To ask how much support your KS2 children are getting from school?

[concernedforthefuture]

DCs are yrs 3 & 5 (age 8 & 10). Since the beginning of lockdown, work has been sent weekly from school in the format of a series of links to where we can download various worksheets and watch online videos (all of which are available to the public such as Twinkl / White Rose Maths / BBC Bitesize, rather than something the teacher has produced). These are not to be returned for marking, there is no supplementary online teaching by their class teachers (either live or pre-recorded videos) and no real contact from the school apart from a weekly email to remind us to visit the class pages on the school website to see this week's recommended learning links.
I was more than happy with this for the first few weeks but with a real chance that they might not return to school this term, I'm really feeling that our children are being let down by not really getting an education at the moment. They're bored of the work - each day is quite different to the day before in terms of content and there's no obvious progression from one week to the next. Not having any feedback is leaving them wondering why they should bother at all and it's getting difficult to motivate them. We do other stuff too, but I do worry for the children whose parents aren't able to offer anything extra.

I wonder how this compares to others' experiences? Are all families just being left to get on with it ? I see a lot of posts about online teaching and class zoom meetings (with the teacher). I just don't understand what the teachers are doing. It's a big school (450+ pupils) and most days they only have around 10-15 key worker children so they can't all be in school everyday. To be clear, I'm not expecting online school from 9-3 for 5 days a week, but a few lessons a week tailored to the class would be welcome, together with some kind of interaction between the teachers and pupils to see how they're doing.
If it makes a difference, the (state) school is currently rated Outstandjng by Ofsted.

@lozster my DS' school also sent home CGP books before Easter, before they knew how long they'd be closed and set-up online learning. They're pretty good actually, and usually have a 'lesson' bit, then a test/comprehension bit. There is a huge range of them, and they're readily available on Amazon etc. I've seen books that go all the way up to GCSE (like SPaG for GCSE etc). Ok, they're no comparison to actual teaching, but for self-directed learning they're definitely a good starting point. We have maths (all different topics from national curriculum), writing (SpaG, sentence structure etc), and reading (comprehension and inference from texts of a variety of genres).

In my opinion, primary schools aren't doing that much. Condensing their planning into sending home daily work (takes what, 20 mins) and then replying to comments from kids - another 20 mins.

That's not to say they're not working- probably doing planning for next term and possibly already started writing reports.

Personally, I think they should be doing Zoom lessons. At least 1 hour a day. None of the schools I know of are offering this.

I was a primary teacher by the way.

I now work for myself - 15 kids from 10 different schools. Not one of my kids is overrun with work from their school. Most have been simply given a log on to a website which sets the work (and marks it) .

I really don't see what teachers are doing that means they are working harder than ever?

Secondary - now that might be different. I can imagine a secondary English teacher for eg might well be doing a lot. Can't really comment past Year 8 but I know my 3 high school pupils aren't overrun with work either.

I've seen both sides. Now from a parent point of view, I can see why teachers are getting a bashing. On full pay, with FULL job security to go back to. There is simply no incentive whatsoever to actually say, hey, this is bloody difficult but let's FIND A SOLUTION to get these kids back. It's just frankly easier with no money worries at all to say, it's not safe, let's just leave it til September.

If teachers actually were not on full pay and did not have job security, I can guarantee they'd be working to find a solution - not just kicking off saying it won't work.

I'm now saying that as someone who is self employed, and has a husband who doesn't have job security in the slightest after this. I would definitely be working to find a solution. There WILL be a way to do.

But teachers would rather all club together and just say it's impossible.

Thank you star for saying this.
Because on a other thread teachers right now are calling me a "cunt" and a "twat" for saying I am disappointed my children aren't getting any teaching

When there are 30 in a class (reasonable expectation for state schools) how can responding to children take 20 minutes? Some children send multiple emails to the teacher during the day, some send a ridiculous number, mainly because it's easier to ask than it is to think!

And zoom is not a secure platform for children to be using at all.

I have a year 4 child. We are emailed weekly at the start of the week with a link to the school website and the home learning material. It is a booklet that contains all the work you can cover. There is quite a lot, the school classes are named after various children's authors so English largely involves discussions around the text taken from a title written by the author the child's class is named after. Maths is equally as comprehensive and there is topic work, science, Art, music and French.

There is a gallery for photos of art, crafts, videos of short films or performance s things children have done e.g a Lego rainbow with the word 'Hope' built in to it that are unrelated to school work

You can upload completed school work but all of this, including undertaking the work is optional.

Thank you star fòr saying what a lot of us are thinking.
We have had no contact from school other than emails.

One 15 minute a day task on purple mash, another on whiterose for maths, takes us longer because we only have a crappy tablet and no printer, ttrockstars and spelling shed which mine does anyway, limited project work.
No feedback.
No phonecalls.
I hope the school are contacting families that havent done anything for whatever reason.
I would be very surprised if my kids teacher has done a days work a week for what we are recieving.
Which is fine, im not working at all, im furloughed on 60% of my usual wages and looking for temp work.
What grates me is the absolute bullshit idea that teachers are being asked to do anything other people have not already been doing throughout and will continue to do.
What more and more and more of us will be doing over the coming weeks and months.
I cant socially distance in my job, i will go and do it because the alternative is the dole queue rather than whinging to the unions on full pay.

I think it would be really interesting once this is all over for area by area to publish each school and what they provided during the crisis. Makes it much easier to pick a school based on how they’ve stepped up than the ofsted reports I think! Our school send out a daily subject sheet. There’s maths and English tasks and then wellbeing (do a board game with your family type things) art, then another subject that changes daily and there’s a daily PE video from the teachers. There’s a weekly video of a story and questions to answer. They send virtual certificates of achievement and they monitor closely what the kids are doing. Weekly online chat with the teacher. Regular motivation videos from the teacher, head teacher and they are sending quizzes/challenges through. I feel very supported and they don’t expect the kids to do all of the sheet but if they don’t submit any work then the head will call to check if everything’s ok. Big class sizes, multiple classes per year...I thought this was normal and I’m shocked it’s not. Average state primary. Not ofsted outstanding. Makes me realise how lucky we are.

Our school is village c of e, one class intake, im sure someone, head, deputy, class teacher, receptionist could have found time to call us once over the last 8 weeks?
I dont really think thats expecting too much? Is it?

Exactly @bluebellsarebells

Our year 4 boys are at different schools and neither school has called at all to check up on the boys. Not once. One has SEN and one has been through some horrible trauma.

My son is in Y3. His teacher sets a table of fifteen varied tasks on Google Classroom each Monday. These are always varied, with a different theme each week, and include five each of literacy, numeracy and more project-type activities. It is made very clear that families are free to choose when/if each activity should be done. Messages are responded to quickly, and all tasks submitted are marked and feedback given, on a timescale varying from an hour to, at most, overnight. Some tasks include an option for the children to work in pairs or small groups, which they can do using Google Hangouts. Some include videos of the teacher explaining a concept or how the task should be done. There hasn't been any live whole-class teaching, but I can't see what advantage a Zoom meeting with 30 kids would have over a recorded video. In fact, there would be significant disadvantages as you can't re-watch so easily and only a fraction of parents would be able to support their children to participate at any particular time. I know I need the flexibility to be able to say "You can take a break and watch TV for half an hour now, while I have a work meeting!"

Nothing from my year 3's school other than uploaded worksheets every day complete with answers. Not a peep from her teacher at all. Nothing.

The school I work at on the other hand, has been utterly amazing. Loads of videos, stories read, teachers videoing themselves explaining crafts and activities and reading to the children, and input on the work given. A real feeling that the staff care about and miss the children. I'm tempted to let dd2 do the work from my school instead of hers! She knows the year 3 teacher at my school already!

@Rockbird I have had a few teacher friends who are experiencing the same and it must be absolutely galling to be in your situation.

I have huge respect for teachers like you and schools like yours that have risen to the challenge.

We get a timetable with links to online teaching videos. But requires quite a lot of my input.

Weekly online assembly and biweekly teacher calls

I can’t see what else the school can do. I feel sorry for the teachers - nothing could have prepared them for this -everything they know has been thrown in the air.

It’s been a wake up call on how difficult their job is and actually how I need to support my sons schooling more. I won’t bash teachers who generally are trying their best. It’s my responsibility to not let my son down in these times.

UtopiaStar has nailed it, absolutely.

Paying people their full time wage with no expectation of work is obviously going to result in this shambles.

Put the teachers on 50% of their salary and then see them all clambering to get back to work.

One last time, with feeling.

We.
Are.
Still.
Working.

Regarding video lessons, the only reason I am able to make some do my class is because I use my own personal laptop. The only device I have from school is an ancient laptop and the webcam doesn't work. I personally wouldn't even be able to make one on my phone as I only have a cheap one with a poor quality camera and limited storage. Luckily I bought a new personal laptop recently, which I use for the majority of my school work at the best of times as my school laptop is so rubbish. This could contribute to the lack of recordings from some schools.

Say you work as a midwife. Someone comes on here and tells an awful horror story about how badly they were treated when giving birth. Then about a dozen posters come on and say "We should cut midwive's wages by 50%, that will soon have them doing a better job."

Would you feel the first person was being reasonable, complaining about bad care? Yes.

Would you feel the second person was being reasonable, extending that to the entire profession? No.

Would you feel that perhaps there were systemic issues in the way we deal with childbirth that led to mothers not receiving the best care possible? Quite possibly.

Would you extend that to saying all midwives were crap? Only if you were a twat.

@nellodee

Can you give us a breakdown of how you are spending your time?

I meant to add, it's probably why there is no government guidance about schools including a video component as they know schools can't all provide their staff with the necessary technology. Funding in schools has been so poor that, in small schools like mine especially, funding new technology is a pipe dream. We managed to buy a new set of laptops for our pupils this year and it used almost all our ringfenced funding for capital spending.

I don’t normally quote the fail but they have surveyed head teachers and the vast majority of schools are doing loads but 7.5% (I think) of primary heads said they were setting no work. That’s not on. So many schools (including the one my kids goes to) doing brilliant stuff but a minority clearly doing f all are ruining it for all and really screwing up the kids in their care

I wrote this earlier. It's not quite a breakdown of my time, more an explanation of provision, but I hope it gives a reasonable idea. Due to staff shortages, I have about 200 students that I am responsible for monitoring, and another 100 students who I taught, but am not responsible for. I don't set the work for the last 100, but I do send out emails and make myself available to help them out. I offered to do Zoom, but my school has a policy against it.

On top of the work below, which is the student facing part, I also prepare resources for next year (ongoing, as Ofsted are always changing focus and everything is constantly being rewritten), do analysis for the awarding of GCSEs and A-levels and complete online training courses. It takes me about 2 hours to prepare a good A-level resource, as I do hand written guided solutions.

Work is set centrally for the whole department on two online learning platforms. The work is differentiated to three different difficulties, but some students are probably still going to struggle with parts of it, as we're trying to stick to the scheme of work rather than just do consolidation. I would say there is a reasonable amount of work set. When I make phone calls, the number saying there is too much work is definitely higher than those saying there is not enough.

If students cannot access the online work, then individual teachers are asked to send work in to be printed off and sent home. If this is the case, I usually send enough work for about three scaffolded work sheets (ones giving some explanation) per week along with the answers. It takes me quite a while to try to tailor these to the individual student, I put quite a lot of effort in to these requests.

Work is marked automatically. I send out fairly generalised whole class responses, with direction to additional resources, such as "I see a lot of you are struggling with pythagoras, try this Youtube video, I think it's really helpful." Students will get roughly one of these "encouraging" emails a week. I also call home regularly, but because I have quite a large caseload, this will only be once every couple of weeks. Because my number is withheld, a fair proportion of these phone calls end up being left on answer messages. This is flagged further up the school, so the school is aware of which students have had contact or not.

Where students email me with a problem with a specific piece of work, I phone them. I often get them to sit on the online platform, get the actual question up, tell me what it is, and go through it with them individually. Only a small proportion of my students ask me for help in this way, but because I am responsible for the oversight of so many students, this accounts for a good proportion of my time. I get in touch with every student who asks for help within 1 day. If they are not available on the phone, I get back in touch via online communication and point them in the direction of specific videos / bitesize lessons etc. I probably should do these steps the other way round, but I enjoy explaining the work so much - these phone calls are the only part of my day that really reflect why I got into teaching.

StarUtopia

I’m surprised, as an ex-teacher, you can’t imagine what we’re doing!

1. Daily lessons set in my school include pre/recorded videos for each day.
2. Feedback on work is not taking 20 minutes but then we’re asking questions and replying to answers, as well as answering messages from parents.
3. In school we’re working with key worker children. We’re also phoning parents and some are very anxious.
4. Attending zoom work meetings (at least one a week here).
5. Rest of the time? Courses, started reports, co-ordinator work which takes up a massive amount of time.

I’m quite shocked that secondary teachers are assumed to be doing much more! I’m sure lots are but the few I know have barely been in schools and have set minimal work with no feedback required AND they’re not back on the 1st June!

nonofthatdr hmm so the Fail asked headteachers what they are doing and the surprise result was they are doing loads

Seriously, I think some schools are and that’s what is making me mad! I’ve asked for contact (doesn’t have to be video, a call would do once a month), differentiation and feedback and have, in short, been told to get back in my box by the head.

lozster
I think schools should held to account for what they are/aren’t doing. Luckily for me my children’s school is also doing a lot but it baffles me why some schools aren’t and gives us all a bad name!

Last complaint from me but the unions aren’t doing us any favours either. The staff at my school will go back on 1st June.

Nellodee that sounds tremendous. If my kid’s teacher was doing that, I would have nothing to gripe about.