Why are teachers not teaching live lessons online

[Shouldistayorshouldimove]

This is not a teacher bashing thread.

Talking online with another mum in my son’s class today, both ourDCs are in p1 (Scotland). She is outraged that teachers next term will be posting work online rather than actually teaching using Zoom etc. Her argument is that universities are doing it so why aren’t teachers? And how is she supposed to work from home and educate her children?

Personally I don’t think teaching a bunch of 5 year olds a live lesson using Zoom is going to be all that effective and would probably require quite a lot of supervision anyway. AIBU to think that tasks posted online are quite sufficient given the circumstances? So as not to drip feed, I am also working from home with 2DCs.

"The guide for primary age children is that teacher talk should last for no more the child's age plus five, and even that should be interactive. Children should be talking to each other and teachers should be asking questions of children. Then, for the other 50ish minutes, the teacher will be looking at children's work as they do it, for "live feedback" to support and move them on. Children will not all be given the same work."

This x1000

There are fundamental misunderstandings about what a teacher does here.

There sure are. But if those that despise teachers so much took the time to find out, they might have to acknowledge that their opinion of what a teacher does is skewed and perhaps take a different view and that would never do.

And oh, what a surprise more schools and tutors using the extremely unsafe Zoom breaching loads of policies signed even as a parent, never mind schools. Don't parent actually bother to read all those consent forms? They are very informative.
Secondary school pupils might also find themselves also in breach of their signed agreements.

One of those things everyone signs is about not using websites that are known to display porn ffs. Yet here people are, happily talking about how fabulous zoom is and a perfect solution.

If the choice boils down to Zoom for education to be re-started or I carry on doing what I'm doing. Not a chance in hell is zoom coming near my kids and I couldn't give a shit about any consequence thrown at me as a result. We need to be staying loudly no to zoom.

If you are contacting schools anyway, ask them wtaf they are playing at using zoom and tell them the issues. Don't let them brush you off about this, but remember this comes from management not teachers.

It is a little strange that many sectors have massively changed how they work in a month

Yeah, none of these other sectors are dealing with 100s or 1000s of children , and their associated parents.

I also liked the use Skype comment. Skype is not allowed on my school issue laptop.

FWIW my school does use Google Classroom and the beauty is it does not have to be live : students can access , do and return work whenever they like.

However, lots of them (these are 14 - 18 year olds) are really really bad with technology and do seem to only have smartphones which are actually really rubbish for viewing and completing schoolwork.

I think it is worth remembering that teachers never ever signed up to being recorded in videos to be uploaded online. I personally wouldn't feel comfortable with it for a multitude of reasons. I have moved to teaching remotely partially through an online platform and partially through teaching paper teaching packs.

Also, I teach KS1. Anyone who has ever been in a KS1 classroom will know a prerecorded video of a teacher explaining something is pointless. It's all about interaction, us questioning pupils and them questioning us.

This is what my union states, the standards at which some people are currently holding teacher at is frankly ridiculous.

• Do as much or as little as you and your family can cope with;
• You are a teacher, not a superhero;
• The parent/carer of your pupil remains the child’s primary educator;
• Do not judge yourself against what you may hear others are doing;
• This is not home schooling; this is an emergency situation where NONE of us have had any time to effectively plan or prepare;
• A reasonable expectation of you is what you can get done while juggling the reality of your life in these current circumstances.

Here in Italy they have been very pragmatic and set a complicated timetable so that middle school and elementary school zoom lessons don't clash as not everyone has two computers. They have also given out tablets to those who needed them. The lessons on zoom vary in quality, I think mainly depending on subject as much as teacher. For example language lessons work really well, maths was ok, Italian less so. The lesson time is 2.5 hours. I'd say a big chunk of people logged out after two as it's just not fun to look at a screen that long!
I think on the whole something should be done with the technology, even a once a week half hour together -not for the educational side but for the social contact. I saw ds much happier after seeing all his friends and teachers and it broke up the day for him.

Actually I say zoom but after the media coverage of zoom they have moved to Google meeting.

Sen teacher here, my thoughts are:

How do I ensure that I match every need in the class without the use of prompts or visuals?
How to I check well they are achieving the task, without giving them the 1-1 intervention they all need?
How do I ensure all behavioural needs are met?
How do I know they all have access to a laptop, internet and sometimes, even the basics; pencil and paper?

I can't just talk at them for 1 hour and hope something sinks in via osmosis.
The work I have sent home has been differentiated 3 times to reflect the very diverse needs in the class. I also email, and ring once a week to do a welfare check. I try and make things imaginative, whilst understanding that there may be some learning restrictions at home.
When I'm not doing that, I plan for the next week. Currently planning for Summer 2 and the new academic year. I writing up EHCP's and offering support to other staff, sharing work and ideas etc.

A class of 5-yr olds attending on-line tutoring? Haha, good luck!

Another well-documented security breach with Zoom is users getting forced to join in conversations.

Another well-documented security breach is that random people can also force themselves into closed conversations.

Never mind all the Malware it is known for.

People really aren't making this up. Google it for yourselves. Those who work with children should avoid Zoom like they do Skype in many schools and have tighter internet restrictions.

Wonder who will get the blame when a child gets exposed to something from home cos they have been happily and blindly using an unsafe platform?

Most independent schools are not doing live lessons either. Safeguarding issues are as relevant for them as for any other type of school. Also, not all children attending independent schools (if I remember correctly about a quarter of children attend a private school at some point in their school career) have access to their own computer by any stretch (especially in younger years) and their parents are juggling as much as anyone. Plus all the other reasons people have set out above...

You know what, if I had the technological or pedagogical knowledge to know how to engage 30 key stage one children through video teaching I would absolutely do it but I have no idea how to successfully do it! ( and I’m a pretty good teacher !) Instead I am doing my best to set tasks that’s strike a balance between bring interactive enough for the children to learn something from but without putting too much pressure on parents. It’s something I have never done and have not been trained to do so I am learning as I go using my knowledge of both children and families in my class. I just think there are a lot of people who don’t understand how children learn ( and why would they without training) but are very keen to think they have solutions.

I can’t comment on older children but this thread was about year one children. Not actually heard anyone suggest anything sensible that would work for the key stage one children this thread was actually about.

Op your friend has zero insight.

@Ivebeentohellanditscalledikea
I saw your comment about your middle ds. Idk his age. Plenty of children will be in the same boat. If he’s yr 8 or below, he will catch up. The higher years are more difficult and I imagine some children in these age groups will easily catch up, some less so. I’ve read talk of the curriculum being reset back to February.

My friend is having hassle with her ds. She isn’t fighting with him. She’s negotiating doing a small amount or does some kind of linked activity with him. Your ds is telling you home learning is tough and that the online courses aren’t set up for his learning style. Maybe there is another way he could learn - online interactive stuff ? Will he do the CPP workbooks for example? If you have time, you could do things together as a family. Plenty of learning to be had in baking a cake for example.

MrsTSwift
You sound very disrespectful and lack understanding of how hard teachers are having to work right now.

ArtisanPopcorn

I think a lot of the problem here is that the teachers posting here are from schools that are setting work and the parents are from schools that aren't.

I’m a teacher from a Secondary School that is providing work (but not online video lessons) for every year group for every subject plus enrichment projects given, calls to vulnerable, food to vulnerable, still open to keyworkers etc.

And even my school has had parents complain on public Facebook groups that we haven’t provided anything. Some have said we haven’t provided enough either.

My response to you is, what have you done to request/ask for work? Have you thoroughly read the school website? Have you checked your email junk folder? If Secondary, has your child checked their VLE or Cloud or Homework App? If Primary, have you checked the school app or asked on the class Whats App group, if applicable?

I only ask because even on a normal day, when my daughter’s Primary has emailed, put on their App and posted on their Facebook group a notice, we still get parents message on the class Whats App Group that they hadn’t been told of x, y and z and knew nothing about it!

Obviously it is now Easter but my advice for Secondary parents is to not necessarily believe what their child said (which was the case with one of our complaining Facebook parents), for parents of both Secondary and Primary, check their newsletters/websites/email/parent groups and junk email etc.
If still genuinely nothing at all, then contact the school instead of starting the millionth MN thread on the topic that brings out the teacher bashers

Also, “trolling” Zoom classes and then uploading the footage to YouTube and TikTok is fast becoming the new fashionable thing for vloggers to do whilst stuck in quarantine, needing to create content:

That video is just one example, but if you search “Zoom school” on YouTube, there are multiple videos published every hour at the moment.

Do you really want your kid, or your kid’s teacher, to be up in one of these videos when they go viral?

Some of the comments on here are awful. It all comes down to safeguarding.
Safeguarding
Safeguarding
Safeguarding
Protecting your children. Yet must of you don’t seem to give a shit that schools are trying to do this.

What a bunch of miserable, mean spirited bastards populate these threads.

And the unions: they are protecting their members. This is what unions do. This is why we pay a subscription.Public services tend to be unionised whether people like it or not. And thank fuck for that. Because it’s like a lynch mob on here.
The majority of the clueless comments on here show no understanding of how tight safeguarding is in the U.K. Trying to look after YOUR children. What a bunch of lazy skiving bastards we are eh?

This would work for my 14yo but not my 10yo as she doesn’t have free access to a computer while I’m out at work. Much easier for her to do school work when I’m home and my working pattern is erratic at the moment.

By the way, 2:35 onwards on that video I linked should give a pretty good idea to the posters on here still complaining that “safeguarding” isn’t a good enough excuse for not teaching via video link.

I teach in an infant school.

We are putting online home learning activities out using a learning platform which is fairly simple to use, but it is online. We also have links to other Maths and English online programs we have set up. We have chosen not to use live lessons at all.

Around 50-60% of our school population are using at least one of these in some form. Only a handful are using something every day. I am monitoring various groups of children inc our vulnerable, SEND and pupil premium use and this is much reduced. Our most vulnerable group have not used any at all so far. We've had one week of term time home learning and two weeks of Easter holidays so it will be interesting to see what happens next week.

What we do know though about our school community :

Not all the children have their own laptop, computer or tablet. Infact most do not have their own. It's shared between the whole household including more than one school age children plus one to two parents trying to wfh.

Not all have Wi-Fi at home and many are in restricted data as a household.

Many of our parents are wfh right now and the children are too young (aged 4-7) to be able to access lessons and home learning alone.

There are various safeguarding and GDPR issues surrounding the use of live lessons and these issues affect both teachers and pupils.

Not all staff have the ICT equipment and knowledge to set this up at home and we didn't have enough time to fit that training in. Instead we focused, in that week or two , to
Ale sure our staff and pupils could access and create content for home learning that wasn't live.

We made the decision from the outset to not put expectations on our parents and pupils. We said from day 1 that there would be home learning - a mix of academic English/maths and phonics lessons (term time) and then other more generalised activities and links plus some Dh stuff. It was there for those who wanted it, but we understood parents and carers were busy and may not be able to do it all. We also said that we knew our parents and pupils may have their own ideas and suggestions of activities and to upload pictures and photos of those too - it may even give us ideas of activities to set.

As a school we also made a decision to accept that whilst we are setting work to be done whilst there school is closed we know many won't access it and when we return we will have some children who have moved on, some who have stayed the same and some will have moved back in terms of their learning.

The only schools I know doing live lessons locally were the independent secondary schools and even then it wasn't full days.

The private schools have got over these issues

Different type of cohort.
Usually far less students in the class to mange
More likely to have access to their own computer equipment.
More likely to have access to Wi-Fi at home or unlimited data.
Need to justify this coming term's fees to parents.

Plucked, it's the social interaction in the UK schools should be concentrating on and this is basically what has been advised from the government here. They see we aren't set up for it and it's only if the school can implement this safely.

And fucked me at the other industries have changed but schools haven't. I cannot remember who posted. Erm since when did schools main priority become needs of the children in terms of them feeling safe, looked after and properly fed. Those are what the government have advised. Notice that massive change right there, there was no mention of education aside from the words in relation to all exams cancelled.

There is no curriculum to work from. It is really that simple. Talk about a message not getting through, not only is the social distancing one troublesome for some to comprehend, but it also seems to be causing some strange confusion about what it means when something is cancelled.

And again BBC great if you usually watch and have a license. The household might not even own an actual TV. And why should anyone be forced to buy a license? Has it been confirmed where the money is coming from to fund this? They were pleading poverty not that long ago after all. What magic money tree did they suddenly find that so many seem to think exists?

Lots of teachers twiddling their thumbs. Should be teaching

Just because they're not doing live lessons doesn't mean they're not teaching.
Our teachers and TAs are either on rota in school supervising the childcare of key worker children and/or creating content for our non live home learning. Most of these are not videos of the teacher teaching, though some do have the staff in them. Most are screen recordings of the interactive whiteboard sessions etc. And they are online monitoring pupil and parent responses to the home learning - though with positive comments rather than 'marking' or answering queries in the test group emails.

FWIW I'm working throughout all this, all from home, and I haven't taken two weeks off for Easter as I'm the one overseeing much of the online home learning content and its use.

I have taken one day off this week and that was for my FILs funeral.

And again BBC great if you usually watch and have a license. The household might not even own an actual TV.

Are you talking about BBC Bitesize? You don’t need a tv for that and you don’t need a tv license.

Some things emerging from this thread...

• poorly financed schools mean each child hasn’t been given a laptop to complete work on which COULD HAVE BEEN MARKED. Instead, our children’s work is ‘marked’ by us. Massively time consuming - often there are no marking guides / answers so guess what, it’s not happening. Children don’t see the point of the work. Less effort being applied. Catch-22.
• No virtual sight of teachers... children feeling disconnected from school and learning. Very little enthusiasm.
• A lot of teachers / unions protecting and defending themselves. But still no support for the children of non key workers.
• Why can’t they use MS Teams or Google classroom for teaching pre-recorded sessions? Surely 95% of children learning a little something each day even via smart phone is better than nothing?
• why can’t we have teaching by TV?
• No mention of education at press conferences.
• Our children’s education is suffering. Parent-child relationships are suffering. Parents are losing faith in schools and the education system.