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.

Same here, and I’m making scrubs in the little spare time I’ve got left

Haven't RTFT but Singapore has completely banned schools using Zoom due to serious security concerns, and it looks like parts of the French public education sector are doing the same.

Fgs no one is suggesting teaching 30 5 year olds by sodding zoom 🙄 this is pre recorded for older kids

Read the OP again.
This is exactly what the thread is about.

I'm dreading going back to school. If the attitudes on here are anything to go by the vitriol we're going to be exposed to is going to be horrific.

I love how MrsTSwift, despite being on the thread loads, has not made a single comment about safeguarding and the things that a minority of teenagers would do that make teaching online a non-starter - or should do. It's much easier to leap onto all the replies where people say their school is doing it and cry "See it can be done! Some teachers are just lazy bastards!"

And the idea that people on an anonymous forum have to address you in a 'professional' way because they're a teacher and you're a parent?!

The government hasn't stated that online teaching is a requirement, quite the opposite, and the vast majority of other teachers will be doing other kinds of work, so no, they shouldn't be finding non-existent childcare or taking unpaid leave. How fucking stupid can you be? Do you want anything to be ready for your dc when they return to school after months out of formal education or not? Do you want time and effort spent on planning for that event or shall we just muddle through from day one of schools re-poening?

Tbh, I honestly think that one of the reasons some students don't respect and value the education they get is that they pick up awful attitudes from their parents, such as those shown here.

Awful, depressing thread.

@hepburnmed

Did you not read my posts from 7:48 and 8:41? I’ve detailed in these posts only ONE of the reasons why teaching via video link, live or not, is very dangerous.

Teaching on TV would be an interesting avenue to explore, but only if it were a national scheme with professional presenters, not left to regular teachers to devise.

School closure is just going to widen the gap further

It will yes. Hence why, as a school decision, part of my day includes monitoring the home learning useable and keeping records of who is using it, and in particularly monitoring various groups especially those who are already disadvantaged in some way. And why our learning mentor is doing weekly phone calls with such parents and preparing other stuff for them.

We can't stop that gap from afar. But we are monitoring it and preparing for the fall out when we return.

There are going to be lessons on the BBC (TV and online) from 20 April.

How exactly have teachers not stepped up? We are still in schools.

Absolutely this. Teachers and TAs are still going into school to teach key workers’ children - and unlike in pretty much any other sector of work, there’s no PPE and 2m distancing cannot be done or expected when working with young children. Zero appreciation for that which is quite clear from this thread, which I find very sad.

I take it your neighbour probably hasn't done much teaching or many online meetings then?! And that the little darlings are driving her up the wall a bit? It's difficult enough to run an online webinar for grownups, I shudder to think of trying to teach young school age kids!!

I teach Yr4-6, 1:1 lessons though, and will be Zoom teaching after Easter break. My colleagues who have classes will be doing a mixture of Zoom lessons, pre recorded lessons on our school YouTube channel and setting work on portal

Pre recording lessons is vv difficult to do well without the right tech. I have uploaded a couple of videos from my phone but the quality is rubbish and you can barely see my writing.

For most subjects there are resources (videos) out there pre made by professionals. Schools are better off linking to those than wasting hours trying to make their own.

Live lessons are not practical for the myriad of reasons listed above. They work for small classes in private schools because they have the tech at home and supportive parents.

The disadvantage gap will widen massively. Teachers can do very little about this from home. However we will plan to support and accelerate the disadvantaged students when they are back in school.

Another word for there being a big difference between a large secondary and a small primary school in terms of expectations. Both schools are expected to be open for key workers, the large secondary obviously has a much bigger pool of staff to make a rota from. A small primary probably has most of the staff in school daily and they will be trying to sort work.

Refurbished Chromebooks cost £100. Surely the school could afford that from savings running costs.

Ha ha ha ha!!
What running costs are being saved?
Schools are still open! They are still paying out for staff wages, bills, etc. We are still using books and pens and resources - many were sent home in the last day especially to families we know are vulnerable or disadvantaged in some way. Chances are they'll never be returned so we will need to spend money to replace lost resources in return too.

Many schools are already struggling before this. They don't have savings tucked away.

DD (14) hasn't had any teaching since they were sent home to be educated. School work is essentially all homework with the odd YouTube video thrown in for good measure (where appropriate to work content). Some of the work had to be 'handed in' (via school portal) but most didn't. I think it would be more useful to ensure that the work is actually done to have one 'handing in' policy for all of it.

Live lessons are not practical for the myriad of reasons listed above. They work for small classes in private schools because they have the tech at home and supportive parents.

I don't think anyone can know if they're 'working' in that pupils are actually getting more from them than they would self-directed or parent-supervised (depending on age) work. They're 'working' to placate parents and prove that teachers aren't having a holiday on their dime, which I suspect is their primary purpose for these businesses.

Our school is, using teams. Camera taped over. All kids have pen enabled laptops. Private school.

Refurbished Chromebooks cost £100. Surely the school could afford that from savings running costs.

😂

SachaStark

Why WOULDN’T we have professional teacher presenters on TV supplying relevant material for each year group, and a few different levels within each year group?

Children will most probably miss the whole of summer term... and then a significant portion of the next school year due to the potential second wave...

This has to be planned for in detail. And it shouldn’t be left up to the BBC to step into the gaping chasm!

Finally this teaching needs to request some written work -THAT IS MARKED BY AN ACTUAL TEACHER - who knows what they’re looking out for in terms of grammar and what not.

Why are the people at the top so unambitious for education in this country?

Other countries like Italy have this sussed. We need our own methods to compensate for the lack of tech. Our kids are being short changed.

Chloe, it was mentioned somewhere on the thread that BBC are implementing something else in addition to the current content on Bitesize. And how it keeps getting mentioned it isn't entirely clear if this will be delivered in exactly the same way. Years ago BBC used to run programmes for general tv viewing, if they create such a channel, for example, how would this work in terms of licensing? They also made iPlayer a license requirement.

Money has to come from somewhere to pay for new content.
They don't show ads apparently, so there is no income generated.
Funding from the license fee
Funding from taxpayers given for certain things from the Arts and media department iirc.

So who essentially will get screwed over the most as a result?

All the money already promised elsewhere has to come from somewhere at the end of the day. All those grants, the extra payments in benefits, mortgage help, rent help, paying more to cover the extra costs to allow schools to stay open for longer to help nhs staff work, etc all has to be paid back.

Instead of thinking spend, spend, spend, fuck it spend the money to ensure every single school-aged student and staff has outstanding equipment and resources to be able to continue a full curriculum from home. We really need to be thinking erm, hang on yea, ok getting that gcse is important of course, but at this moment in time is it really that essential.

Let's be real about this. No-one has a clue when this nightmare will end. Who knows, when the schools finally to open for their actual main purpose, GCSE's will be a thing of the past just like O levels and CSE's. It's about time this actually sinks in with some people because they are seriously missing this. The world we knew only two months ago will never return. It's gone. The longer this continues, with or without a curriculum somehow miraculously working online, the higher the chances when those doors open, those first months at least won't essentially be about any curriculum either.

But yup, absolutely selfish bastard teachers putting your child's welfare, safety and development first. Supporting other key workers to do their jobs. Putting themselves and those in their household at increase risk by still actually having to go out when a lot of business changed only included a basic connection to work from home. A lot of whom were already set up and already knew to avoid the weirdly loved Zoom platform. They are working more at the moment than usual, but still, it's not good enough.

Fuck them and their lives right? As long as someone else delivers an education, some clearly don't care.

@MrsKoala it was fractions presented as stained glass windows. Would have taken a lot longer to redraw than to print. My DC also (probably) has ADHD and screens are an issue for her, while she really needs to practice her handwriting, so I've found work on paper is better for us.

If we had had more than a week or so to an all this an absolute priority should have been to check what equipment and WiFi speeds DC and teaching staff have at home and also which teachers have young DC at home and/or no private workspace with a door that can be closed. Basic stuff but we are not all equal out of the classroom, which is why remote work needs to be possible to complete in a variety of ways. But the variety creates a lot more work for everyone. I have spent hours marking lengthy essays submitted as individual page photographs from a phone. Other students have taken to online submission with alacrity and seem to even prefer it.

Another issue is that teenagers prefer to work 10pm to 1am on the whole whereas some of the lessons are scheduled at 8.45...

My theory is that many Mothers are resentful of teachers because they have the capacity to discipline and test their perfect children and often children are found wanting; something many Mothers find confronting and take personally.

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.
If children only do something in order for it to be marked, then that mindset needs to change and this a great opportunity for parents to encourage doing something for the worth of doing it. At the moment, Secondary teachers are focusing on the Year 11 and 13 groups, to award the grades and ranking. This has included marking of coursework etc. When that is over, marking (and feedback, which is better than marking) can resume.
No virtual sight of teachers... children feeling disconnected from school and learning. Very little enthusiasm.
This might be what you are experiencing in your household but in mine, this isn’t the case and for others, corresponding via email is maintaining that connection just fine

A lot of teachers / unions protecting and defending themselves. But still no support for the children of non key workers.
These two sentences are about two different things. Teachers defending themselves against these threads is nothing to do with less direct support for children from non-keyworkers. News flash. This is a global pandemic and something has to give. It’s akin to non essential operations/dental treatment being cancelled to focus on what is essential. Totally understandable, if not ideal. It is heartbreaking for teachers missing their pupils too but things can’t just carry on as normal at the moment. They just can’t.

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?
A lot of schools are. They would have already signed up to these platforms, given training and have the tech to do so. However, these platforms require a very expensive educational license (in a normal sized Seconday school, about £6,000 per month). School budgets are set before a school year starts and for some, they wouldn’t have had the money and a global pandemic was not on their risk assessments as the most important aspect to focus on to be fair! So again, this is another misconception from some parents that these platforms are free to schools.

why can’t we have teaching by TV?
It has taken time to set up but this is what the BBC has been working on. Through their BBC Bitesize platform, lessons have begun on their website, on their Facebook group and will be on TV is some capacity if families have no computer.

No mention of education at press conferences.
This isn’t teachers’s fault or schools’. I know you haven’t expressly said this but perhaps sympathise with schools and staff who have had very little assistance from this govt currently too.

Our children’s education is suffering.
Yes, we know this and plenty is being done to help fix this when schools go back.

Parent-child relationships are suffering. This isn’t the fault of schools/teachers.

Parents are losing faith in schools and the education system.
Actually, not all parents. In fact, I would say it is a minority of parents. Most parents realise this is an unprecedented global pandemic, no one is to blame, everyone is doing their best, none of this is ideal.

We have once a week class zoom meetings reading a story or hello to each other and talk.
The ministry of Education is posting out work via couriers for our children in hard copy and no set amount is expected, although I know many children do enjoy learning at this age year 4.
We were rung by our schools principal and asked if we needed a laptop to borrow during the lock down.
Bravo Nz education!

Followed by phone numbers of both principal & class teacher who is available during he usual school hours
I find no fault with our system.

If we took unpaid leave everyone would have nothing. Key worker children would not be taken care of. Key workers would struggle to work.

My sil is not a teacher but has under 5s. She’s wfh and her boss is flexible. Her productivity is reduced, but she’s doing her best. My headteacher is very understanding too.

Refusing to pay anyone with a child at home, would disproportionately affect women.

The way primary pupils are taught, translating into online learning is more like a set of instructions for a parent to administer. I’m providing work from a communication platform we already use. I set the normal timetable. I answer questions, and comment on work submitted. However it’s all parent dependent.

We often use educational videos in classrooms. We don’t sit the kids down, and pop out for a cuppa. We pause, discuss, ask key questions, set a practical task, come back, rewatch, etc this would be impossible on a live lesson platform

Someone said they and their child felt abandoned. I feel lonely too. We’re in a global pandemic. Mental health is suffering. I don’t think you can blame the teacher for yours and your child’s feelings.

@LisaSimpsonsbff Agreed, by working I meant what you have expressed. On the face of it they are "working".