..to think that state educated kids are going to find themselves at a huge disadvantage in public exams?

[SpiderPlantSally]

Every privately-educated Year 10 or Year 12 child I know - this amounts to six different fee-paying schools - is having a like-for-like learning experience at home with live online teaching, following their usual timetable.

Every state-educated child I know of the same ages (also five or six different schools) is being set written work, with very little or no live teaching. At DD's school there one hour of live Maths for the whole Year 10 cohort each week, and a contact session for the other subjects once per week, when the teachers are available for email contact or chat. That's it. Otherwise lone book work.

AIBU unreasonable to think that state school pupils will be at a huge disadvantage when applying for selective 6th forms and universities in the autumn? Surely the private school pupils will absolutely clean up on the top grades in next summer's GCSEs and A-levels?

[Chasingsquirrels]

Private school pupils have always had huge advantages over state school pupils, that's why parents pay to send their kids to them.

I suspect as a proportion of their respective totals more private schools than state school are providing a good or excellent online provision. It would be interesting to know! But there will be good and bad from both.

My yr 12 is at a state 6th form college.
They are teaching the full timetable in online live lessons, set work to be submitted and marked, pastoral support, careers and uni application advice plus extra curricular stuff.
I'm massively impressed.

My yr 9 is at a state secondary school.
They have set work for all timetabled lessons released at the start of each day. This could be videos to watch - including their teacher presenting a 15 min session, things to read, information etc and then set work, including tests, to be submitted and marked. Since Easter they've also had some live class and smaller group lessons, plus assemblies.
There is also an upbeat newsletter with information, quizzes, fun facts etc every couple of days.
And the pastoral care seems to be in place as well.
I don't know but would hope that the yr10 provision has had even more live lessons than the yr9's.

[Phineyj]

It feels hardly worth saying this (no-one's listening) but unions are not the same as teachers. Individual teachers have neither been consulted nor have the slightest control over public policy. Not even headteachers had any of the key info ahead of the public announcements. If you can call this mess policy.

If you think the problem is teachers, the government has got you right where they want you.

[CatherineOfAragonsPomegranate]

Can I sincerely ask what is this amazingly expensive and complicated technology that schools don't have/need.

As I said my sons music school which is always holding fairs and asking for donations has managed to put together online lessons with skeleton admin staff.

My mother's struggling penecostal church has zoom services. My muslim friend has had religious instruction along with her family members during ramadan via zoom.

Neither of these are equipped with the latest technology. Not by a long shot.

[strugglingwithdeciding]

Unless they go back full time in sept I'm really hoping they go with teacher assessments again
My Yr 10 gets an ok amount of woke but lots aren't doing it so they will all end up doing catch up most likely
Exams with months off will be too much and schools teach in different order so not like they can just leave a section of

[highmarkingsnowbile]

Two days is better than no days highmarkingsnowbile, surely?

They are supposed to be guaranteed full-time education. 2 days is not. Right now it's nothing in Scotland, no days, this is what's supposed to happen in August. Nearly 3 months away. Not.good.enough. We're lucky in that we can leave the country to a place that is doing FT but with a trimester system.

FAR too many secondary school students and children with additional support needs are being totally fucked by this, with the potential for their lifetime earning potential to be negatively effective.

For a virus that 99.9% of the time doesn't kill them.

That's an absolute disgrace.

[NeverTwerkNaked]

Some state schools are clearly managing it and managing it well so to say we should blame the govt /unions doesn't quite wash it's face (although admittedly the unions' long list of excuses why no education should happen was horrifying)

[W00t]

@CatherineOfAragonsPomegranate Most schools are so badly funded that they cannot provide their staff with a machine to use at home. However, it is the pupils in the main that don't have devices or broadband to access online learning.

Pupils at Chet's (or Purcell, or whichever) are funded to the tune of £52k per annum per child!

[FrippEnos]

CatherineOfAragonsPomegranate
Can I sincerely ask what is this amazingly expensive and complicated technology that schools don't have/need.

I'll start you off with

A webcam. I don't have one and don't need one.
Microphone, I don't have one and don't need one.
A stable or quick broadband connection.

Because you are not talking about schools you are talking about teachers.

Most of the teaching staff at my school do not have these bits of equipment because we don't need them.

And just FYI you can't do a 30 to 60 minute lesson on a phone.

[W00t]

And @HakeFish I am still laughing at suggestion.4.

What this pandemic has really shown parents is that they don't need teachers, or schools- they can all just home educate.👍

[Devlesko]

YABU, with all these lessons in place, my dd won't gain very good levels in GCSE. She has learning difficulties and with grades being almost guessed at, it's looking quite bleak.
There are many parents who have embraced home education giving their children 1 to 1 tuition, whilst they've been wfh or furloughed.
there have been others on here moaning about it, whilst others have got on with it.
State/private is irrelevant.

[FrippEnos]

NeverTwerkNaked
Some state schools are clearly managing it and managing it well so to say we should blame the govt /unions doesn't quite wash it's face

the clue is that only some are able to manage it.

(although admittedly the unions' long list of excuses why no education should happen was horrifying)

I haven't seen this could you expand on it?

[MarieQueenofScots]

There are many parents who have embraced home education giving their children 1 to 1 tuition, whilst they've been wfh or furloughed.
there have been others on here moaning about it, whilst others have got on with it

You peddle this nonsense in virtually every thread. Do you really not see the nuances in the situations?

[Marriedtoapenguin]

Not that simple is it.

It's probably easier to set work where all of the children have a minimum base line of academic ability such as you'd find in a selective grammar.

However, the range of ability in DS1s primary class is massive with some of the children having various issues.

Also, the range of support that would be given in the event of setting a full timetable is massive. Some parents would have a go but a hell of a lot wouldn't and our primary is one of the best in the area.

I'm a grown up and I find wfh hard work at times so I'm not flogging a primary aged kid.

[Devlesko]

W00t

33, 324k actually, although most of us have to pay something.
We still get a bill and earn under the 20k threshold, the extras add up.
I think most at these schools have the equipment they need. Mine has been doing podcasts, welcome for new students, lunch time concerts, all recorded from home. Everything has stayed the same, it's quite weird really.

[Howaboutanewname]

I think they’ll get over themselves as unemployment levels sky rocket

The last recession did nothing at all to improve recruitment and retention in education. Things have not improved since then. Indeed, they are considerably worse.

They will still need to complete a qualification and as such, minimally won’t be available till September 2021 for full time work (and given how late in the academic year it is, more likely 2022). The Government would need to increase uni places for all these people suddenly desperate to teach to be able to train and then they would have to get on a course (and contrary to popular opinion, they don’t just take anyone, even if in recent years it has felt like that). So whatever you do, next year is a write off.

Unfortunately, you think you are threatening teachers. I don’t know how representative we are, but in my department, 3 out of 4 of us would welcome redundancy (I have already resigned, however) and are of an age where early pensions, working partners, children grown up and left home, recent inheritance etc mean that throwing caution to the wind and pursuing dreams isn’t scary. The 4th is inexperienced and would need kind, seasoned support to make it through a year alone leading a department, teaching a full timetable and managing the legions of supply staff who would walk through the doors. It’s likely already too late in The day to get a replacement for September.

Be careful what you wish for. We won’t be the only ones.

[NeverForgetYourDreams]

Our DS has had no live lessons at all. All lone working from text books or google

[NeverForgetYourDreams]

And it's a grammar school

[Devlesko]

Marie

It's true though. I know many who have managed fine. It's not a state/private issue. There are good state schools that have provided a good education for their kids, their are parents who have managed to support this.
There are some state schools that might not have provided a full timetable, but the parents have stepped up.
Of course some kids will miss out either from unsupportive parents or lack of provision from the school, and that's a shame

[MarieQueenofScots]

It's true though. I know many who have managed fine. It's not a state/private issue. There are good state schools that have provided a good education for their kids, their are parents who have managed to support this.
There are some state schools that might not have provided a full timetable, but the parents have stepped up.
Of course some kids will miss out either from unsupportive parents or lack of provision from the school, and that's a shame

I’m not talking about state vs private. I’ve already stated it isn’t relevant in the debate.

I’m talking about your blunt assertions that if parents aren’t able to home school or support their children with learning it is because they’re not supportive or haven’t “stepped up”.

It must be hard to be so very blinkered.

[pontypridd]

My kids, both at state schools, have received barely any work for 2.5 months now. No marking whatsoever. Not even an acknowledgement of stuff they’ve sent in.

I’ve contacted both schools to no avail. Apparently all this is policy.

[MsAwesomeDragon]

My school aren't doing live lessons, but I am recording explanations that they can watch at any time, then setting an exercise in that topic that should take approximately the same time as a lesson. I am available at any time for individual feedback and help, answering emails well into the evening, pretty much instantly. So yes, they are having to do individual book work, but they would have to do individual book work in my classroom too. A lot of my conscientious pupils are learning just as much at home as they would in the classroom, but having to think it through for themselves because it's not as easy to ask for help (help is available remember, I answer all emails almost immediately, but that's not as easy as sticking their hand up in the classroom). In fact, the "distractable" pupils are getting more work done as well, because there are fewer distractions. Of course there are some who aren't engaging with any work, but for the most part those are the kids who generally don't engage in the classroom either, the "desk truants" who may be physically in the classroom but aren't engaged in learning anything.

I genuinely believe that my year 10 will be in a very similar position for their exams as they would have been without lockdown. That's just my class though. I am assuming a similar amount of work being done by other classes and other subjects, and since my colleagues are all very hard working at school I believe they will be working hard at home. There may be some teachers experiencing technical issues (rural villages don't have the best broadband so video explanations might not be available, they can use mine if appropriate for their classes)

Live teaching is not the ultimate goal in online learning. Schools and teachers can provide alternatives that will achieve the same amount of learning.

[Bobbybobbins]

I think several 'gaps' will widen as a result of the lockdown.

Schools which are setting/marking work effectively or having live lessons etc V schools which are not

Children whose parents have been able to support them with school work V those who haven't

Children (secondary age) who have actually completed work set V those who have not despite efforts of parents/school.

Children with challenging home lives V children who don't

There are a massive range of complex factors at play here

[Beawillalwaysbetopdog]

@Coffeeandbeans

Lots of industry experts losing their jobs at the moment.

People keep saying this, a lot with great glee. The thing is, even if you're right and loads of people want to train to be teachers there's several problems:

1) An industry expert doesn't mean they're a good teacher. My wife is an industry expert, but would be a truly terrible teacher.

2) Redundancy might be enough to get them on the course but people who aren't on a pgce for the right reasons either don't last or do a terrible job

3) They actually need to be trained. Which requires experienced teachers to help. Any reputable training provider will have a real teacher in the classroom for all of their classes. So the next academic year all these trainees will not help.

[heartsonacake]

To be honest I think this has been a good opportunity for older students to learn independent study. It’s a hard skill but one they’ll need at University.

[Westonsupermarebeauty]

You are assuming though it appears that 'private school's provide more education, than 'real life' or 'working class' or 'deprived backgrounds'. I kind of think that is a bias in itself.

Surely the problem is that the governemtn is and always has pushed parents to do paid work, when they shouldn't have done that. As parenting is a job in itself, regardless of class or economic status.