Aibu to think private school provision at home can be done in state schools too?

[Namechangedforthisreply7]

Just that. Private schools are doing active live teaching via zoom, FaceTime and Skype. Full school days. Teaching via video link, then sending kids off to do work which they send back and gets marked, then another lesson. full school days of work. Even pe online! Parents don’t need to do anything and can get on with work.

State sector get home learning packs. No info about how to do bus stop division or similar technical stuff. Not heard from anyone at school since Friday, no information at all bar work timetable on website. Where are the teachers? Why are can state sector teachers not actively teach online and stay in touch with the kids? Why not more engagement? We are all having to work at home alongside our kids, why aren’t teachers doing this too?

Yabvvvvu
Ffs. Another clueless parent bashing teachers. Cruel and nasty!

Dd is at secondary. They already use google classroom at school so all lessons are issued through this. For maths, she has been directed to an external website to do a 10 minute daily challenge and the rest coming from my maths.

Teachers are responding to emailed questions and were brilliant last week at helping dd get her books as we started self isolating last Tuesday. Can’t fault them. No need for live streaming imo. And many people have explained why this is impossible for many. The children, who have no access to the internet are considered vulnerable and are allowed to attend school.

As for dds former primary, the children are using seesaw. Ive only heard from parents of older primary children but the children all seem to know what they’re doing and things seem pretty organised. I imagine it is much harder to engage ks1 in this way.

Hmm, maybe you should get your children into a better school OP?

Or maybe the staff are ill, and the ones that aren't are busy working themselves half to death to cater for the pupils that don't have calm quiet supportive, technologically replete homes?

Also when we are not in school
We are delivering lunches to children entitled to free school meals..., that's the majority of my school! Ffs!

I am so angry to read this thread!

Are teachers just a commodity to you? They have their own families, their own health, their own fears. My daughter goes to a private school and I can assure you we are not business as usual- their is nothing usual about this situation. They’ve been set a schedule and we are following as best we can. Teachers can be emailed and are being great but it is far far from a normal day.

And frankly, anyone who expects any kind of normal life right now is deluded.

Mine are in private and having what are like normal school days. My older has to wear her uniform too. We have insight into the older dc school: parents are paying and they know they HAVE to deliver a quality output.

I can imagine the challenges for state schools with a different mix of kids and support and home are immense.

People talking about kids not going back until September. I fear that some kids may never switch back into school mode, seeing it as relevant to them. It's not even this year,s exams I think are the concern so much as next.

It's terrible safeguarding to be teaching via live video link. You open yourself up to so many issues.

I am setting tasks to appear at the right time. These vary from practising a skill, doing creative tasks, the odd worksheet. It;s hard work to make these for every class, differentiated where necessary, whilst trying to minimise use of resources/IT need/parental help.

I am working just as much as usual, as are my colleagues, without half the usual back up we have. Some of my kids will be eating one meal a day until school reopens. I'm more concerned about that.

Secondary school here are using show my homework. Work is put up everyday by the teachers following the normal time table, the pupils have to submit pdf, picture or other forms of proof to complete the lesson.

I work in secondary. We are doing full lessons every day. Private schools are not better. They have higher ability cohorts, smaller class sizes...oh and WAY higher proportions of unqualified teachers. They do NOT make better progress for each çhild and they are often woefully behind with teaching method research.

Oh and parents paying does not mean higher quality. I am very very carefully observed and measured in the state sector. By professionals, not parents. Who love their kids, but don't have the background to assess quality teaching.

DC1 is currently having a one-to-one tutorial with one of his teachers via a video link (no idea what - I have an ancient Apple desktop which does nothing at all ). I have no safeguarding concerns whatsoever.

I am, however, immensely grateful to this teacher (and all his teachers) for their dedication, resilience and flexibility.

Genuinely, what are the safeguarding issues with video link, and I mean a proper explanation of Why video link lessons would endanger the safety of a child. That is what safeguarding measures are designed to prevent, harm to children. It’s bandied about as a reason for not doing a lot of things without any real analysis of why.

If private schools, some states and schools the world over can do it, there cannot be any Insurmountable safeguarding issues.

Safeguarding issues are not my expertise. Or yours OP. State schools take their responsibilities very seriously. No need for adults to have 1:1 contact over a nedium that is RIFE with exploitation...are you not fussy about your kids adding people they don't know on SM for this very reason? Also, I have 150 students across classes. So can't skype each child anyway.

You don’t think safeguarding also applies to teachers?

Safeguarding is not a term bandied about at all. The main issues, more prevalent in some schools than others (and yes, this can be where there is a private/state divide) is the fact that students can record and post these lessons online to ridicule staff or something else less savoury. They can also cyberbully students posting questions on these lessons etc. There are other reasons too but the ignorance and ‘privilege’ oozing from some posters is very telling.

Do you mean me, previous poster? Because my point is teachers need to do as told as it is so important. My school would never never allow it. It was discussed. Why? I am not the expert but can totally see the dangers. So..private schools doing this are not 'doing better'. They are doing something risky.

Choledecker, nope, our school saw this as a possible adult child safeguarding issue.

I'm a private teacher doing online live class lessons via Teams.

I think the key difference between private and state approaches comes down to SCHOOL FEES. Our head was totally transparent with us on this. She basically said, 'I know your unions have advised you that you don't need to be in and working directly with children online but we need to have a viable school in September and if we don't provide a good enough service, the parents will not pay and we will not stay afloat. So, if you want a job in September, you need to get behind us on this.'

We are not more dedicated, hard working or caring than state school teachers! It's just that our jobs depend on us doing enough to satisfy the parents.

Couple of other things I'd say in regards to comments made so far:

1. Safeguarding - You HAVE to press the 'start recording' feature when the children have entered the live session and you HAVE to ask them to hang up before you at the end and be the last to leave the session. As long as you do that, there is no safeguarding concern because it's all recorded on the school server. I do ask children to turn the cameras on if they would like to some of the time because I'm teaching Drama so it's quite difficult to do some of the exercises without seeing their faces

2. Access for all children. Not all our families have internet access (some are in China for a start and they have different set up/rules on their internet). The biggest issue is that, although most families have computers/phones, they don't all have enough for every child and adult in the home to work online simultaneously. We have families with 4 or 5 children plus 2 parents all trying to work from home - overload on both number of devices available and internet connection is a big problem, regardless of amount of money in the home. There are several children that we need to do daily paper and 'static internet' options for and post/email work to.

3. We are open for key worker and vulnerable children from our own school and a couple of other schools. This is largely being staffed by non teaching staff at the moment (TAs and boarding staff) but teaching staff will take over in the Easter holidays. So we do currently have time to teach our live timetables.

4. My biggest class is 18 children. And that class were a bit annoying on the mics (lots of background noise, no way of knowing who wanted to speak so they were talking over each other, occasional connection issues meant a child I asked a question to wasn't there etc). There's no way I could have done it with 26 children!

My children are being taught via Microsoft Teams.

Choledecker, nope, our school saw this as a possible adult child safeguarding issue.

Re-read my post again, maybe? Not sure what you are getting at.

Do you mean me, previous poster?

Ah. No. I was responding to the OP.

Sorry chloedecker I was responding to someone else. Confusing.... what I meant was that we never even got onto any problems with bullying. Our teachers are making youtube lessons though, so I am sure we will be ridiculed but who cares, WE know we is coolz 😂😂

Maybe it's just your school?!
My son's school have given them a timetable and teachers are online at that time, not only helping but giving and explaining further work.
They also have have a very large homework booklet to complete in case the website is overloaded and crashes.
When he logs on I can see that there's about 33 other students logged on at the same time, they're having full discussions with the teacher about the lesson and so on .
They have also been told they will have end of yr exams of a sort to assess them on subjects covered during this closure

Excellent explanation @manicinsomniac much better than my crack handed attempt earlier

The safeguarding issues are not 'insurmountable' FFS.

(Wondering if manic teaches at one of my DCs schools...)

A teaching system that relies on individual teachers being fit and available during a global pandemic is surely unsustainable.