To think the government should pay private schools?

[Summerofdespair20]

My children have barely had any formal education since schools closed. A few Twinkl sheets, links to maths etc. I've tried my best, also wfh and different age children, I'm not the best teacher.

I understand state schools dont want to provide zoom/Google classroom lessons. Private school teachers seem to be doing this with success, I know it will never be good as a real classroom but all the parents I know would like it for their children.

My Y6 child has done Zoom Spanish coaching with a teacher, it has been great.

Aibu to think that the government should look to pay private schools to teach state children? I know there are far fewer private schools, so the lessons may need not to be interactive/more like lectures? It might be a far fetched idea, I find it very sad that my Y6 has been told no school after half term (school not following government guidelines). I can't afford private school, I had always hoped from an ideological perspective that state schools could provide the same great education, but now I can see how impressive private schools are, sorry for my kids I can't afford it.

They are funding Oak Academy

www.thenational.academy

Schools have been told not to use zoom as it isn't secure,

I dont know what to say OP. I think I agree with you. My children private school is amazing. They have rised to the challenge by week 2 of confinement, daily morning interactive zoom with their teacher (And weekly videos from the other teachers ie. art pe dance music) etc so I would agree that if some schools can do it then it is not impossible.

But here in Dublin most of my friends with children in the state schools say the same that the provision for children is amazing.

So I dont know. It seems that from afar there was no general guideline from the government to all the schools so thats why you re in this situation. 1st june will be here soon enough 😉

Private schools aren't necessarily better op. There isn't any requirement to even employ qualified teachers (although I'm sure most do). It really just comes down to how good any individual s hook, private or not is.

Also zoom can be 100% secure if you knownhow to set it up.

I suppose the difference between private and state is their investment in IT. It seems that ours is doing great luckily for us parents phew

I have 1 in private primary & 1 in state primary. The provision by our state primary is excellent and far exceeds what is being provided by the private. Both are making provisions but the state school’s home learning provision is significantly more engaging!....your school is at fault if their provision is lacklustre...take it up with them.

Completely crazy idea. Apart from all the many other problems with it, how on earth are private school teachers supposed to Zoom teach a bunch of other kids as well as the classes from their own school?

Also, this:

I know they are paying state schools, but they arent doing what they are asked.

isn't true. Schools aren't being asked to provide video lessons.

It is true that there seems to be enormous disparity in the level and quality of non-live distance learning provided by state schools, and that needs addressing. But that doesn't mean video lessons are necessary or desirable.

Think it depends on the school. Some schools have been more pro-active about embracing technology than others - some heads are more confident navigating it and others want to hide behind a wall of policy and guidance.

I've got kids at two schools (infant/junior split). The infants have not been great - fearful of staff even phoning pupils (took us 6 weeks for telephone contact, 2 weeks for a mailbox to be set up to contact the year group and that was only after the main office one got swamped). The head won't allow any video calling or anything like that.

The juniors have a general fondness for technology - the kids make videos, podcasts and everything as part of their learning anyway (think they've discovered they'll never shut some kids like mine up so they shove 'em on the radio station) - they've gone down the video messages from staff, online learning and interaction route much quicker and are now blocking in "catch up" video calls just for the kids to connect with each other. They had the systems in place to be able to do this though.

The big thing the kids want to do right now though is to see, hear and chat to their teachers and peers - parachuting in someone from a private school would be as meaningless to them as a presenter on Bitesize (although mine do watch that a lot - just because they like to do so).

Any education is better than none in the moment (which is what our local ones are doing „focus on wellbeing, don’t try to do anything at home“, direct copy and paste from an email a friend forwarded)

I think all children deserve access to the same quality of education, regardless of how much money mummy and daddy make. Perhaps if private schools actually started paying tax and gave back instead of just taking there would be more funding for state schools? Just a wild thought.

Why don't they pay state schools to teach state children?

They do, but we seem to be suffering from a non compliant politically motivated union putting up obstacles at every turn.

I suppose the difference between private and state is their investment in IT.

That's not it at all. The differences are in class sizes, pupil demographics, tech available in pupils' homes, safeguarding policies and the desire of fee-paying schools to persuade parents to keep paying their fees.

I work for a private school (who are providing video lessons but are now in dire financial straits and are having to furlough large numbers of staff) and several state schools, and dh is head of a state school (which our dc both attend). I'm very happy with the non-video distance learning my dc are doing.

From a practical perspective OP, DC's private school are teaching full time on Zoom, but picking up exactly where they left off from the curriculum when they finished at Easter.

So having lots of children join part way through a term, who have been working to a different curriculum at their own school, would be confusing for everyone and not necessarily beneficial for the children joining. English comp for example, if your DC haven't been reading 'Iron Man' in English, they would struggle to follow the lesson.

Speak for your own school OP.

My state Secondary are doing loads! While not providing Zoom lessons they have uploaded a tailor made timetable for each year group. Provide content and homework with due dates. Pupils asked to keep work diaries and hand them in each week with feedback given. We have 2 phone calls home every week.
Our school have dropped off laptops to students in need. Even bought a few new ones from our PatA fund.
From beginning of June our staff are producing their own instructional videos (using a temporary recording studio within school!) setting tasks or directing students to Oak Academy or Iplayer links. Over 50 videos are planned to be uploaded.

Personally I think the Oak Academy and BBCBitesize has really stepped up. It's great.

PLEASE don't tar all state schools as doing nothing. Your problem is with your own school.

People forget that Private Schools have huge budgets and much smaller class sizes. Not tied to a national curriculum.

I know they are paying state schools, but they arent doing what they are asked.

Problem really is that the government haven't asked schools to do anything with regards remote learning. Only to provide childcare for key workers and vulnerable children. I think they should have set out minimum expectations for remote learning, but this wasn't a priority.

I am not a teacher but an LSA in a secondary school. I have 4 children over 2 key stages and 3 year groups (2 x Year 3, 1x Year 5 and 1 x Year 7) 2 of my primary children have sen.

Secondary schools appear a lot more able to set work as the individual subject teachers are setting their subjects.

For primary schools, the one class teacher is trying to ensure the children do not lose skills they have gained in maths, English and literacy rather than giving new learning. Our primary are using Classdojo to distribute work and upload videos daily of the teacher explaining the work and generally checking in.

If you are concerned about your child's learning, I recommend looking at the curriculum aims for their year groups and working within that.

If you are concerned with how your school is doing things then the best thing to do is contact your school. It seems that everyone has their own interpretation as to what provision schools should be making right now but you cannot compare state to private nor one trust to another as they have all worked out how they can deliver to their own pupils rather than the government dictating how each and every school should educate their pupils at this current time.

Secondary schools near me use Microsoft teams. They are providing some live lessons and the opportunity to interact with the teacher.

Where individual secondary schools are only providing ‘a few twinkl worksheets’ I’d expect parents to contact that individual school, and ask why provision cannot being made.

Primaries aren’t live teaching due to many reasons including;

1. Teachers are teaching on site and remotely

1. Primary kids in our area don’t all have personal tech - I think even more wealthy families might not have a personal laptop for a primary child

1. Up to year 3 (at least) I’d expect parents to need to interact with the interactive lesson with their child. They can’t sit a 7 year old in front of a screen at 9 am and expect them to just work remotely.

1. State schools have high ranges of need. For example; It would be difficult to remote teach a year 4 class, with children with cognitive ages from age 4 to age 9.

Maybe the government should properly fund state schools, before they start financing the private ones.

I understand state schools dont want to provide zoom/Google classroom lessons.

I'm on a lunch break having spent the entire morning using Google Classrooms to set and mark work for the students in my state school.

YABU
Your school sounds inadequate.

My dds have had loads sent. Dd1 has stuff from the website to get on with. Dd2 has a Teams call every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Most of her work she is doing on my laptop and handing in this way.
Contact the school for more work.

Private schools are teaching online
So are state schools! You're generalising far too much, where is your evidence?

You'd need the government to pay for all children to have a device that can access resources and sufficiently good internet for all those kids to be online at the same time first

I suppose the difference between private and state is their investment in IT.

Our son's state school has had massive investment in IT. Most of it is barely used according to DS. He took resistant materials GCSE and was looking forward to using their CAD/CAM suite which the earlier years had been looking longingly at for the first few years as "it's for GCSE and A level". When it came to his turn, the teacher went off sick and the replacement cover teachers couldn't use it, so the entire classroom and tens of thousands of pounds of equipment was sat idle. We commented at open days and parent's evenings about all the laptops, desktops and ipads which looked abandoned on tables around the edges of classrooms - he said they never used them in lessons and didn't know what they were for. Same with software - in his 6 years at school, they bought 6 different homework systems, 3 different VLE systems - all basically ignored and forgotten after an initial flurry of activity. They just don't persevere with anything.

@RandomLondoner DSs school have got round the problem of setting work on paper by saying pupils have to take a photo of their work and upload it.. no roblox here

I have sons in secondary in both private and state school (their preference). They are getting about the same right now, and the private school tuition stings.

Overall, the DS in private benefited greatly from small class sizes and good relationships with his teachers. I am grateful he has been happy. The other DS loves the argy bargy anonymity of a big comp, and is doing equally well on assessments. I am grateful he has been happy.

They are different.

I have one child in a private school and the other in a grammar school - huge difference in remote learning. Private school has definately stepped up. Grammar getting better but still noticeable difference in education and given that they are twins its really obvious

State schools are paid to teach children. If private schools can do it so can they