Aibu to ask if your school have phoned you during lockdown?

[Ineedaweeinpeace]

Ours haven’t - I’m not bothered at all by it but another parent (friend) is absolutely stark raving mad about it! Have you been called? Did you give a toss?

We call weekly if we haven't heard from parents via email or if pupils haven't been accessing our online platforms at all. I send a weekly email to parents and always ask if there is anyone who would like a call. Some families like receiving the calls, others clearly don't.

Shocked at some of these experiences. I haven't a bad word to say about my daughter's state school. They have only phoned once, to tell DD that she's doing well and her "hard work hasn't gone unnoticed", but we all get multiple emails per week outlining new work set and keeping us up to date with any changes or new developments. They've also provided online counselling sessions if required, and any time DD has emailed a teacher they've responded within an hour. There is a Google classroom set up for her form class and they've all been chatting on that too. They've had photography competitions and virtual bake off. The work set has mostly fairly interesting and varied. I've found it very reassuring, and I'm utterly shocked at how poorly some of the schools here have responded.

No phone calls here from either school (I have one DC at primary and two at secondary), but plenty of online contact so that's fine.

Not much here for DS in yr3. 2 calls, one was picked up by DS and the other I missed due to being in work. Utterly pathetic attempts by the school at engagement IMO. Work set via school website but it's deathly dull and no thought given to it, none of its submitted/marked. I know some teachers on here are saying they are rushed off their feet but that clearly isn't the case at DSs school!

I do feel that, if there have been no previous concerns and the child is sending in work, it is unreasonable for parents to expect a school to call proactively. If there is an issue the parent or child can contact.

Schools will be worried about being seen to intrude or add pressure, and they will be prioritising particular families over whom they have most concern.

@LittleO1gres Why not just send an email to the school saying 'Sorry X hasn't been doing any work recently, they have been quite ill for a few weeks. However they are recovering now and would really appreciate a call from the school to let them know they haven't been forgotten.'

Rural primary school - we’ve had five phone calls plus weekly teams meetings. We don’t have a landline so they’ve rung both myself and DH which is nice - they clearly don’t see this as just another “mum” job! The teachers have been available on email (and answered quickly). We’ve had our usual weekly newsletters with supportive words, photos of the kids doing lockdown learning / play and links to useful learning sites / community initiatives. Everyone at the school has made it clear that they are very much there for the children and parents and that we can call / email / message any time we need. They’ve worked really hard to get the school open again and kept us informed about everything going on during the process.
I can’t praise them enough.

I e not had calls for my yr7 or yr5 child. I’m pretty disappointed in that for my yr 7 as he has anxiety and is recognised by his school (not diagnosed sen, just receives additional support/chats to see if he’s ok periodically, which I would have hoped to have continued.)

Pastoral manager here in a secondary school.

SEN students are called weekly by SEN dept, vulnerable students called weekly by pastoral team and other students called fortnightly by tutors. Any student on a child protection plan is being called 2 or 3 times a week.

Most of the complaints we are getting seem to be around too much work being set rather than too little! I generally think there's been bit of confusion in our school about exactly how much to expect from students and the best way to set work, but generally staff are doing their best in difficult circumstances to try to support everyone.

Maybe generally speaking parents could try to be more proactive? Rather complaining about lack of support on here contact the school, say child is struggling and ask for help and suggestions. I know we would do our best to help in some way, although it's not easy.

If you have really had no calls, contact, and little work though you are not wrong to be upset and disappointed. School could do with hearing that.

For one school I’ve had a few calls from the very nice school
Welfare lady
For the second I’ve just had emails from class teacher
I’m not fussed , in the grand scheme of it —- it’s such a global issue that I can’t lose
Sleep over it

Just to add that there really should be proactive involvement from school, rather than a we're here if you need us type approach. I know across countless operational teams in work that weekly calls to check on the progress and wellbeing of 12-20 staff members is expected. If it hadn't been done for 12 weeks it would be a severe lack of management, bordering on disciplinary (esp if something then came to light that should've been picked up during those intervening weeks). I can't see how it's OK to be LESS involved with kids!?

They’ve called a couple of times and I found it more of an annoyance than anything, I don’t enjoy phone calls .

The work they set is often questionable. Maths tends to be a print off or BBC bitesize, English a SPAG sheet and the other subjects are mostly cast aside. I’m luckily a teacher myself (although college level so totally different ball game to primary!) and have managed to wing it for the past three months.

Just to add, if parents contact our school to say that child is struggling for some reason (IT issues, anxiety) child will be flagged on the system to stop teachers chasing work and to offer support instead.

Yes my dd 8 primary has rung.Her lass teaccher and then head of school.It was lovely.Also we can ring and email when we like so that option is there too.My dds school have been amazing.

Maybe generally speaking parents could try to be more proactive? Rather complaining about lack of support on here contact the school, say child is struggling and ask for help and suggestions. I know we would do our best to help in some way, although it's not easy.

What’s so frustrating about these threads is the assumption that many parents haven’t done this.

I contacted the school when they ditched a half of what they’d previously set for Reception and Y2-5 because they are so busy (because apparently the head teacher knows better than anyone else so has put in place smaller bubbles and more stringent distancing so all available teachers are busy with Years 1 and 6. Only 4 days a week, so one day pupil free for PPA, but that can’t be used for our kids.)

I got platitudes and excuses and ‘blame the government’ and ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’ and ‘I’m sorry your son thinks we don’t care about him any more.’ No doing their best to help, I’m afraid.

We’ve had no contact beyond short generic comments on submitted work, which have now stopped because the teachers are too busy. I’ve now stopped handing it in, there is no benefit to children in seeing their work disappear into a black hole and the school has made it clear they are not interested in a partnership with parents.

We have had two over the course over the 12 weeks. I missed one call but the other was just a quick chat about how we all are and how dd is. They couldn't tell me when preschool would restart and what days she would be going and for how long so not that helpful to be honest. Still a nice thing to do though.

Nope. 1 email a week with the 2 generic worksheets.

Stellar provision.

Totally agree with doingmeheadin

Large primary school, no phone calls/ emails. Work given weekly on website, last week took my dd 1/2 hour to complete. If need to contact sch this is done through a central email address, not always responded to. Have 1/3 reception in, about 30 key worker children now saying they dont think they can take any more in. Really disappointed, response is they are doing their best.

Are there seriously schools out there where they’re not teaching in person on zoom AND they’re not bothering to call for 1:1 check ins?

Yes, tonnes of them, going by responses on here.

No phone calls but eldest ds is in contact with all teachers as he submits work and gets feedback via the school app
Youngest ds in infants has work set by google classroom which we then upload and teachers comment
I would expect them to be in touch if they had any concerns or if either child wasn’t doing their online work to check in but it’s not needed when they see them getting on with work
As a pp said they have always said in messages to get in touch at any time if needed

Yes. Primary school dc get a call from either their teacher or a ta once a week. Year 4 and year 2 teachers speak to me and the dc, year 1 ta just speaks to me. Secondary teachers email the dc regularly but don't contact me unless there is a problem. I've had 3 phonecalls about year 9 dc but nothing about my year 7 dc.

no call from secondary school.

year 10 still not looking like going back before September. But heard on the grape vine year 12 going back next week, but there is no email or anything on the school website about it.

Both form tutors have called (both secondary) and the assistant Head.

Also, full timetable for both and regular email contact to the DCs themselves. No complaints at all I'm really impressed with how the school staff have handled the situation.

We've had 3 calls from the teacher, reception aged DD was thrilled. I think they should have done more informal engagement like a zoom all class check in, or recording video of them reading a book, anything so that DD could have felt school was still part of her life, she'd only been there a few months and friendship and my parent network is still quite weak, so starting back this week at school has been very hard as it's all new relationship again.

One phone call from Yr 1 teacher and one phone call from Yr 4 teacher. Yr 4 teacher didn’t even speak to my son! No interaction whatsoever - no online teaching - just an email every Friday with some tasks for them to do. The work is unimaginative and hardly takes any time. No need to send the work back to the teachers, as they’ve told us it won’t be marked. I’d really like to know what the teachers at my children’s primary school have actually been doing for the last 13 weeks?! They’re paid to work full time and are doing nothing. Absolute disgrace.