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?

Yay another teacher bashing thread

Parents will be very pleased to know that lots of teachers are planning to quit the profession based on how we're being treated

Questioning the unfairness of this system isn’t teacher bashing at all. It’s the government who set the rules after all. Why are all these teachers apparently so upset at this post? The NHS is bashed every day of the year but you don’t see us NHS staff asking for all those threads to be deleted because we’re too precious to read some criticism of the SYSTEM not the individual staff!

Sorry, StaffAssociation - I clearly Require Improvement

OP, unfortunately yours is simply the latest in a month's worth of threads about teachers, that haven't gone well.

Clearly some schools aren't doing as much as others, but the OPs have generalised that to all teachers and schools. That's why teachers have become very defensive.

A lot of the time a simple call or email to the school would answer the question. Certainly we can't.
If you ask for your child to be able to have comouter access and be encouraged to do the home school work, I imagine you'd get a positive response.

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

Why would I do that? They've been great. I spoke to one of my DD's teachers for about twenty minutes yesterday as she'd called to check on dd. Was lovely to hear about dd at school and how much they love teaching he and I in return told them how grateful for I was for the support and pastoral care she gets there - autistic.

I just don't think people who are having problems or struggling should have any question dismissed with shrieks of teacher bashing and rude bordering on aggressive attempts to shut them down.

@RubyViolet - yes a lot of these threads are just the same old re-hash that has been going on for years

@SallyLovesCheese - maybe this is really boycott time

I'm getting royally fucked off with the assumption that only key workers are actually working and the rest of us must be sat at home with our feet up.
Me and DH aren't key workers but we're still working full time. In fact, we're busier than ever and we're having to do all of this with a 5 year old who needs entertaining and educating.

I have a friend who is a nurse who is doing nothing but moaning about the rest of us on our 'extended holidays'. While I completely admire her choice of career and understand the risks she is exposed to it seems beyond her to comprehend it's not a bed of roses for the rest of us either.

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

She considers it important that we know just how hard she is working, out of her comfort zone, so why aren’t we. Because teachers engineered this situation themselves so they can sit at home and drink tea.

TBF teachers are just following orders. If they tried to do more they could end up in trouble. As a nurse, you know you can't criticise the system and expect to keep your job.

Its a bad time for all, but I get your frustration - your job is very high stress. Children are resilient and they will catch up when all this is over.

As a teacher I'd be more than happy to do the children's art work with them in the hub. The structure and routine in our hub is non existent tbh and although we try our best to find interesting, stimulating activities to do it's difficult to keep a diverse range of children entertained for an extended day. Designated work periods for most or all of the children would work well although we'd be reliant on parents sending in their own children's work for the day because they're from different schools and different year groups.

Out of interest op (and apologies if I've missed this, I'm skimming whilst supervising ds letter writing ) what did the hub say when you sent work with your child and asked for them to complete it? Did they refuse outright or just not do it?

Also, what have the dc's own schools (if different from the hub) said when you've asked them for an actual pack of work to be completed in the hub? If they refused what reasoning did they give?

These are genuine questions because I'd actually like to take this on board and see if our hub would agree to start work sessions.

Other teachers teaching remotely...... are you dc allowed in school?

And we are giving you free childcare at risk to ourselves because we want to help support you.

We too are juggling our own children and sick family members and about a hundred e-mails a day from kids and parents.

But thanks for sticking the boot in. I wouldn’t dream of doing the same to you.

I got told by my SLT when I suggested hearing some children read that we couldn’t do things like that because we would be seen to be disadvantaging those who weren’t in school!
I actually agree somewhat with OP. I think in Primary we should be doing some sort of reading, writing and maths daily. We have had the same vulnerable children in every day and it worries me that those children probably have had no learning for weeks and weeks!

Thank you for doing your job in these terrible times, it must be awful. I wouldn't worry too much about the lack of schoolwork your children are doing, mine are doing 1-2 hours a day max whilst me and DP work from home.

Really appreciate all the hard work teachers are putting in esp being in the same boat as the rest of us ie wfh and trying to home school. From this it seems like teachers are doing a lot.

At dd school (secondary) it's great, work allocated each day regular feedback loads of support. She gets up gets her MacBook out and cracks on with it.

DS school (yr 5 primary) , not so much. A few links sent out with lots of confusing instructions beginning of week, that's it. Thus requires me ploughing through them all, setting him up and is a lot more additional work . Other local primary schools are offering a lot more. He's bored and understimulated and I don't have the "bandwidth" due to demands of own job to oversee it.

@Madwife123, rants about the NHS tend to be about the system, not nurses in general or doctors in general. I think that's the difference.
People don't tend to come on here and say "what are doctors doing". They don't blame employees, they blame the govt for NHS failings. Schools wise they blame the people on the ground, not the govt.

I think we can all agree that there are some schools who are doing very little, others doing a lot.

The vast majority of teachers who use mumsnet fall into the ‘working my arse off’ category. None of them know any ‘not doing much’ teachers in real life.

However, some of us have children in schools where the teachers aren’t setting much work. Nor are they marking any work.

I don’t think anyone wishes to bash teachers. However, there are some legitimate concerns, and it does all go a bit hysterical when a parent raises them.

I note that some teachers are on mumsnet during school hours. I don’t think that happened before lockdown? Without stating the obvious, that doesn’t help the cause.

@Howaboutanewname

Ahhh gotcha. I’d forgotten online teaching was code for tea drinking and bum sitting!

@sowemeetagain I criticise the NHS system all the time, I was very active on social media during the last election about the damage the tories are doing. I have been very active criticising some of the CoVid responses and the fact that the NHS is causing more problems to deal with in the future. Not lost my job yet. You absolutely CAN criticise a government system while recognising that’s the staff are working incredibly hard to do their best in a failing system.

Fivesevond rule excellent post.

OP YANBU and you sound exhausted. Thank you for all you are doing to save lives. You are amazing

My kids school has been woeful during this time. Huge issues with IT all met with ‘There’s nothing we can do’ responses. There has been no feedback for approx 70% of the work that’s bern sent back. And no responses to my email asking about it.
I’m not stressing. They’ll catch up eventually. My priority now is to keep my kids safe. I could send them to school when I’m working but I chose not to.
Other local schools are much better in terms of structure and support for kids. There is, as always, so much interpretation of the guidance hence the variations in provision.

But the vitriol on this thread is shocking. Talk about a race to the bottom.

@saraclara Go and read some of the midwife threads on the pregnancy board and then come back and say that.

Belle sausage, it’s not free childcare risking your life.

My DH is a consultant on a covid intensive care unit. He’s not giving free treatment, though he’s almost certainly risking his life.

In both cases, you are being paid to do your respective jobs. His job is harder than usual, yours is possibly easier, or different. He risks his life a great deal. You risk yours a great deal less.

I note that some teachers are on mumsnet during school hours. I don’t think that happened before lockdown? Without stating the obvious, that doesn’t help the cause.

Gee I wonder why people in lockdown are in their houses? Why didn't that happen before lockdown?! What a mystery.