Primary school homeschooling set up UK

[Legomonster]

Hi all,
My DS is in Y5 and his school has posted work sheets and weekly timetable for the rest of the school year on the website. Each week we print out or save the work sheets and DS works through them. The day is set out as follows: 1/2 hour reading, English, Maths, Spelling, PE and other - Art, History, Geography etc. It does not take him long to work through this, so I suspect that the quality of what he produces is not very high. He does not have to submit the work to his teacher and this week is the first week we have had any contact from his teacher. Now, I think this is not good enough. I would expect the school to set up some sort of work submission and feedback system, like many secondary schools do. Am I AIBU to be disappointed with the school? What homeschooling system has your primary school introduced?

It has become clear that some schools are not doing enough Imo, there is a V mixed setup across the country.

It is also clear the online teaching is V much possible.

We get 5 maths worksheets a week and watch the white rose free lessons and 5 English worksheets with zero teaching input. Occasionally a task to do with no input - eg design a foil boat. But the learning around that eg why do boats float the physics etc that you would get from a teacher is not there. I am doing the explaining and finding resources etc

Totally unacceptable in my opinion, I have raised it and the reply was "oh we understand that you can only do what you can do".

my dd's primary school put on links to national oak academy (link included) lessons each week for them to work through. You could sign your ds up to that if you like, since it is free (the lesson is explained in a video and then there is a worksheet/activity to work through)

@Legomonster do they have the staff to provide feedback for a children working at home if they submitted work. Or are all the teaching staff currently working with the children that have returned?

What you have be given seems like a good amount (though videos etc would be useful rather than just sheets). I agree feedback would be useful but maybe staffing prevent that?

You havent even looked at the work he has done but are criticizing it.

Its primary school work, it would take a few minutes for you to check which you couldve done instead of writing the op.

Take some responsibility as a parent.

Everyone knows education is a mess right now so be pro active instead of complaining about something you havent even bothered to look at

Mine are y4 and getting about the same amount of work by the sounds of it. I am marking it for them, they get 'house points' as a form of bribery to do the work.

Their teacher has been brought in now to cover half the YR bubble who have returned so it's even less than it was. I am supplementing with BBC bitesize, Carol Vorderman and have a Twinkl subscription.

I am also working FT at home so realise it's a juggling act but I don't see what else the teachers could do.

Take some responsibility as a parent.

The OP is not trained, experienced or paid to teach. She probably has another job, that she is paid to deliver, which she has to do on top of the demands of her family.

Many schools are providing atrocious service right now. It’s them that should take responsibility for the service that they are contracted to deliver.

Yanbu to be disappointed in the school's provision. yabvu to start another thread on this topic.

First of all, talk to the school. Find out if you can email some work to check it is of the appropriate standard. Ask them to signpost supplementary activities.

The school I teach in is providing daily videos in literacy and numeracy. Spellings, tables plus a topic lesson. All work is submitted by parents and marked / commented on the same day. It is tough going I find. Depending on my home life I'm sometimes marking or videoing in the evening when I can get peace to do so. This still doesn't please everyone, especially those who have more than one child, or are WFH themselves.

My children's school seem to be more like your son's school. I'm left marking their work. There is no teacher input. Maybe a link to a YouTube video. Maybe some written instructions. What I'm most miffed about is they don't provide the answers so I end up having to work out the twenty maths questions before I can check. I contacted the school about this and coincidentally this week's activities have accompanying answer sheets.

In an ideal world we'd have had time to prepare, systems in place and more guidance about how to deliver a curriculum remotely so that everyone can access it. In reality schools were left to provide what they felt they could.

I also feel cheated when I hear some teacher friends saying they went in and photocopied a load of stuff sent it out and spent most of lockdown effectively furloughed on full pay whereas I have had so much stress.

She probably has another job, that she is paid to deliver, which she has to do on top of the demands of her family

Teachers on the other hand are expected to:
A) plan, resource and mark work for children currently not in school
B) plan and resource provide childcare provision for key worker children
C) plan, resource provide in-school lessons to a range of children in years R, 1, 6 and 10 and 12 and mark all work
D) teach a full online timetable
E) make regular phone calls to all children they teach and act on information received
F) ensure FSM children are getting that entitlement
G) be aware of, report and otherwise deal with safeguarding concerns, the needs of vulnerable children and consider all SEN needs of the children they teach
H) manage transition (not all, but some teachers):
I) meet the demands of their own families
J) engage with any additional caring responsibility they may have
K) manage the same pandemic concerns and worries everyone else has

What else would you like us to do? Come round and wipe your backsides?

What else would you like us to do? Come round and wipe your backsides?

Do your job. Like everybody else is expected to do.

For example, sending out two twinkl worksheets a week (which is what our school is doing) is not adequate educational provision for children.

Similar for my Dd, year 4; but it's utterly understandable. We are in the middle of a pandemic where too many people are dying, these aren't normal times. Dds year 4 teacher is covering a year 1 bubble so of course I don't also expect her to do a full days work for year 1 (and bear in mind she's not a year 1 teacher so it's already harder) and on top of that provide perfect quality home schooling for year 4. Because that would be absurd.
They also can't win at the moment; some parents are complaining there's too much set, some not enough, some aren't doing anything at all so their dc are getting behind so they don't want the gap too big.
It's basically impossible to please everyone here. Yabu.

@LaurieMarlow

Sorry, I am a bit confused. What part of my Jon do you think, reading the above, I am not doing?

*job

I’m sure you are doing. Plenty aren't is my point.

Apologies for any confusion. Some teachers are working hard and that’s great. However, lots of us have had experience with teachers doing very little.

DH is a Secondary teacher., though not in the UK. While he is “into” tech and using tech in teaching, most of his colleagues are not. The level of ability, interest, skill - even equipment available at home - varies hugely across the teachers as a group. This was kind of ok when they were in schools - at least they all had a classroom, whiteboard, projectors etc. But they were thrown into online teaching at literally one weekends notice. There was no time to agree a consistent model for online teaching, no time to upskill the less able teachers, no opportunity to push the more reluctant into getting themselves trained or better equipped. One of our neighbours teaches at DHs school: she doesn’t have a laptop, printer, or even WiFi - just a crappy phone. God knows how she delivered any lessons!

I’m really disappointed with the level of online teaching that has been in display. But I don’t think things will change as it would require a huge investment in time, money and lots of policy making to bring state teachers up to speed. For an education system that the governments expect to be back to normal next academic year? Not going to happen.

What else would you like us to do? Come round and wipe your backsides?. They'd complain we were doing it wrong anyway

I hate when it is indicated that parents need to take responsibility, this is making the gap even bigger. We live in (uk) a society that is already suffering from social mobility. Children who have parents who were failed themselves from accessing a level playing field education or having learning difficulties, were already disadvantaged. My brother and father left school unable to read efficiently, two generations failed because of undiagnosed dyslexia and my bother is in charge of his sons home learning. A Educational system that relies on parents abilities increase the attainment gap. Even before the pandemic the system was failing.

My DC are year 2 & year 4. Their school have just told them to follow Oak Academy.
That’s it - nothing else, no feedback, no calls or messages or anything.

Both children are hating Oak Academy - they say they’ve already done lots of it, and it’s way too easy for them.

DP & I are trying to find other things for them to do in addition, but we’re both working [more than] full-time, so our time is limited, as are our resources.

We resorted to giving them an old GCSE maths textbook and A-Level Physics textbook that we found yesterday! We’re slightly concerned we’re messing up their future education (neither of us understand how maths is taught these days), but the DC seem to be going through them ok and enjoying them.

God only knows what teachers will face when all kids are finally back, I feel for them.

Thank you for all your replies so far.
@araiwa you are mistaken. I do look at my DS work, but like most parents, I am not a teacher. I do not know how much a pupil in Y5 should produce and to what standard. What word combinations do they focus on in Y5 and don't forget that even the maths terminology has changed since I have done Y5 maths.
Also, as @LaurieMarlow has rightly pointed out, I have been WFH since the start of lockdown.
@Sunnysidegold sorry I have not realised there are many other posts on this topic. I will look them up before contacting the school. I wish my DS was at your school though . You are doing a great job for your pupils.
@Boulshired I totally agree with your concern. I am worried that the gap will get bigger.

@legomonster
The work that's been set is what a typical day would look like at school. Each lesson including the introduction and questions at the end would take 45 mins to 1 hour. It's likely, as your home is quiet, your child is working through it more quickly than expected. I'd contact the school and ask for some extension tasks for maths and English. Or have a look on bitesize, twinkl, white rose maths and oak academy as there should be extra tasks linked to their work on there or videos for the introductory teaching part. However, as the teacher is more than likely in school teaching either keyworker groups or yrs R,1 or 6 (even if it's not their yr group normally) they will probably be unable to assign more work or mark your child's work. You need to contact your individual school

Also you don't need a laptop to do zoom, you can zoom on your phone or tablet. There really is no excuse.