Should education be suspended?

[Cantteach]

I honestly believe that the most important area we can invest in is education. The ripple effect that a good education system has on every other area is immeasurable.

However, I am seeing increasingly on social media and through various conversations that parents are struggling with the home schooling set up. For many families their worlds are upside down. They are dealing with lockdown trying to protect their household while worrying about the health and safety of family and friends. Many families are also dealing with unexpected redundancy or wage cuts, while others attempt to work from home and look after their children. And as for the key workers who are doing an amazing job, picking up their children and then having to start school work, I don't know how they are coping.

We all know that there are some children who right now will still be receiving excellent education, while some are receiving none. For most in the middle it's a daily battle of feeling you should try, arguing with your child, tears, failing and promising yourself you'll do better tomorrow.

As the government needs to create a recovery plan for this missing term (please, please only be one term!) and virtually everything will need doing again anyway, aibu to ask that the government drop the pretence of home schooling?

No- the mental health of many children and carers would be improved if we accept we can't replace teachers and we all start a fresh when this is over.

Yes- even 10 minutes a day is better than nothing. Allowing parents to stop will make the issue so much worse.

Maybe some of you might appreciate the free games and activities I've been making at www.boredgames.club for families on lockdown.

It's a free playbook of fun games, drawing and inventing activities designed to get kids back to using their imagination and families playing together away from devices.

I hope you enjoy and would love your feedback!

I just feel sorry for the children who had school as an escape and their only chance to learn and get a stable education and a fair shot in life. There are many, many dysfunctional families out there and parents who are probably getting pissed all day now and don't give a fuck.

Parents are too happy to let others do their job, because money is more important than their children

Way to devalue teaching and teachers.

I’m letting a teacher teach my children. That is their job, not mine. My daughter is doing a normal school programme during term time. It would be the height of arrogance for me to interfere and infer I can do better.

My job is to parent my child, which I am doing.

Marie

Some people don't have the teachers doing this though. I'm a qualified teacher btw, not that I used these skills once in home educating my dd through primary.
You don't teach, you see. You facilitate, much different than teaching more like a support role.
HTH.

"I never let school stand in the way of a good education"
Mark Twain.

I hope you mange to step up if he teachers aren't available for your child.

I think there are plenty of middle-class homes where the parents are drinking a lot more. I don't think these households are the beacon of stability anymore!

Some people don't have the teachers doing this though

Indeed, which is why a broad approach in terms of statement isn’t helpful.

You don't teach, you see. You facilitate, much different than teaching more like a support role.
HTH

Not what you said initially but comprehension is an undervalued skill. HTH.

I hope you mange to step up if he teachers aren't available for your child

Why would I need to? It’s literally not going to happen. There is work set, planned and subs available from now until July.

It’s far more important I let teachers do their job whilst I do mine.

the majority learned to read/write/do maths to a very high standard.
I’m sorry Londonjax but this is just not true. I’m so glad it worked out for your family but the likelihood is that your mum is an intelligent person who would have learned anywhere. Before the war almost half of people were functionally illiterate. It was the number of young men joining up who couldn’t read who brought this to general attention.
I wonder if it would have been better for everyone to have taken a break, a long Easter holidays, to allow people time to adjust and to give schools and the authorities a chance to think and make a plan. As it is we’re all playing catch up and I worry for the children who were already behind and will only become more so.

To be honest, the third term is usually the one with most interruptions, school tournaments, sports days, school trips etc. Teachers recap everything every year, even the brightest children need recapping on the basics after the Summer term.

Up to a point I agree.
For most primary aged kids and even year 7 and 8, they will be fine. By the end of next year they will be fine. there may be one or two topics that they missed, but they will re-do those at some point through their school career, and they will be fine.

But for some groups they will not be fine

1. SEN kids who are only just barely keeping up/coping, and missing this chunk in one go will mean they fall much further back, and it will take them a long time to catch up
2. for any child where home is a negative thing, and school a safe space, I seriously worry about those kids
3. for the kids mentioned up thread where they are living in Travel Lodge or 5 kids in small flat. This is going to be a long hard road for them, lacking in stimulation, and they will fall behind a lot.
4. year 10 and 12. They will miss 1/5 of their curriculum, and for kids who are keeping up on-line, that will be Ok but not great, for any kid who falls into the categories above, their chances of getting their exam results has just crashed. Opens the gap between the haves and have nots.

If, as someone did suggest earlier I think, the government decided that all children re did the year would you still expect your children to work this term?

in the UK where all children HAVE to go to the next year whatever their level, that's never going to happen anyway.

I don't know about the poster you asked the question to, but mine would definitively work anyway. First because I don't want them to think that work is a chore, and even if they did redo the year, there still is so many things they can learn on all sorts of subjects.

Doing nothing for 6 months means too much of a nasty shock they day they finally go back to school!

I'm not suggesting they do nothing for 6 months! Everyone will go crazy if we let that happen. I'm just suggesting children do other activities. I expect they will be out of school for the rest of this academic year and things will be more normal over the summer holidays. So unless people plan to do their own teaching over August the children will suffer the usual back to school shock anyway.

Parents are too happy to let others do their job, because money is more important than their children

My kids are in secondary school and quite frankly I can't teach all subjects and 99.9% of adults will be the same .

Just before the Easter holidays Y9 Ds had to watch a video and do some questions on displacement reactions- something I learned 30+ years ago so couldn't help very much with. He's at an age where I can't not teach chemistry because he needs it for GCSE and he might end up enjoying it enough to study beyond that. We tried our best using other resources but I'm not 100% sure that we got the answers right. Ds needed a professional who understands the subject to teach him- not a bumbling mum trying to guess the answers

The schools my kids go to have been invaluable in helping families cope with lockdown. Help with food for low-income families, with getting deliveries to homes in self-isolation, with signposting sources of parenting and mental health support, with keeping in touch with families who were already having difficulties, with giving on-line group activities and assemblies to keep the sense of community going - all that on top of setting work and giving feedback and support.

DD needs routine and therefore distance learning is better than none. There are so many creative ways that her teachers have used different apps to keep her engaged.

It’s been a steep learning curve and after a week of getting up at noon, DD and I came to an agreement —I put a rocket up her arse— that she was to follow her revised timetable.

We are lucky that her school was able to move on to Microsoft Teams relatively easily.

Distance learning has l given me an insight into what she does at school.

OP I agree with pretty much all you have said. Inequality is going to widen horribly during this time and something must be put in place, particularly for Yrs 10 & 12, to account for it. I think the other year groups will catch up but next year's GCSEs are going to have to be adapted. It's not good enough to say "Well they should have been doing it at home and tough shit if they haven't." As others have said, something should be provided, but kids shouldn't just be expected to plough through the curriculum as if nothing has happened. Ds1 is in Y8 and some of his teachers have sent the power points they would have used in class and these have been probably the least successful things he's been sent; what would obviously take an hour in a classroom with discussion and maybe extra resources has taken him about 15 minutes to do alone. I'm not teacher-bashing (I am one) - we had little time to set things up and I'm certainly not blaming these teachers but just pointing out the difficulties with just carrying on.

Give parents the opportunity to explore teaching new off curriculum stuff with their children by removing the fixed curriculum for now.

*Which is fine for the younger age groups, but really is a non starter for secondary

OP: I’m guessing here, but are you thinking only if primary schools?*

iVampire I profoundly disagree with this. I'm a secondary school teacher and we have set task that will allow the students to consolidate their skills and widen their knowledge, but the resources we have for use in school were just not suitable to set for remote learning - and our head has said no online teaching.

My Y10s were halfway through reading Frankenstein when we closed. No way was I going to expect them to finish that alone. Some will anyway, and that's great, but many wouldn't no matter what I did, creating a complete mess when we go back. I would have thought most secondary subjects would be able to set project work or revision and that is far better, imo, than carrying on. I agree a decision should be taken on a national level.

And sometimes being a teacher is a hindrance to teaching my own children, not because I can't, but I have a lot to do (like other people wfh) and getting all competitive about what my own dc do isn't really manageable, even if I wanted to.

The potential inequalities will be massive. My niece and nephew- one in year 10 are in private secondary school and they are expected to be working to a full timetable. I just don’t see how GCSEs can be on a level playing field next year when some have had full tuition and others very little input.

You can really see how the education level of parents will make a massive difference at all levels. My little one will be going into reception. From what I’ve seen, all of her friends at nursery have large gardens, educated parents doing letters/numbers and educational play. I suspect the majority will start able to read cvc words, do basic arithmetic and will have had a lovely few months playing outdoors. I think it will be really hard for children from more vulnerable backgrounds starting with the same cohort. Nursery is meant to close some of those gaps.

Theduchessstill

genuine question, what are you going to do for the whole 14 or so weeks of next term?
You can't keep consolidating, at some point you have to introduce the new material and content. Eg at some point they have to finish Frankenstein.

So what will you do?

Cremebrule I agree, it is massively going to open up the gap for many.

Just to say, I am a teacher. Being a teacher does not help at all when it comes to your own kids.
In fact, my own kids are way, way harder to teach than any child I have had in class.
My dd (aged 12) gives me about 10 seconds before she flounces and either tells me I don't get it and she'll ask her friends (which doesn't help) or tells me I'm intetfering, when I try to suggest anythign at all.

Then she stops working and sulks for an hour.
Honestly? It is exhausting, and I am trying to wfh at the same time.

We are moving onto something that's more manageable and low stakes than completing Frankenstein after Easter. They absolutely do not have to complete Frankenstein while they're off. As I said, many simply wouldn't anyway and of those who did, a lot wouldn't really get to grips with it. Rather than saying we'll have to sort it (we being teachers but also parents and students themselves) I believe that unless school reopen after May half-term (unlikely) and stay open with no further closures next year (unknown), exams next year will have to have reduced content.

I’m confused. Doesn’t the guidance tell school to relax, work with families, no pressure etc.

Teen here finally logged on. It’s revision and links to various sites and activities etc. Nothing new is being learned.

Those schools demanding a full days work, in full uniform etc and might face repercussions when they go back to school, there could be massive changes to the curriculum and what they have decided to teach gets scrapped for the exams.

If we could all be teachers it would have been a chosen career path. For many of us for various reasons, it’s an impossible task.

I think even kids like mine with a decent home will struggle

My 15 year old is a typical teenager.. What do you know mum..

He struggles with maths would he listen to me.. No.. Pen gets thrown and he stomps off.. Got a tutor.. He listens he learns. Same in school

But for now no school no.tutor.. There is not much happening here. I think a lot of teens will be like this

Jo

canigooutyet
I agree that schools that are trying to demand full uniform and strict timetables etc are bonkers but I’m not sure what you mean by repercussions.
If there are changes to the exams and the kids end up not needing what I’ve taught them during the shutdown for the exam then they haven’t lost out in any way. I happen to think that what I teach them has value regardless of whether it happens to be on the exam or not.
On the other hand, if we go easy, tell them not to worry and just set a bit of light revision and the government doesn’t make big changes to the exams then our kids will be at a huge disadvantage. That’s not a gamble I’m happy to take.
In my subject the government won’t just be taking topics out of the curriculum anyway. It can’t be done as we all teach them in a different order. They could potentially make the exams more forgiving by introducing more question choice but that wouldn’t make what they are learning whilst off a waste of time. The more content they have covered the more choices they will have.

Duchess I am having the opposite problem here. DD is in Y7, the task was to annotate a poem and write and essay. I am not a teacher but as this is a new concept (the children had just started doing it before lockdown so not absolutely brand new) for her I expect there would have been a lesson on interesting discussion and the a homework task of effectively writing it up lasting 30 minutes. Instead it took several lonely, unsure hours. I haven't seen her work, it may be outstanding it may be garbage. If it is awful I think it's unlikely her teacher will be as honest as he may have been during normal times. If she hasn't fully grasped it yet I doubt he's going to be able to explain clearly over email.

I have largely shielded my DC from worry. Our financial situation has changed but but they won't see any change. If it changes further and further still which is entirely possible I can't protect them from reality anymore. Currently, and more importantly, everyone close to us is currently healthy. We do have family members that are a worry to me but again I don't discuss this with the children as it hasn't happened yet but when it does, and it most likely will, I will no longer be able to contain my fears and that will frighten them. Some houses are already there and it doesn't matter what your lifestyle was. Either of these situations can happy to anyone and won't make for a calm learning environment.

Also, as we are continually told that missing any day of education affects our children long term results a recovery plan will be needed for the next decade. I don't expect the government to have all the answers right now but at least to publicly acknowledge this so teachers won't still be aiming for now unattainable goals.

Mine are teens and I'm NHS some of work school has set has been completed but what am I meant to do when I'm at work all day? I am worried they will fall behind but I'm not sure what to do about it.

SabineSchmetterling Are all of your students fully engaging with the work you are setting? If not, what are you going to do about the ones who have fallen behind when you get back? I think as a profession we do need to make a stand against the fallacy that we can keep everything as it would have been had the closure not happened. If not, disadvantaged children and entire schools in deprived areas are going to fall through the cracks and be labelled as not having 'risen to the challenge', and that is grossly unfair.

My children are only disadvantaged because I have to work for the NHS and they either aren't self motivated or mature enough yet to engage with the work set by school. To be fair, this is very different to being in a formal education setting and I don't have any choice but to go to work.