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.

DS's teacher is amazing , he has some SEN and really struggles with confidence and somehow she's really cracked it with him. She regularly emails ( as does the TA), not just to talk about home schooling but also just to chat about stuff which I think is lovely. He didn't understand part of Maths, so she spent her weekend creating several videos carefully explaining it. She really is an absolute gem and I'm hoping she moves up to secondary school with him not joking

Ds is Y4 and similar experience. PowerPoint resources go on the website every week, loads of it. No zoom, no calls, but they've asked us to email them each week and let them know how ds is getting on. They've offered to answer questions about the work and want to know how much we are doing with him. He does an online maths progress checker and one for spelling and grammar - but those just test the level he's at rather than lessons/ videos etc. Parents have basically been given a load of stuff to get through if they can, leaving us feeling pretty shit when we don't even scratch the surface due to both of us working.

Same here - A couple of dojo notifications a day, one ‘fact of the day’, and a bit of a story read out. Must take all of ten minutes to put together. On top of that, instructions to go on the school website which has links to bite size and online games.

We had a phone call for my year one about three weeks ago, nothing at all for the year six.

I had some sympathy, and would have been very much in the ‘doing their best’ camp, until I received a sanctimonious email today from the head (I’m a governor), crowing about the high level of personalised learning they were achieving. Well, she’s clearly forgotten I’m a parent, or hasn’t a clue what personalised means, because they’ve had fuck all.

At some point people will rightly ask what teachers did on full pay for all these months while a lot of others worked their hours, went onto reduced pay, or were made redundant. With the key worker kids rota, I know ours are doing less than a day a week in school.

Amazing but my kids are at private schools. DD 14 year 9 has online learning 9-4.30pm Monday to Friday. DD school is using Teams. Music
Lessons are taking place weekly via zoom. Weekly 1:1 meetings with house mistress taken place and weekly year group meeting are taking place.

DS 12 year 8 has a mix of live lessons, pre recorded lessons, pre Recorded intros to lessons and some lessons set via a typed message. They are using google classroom and google meet. His SEN 1:1 lesson takes place 2 a week. Form time takes place on google met 3 times a week.

Both schools send out links to pre recorded
Assemblies every week.

Amazing provision by both schools

Yes, I’m frustrated by the tone deafness mentioned by a previous poster on this thread.

Emails from school about what wonderful times teachers have been having and what they’ve been homeschooling their own kids about (along with the explicit message that teachers can’t do more than they already are because most of them are homeschooling their own kids) goes down like a bucket of cold sick when you’re working full time at home and wracked with guilt about not spending any time with your children, let alone doing any home ed.

Add to this extra workload due to colleagues being furloughed, and one can feel somewhat resentful towards teachers who are having a nice relaxing time spending one to one time with their children on full pay and (in our school at least) going in approx 1 day every 2-3 weeks to educate about 10 kids.

The fact that teachers on these threads shout down and keep posting bloody flowers is annoying- instead perhaps they could acknowledge what life must be like for parents who are working full time and trying to educate their kids. It’s as if they think working parents sit about twiddling paperclips all day, and it’s very patronising to have your genuine concerns about your child’s education and mental well-being shot down and belittled. We’ve had a total of six items (along the lines of ‘go and research a project about the egyptians’) in seven weeks. I wonder if teachers never complain about poor service in shops, restaurants etc? If you had a bad meal would you just suck it up and not say anything? I doubt it.

Exactly the same as you OP.
I’m told the teachers are doing lots of CPD modules during lockdown. Great for their CVs and for future ofsted etc, but bugger all use for my year 6 child.

pinkyU if teachers have zero obligation to teach kids when the school is closed, and that obligation passes to the parents, shouldn’t the parents get the money for it?

Not read the full thread, as it seems to have turned into an argument.

However, Mintychoc1

I want to assure you that CPD is not about my CV or Ofsted, but about learning to be a better teacher.

Sorry that you don't think that is worthwhile.

@Aliiiii have you tried working full time 10-12hrs a day self employed plus being expected to home school 2 different key stage children as a single parent? It’s hard for everyone. Calm down. Your comments aren’t helpful

Our school uploads so much work to a forum it’s daunting. I’m so fed up of it. Children can’t cope with the work and I can’t cope working and homeschooling. It’s a shit show. ☹️

+1 for the idea that's its very odd, on a parenting thread to try to no-platform a parent who starts a thread wanting to understand more about her own and others' children's school experiences during this time.

I've read these posts, no-one's bashing teachers gratuitously, a few are praising their children's schools and teachers, and a few are asking questions about accountability.

This should be grounds for deleting a thread and I trust MNHQ to let the discussion continue. I've learned a lot from the comparisons.

Thanks, everyone, including OP.

• argh, meant to say this should NOT be grounds, obvi.

It’s infuriating.
Private school that’s not even considering a discount ... in seven weeks.... 2 zoom lessons

My son hasn’t done history for months as he got through the entire thing by Easter

No interaction with non core teachers

I Am BEYOND fucked off

Private school (small), no general fee reductions (although parents who are financially impacted can apply for fairly generous ones). it is not an expensive school either.
Year 2:
live online lessons
2 hours core subjects every day (4 *30 minutes), 1.5 hours “extra” (art, more french, extra biology, creative writing etc), plus 20 minutes assembly.
Sone homework, we are asked to send work in and it comes back marked. SENDs support in place.
during the holidays the leadership team (headmistress, deputy head, head of pre-prep etc) were providing about 30-60 minutes per day reading stories, just talking ,art inspirations

Great post Madame.

Why so thin skinned? Reasonable comments about our own experiences atm and we are accused of “teacher bashing”. 🙄🙄

Sadly this is going to emphasise the gaps. I have some time despite working to sit with my primary aged child and we do extra work she also has maths tutor. Her friends with a low income single mother and numerous other kids and the one with both parents working full on full time sure aren’t getting this

qweryuiop yes I understand what CPD is for - I’m a doctor, we do it to. But now is not the time for self improvement, when parents are desperate for help educating their kids. As GPs, we have all suspended our personal professional development for the past 2 months to focus on dealing with this crisis. How would people feel if , whilst our doors are largely closed to face-to-face consultations, we ignored the many telephone calls, and instead focused on CPD?

Our teacher rang yesterday. I told her. That the work he was doing was babyish and of course none of it was being marked.
She insisted it was fine.
So. What can I do?

On a side note, I can’t believe schools are posting videos and pictures how much their teachers are enjoying lick down??? are they actively trying to make themselves look like idiots???
But it does explain a bit how far removed from reality some are (not all!! our school wouldn’t dream of that!)

Our teachers have been posting jolly videos like the loo roll challenge. Everyone else is saying how marvel but I am thinking dark thoughts. A pre recorded explanation of the weekly new maths concepts and some marking would be far more welcome. We get neither.

DD is year 5 and she uses Google Classrooms. They get set 3 pieces of academic work daily (one maths, one English and one other like science, RE, Spanish etc.) plus some wellbeing or suggested actives.

These are the teachers lessons. For English she's reading a book and the work in on that book and there is progression as we work through the chapters.

The work that is submitted is usually marked. I find the teacher comments motivating for both of us.

There's no teacher recorded instructions but they post on Google Classrooms every day and are available to help. They link to You Tube videos to help explain.

It's not perfect but I've been really happy with it.

(The only problem with it is that the work is quite challenging. I'm not sure how much the children who aren't high ability or who don't have lots of parental support are doing. You only see a particular group of kids posting on Google Classrooms but not the others).

Zoe is that a private school? Sounds great I would be more than happy with that

Our school is the same. I’m underwhelmed but have been able to step up myself and basically take over. It’s killing me slowly but I keep hopi g that come September some miracle will have taken place and he’ll be back at school being taught by professionals.

@MsTSwift no, it's not private school. It's not even an outstanding state school but I have been happy with how they've coped with online learning.

I'm glad it seems good. That's a bit of a relief TBH.

@zoemum2006 awesome! shows how little the ofsted stuff is worth ....

The issue is actually with the government, not schools or teachers. The DfE should have given clear guidance on the expectations of schools about nationwide education provision during this time, but they didn't.

It would have been so easy for them to say 'The curriculum is suspended. Treat the next 4 weeks as extended holiday, we will have in a place a virtual national academy after the Easter holidays and from that point on schools will be required to also do x, y and z'

This would have led to consistent, centralised provision up and down the country. Instead you have schools all doing their own thing as SLT publish internal policies about what teachers should be doing which ranges from teaching a full online timetable while rewriting schemes of work and undertaking CPD to posting links to online resources once a week. The misapprehension is that a teacher has made their own decision about which of those two routes, or anything in between, they are following.

We have so little autonomy over how to act in this time and everyone seems so quick to criticise but we get hauled over hot coals for stepping away from internal policy because of the consistency culture. Even if I want to, I cannot provide more for my students than my colleagues, because this would be inconsistent. If I persisted in going against the wishes of my SLT, my pay could be affected and potentially my job security too.

Large scale decisions aren't made by individual teachers like they aren't made by individual nurses or police officers. Its centralised at DfE level or, failing that, from SLT.

I wish the government had put more emphasis on the fact the curriculum is suspended. Nobody should be trying to wfh and teach a full timetable. Any educational materials should be a review of concepts already covered to promote fluency and independence and avoid widening the gap between more and less privileged children as we cannot guarantee the same level of access or support available to them at home.

As other teachers have said, if you have concerns about what is being provided for you child, email the school directly, but do bear in mind that whatever you send in, there is at least one other parent emailing and asking for the opposite.

@Mintychoc1

I guess we should both stop generalising. Apologies for the slightly patronising tone of me last message, but I felt you were very dismissive of something that I feel is very valuable (though not directly to your child. But then I'm not your child's teacher)

I've outlined why I am doing more cpd. I didn't outline why I'm not posting more work online, but let me justify. I set online work daily for the majority. I try to contact all parents individually each week to offer my support (none of my families have asked for anything more or different to what we're providing). I email individual work where required. I mark the little work that is sent to me.

All of that takes much, much less than the 60 hours I'm used to working each week. So I do some reading and cpd so I don't feel like I'm slacking off.

That's my experience. I don't suggest that it's the experience of any other teacher in the country.

You are a gp. My friend is a gp. Like me, she was experiencing reduced demand and her workload reduces. It sounds like this hasn't been your experience.

3 dc at home, yr10 and 12 and one primary. Secondary provision has been appalling, some work sent but usually links to grids or online reading. Once teacher set ''watch this movie on YouTube'. No marking or feedback and emails only on a Monday. This week year10 dc got an email from head of year, just a general are you ok. Nothing before this to check if all ok and nothing since. I am horrified at the complete lack of education being provided by a school which is keen to state that all staff are still working 'extremely hard'. An email asking for help and guidance was met with the usual ' these are unprecedented times '.

If my dc were not year 10 and 12 I wouldn't be bothered. As it is I am absolutely shocked that tyre school has just dropped the kids and seem completely unable to provide any decent form of home learning. But of course, you cannot in any way shape or form criticise any teacher on mn. You cannot hold your school accountable, you cannot ask for support because it upsets other teachers on here. My kids have the right to an education, yes these are unprecedented times but front just simply sit at home sending one email a week, like everyone else find a way to adapt the way you work and do your jobs!