To wonder why schools are saying they’re not allowed to do live lessons

[Plinkplonkplank]

Because they’ve just started doing them at my ds’s state secondary. We had to fill in an online permission form. So it is possible after all.

@mosschopz yes I do lots of legal advice on safeguarding and technology and provided appropriate measures are taken I don't think this needs to be an obstacle.

My 6 year old daughter loves her zoom classes(paid for as school won't do anything except Twinkl). She couldn't do them all day but the 30 minutes a day gives her a lift and helps me chuck get a little more work done.

she chats away to me about what she has learnt and what happened and she is a total pro at pinning her teacher and tweaking the microphone etc

Casper

Not a GP. A trainee. So I guess teacher equivalent is an nvq? Employed by a big nhs trust and loaned to a GP practice. Nhs always has expected us to buy our own stuff - like stethoscope, bp cuff. pay our own exams etc although you can get the tax back. Most places now also expect you to provide smartphone and you have to have access to a laptop (as I said I don’t have my own, have borrowed dhs) Big victory last year was that trainee GPs Finally now have their insurance Paid for by the nhs....I’m guessing as a teacher your employer pays your professional insurance?

Anyway don’t want a bunfight about what is worse nhs or teaching.

For the record I am not happy about having to use my own smartphone at work generally. Before covid kicked off and the nhs threw information governance out the window, using your own smartphone for work meant that you effectively had half the capability disabled so that it was secure enough which was bloody annoying after you had paid for it. It’s not perfect by any stretch, I was trying to show that you don’t have to be a fancy pants private company to get some tech off the ground, and that it’s not just teachers that have reason to want their “clients” to record them

With unis etc doing online videos etc it doesn’t seem logical that one educational place can, yet others can’t?
We've been asked to prepare for online lectures but as a lecturer who has been harassed by students (really common ranging from personal comments on evaluation forms to outright lies on social media) I'm very unhappy with this.
I have video meetings with small groups already but it would be much easier to track down a culprit in that situation. I'd be happy with my DCs secondary teachers not doing live lessons. (My DCs as it happens are in primary)

(I also bought my own laptop and smartphone and also books... Have paid for conferences... Etc etc)

*NOT to record them

Clearly past my bedtime

@Nonotthatdr
Sorry, I should have been clearer - I used to teach, but escaped a few years ago so have avoided all this, thank goodness! The fact you have to use your own devices as a medic is frankly shocking.

As a patient, I wouldn't want my data being stored and processed on a laptop or smartphone that wasn't controlled by the NHS. Are your devices encrypted etc? When I used to teach, I had a work laptop. At the end as GDPR came in we were strictly prohibited from having pupils' personal data on our own devices. Registers, mark books etc lived on servers controlled by the LEA and were only accessed in the cloud.

The teaching unions have advised against using our own phones. Lots of reasons but one was if someone made a FOI request then all the data on your phone would have to be made public. I’m shocked that the GP you are working for won’t loan you one of their phones nonotthatdr your situation is not acceptable but that doesn’t mean teachers’ should have to put up with unacceptable practices too. It’s not a race to the bottom.

@Mosschopz

All of the safeguarding issues are easy to resolve if you’ve got someone who knows what they’re doing taking the lead on Zoom.

We do, I’m one of the designated safeguarding leads in my school and I’m teaching on Zoom tomorrow.

Some schools just can’t get the buy-in from staff.

As far as I understand from the T and Cs data collected on Zoom is passed on to third parties. Has that been changed now? If not I can't see how it's safe or fair to expect staff or pupils to use it.

Casper and cuckoo

Don’t worry it’s all on the vpn so not saved on the computer - it’s like having your work desktop at home - but slower!

Video calls are over an app so the data is saved there not on the phone.

Old style phone calls are probably the worst because I just use my phone - so the numbers are in my call log but I delete that daily and there are no names attached.

As I said above one of the reasons I don’t like using my own smart phone is that when you download your hospitals app for managing patients and nhs email it limits stuff you can do on your phone such as blocking the camera and insisting on a very long passcode that changes monthly. Getting trusts to provide us devices is an ongoing battle but probably best not fought in the middle of a pandemic when the aim is safe healthcare by any means possible.

So the nhs provides the security but we provide our own physical device to acsess there stuff

Lots of tech advice here - it can be summed up in ‘find solutions not problems’.

If I refused to use new tech in my work I wouldn’t be paid. It really does boil down to this.

@Newgirls

Lots of tech advice here - it can be summed up in ‘find solutions not problems’.

If I refused to use new tech in my work I wouldn’t be paid. It really does boil down to this.

Well, that isn't really very good advice.

Newgirls

Lots of tech advice here - it can be summed up in ‘find solutions not problems’.

If you don't understand the problems how can you find the solutions?

If I refused to use new tech in my work I wouldn’t be paid. It really does boil down to this.

Except that in teaching it doesn't "boil down to that at all"

So in a nutshell some people are complaining that schools aren't doing things they way they want. Rather than consider that there are many ways to provide access to educational material (which can include online learning) and that people might know something about how to do their job in their school contexts, what we're going to get is:
'the private school does...'
'another school does...' (even though different schools have difficulty contexts, cohorts and challenges)
'if I didn't want to do a conference call then I'd be sacked and we all know that a conference call between adults is absolutely the same as trying to teach 30 teenagers'
'even though I've never taught, this is my opinion of how to teach, and if any teacher doesn't agree then that proves they don't want solutions'
'look at the can't do, won't do attitudes'
'nobody can say anything bad about teachers ever on here'
And in due course probably some silly suggestions that it's either terrible provision of one worksheet for 6 weeks or live lessons.

In a few pages will we get the usual claims about disadvantaged students to justify courses of actions that mainly benefit privileged students, as that comes up all the time on these threads.

@Delatron

If a timetable of lessons and daily interaction with the teacher was so terrible why do private schools do it?

It’s not the A4 sheet per se that’s the problem. It’s the no feedback or marking from the teachers that’s the problem. But according to you this is preferable to the example up thread where their child has a full daily schedule of teaching with feedback and marking. My child would thrive on that.

Hmmmm.

We have been explicitly told not to provide marking/feedback as it is only particularly effective when delivered at the time the work is being done so the children can act on it there and then. It also then feeds into planning the next lesson...but as children are all in different places then I have to just plough ahead hoping they have all got it, as can't wait for J to finish work from 2 weeks ago before planning and sending work from B who has been engaging daily. So marking isn't effective in terms of the assessment for learning cycle, which is its main purpose.

Personally I choose to mark and give feedback anyway because I feel it is only fair...they put in the work, it should be acknowledged and any misconceptions addressed asap. It's not ideal, and it takes significantly longer so adds to workload. I am able to do this as I currently have 5 children returning work. I couldn't do it if I had 30.

@Swiftsseason

June, anyway is surely better than no way.

Last week secondary dc was given her first live lesson. We've had to wait for this long, weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks for a teacher to give one live lesson!!
Weeks!! Whilst schools around us did it from day one.

We've also waited weeks and weeks and weeks for some guided learning from primary school. Again last week and to great fanfare we were furnished with an actually decent bit of work to get through and yet people around us, their primary managed this from day one.

Can anyone explain why one school with high no of fsm etc can give out packs every week and the other, Wealthy faith school cannot manage this.

Yet we've been bullied into... Miss one day of education... And your child will be doomed for life!!

It's appalling!!
Disgraceful! They should have to explain themselves. Who is holding these schools accountable! Who is monitoring what provision they are providing!!

Curriculum has been suspended. Teachers don't technically need to be doing anything other than childcare for key workers, teaching those who are in YR, Y1 and Y6, and signposting parents to resources to support their children at home.

However, schools all seem to have decided for themselves to go above and beyond what we have been told to do, in the interests of helping our children. That's why there is such disparity - we are all doing more than expected by government by doing anything at all. Different schools have different resources, family make-up, and staffing abilities, so what they can provide varies.

Curriculum suspended. Teachers do more than expected. Still not enough. Says it all.

Well child’s school started line lessons this week and one lesson she was on was hacked with porn!
To be honest, as her parent I do take some responsibility for her education. I believe teachers are trying their best, from what I’ve seen they are certainly not sat on their backsides twirling their thumbs. Parents also need to stand up and parent, support their schools and teachers and teach our children that somethings may not be perfect but everyone has the try to pull together!!

My ds (16) has been having Zoom lessons for weeks (started 4 weeks before half term). Although tbf it is not full-time it's about 2-3 hours a day. He has had no problems except for the first couple of lessons where there were a few technical glitches. The difficulty for schools is going to be access. I am a SAHM and ds has been using my laptop which would be tricky if he was on all day. I would imagine schools using a mix of on-line and prerecorded lessons would be the easiest. I would be happy to teach him at home, but that isn't an option for working parents and I only have one school age child. Difficult for large families and/or those with big age ranges to do this.

We’d be happy to even just have recorded lessons.... we’ve had weeks of endless work sheets that are all the same format and unsurprisingly my dd was bored stiff after two weeks!!

We do 2 or more love lessons per day on Zoom. All have to be recorded and an adult in the room (I work with 6 yr old special Ed children) . It’s going pretty well. We are on day 49 already !!

Live lessons not love lessons!

We have been explicitly told not to provide marking/feedback as it is only particularly effective when delivered at the time the work is being done

My DC are primary but for them "Mr X knows I've done it" and "next time you could try..." are enough and I assume don't really need the same kind of planning.

Primary teacher. No live lessons. Safeguarding is a massive consideration. It would take too long to explain this in detail and we certainly don’t at school. Please just accept that it is a huge deal. In addition, Zoom etc are not guaranteed to be safe. Secondary (and private schools) have email accounts set up for their children so using secure platforms such as MSTeams is a lot easier. DS (y7) has had just 3 live lessons. DD has far more (y10) and different school. I make a video for my yeargroup every morning and upload it to our portal. Ch can access it at any time, which makes it possible for families sharing devices. You have to realise that some families are trying to access online learning for three kids just using mum’s phone. Please try not to judge. The vast majority of teachers are working their backsides off to make this work as best we can. And we are supporting KW children as well as the bubbles of other year groups. Home schooling is difficult but we will get through!