School pressure in this crisis

[belay]

I should probably put this in the special needs board? Just had an e mail from a teacher (10.30pm) about work that's just been set on a homework app. To me only.
School closed on Friday, life has stopped kids. For our son he's lost all his sport activities, which were vital to control his hyper behaviour and wellbeing. Had the announcement of the lockdown earlier this evening. I've checked the app and there are multiple homeworks being set by different teachers. His concentration is very poor and he can't possibly complete it at home without the school environment and the support he gets from a learning support assistant. This is pure pressure.
I am trying to keep our son calm, he's been a real handful at home and it's only been 3 days. AIBU to e mail senco ? I need to keep our home calm and our son safe. We don't need homework arguments

It’s not homework though is it? It’s school work, it just so happens he’s at home.
In any case, teachers have been instructed in no uncertain terms to set sufficient work, with suitable deadlines. We have to do this. At the same time, we appreciate that many chi,Daren, for many reasons, will not complete all (or possibly any) of it. It’s an email and an app. It’s not a gun to your head. Do what works for your son.

*children

Don't worry, take a few days to adjust. Let him set the pace if he needs to. Just try and keep calm and he hopefully will too. Our kids learn from us how to react.

Yes email teacher, senco, whoever you need. They will get back to you as still working

Definitely email Senco. My DD has a 'virtual TA' as she is on EHCP and has them in lessons at school. Basically it just means they email her and will suggest ways to adapt work if it doesn't work for her.

Our school offering sounds a lot like yours. Different approaches from different teachers, some of it is called homework, some Google classrooms so DD thought she had to attend lessons. It took me all morning to work out what they all wanted.

I think they should be clearer that actually a couple of hours a day is fine.

I would get him to do what he is able to, the rest don't worry about it too much. He has SEN so it's going to be more difficult for him than NT children and many of them are finding it hard. I would email the Senco just to explain that it may take longer for him to complete and some may not get done but you will do your best in difficult circumstances.

Ds has ASD and is in his gcse year. He finds it very difficult to study at home. We now don't have to pressure him as the exams are off. It would have been a nightmare trying to get him to revise otherwise. He sees home as his safe space away from school.

Everyone is under pressure . Parents are trying to work from home and finding it extremely difficult. My husband is having to work at night until 3 am while DS is in bed. He cannot concentrate on his work when DS is awake due to his constant noise and vocalisation. This pressure from schools is ridiculous in this crisis

My dd has really struggled with the change and is extremely anxious and not coping with the massive routine change.

She has done a small amount of school work this morning, but the system was slow and kept crashing and she got extremely stressed about it all. tomorrow, I’m not going to mention it. She has spent the day doing other things, playing with her siblings, both inside and in the garden. Done some music practise, helped makes tea, played board games with us, been for a walk and FaceTimed her best friend. These are the best things I can do for her at this time. Let her be, let her get her head around what has happened and if she is ready to do anything more structured in the coming days and weeks, we will take it from there and help her. If not, we will do normal family things and try to help pull through all this with her mental health in as good a place as we can.

My other 2 dc have been fine and got on with the work they’ve been set. No issues at all. Different approaches work best for different children and I know one of them would have been more stressed if he hadn’t done any work at all.

I will not make an argument over school work. I am having to argue about other more essential things, but I’m picking my battles and school work is not one of them.

A lot of parents are finding the school work useful to keep their children/teens occupied. Please stop bashing teachers who are trying their damn hardest to adjust to this new world without warning.

Contact the school and tell them he's finding it stressful to keep up. It's not pure pressure from the teachers at all. We are trying our best.

Just don't do the work. Parents are the ones legally responsible for their child's education, even if many of them usually delegate it to a school. You don't have to accept them delegating back to you.

Look up autonomous education.

OP, the most charitable interpretation of the teacher's email is that they have received direct instructions on what they must do by the HT.
I can't find anything from gov.uk. that says the line to be pursued by schools about curriculum.

Email the teacher and point out your DS had LA support, which he no longer has and the work will be submitted as and when. All they're looking for is a reply. It's possible when the teacher does a class/homework reminder they can't filter out students who they don't want to get the email. On other threads about teachers I've seen ones where the teacher has to ring home regularly about students so again, they might be under orders.

I think you need to be sensible about this. I highly doubt that work has just been emailed to you for your son. It is likely that it has been emailed to a whole class but in such a way that you/other parents cant see who else it has been sent to. This is to protect your son and is a safeguarding measure - dont take it personally.

As a teacher we know that many many of our students will not complete the work that is being set, especially the longer this goes on, because children (even NT ones) on the whole lack the self motivation and discipline over extended periods of time and parents are either to busy or incapable of helping. That doesnt mean that the work shouldn't be available for those that do. For most staff that I know we are working in a completely unprecedented way, having to come up with meaningful work students can complete at home either on or offline, and without knowing what resources students have available to them. Its teaching exactly how we are taught not to and most of us are uncomfortable with it - a one size fits all approach - the same worksheet/activity for a whole class or even year group. It just doesnt happen like that in a real classroom but we are feeling our way through this too and something is better than nothing.

The lucky ones are those students who have EHCPs which give them a TA. Often the teacher will differentiate for SEND children even if TA support is available, but at the moment the TAs are much more hands on at helping their students adapt work to make it more appropriate. The unlucky ones are the ones that fall through the gaps, the children with SEND that the teachers just adapt for day to day but they dont have the official support to help them through stuff like this. Ultimately you are a parent, not a teacher and learning is everywhere. My thinking is that by giving something I am empowering the parents to engage in learning with their child in a way that is appropriate and meaningful to them. My set question might he 'how many shades of green are there' and the obvious solution might be to get a load of coloured pencils and test shading/firmness of pressure/shades of colour/impact of blending colours.... that might even what I expect but I'd be just as pleased if you came back and said 'well we went for a walk around the garden and noticed that the grass is a brighter green than some of the leaves on the plants, and the leaves of the Holly Bush are even darker. I noticed that where the mud was on the leaves it made the leaves look an even darker green and the way the sun shines on the grass makes it look different shades of green' or whatever, because it demonstrates you've been observing and comparing colour as I asked but in a meaningful way which is likely to be better remembered by YOUR child and is more reflective of actual differentiation in the classroom. Dont fret about the teaching, learning is everywhere just look out for it and enjoy this time learning with your son - even if it doesnt seem to be exactly what the teacher requested.

JustOneMoreStep thankyou 💕

Don't stress about doing the work. Just do what you can and don't worry about it. You have been sent the work because they are legally required to send it, and because the majority of children will be willing or able to do it. These are unprecedented times so I would just focus on keeping a calm, sane household if you can.

I empathise by the way as I have a child with severe needs and I have no idea how we will manage over the coming months. But we will get through it somehow

@belay - it will look as though it is just to you because of GDPR - we can’t share email addresses. It has probably been sent to everyone.

I’m on SLT in a school. We sent out a ridiculous amount of work last week because we have a responsibility to provide some form of education. There was a lot of whining amongst staff who know that the reality is that most won’t get done.

If you want to do some learning activities to keep the structure of school but what they’ve sent you isn’t appropriate I’d recommend having a look on Twinkl - some of the resources are free at the moment.

If it makes you feel better, I have a lot of teacher friends on Facebook. Lots of posts yesterday about homeschooling failures. Teaching your own child 1-1 all day is so hard. My DD is only 18 months so not schooling as such, but it’s harder being at home all day with her than being at work!

Schools need to set a certain amount of work. Children won't compete all, and we need to be mindful of those who work faster and slower. If a teacher does not set enough, patents will complain. If they set too much, parents like you will kick off. Everyone is under so much stress already, those teachers either with from home with kids around it down going to school to provide for kids of key workers. It's not just about you, so funny take it personally and let your son complete what he can when he can.

Schools should not be overwhelming students with loads of pieces of work - that is very unfair.

Online platforms for homework often allow work to be set which doesn’t show until the day you want it to show. Schools should have an effective timetable so students are being set maybe three pieces a day. That’s quite enough. It should vary so every subject has a slot or two depending on whether they are core or not. Teachers are working from home and should be able to access their shared and personal drives to set fresh homework when their slot comes up in the timetable. Timetables can also be tailored so that stay have a different year group each day to set work for so they aren’t having to do five year groups work on one day.

Schools could also be using these platforms to set fun stuff - a link to a home work out with their pe teacher or a wellbeing activity which involves online reaching out of some sort.

There is no excuse to flood a child’s homework platform or email with loads and loads of tasks right now. Very irresponsible.

It's incredibly difficult though because some parents are expecting full timetables worth of lesson activities. The students in school are supervised while doing the work and need to be occupied for 5 hours. It's not as simple as set 3 tasks and that's it. For some that is suitable, but not all. Expecting differentiation in terms of amount of work set is unrealistic at this stage. Teachers only found out their role was changing last Wednesday. We are adapting! Differentiation for now will be differences in how much work is completed. That is OK.

As a PP said "it's not just about you". Look at the wider picture for some perspective.

I don't understand why you're saying the school is pressuring you. Have they said "work must be completed by XYZ time or your child will face consequences?" Or have they simply set work so that they are fulfilling their obligation to provide work for their students? I am sure it's the latter.

Just email the teacher and senco and say you are all still adjusting to the new setup and may not be able to complete school work for the time being.

Spare a thought for the poor teacher having to work on all this at 10:30pm to provide material for students to continue learning.

@FredaFrogspawn students have 5-6 lessons on their tomatoes a day, and we are expected to set work for each lesson we teach, therefore students will see 5-6 tasks a day they can compete as if they were following their original timetable. If we don't, we will get emails telling us we're not doing our job and that little Johnny didn't have with set for Physics or Art.
Most schools are reasonable and know many students work slower, and that dune won't have conditions at home to do all work, but also we need to stretch those who work faster and set enough work for everyone. It's really difficult to set each student a different amount of work under the circumstances and think what each student can do and set 30 different tasks for each lesson 5 fibres a day. If ops son can't do all, he can do what he can and that's fine. Some students in his class will be able to finish all the tasks and that's fine too. It's a bit mean to criticize schools and teachers that they don't differentiate hundreds of tasks a day.

I disagree that they need to be occupied for three hours. Five hours in school is less intense three hours studying on your own.

But I totally agree with you that teachers are finding their way and things will pan out as we get feedback from students and their parents, and as we becomes more adept at setting work and giving feedback this way.

Sorry - first line should say 5 hours.

OP, teacher here. Yesterday, and over the weekend, lots of teachers will have emailed out work to students to get them started. (The email will have gone to everyone in your dcs class, but the email will have been BCCd to keep other parent email addresses confidential). Really don't panic about DS having to complete all, or indeed any, of the tasks set! No one is going to get into trouble if it doesn't get done.
I'd suggest asking your DS what he'd like to do. I'd also set a loose timetable with him, so long for work each day (e.g. 3x30 minute slots), so long for tv, game etc. If you have a printer, print off each email with tasks on so he can physically choose one. Don't have set times, as he may well not manage this. Make a chart so that he can tick off when he's done each thing. He will find having a very loose structure to his day better than not.

Again, don't sweat the learning!

My child's school have given us work and resources but have said there's no pressure to do any of it. I have decided to focus on handwriting and reading just a little each day. I'm more concerned with having fun and burning off energy

@FredaFrogspawn

Teachers are NOT being irresponsible! My colleague has to WFH with two toddlers, one of whom has CF so cannot attend childcare. She has to work at night once dcs are in bed so over the weekend has sent out a raft of stuff for her students to be getting on with.
Common sense would tell you that she doesn't expect all the work to be done all at the same time. In order to send work out daily for her to all her classes, and know all their timetables, would be impossible.