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?

[NewloveCG]

I am a state teacher, I have been setting work, calling parents everyday, writing reports, planning for next term, marking work, making sure students and parents understand the work, making sure they are accessing the online site, and more. We are not having as you have suggested a paid holiday.

[Shanster]

My kids are at state school in the US - this is our second week of online learning. Their teachers post the assignments for the day, and then the kids have a specific time to meet with the teacher and class on Microsoft teams. They can get help with assignments etc during the video teaching time...my kids are 9 and 11, they each have about 2 hours of MS teams time every. State school could do this, but they need the technology to be available.

[isittooearlyforgin]

My sons school are working their arses off to provide work for them and answer emails, set up links for online learning. I think they are probably working harder than ever.

[MarieFromStTropez]

Trust me, workpacks is a much better solution. Our local private school is teaching the normal school curriculum online, but the technology keeps failing and parents don't understand how it works so can't help.

It is hugely stressful for the teachers, parents and especially for the children. The school are working round the clock to make this work, but it's just so hard to facilitate, even with huge financial resources.

[wearybeery]

Round of applause for @noblegiraffe

[wearybeery]

I'm sick of all the teacher bashing, my sons teachers are doing an amazing job. It's not how I would have done it but that's irrelevant. He's taken what they have offered and has adapted to it which is a great skill that he has learnt.he and his friends are keeping in touch via FaceTime to check stuff and emails to teachers are asked quickly, and the work is appropriate. As he's ks4 he can choose how to supplement what they send if needed, so far it hasn't been but it'd be ok if it did.

[veryboredtoday]

I have worked about 10 hours today. Prepping A level lessons so they can be accessed easily from home and understood plus masses of marking which I've done online and emailed back the individually.
I've got all exam classes and the year 10's and 12's cannot stop working. I seem to be doing a similar amount to my colleagues.
Stopped generalising about teacher behaviour as it's just not true. (Although, not impressed with the work sent home from my daughter's primary school).

[MarieFromStTropez]

OP, if there's anything you don't understand, look on You Tube. My DD was struggling with Fractions earlier, so we watched a couple of You Tube videos and now she gets it.

[newusername2009]

I think all the comment about technology / laptops etc for state v private are correct but I do worry about how wide a gap will develop between state and private if we have another term of this. Mine are all primary and state school and it’s flipping hard work pulling together material myself for them to be educated whilst I also work.

I imagined though that state school teachers get a lot less none teacher time and simply haven’t had the time to prepare yet. Private schools also have to justify the fees for next term!

[Worriedmom2020]

My kids are at state school.
Primary aged - we were given many test books, new writing books, and other work set. Their teachers email a lesson plan and read them books on YouTube. Online programmes also. Sharing worked via email, photos etc

Secondary - loaned us a laptop, live lessons for some classes, homework and lessons being set and work being marked.

Ours are being amazing.

[Worriedmom2020]

If you're struggling with maths, Khan academy is the way to do! And I see maths on YouTube.

[flossyflorenceflounces]

And make and deliver packed lunches to all your free school meals kids because the government promised a voucher scheme that still hasn’t materialised.

If they contact a local supermarket they will probably be able to come up with an alternative, our local supermarket offered free vouchers to the schools in the town to the value of two weeks of free school meals to be used to buy food.

[sunnyday45]

Parent here with 2 kids at state primary, years 3 and 4. Just over 100 kids in each year group.

We had an email with links to some home learning work books, one maths, one English, one practical projects like art and science and one with ideas for p.e activities. We have to print the work books out ourselves so not sure what parents without printers, ink and paper are meant to do?

There are sections at the back with answers to the questions but no other guidance or offer from the school for any help with things. Our school isn't doing any online lessons or any marking, they've left it all up to us to figure out and get on with. I think it's great to hear some other schools are doing lessons via google classroom, Zoom etc and being interactive with the kids. To mine these work books I'm getting them to do just seem like homework and not at all engaging or interactive, they've said they're boring and it's day 2. I also have no idea how much work we should be doing per day? We just haven't had any guidance. Do you think the school will ask to have the work books handed in for marking when all this is over? I'm tempted to mix things up a bit and use online lives to try and get my kids to engage a bit. Oh when I say work books that's what the school called them but it's just lots of paper print outs.

[DBML]

you just need an iPad/laptop and zoom - all our classes have those. No excuse?

Unfuckingbelievable.

State teacher here. Just off to bed now.
Been in school all day looking after kids. Came home at 4pm. Expected to serve a minimum of three hours contact with learners, so did that whilst marking online work sent to me via GoogleClassroom and try to create the next lot of work to upload.

Made tea around 7.30pm and checked my own son had done his school work.

Quick shower and back downstairs as I’m struggling to scour the internet for resources. Looked at the clock it’s gone 10pm. Notice I’ve got a shed load more work uploaded by KS5 learners, so in an attempt to make a tiny bit of free time for my family tomorrow evening, I’ve just got that done.
Pop on Mumsnet to wind down as I quickly blow dry my still damp hair, get totally pissed off by entitled lunatics.
Realise the time is 3.14 and I have less than 4 hours sleep.
Such an easy ride this.

[SallyLovesCheese]

Another teacher-bashing thread, lovely.

Even in a pandemic and a lockdown the likes of which we've never seen before, parents are still managing to be ignorant, condescending and insulting.

"Let's get behind the key workers in this time of need to keep the country going. Except teachers. They're all lazy fuckers."

The support of the general public has never been more important than now. We are human. We are doing our best. We are scared. Why don't you just keep your thoughts to yourself for once?!

[LincolnshireYellowBelly]

In the school I work at we are trying to ensure that every low income family has food coming into them.
We have laptops, but the laptops are quite slow therefore meaning live teaching is difficult.
I’m working on creating more resources for the children, setting tasks through online platforms, writing annual reports, whilst also looking after my own children and getting them to complete tasks sent. We are all trying our best😔

[partystress]

poster flossyflorenceflounces great. But the time to find the one that will issue vouchers, to check out that their vouchers will only be useable on food, work out which one will be most accessible/affordable for your poorest parents, get them and then get them out to parents (and not know whether your cash strapped school will be reimbursed) could be considerable.

And this is being done on Monday, when on Friday your usual caterer had said they would keep supplying, so you thought that was one thing sorted and set your mind to infection risk minimisation until they emailed on Sunday and said sorry, but it was no longer viable for them to do so.

[Macaroni46]

@brittabot actually private schools have the same obligation to provide care for key worker children. We are all in the same boat. We are doing our best to educate our pupils remotely and to provide pastoral support. We are going in during the holidays to look after key worker children putting ourselves and our families at risk.
I am currently working more hours than I would if school was open trying to learn a whole new way of working so I can provide remote lessons.
We all would far rather things were back to normal and the pupils were in school.
These are hard times for everyone. But no, you carry on having a go at teachers. Because whatever we do it's never enough.

[TheClitterati]

Dd is at a grammar school. Y7. She has all her classes set online and is enjoying working through her lessons each day. Thankfully she got a chrome book for her birthday.

Dd2 is Y4 and working through stuff school set online on an old iMac my friend gave us last year.

I work from home on work laptop.

[Helpmechangemymindsetplease]

My dc are at state secondary school and are being taught online on google classroom - following their usual timetable more or less. Am very impressed.

[Letthemysterybe]

Not all private schools are providing school. I know plenty of kids sent home With a folder full of work.

The oarents at my state primary would probably be in uproar if full on lessons were being delivered over zoom. Right now the parents here just want their kids to be happy and positive, and spend time playing with their siblings, exercising in the garden and doing a bit of school work in between .

Clearly there isn’t one approach that suits everyone!

[Thinkinghappythoughts]

Private schools can pretty much assume all kids have computer and internet access. State schools can't.

[voxnihili]

I teach in a state school with a very high percentage of PP. Our students don’t have tech at home and the majority don’t have parents who will be encouraging any school work as they just don’t value it. That’s not me making assumptions - I know from the countless conversations I have with them.

I prepared work packs that for the most part won’t get done. I’m the main point of contact for students and parents rather than them having all staff emails. I’ve had one email and that was from a student not a parent.

Even if we had the technology I would struggle to do online classes as I have a toddler at home because her nursery is closed. I’m working as much as I can but as yet no one has confirmed whether I’ll get paid because I can’t physically do my stint in school so my absence has been recorded as childcare related. So as well as providing everything I am, I have the stress of not being able to pay the bills.

[mistyrains]

To be fair, I’m not entirely sure that every state school is filled with starving children of heartless parents, and if they are, education is the best way out of it.

I’m not sure what the answer is under the current regime, though.

[Alkaloise]

We are all having to work at home alongside our kids, why aren’t teachers doing this too?

It is this last sentence that really gets me. You have no clue what you're talking about, OP.
My typical school day, working from home.

6.30am start work - respond to children's questions, which can be sent all day and all night. The first day I made the mistake to leave the system on and did not go to bed until gone past midnight.

7am start preparing lessons. I am working on a schedule of setting lessons 3 days in advance. That is NOT so I can have more time off, but simply because I'm dealing with kids who will have to share one laptop or smartphone between however many of them, including parents. I've only done this for a few days, but certain kids are only ever online from around 10pm because it is the only time they can work.

around 9am: "Meeting" with my boss - essentially checking I'm doing my job, am well and that I have no technical issues.

9.15am-12pm: mark students' work. That involves checking and hand-marking their responses to questions. Many students respond in many different ways, so I have to check a variety of different formats. Enter test results. Make a list of students who haven't completed work. Check whether their families have informed the school that they will not be able to complete work for the day. Sanction work not completed. Contact parents of students whose work has not been completed (at the moment text message, soon I will have to call persistent non-compliance). Log this.

12.30pm-1.30pm make welfare phone calls to my tutees. Log this.

1.30-4pm more lesson preparation, finding ways of adapting a largely practical subject in a safe way for students to learn from home.

4pm-5pm Complete my other directed tasks (because I apparently have "gained time" from not being directly on the chalkface).

5pm-8pm My own kids get a look in and receive some attention. That is a toddler and a teenager. The teen is perfectly fine occupying themselves, the toddler less so. So my day has to include working around this, which mostly involves sending the toddler to play in the garden and using a screen to occupy them until the childminder can work again and give them the attention they deserve.

I am online and responding to kids all day until I go to bed. Because the kids I teach have NO CHOICE but to work early mornings/ late evenings when they don't have to look after siblings, deal with a nasty home life, share the one (slow) school laptop etc.

Please tell me again I'm a lazy fucker.

Oh, and we're not allowed to do live lessons for safeguarding reasons.