year 6 class not getting any remote teacher support - what are the teachers doing all day

[anyname147]

My ds is in year 6 and has been at home, like most of his peers, these last few weeks. The (state) school has not offered much in the way of remote learning assistance to the kids or parents who are helping them, other than a few links on a page on their website which has remained static for several weeks. In spite of having to work full time, I am not a teacher, but have managed to cobble together some learning stuff for ds to do at home, but this is with zero help from the school. I understand some teachers are still working at school because of the key worker children etc, but surely the vast majority of staff are at home? What are they doing all day if they are still on the payroll? Surely a 10 or 11 year old can be sent homework tasks - that's actually marked - or weekly links to relevant year group content? I understand the kids don't all have laptops, but virtually all households have email and at least one computer or smart phone or tablet. I just find it hard to believe that his school staff haven't risen to the challenge of continuing their pupils' learning and instead have literally abandoned them because they cant go into school. I have, on the other, risen very much to the challenge and look forward to helping my ds learn new things, but this has come (time-wise) at the expense of my job.

I’m a teacher and I was working the 2 weeks before the Easter holidays.

I’m on rota to work in the hub over Easter.

I will be working the summer term too. From home/ in the hub until we’re back

I don’t get annual leave - the school holidays are my unpaid holidays, I generally work for a portion and spend time with my own family in a portion.

My point was that there hasn't been time for there to be a feedback cycle, they've only been off two weeks. You may find that after the holiday they ask for the work they set originally to be submitted so they can mark,

If there's nothing further when summer term starts then I agree that it's not on.

@MamaBearOnLockdown I did email the school before the holidays. I dont want a `full schedule for my poor kid'. I and he, just want SOME work in the school TERM time. But then I am clearly an evil parent for caring about his education. No matter - I will just let him watch TV all day in the term time, because clearly getting him to do maths would be abuse. And, becuase you didn't grasp the main theme of this - I have a ton of educational books/links etc but I dont have the expertise or time to teach him everything.

But some schools have lost pretty much all their staff to sickness, others haven't.
Some schools are opened for key worker children, others are not.
Some schools have better resources than others.

It's easy to criticise, but do you know anything about the current challenges?

You have links and books so what do you want from the teachers? They aren't doing FaceTime for 30 odd pupils. They are setting work for pupils to work through alone and then marking and updating when it's done

@anyname147

You just said “that’s off topic” to someone saying we don’t get annual leave- despite making statements that demonstrated that you thought we did?

You said you appreciate school holidays are worked by teachers - but you don’t think we should work our annual leave? School holidays are unpaid for us.

I’m so confused!!

And yes - obviously if staff are ill etc, then that's understandable. But the school have not communicated this to the parents. We have had nothing in the way of any useful communication from them at all.

I am not sure why you think they would communicate that to you. The school is not obliged to publish running totals of staff who have the virus just to satisfy the parents that they are not slacking off on taxpayers money!

anyname147
you need to chill.

It doesn't have to be a day in front of the tv vs a full day of private tutoring. It doesn't matter if you child gets away from the curriculum for a week, surely anyone can see that?

The so-called term time was 2 weeks with little warning and time to prepare anything. So your child has a longer Easter Break. Let him enjoy it. He can focus on areas you are not needed, current affairs, history, geography, science, RE, foreign languages, computing.. the list goes on!

No need to bash the teachers because you feel inadequate.

The school is not obliged to publish running totals of staff who have the virus

after years of parents moaning about privacy, safe guarding, GDPR and so on, they really do not have to reveal private information about their own staff!

Ever considered your child’s teacher could be ill?
I’m sure my headteacher had plenty of complaints when I had covid. I’ve been off for over three weeks. I’m only just back to functional as a person, let alone as a teacher.
Get some humanity.

@anyname147 you still have time to apply for a PGCE course and become qualified. Welcome to the profession

@77wasmyyear - at my DS's school - no work is being set and nothing is being marked. That's my issue. I certainly dont expect Facetime.

@Piggywaspushed Summer term is only round the corner. The problem isn't going away if I ignore it.

@Beebie2 I am not here to debate teacher annual leave or benefits. It's really off topic. I work weekends, evenings and during my annual leave, but it's beside the point.

@ Frlrlrubert thanks but from the email response I got from the head - the Summer term will be no different from before the Easter holidays. So I am not holding my breath.

@Kastanien - there's a difference between sending out daily staff totals and explaining briefly how home-based children will be taught. Otherwise parents would be left in the dark and assuming all kinds of things.

I really think this whole issue is down to the school's lack of leadership - not the rest of the staff. They have been in denial about COVID-19 all the way through and their handling of everything has been dreadful - but that's another separate matter.

@anyname147 What would you like the school to provide for your DS (and you)?

Would you like work that your DS has covered before in yr6 and so it's just practice? Is your DS able to do this independently? Is he an able confident learner or someone who needs lots of support?

Did you receive a reply to your email to the school asking what the next steps would be with regards to education?

The three schools I know well are in entirely different situations from each other. So it would be entirely unfair to compare their response to home learning for their pupils. The environment that their pupils are in (access to computers etc); whether or not they're taking key worker pupils/acting as a hub/teachers being redployed to a hub, the number of teachers absent etc.

I envisage that after the holiday things will have come together more, and those schools who haven't don much so far, will have had chance to put things in place.

The idea that teachers teach from worksheets in school is just nuts. A teacher teaches, explains, demonstrates, and is constantly interacting and adapting to the different children in the room. No way can a normal class lesson be turned into something a child can do at home, quickly and easily.

Beebie2 I'm confused too!

OP, teachers don't get annual leave. We mark books and do some bits of planning and write reports and change classroom displays and do paperwork in our unpaid holidays. When the kids aren't at school. So Easter, summer hols, Christmas and three half-term holidays.

Teachers were given basically very little time to do any planning for online/home lessons before schools closed.

Lessons are not easily adapted for online. Doing a worksheet is not going to help the vast majority of kids learn something new. That's what's taking time to figure out.

Your son is year 6 so don't worry. They will have covered all of the Maths and literacy skills required for SATs so these weeks would have been revision only. Hopefully after Easter there'll be more forthcoming from the school. If not, do contact the school again.

@HereTodayHereTomorrow so why are tons of other schools managing to deliver teaching online? And if staff are ill, and no lessons taught (and when I say `lesson' I mean something very adhoc and brief), then surely there should be an email sent out? I can be very understanding if I know there's a reason.

@SallyLovesCheese thanks - that's a helpful comment. I appreciate your position. I am sure teachers would do a better job than me, so even your worst efforts would be better than nothing!

@saraclara ok - fair point.

The teachers in DDs school are as busy as usual, they have less kids but have to split them into smaller groups to ensure they are distancing, they are essentially acting as childcare rather than teachers so having to come up with activities that keep the kids occupied all day but not with their usual lesson plans.

There are a number of teachers and support staff at home self isolating because they're in the vulnerable group or have symptoms so they are short staffed.

In addition to that they are providing weekly worksheet packs which are uploaded to the school website for parents to download.

@anyname147

You brought up the issue of holidays. In fact your title is ‘what are teachers doing all day’

You said you wanted us to work Easter like the ‘rest of us,’ but not our ‘annual leave’ that led to some of us clarifying what our holidays are

You made the comment that tax payers are paying us. That was irrelevant and uncalled for too.

Different schools have different and varying organisational issues.

Schools with high levels of safeguarding have that to contend with - where leadership are class based that poses extra issues

Schools with high levels of pupil premium have free meals to sort, deliver and administrate

Schools with a site manager/cleaning team absent through illness will be cleaning their own site

Schools are looking after a range of unknown kids due to other schools closing completely

High levels of absence have unprecedented issues

High levels of staff with kids under 5 will be an issue - they might, for example; be looked after by a grandparent who now can’t do it.

Higher levels of key worker children, accessing wrap around care will undoubtedly make it harder for schools

You’re not accepting the reasons that might be behind the lower standard of education provided over the last 2 weeks,

If schools are under pressure, for any of the reasons I’ve continued to list, they’ll probably have struggled to communicate this to parents too

I read an article from the teachers union.

They're are very clear things that they can and cannot be asked to do at this time.

I work in a school but not as a teacher.

They will have the full backing of the unions to make sure IGNORANT people like yourself don't expect miracles!

You sound foolish accusing the teachers of having extra holiday breaks and doing hobbies!

I very much doubt it's as easy as 'upload the classroom content to online' and somehow magically Mark it for a whole class.

I'm very sorry you are so inconvenienced by the school closure but blaming teachers for not doing enough is shameful

Are you not able to contact the teacher or anyone from the school by email, telephone etc at all.. Seems strange that their uncontactable. I think it would be best to try to contact the school to address the issue in term time because when term starts back again and you're gonna be back to working full time you're still gonna have the same problem of not having the time to address the issue.

Teachers and teaching staff do work hard. They put in lots of unpaid working hours preparing and planning and goodness knows what else.

It is the easter hols now tho. . They also do have their own families to care for.. So realistically if you want to solve this issue you need to contact the teacher involved in term time.

They are all being paid with our taxes.

Oh do fuck off with your shite. If you’re bothered, make a fuss with the head, request resources and ask what they should be doing. Plenty of people are ‘paid with our taxes’, I pay my husband’s wage, he pays mine, it’s all so ridiculous. The equivalent Year 11 in secondary have probably mostly been told (as have ours) to down tools.The rest of the year is a washout.

There are tons of resources out there, lots of people have posted helpful ideas. Go nuts. If they don’t have google classroom or Show my Homework, I fail to see how they’d mark work anyway.

A) it's school holidays
B) they are in (,unpaid ) in their holidays teaching key workers children
C ) yabu