To think this is a bit off?

[1981m]

This isn't a teacher bashing thread, I am actually a teacher myself so wouldn't do that. But I guess being a teacher does make me look at things differently.

Dd is in reception and her work for next week has jury been sent through. One of the activities is making phonic flash cards. The teacher has sent a video of this but it's extremely poor. She literally cuts up a piece of paper into four bits and then demonstrates how to do a flash card. But when she is writing and colouring she is off camera so their is no demonstration how to form the letters or write the sentence with the sound in. Surely sir should just change the camera angle so the children can see what she has done?

She then says she thought about buying some pencil crayons but her husband has been telling her off for ordering too many things. So she uses a set of rubbish biros instead. She then draws an umbrella, off camera, saying it's rubbish and says her colouring is below average. I know it's only a joke but don't think it's very good to include in what is meant to be a taught activity.

I appreciate it's a tricky situation and is the Easter holidays but surely she knew she would be having to teach activities via video link a while ago. Why didn't she take some of her classroom resources home with her or look online to create a better phonics session? Why didn't she do the video at school quickly after the key workers children had gone home? Or prioritise buying decent resources rather than saying she can't buy anymore as he husband will complain.

Btw- this is a private school and we have only had a 10% reduction in fees. I am not expecting teachers to work round the clock but I must admit I think my dds teachers are working less than they normally would be. A private school and we have had one phonics lesson video, and a few videos about repeating patterns which is meant to take a whole weeks worth of literacy.

There's a few questions here which I'm going to answer, however I'm surprised that you can't see them being a teacher yourself:

Why didn't she take some of her classroom resources home with her or look online to create a better phonics session?
Maybe she couldn't take them on the last day for some reason and thought "oh I will go back next week for them". and maybe she doesn't have a printer so needs to work with what she has at home.

Why didn't she do the video at school quickly after the key workers children had gone home?
If it's anything like my school the second the key workers children leave we also have to leave as they need to clean. Also - I am in school for Key Workers but I don't have access to my classroom as the school is only opening a very small amount of areas.

I think people are doing their best, some teachers find IT really easy - in my school we are making video lessons but due to safeguarding concerns we cannot be in them ourselves. I am lucky that I found this easy to work out what to do - others are REALLY struggling to work out how to do things.
You say "why doesn't she video at a better angle" - it's very hard to video your own work without a visualiser or other camera - I forgot to bring my visualiser home and as I have already said - they completely closed my area of the school so I'm not allowed to get it.

However rather than just moaning about this teacher - why not email her and ask her next time to try and do x or y.

Also - it might be that she cannot afford to buy things and is making a joke about her husband to deflect. In my house my wage is the same as I am a teacher so paid in full right now - but my husband has gone down to no pay for now so we are having to be very tight.You never know people's circumstances but an e-mail asking for what the plan is as you are paying fees is more than acceptable imo.

I think that a private school reception teacher should be able to assume that the adults at home will be able to help with basic letter formation.

Thanks for the reply. I think that is the plan for the next 6 weeks from what I can see. Apparently we are going to be asked for feedback weekly so I will be putting my concerns there to the HT.

I appreciate what you are saying but I think there's been no forward thinking. She definitely could have taken the resources home with her. As a teacher myself I had loads of resources at home anyway. I still do, think goodness so it's easier for me to teach online. Don't she's hard up as they have a lovely flat in one of the most expensive parts of the city and she said she's been ordering all sorts of other things online. But guess could be wrong. As a teacher I would prioritise buying a cheap pack of colouring pencils if I knew I had no resources to do a good phonics lesson. There is absolutely no thought into it, there are no suggestions of games, websites, sheets, nothing but one phonics session.

I am just disappointed as think absolute minimum effort has been put into it. I appreciate it's hard but I don't feel like they are trying to do the best for the children, I feel like they are working way less hours than they would normally be.

For context, my ds attends the school too and his teacher has put interactive maths videos on using the whiteboard with demonstrations etc, the English teacher has read a book through a video and then put various power point activities up too. Much better.

For further context, I have been talking to friends who's children go to state schools. Mostly they have been given things to do if higher quality. One school has got a blog on the website with links to every year group with pages of ideas for phonic and writing games, videos, sheets etc. I would have thought that would be the minimal we would have.

Midnight- I think lots of parents would struggle with the cursive and it should be demonstrated with the teacher otherwise what's the point of the video? She could have simply tilted the laptop to show what she was doing without needing all the equipment.

I am not teaching anymore but I still have the basics, a whiteboard, pens, pencils, laminator, printer. I am sure she must have a printer at home. No teacher I know doesn't work outside of school hours. Even I have gone onto twinkle and printed out some phonic games and flash cards for dd. Bear minimum

Don't complain on the internet, complain to your school that you're paying a ludicrous sum of money to for pointless activities.

I really don't think there's any value in the teacher doing the activity, even if she did it well, it's still going to be completely inferior to someone trained and experienced in creating such videos. Even then of course there's almost no value to such videos anyway, young kids simply don't have the self motivation or interest in learning from resources in that way, they need instruction - teachers are really good at that - but that's a completely different thing to creating videos.

You're certainly expecting too much of the teacher, having to learn how to remote educate 5 year olds, something which is insanely difficult, and why so few people do it, and those forced to rely on parents mostly, in the middle of a lock down with no physical resources and only remote education to learn those skills.

Your five year old doesn't need a "lesson" from their teacher, they may well like to occasionally see and talk to their teacher, but they aren't learning anything from a video, it's just a huge waste of everyone's time. Stop your ire, spend some time playing phonics games, maths games and similar if you want, there are lots of great resources out there, mostly created by people skilled in remote learning - or at least without the constraints of what can be found in a teachers home, maybe filmed on real cameras with proper lighting and directing.

I have put it on here first to see if my opinion is wrong and I guess so far people are saying I am. I spent a couple of hours last night getting some resources and games for phonics and maths activities for dd. I shouldn't be doing this myself whilst paying school fees. If I can do it, why can't she? I used my imagination and came up with phonics games where the only resources needed are some post it notes, a whiteboard and plates as hoops. I have not spent a fortune on resources.

I am not expecting all singing all dancing videos, her instruction wasn't even good. She could have demonstrated the activity as she would have done if she was teaching the class normally, that's not hard. A whiteboard to model writing, demonstrating a few phonics games using post it notes objects or flash cards and video of a book and then activities set afterwards is not hard in my opinion and is pretty basic. Some suggestions of games and then some resources to print out to go with the games would have Beth absolute minimum. That's not hard I don't think. There are lots of very simple phonics games with some objects, flashcards, post it notes and hoops or plates you can do if you use your imagination. I am not a computer whizz by any means but getting someone to film her demonstrating a few activities is not hard. There was no time, imagination or effort involved.

I thought the comment about ordering a load of stuff for herself but not having the basic resources for a phonics lesson wasn't good.

Maybe off topic but she shouldn't have to buy and pay for her own resources, the school should be providing those for her just as they would when she was teaching in a classroom. Whether she lives in a nice flat is irrelevant, its not her responsibility.

YANBU OP, I’m a teacher, if I buy resources (within reason) I either take the hit or I put the receipts in. I teach secondary and so far I’ve put presentations online so I haven’t made videos but I’ve made sure that I’m providing what I would have taught had the students been sitting in front of me. It’s our job to provide work and that work should be of good quality.

The fact that it’s a private school makes this so much worse, what are you paying for? I’d certainly complain if things don’t improve.

OP are you able to contact parents of other children in your child’s class to see if they feel the same?
If you were to contact the school it may help to have the support/ involvement of other parents.

Sam- I asked on that WhatsApp what everyone thought, being diplomatic and no one really commented. They said they had only watched one of the videos and were glad to have a video from the teacher. Guess they are all fine with it. I suppose I thought it would be more as I am a teacher myself whereas others no no different.

How was she as a teacher before this?

She has access to school resources and ICT - even if she is self-shielding, she could ask a colleague to drop resources round. She could also have taken a look at what some other reception teachers are doing on youtube and copied their ideas. A friend of mine is daily dressing up and videoing a story for her reception children - and yes, not a private school. Were you happy with her prior to lockdown? If not, perhaps you might like to consider other options.

I think being a teacher and being a vlogger/youtuber are two very different jobs... A lot of people are keen on teachers to deliver online lessons and the like but videoing yourself and creating a teaching video is surely a skill in itself that not everyone can just ‘do’ on their first try. I would be so self conscious as well - I don’t even like FaceTiming! So I would say give her some slack when it comes to the videos.

She's not dd teacher so don't really know about her as a teacher. She's very nice and caring though, there are two reception teachers and they are tag teaming.

Dd teacher is very Imaginative and creative and a lot of fun. So another reason I was expecting more but obviously that's harder without the resources.

They have recorded one story session.