AIBU to expect a bit more from school

[MuminMama]

The work the school is setting my year six child is dire. It's not nearly enough to fill the four school hours we are aiming for. It takes me half an hour to work out what they want us to do. Half the downloads are empty files. So little care has gone into it, and there's so little appreciation that working parents may need something that's fairly easy for them to administer. I feel that I'm supposed to be immensely grateful to these teachers but really they are hardly breaking their butts. This is ten minutes of work for someone to throw together. To an extent I'm just venting, but I'd love to know how much help others are getting.

To those who are saying to the OP: "But your child could be at school; you chose not to send him, so the issue is yours now." How do you know this?

Because the OP actually wrote that they chose not to send in their child. Have you even read the thread? Good grief!

Fripenos Take it up with The Guardian?

If they deem the safety measures implemented by the school inadequate then that's a valid reason for not sending their child in!

I'm listening to my year 3s English lesson ( pre recorded video) at the moment. His teacher is enthralling even me.. teaching done well is a real skill. No wonder DS is missing g school I am DEFINITELY not a substitute

@TooGood2BeTrue

If they deem the safety measures implemented by the school inadequate then that's a valid reason for not sending their child in!

Shame that the staff aren't permitted the same privilege. We have to just get on with it - and get slated on MN for daring to voice concern.

@TooGood2BeTrue

If they deem the safety measures implemented by the school inadequate then that's a valid reason for not sending their child in!

That’s not what you said but glad we have cleared up your error. In any case, whatever the reason, it does not detract from the equally valid point that the OP had the option to send their child and and chose not to (would be very odd to make a choice without a reason anyway!)

With regards to that Guardian article, it doesn’t discuss cause and correlation. There are plenty of students at my school who have done little work at home this lockdown and it is not because of any lack of work and support provided by the school.

Anyway, I’m just about to arrive at my school to start my first Year 10 session of the day (whilst having been working electronically since 7am) so I will have to leave this very enlightening thread now.

TooGood2BeTrue

Take it up with The Guardian?

Why would I?

You are the one that is taking it too mean that teachers are not doing t here jobs.

Posts like this drive me mad, the only good thing is that some parents will now have a better understanding how hard teaching is.

echt I've put my energy into contacting school management as I feel my time is better served trying to improve the teaching rather than taking over myself- not helped by discovering only yesterday that hotmail must go into spam

Can't make sense of this.

DS is in fee paying secondary and as far as I can see the problem appears to be a lack of coordination of activities and variation in what has been provided. For the first few weeks we were just grateful for anything as we know this is a new situation, but just as my work has now adapted to our new circumstances, I would also have expected the school management team to be doing the same. Maybe they are - but from response I've received, I doubt it

How can I say this - private schools are a leech on the arse of the country.

TooGood2BeTrue yes it's a valid reason for not sending her child in, but it's not a valid reason to be expecting his teacher to be both available online and in the classroom!

Although given that OP said that the school have 'ignored all contact', I'm assuming that their dissemination of plans and her assessment of them were communicated via telepathy.

I used this example on a different thread (the thread was deleted)
It's just an example of some invisible work that teachers may (or may not) be doing, that you don't necessarily see.

Apologies that this is long, but I wanted to include detail because I am so sick of justifying myself to people, and I hope that this demonstrates why.

I have two year ten classes, and have had to adapt their whole curriculum to an online package. I do one lesson a week with each class on Teams, plus set work for them to complete over the week.

It takes longer to adapt a lesson for online teaching (which is fine) I offer the Teams lesson during our normal timetabled lesson time.
Last week only 7 students out of a class of 21 turned up to the Monday lesson. I delivered the lesson and gave them their homework, which was due in by Thursday, so I could mark it for this week's lesson and send it back to them. I then contacted the other students' parents (phone calls) to offer them an alternative time-slot the next day (Tuesday). Of those who I couldn't reach, I emailed. That took me almost two hours, to make all of the contact

Only 4 turned up to the rescheduled lesson on Tuesday. I delivered the lesson and gave them their homework, still due in for Thursday
I then adapted the lesson again, to make it something I could send by email to those 10 students who hadn't been to either session. This took me about 90 minutes, but I sent it out on Tuesday afternoon to those students who hadn't attended either lesson.

The other year 10 class were better - 14 turned up out of a class of 19 on Wednesday's lesson, but I had to do the same for those other 5 who didn't show up, and the two classes are at different stages of the curriculum (the second class wasn't my class, but the other teacher who teaches my subject has left, so I've had to pick it up) so it's a different lesson plan. I got this sent out on Thursday, with a Monday (15th) deadline for homework.

The first lot of 7 kids were sending in their homework by this point, which I had put aside to mark, when my Senior Leadership Team asked me to create some lessons to be delivered on site for the Year 10 students who have started to come in this week. This is in my second subject area, and this was classed as a priority.

Other year 10 students started to email me their homework on Thursday and Friday. But not all of them, and I started to try and keep a list of who had sent what, but it was literally easier to print it off and put it in a pile ready for marking when I had a minute.

Bear in mind, I also teach years 8, 9 and 12 and have been setting and marking work for them too.

As schools have expanded the opening offer to years 10 and 12, I have also been required to do three lots of online training about health and safety and risk assessment. This training comes with a test at the end of it, so I have to complete it to be compliant on re-entering school. This is despite me having gone in one day a week since the start of lockdown, because now the protocols have changed. That was 6 hours worth of training that I have done in the evenings, because during the day I am also expected to be online "live" for students to contact me during their timetabled lesson.

I also had to video an assembly (it was my turn) to email out to all students. No idea how many of them watched it - I think it was just put on the website. It took me about 3 hours.

I also had to phone round the parents of my tutor group. I have several vulnerable children in my tutor group. For all of the phone calls, I had to log the resolve (or more likely log when they didn't answer) and then try again. Two of those phone calls brought up safeguarding issues, which I then had to escalate. This took several hours.

So I tried to mark some of the work over the weekend, but on Saturday I did all my planning for the following week (about 6 hours), so I admit to leaving the Year 10 marking until Monday morning - planning to get up early to mark it before their lesson at 10:05
I had Sunday off, because I was knackered and my brain wasn't functioning any more.

I also have my own DC (Primary age) who I am supporting through their learning. DS is year 6, so entitled to go in, but the school have capped numbers, and he hasn't been offered a place because his school know I am WFH, so other children have been given the priority places.

I got up at 6 on Monday to mark the year 10 work. I had received two emails from two year 10 parents (nice parents of students in that good group, who had attended my lesson on time and handed their homework in on time) One of the emails copied in my headteacher.

They were both demanding to know what I had been doing all week, and how angry they were that all their children were getting was one Teams lesson a week and homework (that was apparently useless) and that I hadn't even bothered to mark.
All that they saw was that I had done a quick video lesson, set homework and then heard nothing. One of them said "I understand that you are on full pay during this time, so I expect a full service."

How do I respond to that? I've been working solidly all week. My own child's education is suffering - not because of the work that his school are sending, but because I'm leaving him to his own devices.

So it might look to you as though teachers are only bothering to send a quick worksheet, or one lesson a week, and can't be arsed to mark it, but the truth is, it is 10 times more difficult and time consuming to do this work from home, and you only see the tiny sliver of the offer that your child is getting.

But the truth is, I teach 62 students who are in the exam years (10 and 12) and 135 children in KS3. I also had a year 13 and a year 11 group before lockdown, and have had to spend hours assessing and predicting their grades.

I'm sorry, on behalf of anyone who is happy for me to speak for them, that we are not 100% visible to your child 100% of the time, but maybe - just maybe - as important as your child is to us, the time we devote to them is proportional to all of the other things we are doing too.

And before anyone asks me the question - no. I won't be working through the summer. I missed my Easter and my half term holiday, and I actually want to take some of my unpaid time off to forget all about any of this.

Thanks for your input

None of you know what the provision at our school has been like. It’s odd that some of you think you do. But I have been amazed by the sticking together of teachers here (you certainly wouldn’t get this in my job), which makes me remember that teachers have been beleaguered, put upon and underfunded for years and I should moderate my criticisms accordingly.

go on YouTube and type ks3 balancing equations

Thanks for all the helpful suggestions. Oak Academy seems amazing. The trouble I’ve had with supplementing the work is that I didn’t know what I should be teaching him. I wouldn’t know to look up balancing equations. But I didn’t know that I could get a whole programme online, so that’s going to make a real difference.

How is posting on here going to help? Teachers at the school are not psychic

I learned that I was trying to do too many hours of booky schooling, and got some good resource recommendations, so it helped a lot, thanks.

Are you in England? Are there year groups back in your school? All teaching staff will be physically teaching classes. How are they supposed to do both?

I really don’t know. If this situation hadn’t been the same when no kids were in school it would make much more sense. I can’t imagine how they will have time to set work now. I guess my frustration is a few months old.

If they deem the safety measures implemented by the school inadequate then that's a valid reason for not sending their child in!

Apparently not! Work also needs to be set for the half of the cohort that are at. home, so while it must be tempting to salivate over this big gotcha moment, it’s a bit of a red herring. 



Although given that OP said that the school have 'ignored all contact', I'm assuming that their dissemination of plans and her assessment of them were communicated via telepathy.

Thank you for posting this again in case we missed it.

toomanypillows

This is really helpful and I will give it a proper read when I have caught up a bit. Thanks for spelling out what takes all the time.

MN is largely for parents. Parents have children who need schooling. It's absolutely apparent that while lots of schools are providing amazing levels of home learning, many others absolutely aren't and this is a source of stress for many mumsnetters. I think it's ok for parents to moan on a parenting website about a lack of provision that affects their children's education. But the relationship between parents and teachers on mumsnet has become like a toxic marriage. Both sides are now so entrenched and will take immediate offence at any perceived slight. It's got absolutely ridiculous now. There's so much talk about teacher bashing but it's a self perpetuating cycle. Literally the first reply on every thread relating to lack of provision in home learning is "oh here we go again, teacher bashing" which immediately starts the toxic cycle. The OP wasn't "don't you all think teachers are lazy" but that's how all the teachers jumped to read it, as they do in every single thread like this.

toomanypillows that sounds a huge amount of work

Ine thing that strikes me reading the posts by you and other teachers is how much time you're spending g in training. If this shambles is going to carry on into September I'd like to see unions came for this to be suspended. Six hours is a lot of time to be taken up by a health and safety module.

That's a bit disingenuous snowballer. This thread isn't in a vacuum - there have been similar threads daily for weeks covering the same ground.

If anyone hasn't read toomanypillows post then do.

It should be delivered as an auto reply to all threads that start with 'so what are teachers doing?', 'I'm not happy with the education that my child's school is providing' or 'Teachers have had months off, they need to work over the summer' imvho.

I'm not a teacher, but a friend of mine who teaches primary spend days and days of her working time trying to sort out the mess that is the govt FSM voucher scheme and liaising with local food banks.

That's not what she signed up for. It's not her job. She's had not training about how to cope with numerous phone calls to families on their absolute uppers, with no adults in the house who speak fluent English. Nor what to say to a family whose father died the day before.

The world has been thrown through a loop. What was looking like a sprint at one point has now very clearly turned into a marathon. Which none of us, teachers including, have had any training for.

listsandbudgets what's your suggestion then? That teachers don't bother with training around health and safety and new school protocols and just 'get on with it'? (Actually, don't answer that...)

Honestly, we're living through a global pandemic. Six hours is 'too much' training for front line staff working with children to have?

Seriously?

listsandbudgets

I'd like to see unions came for this to be suspended.

Why? Should teachers have no rights and no-one to fight for them?

In the end the unions haven't caused this situation, that lies squarely with the government.

That's a bit disingenuous snowballer. This thread isn't in a vacuum - there have been similar threads daily for weeks covering the same ground.

Yep, and they all follow the same pattern unfortunately

*Last week only 7 students out of a class of 21 turned up to the Monday lesson. I delivered the lesson and gave them their homework, which was due in by Thursday, so I could mark it for this week's lesson and send it back to them. I then contacted the other students' parents (phone calls) to offer them an alternative time-slot the next day (Tuesday). Of those who I couldn't reach, I emailed. That took me almost two hours, to make all of the contact

Only 4 turned up to the rescheduled lesson on Tuesday. I delivered the lesson and gave them their homework, still due in for Thursday
I then adapted the lesson again, to make it something I could send by email to those 10 students who hadn't been to either session. This took me about 90 minutes, but I sent it out on Tuesday afternoon to those students who hadn't attended either lesson.*

I replied this to the same post on the other thread but don't know whether you saw it before the thread was deleted. This is a genuine, non goady suggestion I promise!

One of my kids' schools is using Teams and all live lessons are recorded as they take place so those that miss it can watch it back. All work associated with live lessons is pre-published on Teams so no adapting needed for anyone that misses the lesson. All communication is through the specific "team" in Teams so no phoning around to rearrange lessons. What you're describing seems overly labour intensive and could be cut down? You sound like you're working incredibly hard, as I do know thousands of teachers are.

Teams is okay but I can't imagine trying to teach on it. I've just come out of a Teams meeting that we had to restart three times. People's internet or laptops kept freezing (old, out of date school laptops). It was ridiculous!

It's worked pretty well for us and we have crappy rural internet. It's not a particularly intuitive system but it's been fine, and better than the multi platform stuff we've had from other child's school - it's all in one place and easier to not lose or forget something!

MN is largely for parents.
I think you'll find that many teachers are also parents.
And actually, even if not, the site has broadened way beyond its first remit 20+ years ago.
If a parent asks a question about their child's education (one that is genuine and not a goady one - and believe me, we've had plenty of those), who do they want to answer it? Another parent who may or may not know what they're talking about (depending on the question, of course)? Or a teacher, who can probably give an insight into what parents often don't see about the job.

Yes there are the educational websites but the questions asked do not match up with the explanations as they are more general. Guess it is my maths thickness showing but it would really help if the person setting the questions gave the answers and showed us the method, don’t even need to see their face just pen and paper video showing us how to do it. That would really really help me anyway. I can bodge through the rest but spend hours I don’t have figuring out the maths.

Dd's teacher posts a link to a Corbett maths video that does exactly that - it goes through whatever process they are learning with writing on the screen taking you through examples, and then there's a set of questions posted and an answer sheet to look up. (Teacher also gives feedback every week)
It wouldn't be any better if the teacher made the video himself, the maths concepts are fairly standard.