pay for
From the cities and the farmlands
To trenches full of mud
War's always been the bosses' way, sir

The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and our sisters
From many far off lands
There is power in a Union

Now I long for the morning that they realize
Brutality and unjust laws cannot defeat us
But who'll defend the workers who cannot organise
When the bosses send their lackeys out to cheat us?

Money speaks for money
The Devil for his own
Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone?
What a comfort to the widow
A light to the child
There is power in a Union

The Union forever defending our rights
Down with the blackleg, all workers unite
With our brothers and our sisters
Together we will stand
There is power in a Union^

Play it loud. Solidarity to all striking workers during this awful time with this awful government.^

@BooksAndHooks I fully support the teachers right to strike but to then dictate what a student does and wear outside of school really is not on.

Be a shame if you had internet issues in the 1st Feb 😉

My primary aged child's school is closing due to the strikes and while I fully support them in their decision, I don't support the request to remote learn. I have made plans for that day which I am more than happy to have my child come along with me, which they will be doing.

The primary school I teach at is fully closed. I'm glad. There's far, far too much work involved in organising "key workers" or "vulnerable" for one day.

We care, immensely about these children. That's why we're not going to set aside a day (probably more) when they are all in school to plan for a day when most of them aren't going to be in school.

For a 16 year old, I would expect them to use the day to revise.

Wowzers, how does that allow for kids learning styles, interests and abilities? Poor teachers.

Our (primary) school has just pointed parents to resources on Oak Academy if they need / want something to keep the kids busy. They aren't preparing work themselves.

Secondary will be setting work that must be completed at home but there will be no live remote teaching or anything.

Schools setting remote learning are only following the DfE strike guidance for schools. Much of this guidance is laughable (the headteacher striking? Get someone else on leadership to act up instead. All of them striking? Just find someone else to cover paragraph is a particular fave) but please do not blame schools & teachers if they are following it - they are in the difficult situation of being public servants, after all.

It is the government who have ordered that schools should be setting remote learning for strike days. It is also the government who have chosen to systematically underfund state education for more than a decade. Please direct your anger to them.

My DD's school is similar to other posters. She needs to check Classcharts at the beginning of the school day to check what lessons are being done via zoom. No work is going to be set by teachers who are striking so they have to revise for those lessons.

In our school (secondary local authority controlled) they have 51% of staff on strike with NEU.
All years except 11 and 13 are to work at home online with work that will be uploaded.

DDs year group (11) will be going in and taught by the staff left.

DD is not happy about this and feels they are breaking the strike. I've told them whilst I agree, the staff wouldn't want them to miss vital schooling.

I will be working on the 4 planned strike days so can't do anything with her on the days.

The school have said they are closed on Wednesday and sent the email in my OP. I just thought it was odd to use the words "our expectation is..." for those days when the school is shut and the majority of the teachers off.

You say months, but it's surprising how little time that when you think they have 2 weeks left until half term, after that they have their mock exams (at my dds school) all through March, then it's Easter and by the time they come back there's not much left of April, then bam... May/June exams! Goes so quickly!

My dd hates exams, prefers course work and the one's in march will be her 3 set since last may. I feel for her year group and the ones before and after because their secondary experience has just been an up and down roller coaster of covid/lockdowns and now disruption when they need solid calm with no waves in the last few months of schooling in year 11.Her peers feel the same.

Striking is supposed to cause the most disruption yes, I agree, but it doesn't really prove how important the job is (I agree teachers jobs are important BTW!) If any workforce in most jobs just suddenly packed up for the day with little to no notice it's going to cause a ripple effect of chaos for that period of time, its just teachers doing it is on a bigger scale.