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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Why are teachers not teaching live lessons online

914 replies

Shouldistayorshouldimove · 10/04/2020 20:25

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.

OP posts:
MonaLisaDoesntSmile · 11/04/2020 13:29

@Namechangedforthisreply7
So what if it gets edited

Well actually it's a pretty big deal if you're a victim of vile bullying. I will never forget a colleague in my training school almost lost his job a few years back because a group of students created a fake social media account with his photo and contacted some female students pretending to be him. He was suspended before it cleared up and the stress he went through was immense, they never found who it was that was responsible. Another female colleague was grabbed by a bum by a male student in her school and was sexually cyber-bullied by a group of students later who photoshopped her face onto that of a porn actress. It may not be a daily occurence, but when it does happen it can be career, soul and life destroying (like any other bullying). Neither of those people are still in profession anymore. So what can you say, no damage done? It's fine, because life of other people gets destroyed, but you get to be safe without exposing yourself to such risks? It only happens to a few, so we should all expose ourselves to such risks willingly? If you knew how many problems with their own security some teachers are going through, you would never say that it's harmless. There is a reason why in this country one of the first thing new teachers are told is to sing up to union because you get legal advice.

Piggywaspushed · 11/04/2020 13:30

And agree to whoever said kids (who do the work , which is about 60%) are actually getting MORE personal feedback than they ever did sat biddably at the back of my room. They now get comments and feedback and advice on everything they do. That is far superior to a marking carousel in lots of ways, although obviously there is more to education than feedback, teaching and marking. Sadly, so many more elements are going missing for all kids now which are more important to their development than whether they get some shitty homemade video from me.

Beebie2 · 11/04/2020 13:31

@Namechangedforthisreply7 actually marking in younger years has been shown to have very little impact. We assess as we go and give feedback throughout the lesson - marking is done with the child with guided discussion. Marking after the lesson, other than a big shiny sticker, has little to no impact.

ChloeDecker · 11/04/2020 13:31

SachaStark. WineBrewCake All well deserved!

Italiandreams · 11/04/2020 13:32

@nellythenarwhal that may be so but I still take overall responsibility for their learning. Plus this thread was about a year one child.

I have a lot of parents in term time demanding worksheets for things that I literally google and find for them, they just expect me to do it because I am the teacher.

I have no clue about early years but I found out stuff for myself as I saw it as my responsibility to do so not just completely abdicate responsibility to the nursery. I have non teacher friends who were on YouTube before their kids started school to learn about phonics as they wanted to be able to help their child. When my child gets to the stage of learning that I have no clue with, of course I won’t be able to teach them myself but I won’t abdicate all responsibility to the school either. I will find a way to help my child access the learning in anyway available as I see that as my responsibility.

Gone off tangent a bit here but my issue was with the idea teacher should be relying on another teacher to teach their children so they could teach their class. Like there was no overlap.

spanieleyes · 11/04/2020 13:36

Perhaps all teachers should just be furloughed and not work at all. I could cope with 80% of my salary if that meant I didn't have to read all the rubbish that is posted on here about teachers not working! Of course, that would mean no schools open for key workers, vulnerable children and those with EHCPs, no daily work set at all, no marking, no feedback, no conference calls with social services, no delivering of FSM to vulnerable families, no daily contact with parents, nothing. We could then just sit and agree that we are a waste of space and nod accordingly!Wink

GuyFawkesDay · 11/04/2020 13:36

I've seen and been victim of online bullying as a teacher.

Really vile stuff is made and put on Instagram etc. I've seen homophobia, accusing teachers of bring paedophilic....we are open to all sorts of abuses online.

GuyFawkesDay · 11/04/2020 13:36

I could roll with that too. Especially as we don't seem to be able to do anything right!

LaProfesora · 11/04/2020 13:39

Me too...

airmathstuition · 11/04/2020 13:39

This reply has been deleted

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Namechangedforthisreply7 · 11/04/2020 13:41

Not doing something because some cannot access is a race to tye bottom. It’s like saying no school in real life because some might play truant or parents won’t secure and support attendance. You aim as high as possible and then work out how to fill in the gaps for the most vulnerable. In said v clearly upthresd that I felt teacher and LSA tine should be used particularly to support the most vulnerable.

I still don’t buy the marking thing - get unions to be clear then? get teachers to reply to emails. At the very least establish some bloody contact. From my perspective, in my schools in my area, there really is nothing doing, it’s outrageous.

That’s not to say some of you aren’t, but it means all of you should.

noblegiraffe · 11/04/2020 13:45

Not doing something because some cannot access is a race to tye bottom.

It’s not teaching new content via zoom or nothing, Namechanged.

SachaStark · 11/04/2020 13:46

Oh, thanks @ChloeDecker, same to you!

And thank you for sending me the cake, you’ve reminded me that I have real cake to be eating! My mother (lives at the other end of the village) keeps walking past my house at 6am and leaving cakes on the doorstep Confused

MonaLisaDoesntSmile · 11/04/2020 13:47

@Namechangedforthisreply7 I already listed previously why schools are not (and it don't know why you insist they should) like businesses and why unlike some sectors not everything can happen online. I wonder if you're not Michael Gove in disguise, he is known to despise teachers...
You have clearly no expertise and are, pretty much, an armchair expert thinking bullying teachers is fine and we all should just suck it up for your good. How about you focus on doing your own job, it at least two us what it is so we can for once tell you how to do it better.

canigooutyet · 11/04/2020 14:00

Do people actually understand what it means closed until further aside from specific groups?

Do people really not understand what it meant when the Secretary of Education went on that screen you want kids to use to learn on and said GCSE's are suspended until further notice.

Maybe it's me who misunderstands, so could someone who cannot understand why there shouldn't be anything new do me a favour, because something is wrong in the interpretation. And I honestly don't think I am confused with the word suspend, even checked the dictionary but here I am doubting myself. Grin

Goldenbear · 11/04/2020 14:01

You can't break the law and work it out afterwards. In my field- Data Protection laws have to complied with. These laws apply to all sectors.

hepburnmed · 11/04/2020 14:14

As teachers you appear to be taking a lot of shit for the failings of whoever is in charge. Why?!

A programme needs central co-ordination and frankly - money.

canigooutyet · 11/04/2020 14:24

Golden you forget one simple thing. Seems everyone can dip in and out of any existing legalities when it suits them. We all know normally education would be told to fuck right off at the mere suggestion of having the teacher popping up on their screen at home. If I remember one of the most frequently trotted out lines - oh no, not having that in my home, too fucking invasive, who do teachers think they are, allowed to spy in our homes. (Search this forum alone if people think I made this up). Along with - oh no someone needs to think about all the research done is in this and all the negative impacts. More teaching bashing.

And I'm not even going to mention those batshit enough to start creating none existing laws to the point of chuck the bastard in jail.

Most teachers belong in jail simply for having to break the social distancing and lockdown advice. And how pathetic to start with oh well we don't need teachers in school, oh but yea I suppose we do as someone has to look after the other poor fucking teachers children so they can still do the primary parental job. No, but hang on how comes they cannot teach their own, look after their own and parent other peoples kids when they lazy assed parent is sitting there in their home using technology they could use to help their child learn new things.

But yea blame lies with the teachers. Not the parents for not doing their job. Not the Secretary of Education closed the schools down fault either. So much easier to blame everyone else other than look at the point of origin.

People really need to get clued up on a few legalities. They will be in for a huge wake up call.

Oh, and teachers, you should not be using your own mobiles to contact students. Although many schools overlook this for an assortment of legit safe reason, read up on E-safety and other policies in relation to use of equipment, services, software etc.

Not sure if this is available to parents, would be a good idea to read all those policies and documents on the school site available. Then of course if you don't trust the lazy bastard teachers, you can also look on official government sites. This hopefully should give you some idea about what issues schools face.

And remember it wasn't that long ago the government wanted to ban children's access to online porn. Notice how it dropped? Also, notice for years, teachers and ta's have been raising these concerns and more only to be met with a wall of silence. If you really want to support your child's education when they are telling you no. They aren't doing it out of laziness.

Darbs76 · 11/04/2020 14:24

Our school said it was a safeguarding risk

nellythenarwhal · 11/04/2020 14:25

GCSEs, A-level and AS-level exams are cancelled for summer 2020. They've not announced what happens to kids taking exams in Summer 2021 onwards.
My dc is doing A-levels next year and will have missed 1 term of teaching - if schools go back in September that's 20% of the teaching lost. The course can't be shortened as schools teach in different topic orders and kids can't gamble on next year's exams being cancelled too.

Piggywaspushed · 11/04/2020 14:29

In your previous teacher bashing thread name you said two of your DCs schools were doing a good job , didn't you?

There's been so many of these threads I may be confusing you with another armchair Ofsted inspector.

ShimmerandShining · 11/04/2020 14:30

Probably because it's a ridiculous idea. 5 year olds on Zoom? Surely you are joking. And how on Earth is she going to work from home and home educate.....I wonder how the teacher is going to work from home and home educate his/her kids? Ffs

Mistressiggi · 11/04/2020 14:33

The best way to test this out is for teachers on here to all agree simultaneously to switch over to online video teaching for everything.
And watch the threads complaining about it rack up.

Lipz · 11/04/2020 14:39

I'm in Ireland, 4 of the schools my 5 kids go to are starting live lessons after Easter holidays. It's been a nightmare here. I've had to buy 2 extra tablets not good with job loss etc and been trying to arrange 5 rooms for each child.

From reading the replies here does everyone think there are issues and that it's not a good idea?

I'm going along with it as I thought we had to?

Our Internet is shit! The times agreed by other parents means I can't supervise anyone except my youngest who is disabled and has been doing live lessons since school closed. My other 4 kids are all teens.

Now I don't know what to do... We'll be getting all the log in information etc some time during the week.

canigooutyet · 11/04/2020 14:43

Nor can they gamble on them being there next year.
Those people mentioned up to 18 months aren't talking out of their arses. Realistically it could take that long for schools to return to any resemblance of normalcy.

It could mean a special exam created for next year and even the following one as well where they are given shiny new work to enable them to fairly pass their exams.

By carrying on teaching new things about a defunct system makes no sense at all. It's that type of thinking that will hold them back. So many were disadvantage the day it was announced schools were closed. The playing field from the first school to close was further widened.

Without quickly coming up with a new 'curriculum' many are automatically fucked. It is the only fair way at the end of the day. Hence exams cancelled until further notice, updates to follow. And updates have been speculation.

Even the BBC won't be able to reach every child because of the simple license issue, and why should anyone education be that disadvantaged because of something that is really out of their control? When the logical solution is a simple restart that will be needed anyway once those doors open. Parents really should be helping their kids get through this not bloody trying to force them to do work that is completely and utterly useless. One of the points was to keep their minds engage with something, anything but nothing new and no pressure for the work to be done. it's all there on their own sites in their own words straight from the very top.

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