To think school could get in touch with pupils at least once during lockdown?

[buckeejit]

Has your school been in touch with children by phone or zoom at all?

We've had no direct contact from school, just worksheets to print out from the website. I've emailed the head to request zoom or a phone call, he has said they've checked and zoom is inappropriate due to child safeguarding.

AIBU in thinking a quick phone call from teacher to pupils would boost morale?

I don't think anyone would expect a subject teacher to call all of the hundreds of students they teach, but the form tutors at the dcs' school emailed their form and said they'd phone if they got no reply.

YANBU

Some schools are great - online lessons, marking, feedback, staying in touch etc

Some schools are rubbish - weekly email of watch BBC Bite Size, You Tube, reminding parents to read with children - nothing else - probably sitting in the garden sunbathing

This has really highlighted the difference in schools - go on the Ofsted parent feedback page and say what you have experienced - it's there on record how crap some schools are.

Most of my families get an email weekly. Work is sent by email and on our website.
I do try to call once a fortnight but this often stretches out longer - that’s just how time goes. This is around being physically at school!
I will call more frequently if the child seems to be struggling with a concept or if they don’t seem to be getting much (or any!) of the set work done.
My SEN children will also be called more frequently, though a few are back in the building now.
I also encourage parents to email me at school if they have any questions or concerns. I prefer parents don’t call - I’m still teaching and it would genuinely be quicker to use email! I can reply to emails from home if needed, but for safeguarding reasons I can only return calls through the school office.

I’d encourage anyone with any concerns not to wait for the teachers to call you - there will be email contacts on your school’s website!

We've not had a call.
Work gets uploaded on a monday morning for the week, mostly links to websites, whiterose for maths, purple mash for english, spelling shed, timestable rockstars and some project work.
About 2 hours work a day at most and with no feedback and a lot of repitition my son has lost all motivation to do any of it.
Hes not done anything so far this week, im starting to wonder how long it will take anyone to notice or care.
I feel really disappointed, it seems like our children's education is an afterthought to the government.

Ive found it different with different schools. We have had weekly calls from My ds in year 7s school, one from his head of year and one from the wellbeing team. He is not a student of concern so I am impressed at the contact they must have with their vulnerable students.
My daughter in year 9 though, attends a different school and the only contact I have had is yesterday when her maths teacher rang because the quality of her work had dropped, so first contact with anyone in 12 weeks

Weekly text from the headmaster which we had to reply to so they knew child was ok and could use to request a chat (follow up call if needed), Blog on Purple Mash for both children and parents, emails to teachers answered same day, one call from teacher.

I must say the full timetable and work we've received for our primary child has been great.

We have received less contact this week and last but the school is open to 3 year groups and prepping to take more next week so it's understandable.

My year 7’s school have been excellent. My year 5’s school - absolutely nothing other than the odd well done on seesaw. Work set weekly but it awful. My husband is a primary teacher and agrees! No phone call or direct contact from anyone at the school since lockdown began. We’ve tried organising zoom quizzes ourselves with his friends. This is school is wonderful usually. Not sure what’s happened

My son's school has kept the website up to date with assemblies, tasks, challenges, news... also responded to every email I have sent, and sent their own to me every so often. I couldn't ask for more.

State school in Liverpool here. DS is 8 and in Y4. Teacher rang once about a month ago and had a good chat to both DS and me. DS has also emailed her and she responded. They also have regular contact sending messages on PurpleMash. I would say he interacts with his teacher about twice a week.
It’s a great school and his teacher really “gets” him.

Yes I am in touch with every member of my form every morning. Then offering 121 sessions (with parents if needs by) two afternoon sessions per week.

HTH

Oh there’s also day by day tasks set each week plus extras if you want.

I have one at primary and one at secondary. For primary school DD's class teacher phones once a week and speaks to me or DH as well as DD. I don't know what DD says to her as she takes the phone off upstairs! We also have a weekly email newsletter for parents, which is something we had pre-lockdown anyway. The school has set up a youtube channel which features different teachers reading stories, explaining bits of work and also has assemblies.

Secondary school - DS gets a call from his tutor every two weeks, but we could request more frequency if required. He's in email contact with different subject teachers and gets feedback on work.

No zoom classes for either, but I can understand why.

My eldest daughter is in Yr11, we haven't had any calls. Have a had a few emails. Have now had communication and work through from the Sixth Form she is going to attend which is fab and she's excited get a head start on her A Level subjects, two of which are new to her.

My younger daughter, we have had lots of communication from her school, including calls, seesaw chats, zoom quizzes etc.

I myself am a pastoral lead in a very large comprehensive secondary. We have called every student at least once a week. Some are called daily and some have continuous email support on top of this too. We have live lessons running on google classroom every day. I'm immensely proud of our head, our staff and our students.

DS is 6 so year 2. Apart from 2 stories read to them by teachers (in week 7 ish of closure), neither of us have heard a teachers voice.
No phone calls, video hellos/messages, no recorded assemblies.
It’s really not difficult to think the kids might appreciate seeing/hearing the voices of the staff, might benefit from a brief video assembly from the Head each week which perhaps links to the ones on Oak National Academy.
I emailed the Head yesterday about the lack of appropriate communication with the children. The kids need something so they continue to feel part of the school, instead of school just being a thing they used to go to

My son loves it when he does his kickboxing class (streamed from Facebook) and the instructor does a little shout out to those taking part (parents comment on the video so they know who is taking part).

Ds is year 11 so has technically left now but he’s had 3 phone calls.

One from his form tutor back in April (she asked to speak to him & it was mostly a welfare check). One was from the person in charge of tracking post 16 options as he hasn’t applied to 6th form so she was checking he had a plan for September. And today his form tutor called again. She asked us and him questions about what he’s been doing, has he got any bridging work, has he been in contact with friends etc.

My ds is year 5 and has had 2 phone calls. His teacher gave me her email address which I sent across a story he did and a few weeks later he got a postcard from the head teacher to say well done so his teacher obviously passed it over. There's also a chat feature on the website every day which a teacher from his year group is available on from 10-2. Also his teachers have been uploading videos with some of the tricky work going into details and explaining things better than just reading off a sheet.

Don't think I can ask for more ( though after week 3 we lost our mojo and don't do anywhere near as much as we should be)

My DC have 2 different primary schools. We've had weekly phone calls speaking to us and our dc and have regularly responded to emails when we've needed clarification of the work set. I thought this was normal, it's a shame to see it isn't.

I think the lack of consistency is a huge problem. Schools are focused and prioritising very different things. I think DofE should produce a guide and minimum expectations for schools to adhere to for remote learning.
I work at a large high school in a very deprived area we have called all our students every 2 weeks. We also send emails and work is set online with 3 hours of work for each day. We haven’t done many video lessons yet but that is next steps for us. We also print the work and students can collect a weeks worth at a time if they can’t access it online.
Teachers mark all work submitted online and give feedback- if students are falling behind they get calls from the year team and often subject teachers too. We also issue rewards each week to the kids who are performing well.

My dds high school is better on a work front in that her classes are timetabled and her teachers are online to answer questions at that time. However pastorally not as good we have had 1 call from her form tutor who spoke to dd at length and gave us general feedback on her performance. That’s it and no rewards not even the points ones despite her completing all her work to a good standard. I would like to see them move towards zoom type classes next.

Dd2 primary school has been poor and I am v disappointed as normally we are happy with it. Limited work sent and it’s all just work sheets and workbooks. No feedback on any work and no interaction with staff..Not even responses to emails sent. We have largely ignored the work set and used Oak academy and other online resources.

No contact via phone calls which I would have expected as best practice tbh.

Twinkl sheets uploaded which quickly came repetitive and really 'whats the point?'. 11 weeks in and they got some workbooks to one child last week and on Friday the older child gets some workbooks. So they can only get workbooks out one day at a time? Really?

I really don't know what to do with my grievance about how poor the education provision has been. Luckily for my children, I am an ex-teacher who has been able to actually bring my youngest on further than I think he would have got in school.

We get a call every second week. DD gets work set on an app but all teachers can be emailed for advice. I've received emails from maths teacher saying how well she was doing, and also from re teacher dating her work required improvement.
I feel our school has done an admirable job in a difficult situation.

Should have said, year 8 at large ish secondary.

Not one single solitary word from DD2's teacher (year 3). Not by phone, email, video or letter. Nothing. Huge numbers of parents have complained, nothing has been done. Worksheets are uploaded with answers so nothing is being marked or commented on. She hasn't heard from school since the last day she was in, March 18th. Now she won't be back till September. I'm beyond disgusted and it's completely changed my opinion of the school which, up till now I was very happy with.

We've been communicating via email and pre recorded videos, because that means parents can read/watch it when is convenient and it also means we've got a record of what was said for safeguarding. We also have a class page the children can comment on that they can all see, so they can talk to us and to each other but it's not proved that popular, I gather most are communicating through their parents WhatsApp.

We aren't doing zoom lessons as the teachers are all in school teaching (bubbles of 15 means all our staff are in)

Yr11 DS' school have put work on the site they use for homework but they said submitting it is optional, DS argues this also means doing it is optional.

We have only rang those that are not accessing the daily lessons on the app.
Zoom call is just social to chat with children, play games etc. Feedback from parents is they love it . I was really nervous at the start of them but now I look forward to it. Definitely helps to have a good plan of what to do

Bloody useless from a school with 200 kids 🙄

I specifically asked a question which generated a direct response for one child and the other has had a specific message. One each in 10wks in lockdown. That's a teacher rate of less than 100 words a day, coupled with a 10minute dose of 'home schooling'.

My faith in schools has greatest diminished and they're now lumped in the 'lazy fucker' category.