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.

Are state schools not providing online lessons in the uk?????

I'm really impressed with the provision my state-educated, comprehensive school Y10 DD is receiving. From the outset, teachers have provided work in line with the existing timetable via SMHW and are available online via the platform or email for support. Work is submitted via SMHW and useful feedback is given along with general, encouraging messages. Students without devices or internet are being supported so they don't miss out and form tutors phone about once a week to speak to students. Over the past week, the school has started trialling some live sessions via Teams. Because the school recognises that they won't be accessible to everyone because of overcrowded housing, young carer responsibilities etc. these are not compulsory and won't offer actual teaching but are more of a q&a.

DD2's state primary provides a comprehensive timetable of learning for each week. There's no pressure to complete it but there's enough for anyone who wants their child to do a full school week. Whilst there's no means of uploading completed work, things can be emailed to class teachers who respond. The school staff upload daily challenges to an online platform aswell as fun videos they've made.

The state primary I teach at is an SEN/AP school. Each of our children gets to speak to their teacher two or three times a week, some every day. Work is provided via Dojo but doesn't have to be completed. We've also been delivering work packs, birthday cakes, fridges, food to the children's homes during the weekly visit.

The state secondary my DH teaches at uses Google Classroom ordinarily so has switched to that. No live online teaching has been happening yet but feedback is constant via GC or email. DH doesn't have a tutor group so hasn't been phoning students unless it's because there's no response from the online communication.

I agree there is far too much generalisation in this thread.

Aibu to think that the government should look to pay private schools to teach state children?

Only if they stop paying the teachers they already employ to do just that (teach state children). But that wouldn't go down well.

Even if the government could fund this idea, you are assuming that every child has access to a latop to take part. Many houses have only one, that is being used by the parents. Do you think they should buy them all laptops too?

My dd is yr7 in state school. The provision is pretty superb. German and IT are being sent with recorded messages. I think these will work better than zoom lessons could.

Dd needs help with English. Atm they are analysing from period texts with no explanation of meanings. This is where zoom lessons would be very helpful.

She has been set one piece of work on Oak academy. It is pretty superb by the look of things.

Surely easier for the state teachers to teach

Many posters on this thread have already said their Stare School is providing excellent provision.

Is this just a thinly disguised State School bashing thread? Sorry I engaged if so.

My child is at a state school that is providing excellent home learning through an online learning platform. Lots of messages and input from teachers. Don’t know why everyone is obsessed with it having to be Zoom lessons - there’s other ways for kids to learn

I agree there is far too much generalisation in this thread
Always the way on here at the moment. Some posters can't help themselves to find any reason to make silly generalisations about schools in the state sector and suggest teachers aren't doing their jobs.

There is lots of online activities that you can access.

This one is good

twitter.com/ryangornall13/status/1261203100607614976?s=21

I think state schools are not texting via zoom because of safety issues & private schools decide for themselves. My private school is sending all the work out & marking it the same day via google, phoning and emailing regularly. The teachers are making videos for each lesson for the children to watch before doing their work. They also have live lessons each day on Zoom. The most in a class is 17, which is easier to manager than 30. It does seem unfair that the state schools can’t do the same, but it’s really up to the head teachers/government.

Some schools are good, some are amazing, and some are diabolical - it makes no odds whether it is private or state. The government already pays for education for each child and if there are failings within the school then those need addressing and more funding provided if needed rather than paying even more money to private schools (that's what you choose to pay your fees for - you want to bail out of paying your fees then do that and take it up with your school).

We are in a large outstanding state primary (I'm a parent, not a teacher) and oh my word - our school and all the teachers and ta's have been AMAZING! So much interaction, work set, story read to the children, challenges set, phone calls from class teachers. We travel quite a distance to school (there is one on our doorstep which we decided against) and even though we are now without a car I will be travelling 12 miles a day on foot to ensure my daughter can remain in that school (reception currently).

My kid is doing a zoom lesson as we speak, state school

If you're not happy with your child's school:

Step 1. Take this up with the school
Firstly via class teacher and if unsuccessful, the head.
You could contact the governors

If still not happy

Step 2: change schools. This could be to a private school if you so wish

This is a joke thread right? Where in hell do you think the money would come from to pay for private education? This country will be on its knees if things carry on much longer, never mind adding extra expense due to entitled parents.

The biggest reasons why private schools are able to provide full curricula and Zoom lessons is because of the demographics they teach.

Private schools have no obligation to teach anyone; they teach kids with parents who have some money and are committed to education, and anyone who is overly difficult will get booted out (or managed out). The kids are in homes where there is plenty of money to spend on devices. Schools can set up a full-on timetable, safe in the knowledge that all their kids will be able to access it, that the parents will facilitate their learning and get them engaged and concentrating and doing all the follow-up work, and it is fairly unlikely that students would do things like sneakily recording the teacher and putting the content online for malicious purposes (and if any kid tried that, they would probably be kicked out).

State schools typically face a big range of families, ranging from middle-class education-oriented families similar to the above, to families where three kids fight over a single smartphone and the parents lack literacy or computer skills or cannot speak English much, or perhaps all three. And everything in between. They have to teach them and cannot pick and choose. Very hard to get everyone on the same page and learning at home--accessing the system, making sure the kids focus on the lesson and do the homework etc.. Teachers at state schools are wary of Zooming lessons because there have already been cases of students taking videos of content and turning into memes online etc. to harass the teacher.

Even if a school did put a full-on, "paced like a normal school curriculum" Zoom-enabled curriculum online with the attitude that "Well, we know that many kids and parents will not be able to engage with very much of this content, but we will provide it anyway and everyone can access as much as they want to or are able to," that's a problem, because you can't push ahead with a curriculum at normal speed if half your kids are barely accessing it and many of the rest are only accessing bits and pieces here and there. Because so much learning builds on what has gone before.

So: If you spend Week 1 reviewing and practicing times tables but only half of the kids tune in and actually do it, and then in Week 2 you start teaching long multiplication, that's a problem, because kids who didn't review their tables and are rusty, are going to really struggle when they try to do long multiplication. And so on. Most school learning is like this.

If you paid private schools to teach all the kids in this country, they would discover similar problems.

My nieces go to excellent state schools with excellent provision, but they are in a posh part of town with lots of privileged middle class families, and so the teachers are able to rely on the kids in the same way that private school teachers can.

Some of the poor provision that I have heard of on here is dismaying, but I do feel sorry for teachers in areas of high deprivation or even average areas---it is going to be really really hard to reach and teach all these kids. Part of me understands why some of them have given up and just sent out newsletters saying "Do gardening with your children! Mental health is key!!" etc. etc.

How do you imagine this working on a practical level? Instead of contacting your child's school and asking them, you immediately jump to the conclusion that the already skint government should pay for your child to be taught by private school teachers? Teachers they have never met. Teachers who don't know their previous learning or level of attainment. That school could be doing work your child had covered earlier on in the year. What would they be learning then, the second time they're covering the Vikings and long division? What if they aren't at the same level, academically, as the children the lessons the teacher knows is appropriate for the children in their class? Are they to differentiate twenty different activities to cover every child that might be joining the lesson? How would giving feedback work? Unless this is all guaranteed then there's absolutely no point in it and certainly no assumption your child would learn more than if they played some maths games or downloaded some worksheets online! Personally I'd rather government money went towards keeping families housed, clothed, fed and with access to a decent health service than your suggestion because you won't have a slightly awkward conversation with your child's school or do some basic research online on how to help your own child.

There seem to be some misconceptions on here along with some brilliant answers from teachers.
OP, why don't you contact the Head of your school and find out? Lots of state schools have really good provision.

Here are some things that are not different in state/private:

1. Unions. Private school teachers are members of unions too. It is advice from unions, the issue is whether the school addresses its members' concerns enough for them to ignore union advice.
2. Safeguarding issues with live video lessons (especially Zoom, most private schools I know of are using Teams or Meets through Google Classroom because of the risks with zoom hacking)
3. In some cases, budgets. A lot of smaller private schools are going under due to this and have announced closure. Very few private schools have 'huge budgets'. Many are just managing.
4. Teachers' own children. You can't teach live with a 2 year old in the background announcing they've done a poo.

Here are some things that make state/private live teaching different

1. In the case of bigger private schools, but not as many as you would think, budgets. Or more likely prioritising budgets on not losing fee paying pupils so putting it into frontline teaching.
2. Teachers: a lot of private schools can only stay open by furloughing staff (which state can't and don't need to do). So actually private schools are at a disadvantage for teaching here. I'm teaching a colleagues' lessons as well as my own. It's exhausting.
3. Time spent delivering food to pupils in food poverty, checking up on vulnerable pupils etc. Private schools have kids with these problems (bursary, problems that transcend income etc) but not as many.
4. Size of classes. It's pointless trying to teach a certain size class live. It's no different to a pre-recorded video.
5. Pupil access to technology
6. Parents all invested in child's education so it's easier to demand- and get - appropriate behaviour online from the whole family (eg states of undress in the background, pupils abusing recordings of teachers etc can be met with actual meaningful penalties which reduces safeguarding issues)

Sorry, that was long. Just wanted to clear a few things up. Now lunchbreak over (this is an unusual luxury of working from home) and back to my year 7s.

Read all the well informed, excellently expressed posts on here OP. This is a state school bashing thread- it's ridiculous.

My DCs schools have both been superb, absolutely superb whilst maintaining that each child should only do what they can.

I've said this before- my eldest DC , almost 16, has always been very academic: he gets top A grades in all subjects. He cannot be doing any better in a private school. The other DC are both very happy and are encouraged and stimulated to each of their abilities. Push for the education your DC deserve.

Online teaching for state pupils would never work in the same way as for private schools.

1. Access to technology for state teachers and pupils. Online lessons are only even a possibility with the right technological access. As a state school teacher, I have been provided with a school laptop with no webcam.
   My primary-aged pupils mostly do not have their own devices. Some families have a mobile phone using data, not wi-fi, between them. Very few families where I teach would have devices for multiple siblings to all log on to an online lesson at the same time.
   When the government have made sure the appropriate technology and WiFi provision is in place for every state school pupil and teacher, then they can call for online teaching for all. It's not going to happen though. Funding cuts mean technology in most primary schools is in the dark ages. I am still using the same interactive whiteboard that I was so excited to use when it was brand new technology 16 years ago. We can't afford to pay the subscription for the up-to-date software though, so just use it in limited mode.

2. Class sizes. Most private schools have half the number of pupils. 15 pupils - just about manageable on a zoom call. 30 pupils - madness.

3. State school staff are much more likely to have to spend time dealing with vulnerable families. My day today: delivering food parcels to some of our vulnerable families; welfare calls to vulnerable families in my class; dealing with two urgent issues that arose from those calls; a two-hour safeguarding meeting about the needs of vulnerable pupils. Private schools will have a far, far smaller proportion of vulnerable pupils and are unlikely to have many, if any, families where they have to deliver food to them.

OP I'm a teacher and my children's schools have been the same. A few twinkl links. It's rather difficult for everyone.

My son goes to a private primary school, and does a full online timetable, with live zoom sessions. its amazing, and the kids are doing very well.
However, private schools have 2 advantages: a) parents have money for devices and broadband and b) parents had to sign a online learning contract. violation of the policy lead to exclusion, next terms fees still payable. Parents will ensure their kids behave!
Rather than copying private schools, why not look at the state schools that do a good job? the ones around here are taking the piss (its not a deprived area by any means, very few kids on free school meal - school results are still awful) and have told parents to treat this as an extended holiday. but according to mumsnet, some are doing a great job - let them be the leaders and show how it can be done in a state school context.

I'm a private school teacher teaching in Teams from home. We don't have to teach live - we've been strongly encouraged to do so, but colleagues with dodgy WiFi, toddlers, in house shares etc can opt out (the latter I imagine is an issue for state and private teachers - youngest teachers in the OECD with some of the highest housing costs). We can also set work non live using our VLE and other bits of Office 365 - and this is the important bit - which we were using for a couple of years before all this happened.

I'm also trying to get a 7 yo to do her learning in Google Meets.

For my work I have had to buy about £100 equipment (webcam, hub and headset) which the school has reimbursed me for.

I think the Oak Academy and BBC offer are pretty good.

Imagine if this had happened pre internet...

In my experience the really scarce resource is the adult with the time to fanny about with devices, passwords, printers, source random equipment and of course repeatedly retrieve the bloody child from under the bed where it's playing Roblox.

This isn't about public vs state schools it about schools vs schools. Some schools are providing sessions via zoom, teams etc, lots of online work and marked homework and others are fling very little. Both ends of the spectrum can be state or public.