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?

My kids are in a semi-private school (Not UK) and they have a full school day at home.

However, that is possible because we all had for fork out for our kids to get iPads at the beginning of the year. The teachers can access the kids' ipads remotely and they all have the same software and apps on them.

We also had 10 days notice that the schools were going to close so they were able to practice doing online lessons whilst still at school and have been uploading their homework since the beginning of the year.

We chose the school because it is bilingual and I am very grateful for it now.

If they didn't go there, they wouldn't have access to a laptop as DH and I are both WFH and need to use ours.

It is not realistic to assume that all pupils in a state school would have this access.

What could be looked at is the govt. expanding BBC learning as much as possible to give kids as much content as possible on TV and online rather than expecting teachers to pull an online curriculum out of the hat and find a way for every kid to be able to access it.

From gov.uk

1. Resources and support

6.1 What support will be available to parents to help them educate their children at home? More information will follow about what DfE is doing to support parents. We are working with the BBC and others to provide resources for children to access while at home. For parents with children under 5 years old see hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk 6.2 There is too much pressure on broadband connections in my area - how can my child do online learning? The government is having regular calls with the major fixed and mobile operators, and with Ofcom, to monitor the situation and ensure that any problems on the networks are rapidly addressed and rectified. We fully understand the importance of having reliable internet connectivity at this time, so that people can work from home wherever possible and access critical public services online, including health information.

School dependent rather than sector dependent I'd think.

My DC's state school are sticking to normal timetable as far as possible, teachers are setting work for each lesson and are online during the timetabled lesson.

My niece and nephew's private school have given the children the week off because they need time to get their online offering set up.

So in this example, the state school has done rather better than the private!

No idea, and without sounding mean, it's not my problem to know!

I have no words. Any decent human being would not have written this.

My DS is KS2 and the teachers are sending quite a bit of work via a school learning platform and seem responsive to emails if anyone has questions etc. My DD is at high school and some teachers have just dropped a few weeks worth of work there in 1 go, but she doesnt seem to have a lot, and most online so not marked.
A friend who works in a private school is doing live online lessons.
I know it will be a lot of work to set up but in some ways teachers are fortunate that they can carry on working, and presumably will still have the same job when this is over......when so many private sector jobs are in jeopardy.

Same here. My y7 is at a private. They don’t have zoom but a full day of timetabled work is being set with teachers available for questions and I don’t see dd all day. My state primary has literally a daily write a sentence for English and the maths questions which even he says is too easy. They are not even setting challenges through mathletics. It takes him 10 mins and I spend the rest of the day trying to homeschool him while working full time.

Independent schools are of course bound by safeguarding. Ours are all being taught using teams and it’s all being hosted on the school server so there is no direct link between pupil and teacher it goes via the host . No cameras for obvious reasons unless the teacher wants to and is in school so it’s a classroom . School also open for key workers children

Then this is not the ‘online lessons’ that the OP is referring to. This is setting work, that can be accessed online and messages sent between staff and child. Teams is one way of doing that. Other online methods such as VLE, Google Classroom etc are also being used, as well as email. This is what most schools are doing including State schools.

It’s the online lessons using video on Teams or Zoom as the OP is referencing, that is the issue the OP is criticising.

I'm a state school teacher. I'm online via google classroom all day. Kids have plenty of work, I have video recorded lessons for them to watch. There is a safeguarding issue with teaching online. Managing behaviour online would also be a nightmare. At present, we are screen recording with audio mostly. Some teachers are worried that kids might use the videos to make embarrassing memes or boomerangs of them. We need to protect ourselves too. Honestly, I am working really hard. Using Google hangouts to conference with staff and creating online lessons that have an educational purpose rather than busy work. I'd give anything to be back in my classroom.

I’m so pissed off with our private school. The work they sent home via email on Monday took us ten minutes. It’s was ridiculously easy. And basically pointed us to online line sites like Mathetics etc.. we’ve actually been off two weeks now. Dds teacher is very ‘relaxed’ and it’s been a bit of a bone of contention in the past.

We have google class room set up and their is nothing on it.

I’ve looked at my friends state school dd work and it’s a lot more comprehensive than ours. I’m going to give him to the end of play today to see if anything materialises before I send the head of junior school the comparisons to the state school work

They were very quick off the mark to tell us we must continue paying our fees as we were apparently getting continue support

Please don’t blame individual teachers for whatever it is you think they aren’t doing exactly right just now. They have to do what their headteacher decides they should do, they don’t get to make their own choices in whether there will be online lessons, emails, phone calls etc.

If some schools and their students have the capability of good quality online learning then that’s great, but many don’t. It would disadvantage some children if their classmates were online with their teachers everyday but they couldn’t be because there isn’t enough internet access for all the children at home or whatever reason.

Children are already going to come out of this with hugely different experiences of learning at home, we don’t need to disadvantage some children further.

I'm a state school teacher who is pretty confident using tech. I'd never even heard of zoom until last week. Many of our families share laptops between siblings and not all have reliable internet (rural). We have to consider equity of access.

I've worked 2 12 hour days so far this week and will no doubt do the same today. Our local authority servers have crashed so I can't access many of the resources I need meaning I need to create new ones; resources I use in classroom teaching are also not quite right for online delivery so need changed as well.

Comments like the OPs make me want to quit and find another profession. The last week has been the most difficult of my career - picture teenagers who are in tears because they think their future has just been taken away from them because no exams, and staff who haven't a clue what to tell them because they found out live on TV at the same time. These same pupils spent last week absolutely hammering themselves into the ground to complete coursework early that now will not be marked.

Of course there will be a few teachers who will take advantage of this situation, just like every workplace. But please, give the rest of us a chance. Most will have provided work for a week or two to let them figure out what is happening next.

I agree with PP that the govt needs to put out educational content via the TV.

Yes chloe, he has a smartphone. Your point being?

My statement was in response to lots of people saying everyone at private school will have a laptop.
I have a 5 year old laptop that thankfully I recently had cleaned, it didn’t even switch on a couple of months ago.

Oh look a teacher bashing thread a few days into a national emergency.

Damn us teachers for not having super human powers and being able to right the wrongs of the whole world.

My school is doing everything we can with limited tech, pupils who don't have access to WiFi/ parents who don't give a damn and see this as a holiday.

I spent last week helping year 11 and 13 pupils come to terms with the fact that they won't be sitting exams. This has sent some of my more vulnerable pupils into a complete tail spin as school was their safe place and working towards their goals was their escape.

I'm checking in with my tutor group daily as they are year 7s and from the conversations we were having before school closed some of them are scared, really scared that loved ones will die, that their pregnant mothers will die and that their baby sibling will die.

But, yeah we've all fucked off treating this like a holiday.

Well my state send home school packs. And they upload activities onto a website and every time my kids complete the activity, the teacher is commenting straight away and giving tips etc. She doesn't even work at school on the first half of the week.

And I'm quite pleased the pressure is off tbh. I will do as much as I can, but whilst we are in isolation and the weather is nice, I am very much treating this week like the Easter holidays.

My year 5 is in a private school. No online teaching but a pack of work to complete sent weekly. Not going to keep him going all day Bit fine

Year 9 & 12 in state school. Work set daily for year 9 online lessons for year 12.

Not so different. There will be online lessons for all years in the state school from 20 April - after the holidays. I’m ok with that

Yes chloe, he has a smartphone. Your point being?

Absolutely not a point. Sorry. I was just wanting to ask if he has. It is a powerful computer on its own and he can do a fair bit of his work on that, if that helps? For example, a lot of the online sites that will have been provided to him, can be done on his Smartphone. He can type answers to questions in his Notes section and save the there. He can screen shot them and send them in if necessary. He can also watch TED Talks or similar. I am more than happy to send some other links for subjects, if that would be useful?
It’s just sometimes it is easy to forget a Smartphone is more than just a phone/browser and most of them perform better than older laptops anyway

My DS’ private school have sent through a scavenger hunt and book list . They have never shared the curriculum so I have sweet f all to go on.

My friend’s DC at state school have been sent lesson plans and daily activities. She has shared them with me, and it has been really helpful.

Lots of my students don't have a access to the internet, or MS packages.

Their broadband is patchy at best (very rural)

Do I disadvantage these kids on purpose by streaming live lessons or carry on regardless?

If all teachers do this I'm going to need devices for both my children and myself too as we can't all use my laptop. I don't have a school one.

We don't all have iPads each 🤷‍♀️

FFS stop teaching bashing. Some of the kids I teach don't even have internet at home. Forget a laptop for each individual child. Just realise that not all kids live in a privileged bubble. Lots of teachers are still at work looking after key worker kids, lots of teachers are working from home setting work that's not being looked at. Lots of us also have our own kids at home. Not to mention struggling with mental health implications of being told we have to stay in for 12 weeks. Get over yourself, and maybe in Sept pay for that private school education

My DC1's school has been the one good thing in this shitty situation which has chucked me back into full-blown depression due to the lockdown.

They are doing broadcasts (a bit like a Radio 4 programme - interviews, Arts, religion/philosophy etc) every morning, online school during the day, and regular personal emails from teachers/housemasters/mistresses.

They have also opened up the physical school to local children of key workers, to whom they are offering a full timetable, so are massively doing their bit.

They have also reduced the fees as they are not providing a full service to their usual pupils!

I love, love, love this school. I loved it before, and love it even more now.

What private schools do will vary. They aren't a collective. They are all private and independent as such. Like lots of different service providers. Yhey all tun thrmsrlves differently.
Private schools market themselves on a certain achievement usually academic or sometimes in a certain area such as The Arts. From a business point of view I imagine they are still aiming to get good results as thst most probably their key selling point when attracting people to part with ££££ every term.
I also suspect they want to still provide a certain level of education to fend off parents demanding £££ back and to ensure they still cough up next terms fees.

Then I guess all this feeds into paying their Teachers and retaining them.

I don't disagree that what you describe is unfair on state educated kids and their families and it would be great if what you describe could be rolled out. I guess rolling it out for your school of a few hundred kids is more achievable faster than millions of kids up and down the country. We also need to consider not all families such as those in poverty/hostels will have the tech equipment or internet access, whilst I imagine ALL private school children do.

Agree that it's school specific rather than sector specific, though. DC2's school (also independent) is doing sod all.

If you’re stuck on something, there’s this website called YouTube. Don’t know if you’ve heard of it? Go on there and there will be a video to show you how to use and apply the methods. I find it’s much more useful than coming onto a website to moan about other people on ‘holiday.’

Oh my goodness. You really don’t have a clue about how different teaching online is to teaching in the classroom. We had very little warning about this and therefore do not all possess the skills to make this happen. Resources for staff and students are variable and this makes it difficult for teachers and students to do.
Some students have laptops, some have smartphones, some have no paper. This is not an easy task.
We’re doing the best we can. Cut us some slack. We’re not at home doing nothing. We’re trying to figure out what is a fair way to give grades for GCSE’s and A levels, we’re marking BTEC coursework often alongside looking after our own families.
Also if you think that you can do a better job go ahead and try!