To wonder why teachers are not teaching my child?

[Nickynackienoo]

I am a nurse redeployed to itu. Doing 13 hour days and stressed up to the eyeballs at the moment. My children (12 and 8) go to school on my work days and on my days off i keep them at home with me according to the government guidance. As far as I can tell, the teachers at school are just childminding and not teaching anything. How is it that they can have just 4 kids in the school and not manage to get them to do at least some work? How can I possibly do the job of a teacher on my days off? They have send so many links via email that I can’t make sense of, it’s so overly complicated. Surely as key workers they should be doing the job they are being paid to do? I must be missing something, can someone fill me in?

Neither of my children are getting online tutorials. Work gets uploaded onto the website once a week for each school day ( just English and Maths) and that's it. It's hardly anything tbh. So disappointing. The teachers at my kids school are being lazy and i've lost respect for them.

MyTwoLeftFeet

The teachers/staff that are in where I work help the pupils out in that fashion.

We have a routine for the day and the children are expected to stick to it. Some of that time is work set by teachers, some is sport/outside activity/creative subjects.

It is a mix.

The lack of consistency is down to no-one up above dfe/government or whoever not setting any sort of real guidelines as to what is suppose to happen, they have once again said to the schools and teachers "your shutting, sort something out".
We are well aware of the problems that that will cause.

But saying

so their staff are basically at a loose end

is nonsense as you do not know what the staff are doing.

@GreytExpectations apologies, my ire was misdirected.

My family has self employed and furloughed worker members and I know it's stressful.

We are all in the shit one way or another, aren't we? I'm opening the wine, can we share a solidarity bottle?

@CallmeAngelina Of course it's the PP's business if her vulnerable child with an EHCP isn't getting access to the education she should be. Your comment was nasty and uncalled for and gives the impression you just don't give a toss about vulnerable kids.

Honestly those teachers who you think are doing nothing will very likely be working on a myriad of other things behind the scenes.

Rewriting schemes of work, updating medium and long term plans (such a ballache), spending hours a day ringing parents, social services (that was 4hrs of yesterday's day for me)

I promise you, very few are having a jolly. If they are they're lucky sods.

Different ages and ability? Why should they get paid less. They are still on a rota and sending work let alone childcare.

EHCP kids should be offered a place in school.

Please follow this up and get one for your child.

TutorWoes

The teachers at my kids school are being lazy and i've lost respect for them.

The bullshit buzzer goes off again.

Unless you can see in to the front rooms of each and every teacher at your child's school you don't know what they are doing.

There are many things that they could have been told to do that doesn't directly involve teaching or supply materials for your child.

Yes they could be lounging around in the sun, drinking gin but you don't know that and even if whoever you emailed replies to you, you may still never know.

Does that mean they get paid a childminders salary then?

oooh, yes please!

I am a qualified secondary school teacher currently working as an SEN TA 4 days a week for about £900 a month. That's about £225 a week, so being generous, let's say £60 a day. When I was a childminder 8 years ago, I charged £55 a day, per child. I had 2 or 3 children a day

I can appreciate everyone's frustrations. I have 3 children. One has worked his socks off for the GCSEs over the past 2 years, and set up all sorts of work experience just to have to readjust his plans. It's hard, but that's life. His school keeps setting things like a past GCSE Geography exam paper. He won't be sitting the exam, he will not be taking Geography ever again so it feels meaningless. But his school, his SLT, his teacher might be struggling with vulnerable health, children at home, feeling overwhelmed by how to deliver virtual learning when they are not equipped- so I am cutting them some slack.

I am going in to the primary school where I work, and we have year groups clustered together. Out of 6 x year 3 and year 4 classes, we had 6 kids in today. Two are key workers' kids, the others have EHCP plans/ are known to social workers, or need support. During the Easter holidays it was pretty much a holiday club: it wasn't term time so no academic school work was done.

Now we're back for summer term, we follow a similar structure to before lockdown. We do maths and english, and more 'topic' stuff and PE in the afternoon, but it's not following the usual curriculum as it's not fair to the 170-odd kids at home. I would be irritated if my youngest child's classmates in school were ploughing through work whilst she pretends to be doing BBC Bitesize whilst I am at work, her dad is on conference calls, and her older siblings slog through ours of GCSE virtual learning.

Also, in these smaller settings at school children are getting a lot more concentrated learning time and adult attention as we were 2 adults to 6 kids today, rather than the usual 2:30. Similarly at home, we don't home school 9-3, because we don't have to 'waste' time transitioning between activities, lining up, going out to play, etc etc etc. We do about 2-3 hours, and the rest is Joe wicks, dog walk, mooching, bickering, art, cooking and more screen time than I used to be OK with, but now am super grateful for.

Everyone's just trying to do their best. Let's be kind.

I am a teacher, working full time from home delivering lessons on Zoom, seething work and marking it. Key worker children should have work set for them by their regular teachers, as all children should be, and those going into school should be doing that work under supervision as they would be at home. Slightly more complicated if your children are being given Zoom lessons from their teachers, but the school should accommodate that.

There's a lot on here about how 'some' schools are doing one thing and others are not.

Don't people realise that this is always the case; from the length of parents' evenings, the number of series of mock exams undertaken, the hours allocated to different subjects, the time the school day starts...

None of this is up to individual teachers and not every child in the whole country can have exactly the same.

Why do people think it might be different now?

Exactly Piemarsh
Bullied children sometimes do the same - go for another child because they want to make themselves feel better.
It just makes them into bullies, too.

Silenceisnotgolden you can surely manage to defend your own profession without insulting ours. We've said it's insulting throughout the thread; we've said why it's insulting.
What would you do if that happened among your students? Ignore what they're saying and join in?

It's obvious that this thread is being used to stir things up and upset everyone. You're not defending your profession by joining in with the goading.

Childminders are the only professionals that are actually being expected to risk their own families directly as well as themselves. We're taking children into our own homes - those of us that are still able to work. We're doing it on vastly reduced incomes. We're hearing our colleagues becoming ill. We're hearing that at least one has died.

And then you post that - and you and your colleagues claim it's "only a joke". You try to justify it by claiming that people are being nasty to you, so you'll be nasty to us. See what it feels like.

Actually, we know what it feels like. We get it all the time. Last month on Mumsnet, people were saying we shouldn't even be paid. We really don't need you to pile on the grief when we're already struggling, thanks.

I get you. So many parents are working hard in let worker job, or just any jobs and have to take on this massive burden too but when we hold the teachers to account we're 'bashing' and should be aware of how much work they have on.

Not much to ask that your kids are at least completing the work their teacher is setting for home at school, except that much of that work is poor/boring and they can't get the kids to do it either!

@sarahC40

Thank you for all you are doing. My daughters normal teacher is amazing I truly believe most are.

DDs normal teacher and has sent lots of work and done zoom meet ups etc. She had been calling me asking why DD wasn’t doing her work and I explained that they weren’t doing it at hub school And she was surprised at this. Most teachers are doing great and it sounds like some schools are offering a fab provision.

It’s very hard through for those of us who have had poor provision - seems to mainly be in areas with hubs. Whoever planned it just didn’t think about the ages of the kids or how to support them. It’s very hard as a parent to watch your child suffer. I know wfh is hard as I did it when as a family we isolated as we had covid, but then DD was at least supported with some educational stuff and hugged. It’s horrid to watch your three year old have to walk out of a school in wet clothes as no one is prepared to help her change, she’s been very upset, I’ve chated to her tonight and it seems that she is worried she is “sick” as the teachers won’t touch her and are always saying “no touching” at three she is used to much more physical contact and if faced with a adult sized bathroom will clearly need help to reach the taps and open the door.

So yes I guess I am angry, I sent my daughter to the childcare advised but my LA and she has not been imo well treated. I didn’t expect her to learn loads but to have some vaguely educational activities with Appropriate facilities and emotional care. A childminder would have provided better care I think for all those saying it’s just “childminding” childminding when my DD went to one (used to have a childminder from when I went back to work at 1 yr and when she started nursery last September) involved following the eyfs curriculum As far as I could tell and lots of hugs as needed. I suppose I blame myself for not checking it out more for not demanding more or for not quitinf work at the beginning.

This is a parenting website, people come on her because they have worries about their kids, some of those worries will involve their kids teachers and caregivers. Saying it’s all teacher bashing, it’s not, some kids are getting poor care at the moment and I think it’s ok to raise that

OP i think you’ve been a hard time on here. Dealing with the situations you are and working extra hours in difficult conditions is hard.
I’m a nurse and my son is in school 5 days as a week. I was getting messages saying my son had not completed his home learning. By the time I’d got home cooked dinner etc it is gone 7pm and I’ve lost the will by that point.
I called the school and asked them if they got make sure he could do the home learning in school as otherwise our whole weekend would have been taken up with school work when he’s actually at school 5 days a week.

Thankfully they were fine about this and now make sure he gets the chance to do it during the school day. I don’t think it’s a big ask to get the children doing the home learning that is set.

We are all in the shit one way or another, aren't we?

Thank you @GuyFawkesDay. You are so right and this whole thing sucks. Solidarity! I'm sure you are doing a great job as a teacher and best thing is to ignore all the idiots judging you

I'm an NHS keyworker lucky enough to be working from home. Unfortunately I can't do my job and teach my kids at the same time. We do maybe 2 hours of schoolwork a day, if we're lucky! I've been working in the middle of the night from 10pm til 3am to try to get my actual job done, whilst being accessible during the day as well. My children are not learning more than yours are at school, believe me!!

@GuyFawkesDay one of the LAs I work with isn’t offering places for EHCP kids. They’ve closed all their special schools. Some Parents are not coping and kids are coming to harm. THIS ISNT THE TEACHERS FaULT (in case anyone thinks I’m having a go) it’s the LAs . It was raised in the select committee a few days ago, it’s a definite issue and not what the government planned so it seems a mix up between central planning and the LAs somewhere

The thing is, a lot of a teacher’s workload is invisible to some parents at the moment. I’m SLT in a primary school in a deprived area. Over a quarter of our pupils are vulnerable and we are a big school. Our teachers are making contact with these families very regularly and there are some children that I worry about so much I find it hard to sleep. I know the situations they are in and I know lockdown is making their lives so much harder.

Then there’s FSM, we are choosing to provide food ourselves for this. Some are unable to collect so we are delivering. We are around 60% FSM. Again, many of these families have no internet access (some no smartphones either), so we are providing paper copies of work and again delivering in some cases. If you aren’t a parent of a vulnerable child at our school, you may think we are lazy because our main focus at this time is the emotional well-being and physical safety of our pupils.

We have only a handful of key worker children in, the rest are vulnerable or have EHCPs. Some are struggling without typical behaviour support or the adults they know. There are often tears. Again, we will support them with their home learning but the absolute priority is their well-being.

I’m also a parent and have had no phone calls from my DCs school, although the teachers are available via email. This is because my DC are not vulnerable, they are safe and cared for at home. They aren’t learning as much as they could be as both DH and I are busy with work, but they are well and in the long term they won’t be disadvantaged. They will catch up.

@MyTwoLeftFeet yes this. It’s clearly not all teachers, it’s not the majority, some kids however are getting a shit deal.

I’ve tried raising it locally and have failed so yes I guess I’m having a bit of a rant on here.
(There are also shit HCPs as well and feel free to moan about them on a patients forum)

@Tanith you’re really not listening are you?

Erm... key workers aren’t the only people going to work each day in this country. What about the millions of other adults in non key-worker roles that are going to work each day or working from home to support their company/economy? You do realise it’s only an (albeit large) minority proportion of the workforce that is furloughed? Children of these working parents are in exactly the same position as you.

I cannot for the life of me see how a key workers child is more disadvantaged than another child who’s parent is at work. If anything they are at an advantage because as your child is in school all day, they will probably get a full days focus on learning what they’ve been assigned online in a classroom and not be distracted by stuff in their bedrooms/phones/video games/breaks at home/parents not putting in a lot of hours.

As you’re a key worker and your children are being supervised by the school, you’re also not currently having to pay out hundreds each month in childcare as other non-key workers are having to do for their children as they go to work each day. You are at a HUGE financial advantage to millions of other parents.

If your child is “not allowed” to access the online learning they’ve been set, if this is actually true then you have a genuine cause of complaint. However why a supervising teacher would actively ban or not help your child access what their colleague in each subject has set for them seems frankly bizzare. They know this is literally what children are supposed to be doing each day. And I doubt if a child asks them for help, they are getting a blanket “no”. They probably will try their best but can’t help them in detail outside their subject area - just like every other parent in the country isn’t specialised in most subject areas. A secondary school child is expected to have some autonomy, responsibility over their learning. None of this makes sense.

@Useruseruserusee

It sounds like you are making wonderful provision. And caring for the emotional development of the kids your looking after.

It’s not happening everywhere. I refuse to believe that the people “caring” for my child today we’re prioritising her wellbeing because if they were then maybe they would have walked her out to me and given some sort of handover rather then send her out wet through in tears. She also hadn’t been able to eat all her lunch because no one would help her open stuff from 2m away. No provision of meals here. Ditto with putting her coat on. Whoever thought that they should stay 2m from a crying kid can’t care (she had a negative covid test last week which they know about as well)

@Drag0nflye yes it’s bizzare but it’s easier to sit them all down to watch movies than provide computers and worksheets and pens and stuff and if they did let the kids do the worksheets then they would have to help the little ones read them and that’s teaching so they can’t do that as it’s an advantage. Not everywhere but some schools do have this bizarre policy that kids spend the day watching movies and then have to do the home learning at home that evening

Schools can’t do right for doing wrong. My dh is a primary deputy head. They are setting an hour each of maths and English daily, plus a couple of bits of something extra throughout the week e.g science, RE, art, Geography etc. There have been complaints from parents who want their children sat working from 9-3:30 every day without exception so there’s not enough work. But they’ve also had parents on the phone in tears who can’t keep up with the work that’s being set and it’s causing major stress and anxiety at home trying to get through it all. You can’t please everyone.