Classroom Lessons via Zoom

[jjx111]

AIBU to expect the teachers at my daughter’s rs primary school to offer at least some lessons via Zoom? The feedback I have been given is that that they aren’t offering it due to a) safeguarding issues, and b) it would add to the teachers workload. Well, surely if we parents consent for our child to sign in for these lessons then no safeguarding issue. Plus, at present, we parents are doing at least 60% of the teachers work for them via homeschooling. (I appreciate that they are setting work for the children, but this is part of the planning they would do anyway).

Zoom also pass on your personal information to third parties, which I don't think should be happening if you're using it to teach children.

Jesus Christ, we teachers really can't win can we? My department (secondary school 'core' subject) have been working round the clock to change our course plans to suit home learning - making videos/worksheets/ sourcing interactive online resources that match our learning intentions etc. Sending out work weekly to each class, providing support online answering questions from pupils (and parents), marking work that's being submitted and providing feedback at all levels... And yesterday our headteacher emailed us and told us that there had been umpteen parental complaints that the children are 'overloaded' with work and we're putting them under too much pressure. WE CAN'T WIN!

I'd happily take a pay cut and be furloughed, I'm working my arse off and it's a waste of time! Only 6 out of 22 of my new S4 class submitted their work last week! And I teach in a very affluent area!

I've been teaching for 15 years and I've just come to accept that the general public hate us. I don't know why, exactly, but it's very demoralising and I'm not surprised so many are leaving teaching.

And as for we parents are doing at least 60% of the teachers work for them thanks, I needed a good bloody laugh after the shitty week I've had!

@myself2020 i sit with him, which I am happy to do. I wouldn't leave him on his own with any kind of device

@1forsorrow many of the hacked meetings were public zoom meetings or ones where the meeting details had been shared.

To provide some protection the school sends a new meeting ID via email just to the parents of each child and usually only a short time before the meeting starts. And the meeting is password protected. In addition none of the participants have video sharing enabled so that if someone did sneak onto the call they wouldn’t be able to share video content and I have to trust the teacher will not be showing the children such vile material! In addition to this, parents tend to sit next to or close by while the children are doing these calls to monitor things and all children are taught beforehand by the school how to keep themselves safe while using the internet, so the second they see anything upsetting or concerning they know just to walk away and tell an adult. With all the procedures in place I believe it’s highly, highly unlikely that the kids are going to view objectionable material on a class zoom call.

I am a teacher delivering a normal timetable via Zoom. Nonsense about the porn stiuff -there are security parameters to lock everything down if you can be bothered to learn (takes all of 5mins) and apply them.
I spend about 15 -20 mins explaining and modelling the task PowerPoint etcand getting pupil interaction as I would in a normal classroom /they go away off Zpomto complete the task, they submit it electronically at the end of the 'lesson' Through the school portal (not email) I mark it onl my iPad with a digital pen which is faster and easier than marking exercise books. Working well , pretty much 200% attendance and work submitted.

200%, not 200% 😀

BeltaneBride

Independent school?

My DS school is giving short explanations via their YouTube channel and paper worksheets. It's ideal. They are also sending home craft material, but you can access the lessons when it's good for you. Children choose which to do each day. These are hard to engage children in a specialist setting. No need for Zoom or live teaching.

Just to clarify. My 60% is based on what I, and many other parents with primary school age children are doing. Young children needs constant supervision and help. It’s not a case of simply giving them a worksheet and telling them to get on with it. (In my case, my daughter also has dyslexia with a SEN in place). I am tutoring/helping my daughter with her schoolwork between 9 and 4 each day, which equates to a 35 hour week!
I’m not suggesting all lessons be conducted via Zoom, or other media, but a couple of professionally taught lessons each week would be fabulous. Ideally in small groups of similar ability. The children would greatly benefit from the interaction with others.

I agree with OP...some schools are giving lots of support to parents and pupils and that is great and to be applau...others (ours) are not! My husband and I are both working from home full time and juggling homeschooling (8 year old) and a preschooler...to speak to the teacher/hear her voice...have any feedback other than ‘great job’ to completed work uploaded to Class DoJo would be good...i am working remotely as a doctor to patients who are shielding and working more than I have ever worked before as my patients do not want to go to hospital but still need medical support..we are also shielding due to preschoolers congenital heart defect...I fail to see how sending through a list of pre printed sheets on a Monday and commenting “good job” on Friday is satisfactory...and yes we have fed this back to the school.

@jjx111 My son has ADHD and DCD. I don't sit with him all day (I have work, and another DC too). DCs with SEN can't concentrate for that long, for a start!) He is sent off to play on his own, to play in the garden, he does his maths and his handwriting on his own and we check it, we also play board games etc.

Just a thought to those of you in agreement that the majority of teachers are workshy and just hoping to ride out a chilled out lockdown until the holidays....do you think they can effectively deliver a full timetable online from home whilst homeschooling/caring for their own children? Or do you think they should just take up the key worker provision offer and send their children out so that they can deliver online lessons effectively from home?

I don’t know what the best solution is to be honest, but genuinely curious to hear what your thoughts are and perhaps what you would do in that position?

I don’t know of a single class in my local school where 100% of the students have a suitable device or even internet access at home to access a live lesson - I presume you are at a private school OP? If not, then it’s so generous of you to fund such devices for all the children in your DC class to allow the teacher to do this, after all we wouldn’t want little Freddy to be discriminated against by being unable to join in, would we?

@Reenskar what do you think the parents with other jobs are doing? We are all expected to deliver the same standard and output of work as before lockdown.

@LucyFox so it is better for all state children to fall behind rather than just some?

@NeverTwerkNaked I started to reply, then deleted it because you didn’t provide a workable solution to my question and it doesn’t matter what I say, you won’t get it.

I do think schools can offer more than the bare minimum and some are doing better than others.

A full teaching timetable with kids at home is unworkable, as it is inflexible. I also don’t believe it is necessarily in the best interest of pupils; potentially widening the gap considerably for disadvantaged children.

But it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have taken the bait and put my head above the parapet.

A large proportion of the country and the entirety of the right-wing media seem to think that teachers are a bunch of lazy shithouses so there must be something to it, right?

As you were.

So we should keep all children down so we don't widen the gap? That is the worst of all the excuses I have seen

• 10% of children are privately educated
• still more have parents who are now paying for tutors (see all the Mumsnet adverts)
• still more have stay at home parent who have all day to teach their children right now

So the gap is widening anyway. It is a ghastly justification for not trying to teach.

Just a thought to those of you in agreement that the majority of teachers are workshy and just hoping to ride out a chilled out lockdown until the holidays....do you think they can effectively deliver a full timetable online from home whilst homeschooling/caring for their own children?

I don't think teachers are work shy, I think the majority would want to be able to teach if they could be enabled to and maybe even a majority are. Working and watching kids is hard, yes, both get compromised, yes. Lots of us are doing that, not just teachers. Schools need to work with the resource they have like all employers. Some staff will have no kids, some will have partners who can help with childcare, some will have older kids who can work independently or have supportive schools in their turn. Yes there are likely compromises in what is delivered- I think many schools who have tried have found a reduced timetable works best, some live check-ins, some independent work to be submitted, some prerecorded. And different staff may be able to contribute to that in different ways.

The difference I see between more and less successful responses to the crisis, in schools and more widely, is the successful ones start with "what do we have, what can we do?" and the less successful ones start with "we can't expect everyone to do that so we can't do that at all" and basically freeze because they can't do everything and can't acknowledge that something is better than nothing.

I think that is exactly what is happening third fiddle

@penguinsbegin then why are so many teachers on so many other threads saying that they are delivering online lessons?

(including at primary level)

I am shocked that a "lowest common denominator" approach is being argued. On a systemic level that is going to be a disaster for the discrepancy between state and private sector attainment.

And it won't deliver equality even in the state sector any way. A quick glance at the number of adverts for private tuition on Mumsnet at the moment should tell you that.

I have seen lots here and on Facebook saying they are teaching through zoom /teams. So for every teacher saying "can''t " there is another one saying "I already am".