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?

I don't understand why children of key workers can't do the work set for them at school. No sensible person is going to expect the art teacher on rota that day to deliver a physics lesson/ answer maths question/ start a PE lesson but its surely not hard for any teacher of any discipline to set up a comfortable study environment for a few hours with access to computers- it's also a few hours of their day where they could get on with their own marking/ emails etc.

I don't think OP is being unreasonable to expect to spend some time with her DC after working 50 hours on an ICU ward under the current circumstances, without worrying about them catching up with their homeschooling.

Its showing solidarity and a care for teachers health and wellbeing

Under normal circumstances, people who aren’t teachers have no real understanding of the demands of the job and teacher bashing generally comes from that place of mis-understanding which I think teachers get, even if it sometimes feels personal.

But since schools closed, it has taken on a life of it’s own. I could cope except the fundamental thing that has been forgotten is that we are people too, with the same fears, responsibilities and concerns as anyone else. I am teaching with 3 kids in the house. You see post after post with people going on about how teachers just don’t understand how hard it is to home school and work. I have aged parent concerns, a need to get food to them and protect my high risk child in my home. I am a single parent with financial worries - when this kicked off my tutoring with all but one of my tutees has stopped meaning I am several hundred a month worse off. I am spending hours thinking about how I can adapt existing resources to make them suitable for online learning - and then I’m spending more hours doing the adapting. My marking workload has trebled. I miss my friends and being able to go to the cinema and have a catch up over coffee and cake. I am worried about what will happen to my year 11 child’s results and his future and the mental health of my 13 year old who barely leaves his room....all the same as anyone else. And yet no other profession is being slagged off, verbally beaten, told they are unreasonable, wrong, doing too much, not doing enough...It is too much. Way too much.

FFS! Many teachers are working their socks off and this place is full of criticism. I actually nearly cried when I read this (my own fault as I shouldn’t have read it). I’m doing pretty much a full video call day teaching and pastorally which my husband out the house working all day as a key worker every day. My dc’s school WON’T take them and I’m struggling to work and attempt to supervise my own dc - I can’t be in 2 places at once apparently.
Actually sod it I am crying now - I wish teacher bashing threads would be deleted as it’s painful for people like me

My sister does days in school childminding and then also does setting and marking and supporting her normal class as well

It's what they've been told to do.

It's driven by the reductive ideology of equality of provision. It would be "unfair" of teachers on site to be giving a very low ratio education to a select group of pupils, that pupils at home are not being afforded.

So on site they are trying to recreate the experience that other children will be getting at home. And not the children of "tiger" parents that are taking homeschooling very seriously. They're trying to ensure that the children in domestic settings that don't get supported in their learning aren't unfairly disadvantaged by this lockdown.

So what you get is childcare + low pressure support for a vague attempt to follow some of the same distance learning material that the rest of the cohort are getting.

while shooting my own DCs I know they can be annoying but shooting them is a bit extreme although there were times with mine when it was fortunate I didn't have a gun handy.

Oh and supporting her own child who is at home and trying to ensure that she also gets an education

Because we are working from home setting work and marking work for all our classes as well as deciding on grades for exam groups and so much other admin. On top of this we go into work on a rota to supervise children . Also it wouldn’t be fair if key worker kids got one to one teaching and the ones made to stay home had nothing and might well be home with a single parent having to work from home etc.... HTH

I’m about to spend five hours sifting Yr11 data to give to the exam board. while DD is sat in front of the TV because DH has to work too.

This thread is EXACTLY what I needed to read.

1 out of 10 for effort. Try starting an even more goady thread somewhere else.

There’s a difference between ‘I’m unhappy with how my child is being taught - what would you suggest’ and ‘well teachers should be paid a childminders wage then if they aren’t teaching’ we have been told not to teach the curriculum by the government. I am not even in school at all as my son has one lung but I am still working the same amount of hours at home. Honestly I’m sick of feeling like I have to fucking justify myself As a teacher. I am NOT sat at home, treating this an extra holiday, doing nothing.

If your personal school isn’t performing the way you expect, complain. You’re within your rights, but generalisation of comments to include all teachers is unfair.

@YgritteSnow It's not teacher bashing. So bored with hearing this. No one is above criticism

Yep and we are bored of it too. It is going on for years ..... the same old arguments. Like a broken record.

If you are not happy then get off social media and contact your school!

I think they should set them up on a school computer and encourage them to follow the work set by their own teachers.

Which would maybe allow them some time to review the work they are setting for their own classes.

And while my child is too young for school so I am just looking after him while trying to work, like any other person wfh at the moment, I do have teaching colleagues with school-age children who are still going in to work, so their children are also having to go into school. Their children are getting exactly what other key worker children are currently getting and my colleagues are doing their best to fit in home learning around their own jobs.

So teachers aren't really any different from anyone else.

Can we now just accept that everyone is stressed at this time and doing their best (well, most people, there'll always be shirkers, in any job) and stop making generalisations?

Mumsnet HQ need to address this online abuse of Teachers. It’s getting out of hand.

I’m about to start a video lesson, 2 of my dc are arguing in another room, one may or may not be doing work upstairs. I feel exhausted, fed up and guilty and have barely spoken to them all day. I wish I hadn’t read this thread

I am a single mum with two of my own children to support at home while also doing all this.. on my rota days in they fi to a childminder so they can stay together and not be too freaked out as one s nursery has closed and my other is very anxious in new environments so one day a fortnight would topple him. We aren’t just lounging back 🙄🙄🙄

how do you know that this isn’t happening? What sanctions would you want applied to children who refuse to do the work in school? After school detention?

What are you on about? I am responding to the OP who didn't say anything like this was happening. I'll ignore the confusing rant about me wanting sanctions and after school detentions as it doesn't relate whatsoever to anything I said. System seems to be different in various schools tbh, and is confusing, which is probably why there's so many threads which are immediately leapt upon by people that I really hope aren't actually teachers as they sound so heightened and aggressive. Some of you seem to be revelling in playing the victim and attempting to shut down any questioning whatsoever. I do find it pathetic tbh.

Actually aren't there a number of threads running in the staff room where a certain group of you are stamping your feet and declaring a boycott on any thread which doesn't kiss teachers feet? Why are you all even here? Don't get me wrong it's good to get answers but can't we just have those instead of defensive posturing and aggressive "STFU parent what do you know?!" type answers to what appear to be genuine queries?

@RubyViolet to be fair I haven't seen any online abuse of teachers (I haven't read the entire thread though). The original post isn't at all abusive and the OP has a point that it's unfair if her kids aren't at least getting general support to do the home learning material at school.

@BelleSausage @Piggywaspushed @Tunnocks34 @TubereuseNordlys @FrippEnos- You see these threads don't work - we need to go back to the boycott idea

It must be 'in the spirit of the site' RubyViolet

It always comes back to money. Sorry but teachers get paid.

The government have said its childcare not teachers.

You need to change your title to ‘why are my children’s teachers, not teaching my children’ I don’t know your children, so that’s why I’m not teaching them. To be fair, I don’t know their teachers either, so maybe you’d be better asking them.

Out of interest, why is your redeployment relevant to your question?

I don’t know any schools who aren’t doing the set work, generally in the morning, sports, arts and creative stuff is in the afternoon. Your children’s school, like so many mumsnet schools, is an anomaly.

These children have parents on the frontline, their well-being comes first - this may look like play and crafts, but it’s often more than that.

These threads are super boring now

Yawns and goes back to online teaching.

I'm a key worker and Dh is a teacher and we have between us mainly been able to only use school for the kids a day a week. When the kids are in school they do the same online learning as they would at home but have teachers to help . Then they tend to do pe and stuff in the afternoon . It's important to remember that working 1:1 with your child as you will at home they learn much quicker - most home schooling can fit into a couple of hours. It wouldn't be fair for the kids in school to be having different work to those at home
My husband is physically in school much less at the moment - maybe two days per week but is available to parents on their school learning platform at all hours (often dealing with 50 queries per day) and setting work , attending virtual meetings, sorting Staffing, organising extra resources for disadvantaged kids, delivering lunches to free school meal kids etc etc
Teachers are very concerned themselves about the impact this time will have on learning and differences according to families etc they are definitely not slacking at the moment
Dh didn't get any easter holiday either - which technically he's not paid for so is entitled to.

We don't have hub schools where I live so children are in their own schools, does that make a difference? My one GS is at a school where they work to their normal timetable, so if first lesson today would normally be maths they log on and do their maths. The other one is at a school where the work is all sent out on a Monday and the children can work through it in whatever order they choose.