To bin off the homeschooling

[Lemons1571]

God I’m probably BU. But bloody hell I've had enough. 14 weeks of working ft, plus trying to fit in twinkl, Oak, Khan etc. Watching my Year 4 get more isolated and sad. Feeing like a loser / outsider when the school send out their weekly newsletter asking Reception to bring in x, y and z and Year 6 to remember their deposit for (insert end of year activity).

Honestly the thought of Monday makes me want to throw things at the wall, and it’s not even Sunday yet! Got a bunch of corrections sent through on last weeks schoolwork which I now have to try and fit in around Skype work calls, deadlines, appraisals. Anyone else just about had it? So tempted to tell child to not worry about it too much and have some screen time.

I don’t need help with coping or with mood or anything like that. I just need to not have two full time jobs.

tomorrow’s another day

@ceeveebee no need to feel bad, I am expecting that children who haven't accessed the learning since March for whatever reason will be my "on track" group now. However, I've got children who were struggling to achieve expectations prior to lockdown, who are now finding a new confidence given that we're going over objectives set a lot. They will start next year comfortably on track for the first time in their lives. This will be a game changer for them, not a slide down for others.

I'm in your position of balancing full time work with homeschooling too, and it hasn't been easy although thankfully I can make hours up at night setting and marking work after school hours are over. However it sounds like OP has a choice in the matter of whether to continue or not, so my advice stands.

Certainly seems interesting that at the start of lockdown there were less than ten key worker children in my dcs school...now it's rammed full of them. If these jobs were so key, how come they didn't need the place three months ago?

They were all furloughed until a wider opening @formerbabe ?

Remember the parents who worked in McDonald's and Greggs who kicked off because they didn't have key worker places?

@PinkyU - how can parents both working full time from home provide any education to their DC’s. Both parents working 9am - 6pm sometimes longer on online meetings and calls - no breaks. Many children have missed more than a term of education.

PinkyU do you work?

PinkyU, could you be any more self-righteous? I work full-time, fortunately DH doesn't. I spend all day from 8.30 till 6 on calls and trying to do actual work, and answer some emails on urgent stuff in the evening.

Because DD isn't trying to do that too, DD has had "education" of a sort, though not the wider social and emotional kind that being in school provides. She's not behind. But she's still had a crap three months, and if we'd both been trying to work full time to keep a roof over her head and food on the table comments like yours would just feel like the last straw.

Barbie - appreciate the empathy but you aren’t in my position as I am not a teacher so I don’t have a clue how to teach. Also, forgive my ignorance but I assumed that teachers would qualify for a key worker space for their children?

And there are very very few key workers that should have been furloughed. The very definition of a critical worker is one that is critical to the COVID response so they could not have been furloughed!
The increase in key worker spaces is because it now requires only one parent to have a key worker role, therefore SAHP and other parents working from home are now able to send their children to school.

They do, @ceeveebee , but at our school priority was given to the children of both key workers (I live near a lot of supermarkets!) so I didn't qualify. You are right that it's easier for teachers. I wonder if there would be any merit in a crash course in primary homeschooling if we are faced with the prospect of local closures. This would be a good thing for Oak or BBC to do.

If these children haven’t received an appropriate education then that’s on their parents.

What a shitty message to those parents who’ve had to to hold down full time jobs from home, while often caring for their other children, seeing to parents etc.

Now the key worker bubbles are full and no more staff. But my youngest is back in her bubble so a bit easier for us.

And sorry to keep posting but personally I would prefer that people working in Greggs and Macdonalds were given the spaces than children with a SAHP.
These are the people who are most at risk of losing their job due to a lack of childcare. Professionals who happen to meet the definition of key worker but can wfh and families with a SAHP should have been lower down the list than retail.,

I agree but McDonald's and Greggs we're both closed until recently which is why there's now more key worker demand than before.

The increase in key worker spaces is because it now requires only one parent to have a key worker role, therefore SAHP and other parents working from home are now able to send their children to school

It beggars belief that a child with one key worker parent and a sahp qualify for a school place. Its therefore not needed for childcare. It's nothing more than pure discrimination based on a parent's career choice. It's despicable.

As well as slightly ridiculous assumption that anyone has time to do a crash course in home schooling as well as holding down a 60+ hour job, slightly insulting to your own profession that I can retrain as a teacher so easily??
How about teachers do proper online lessons instead, pre recorded if necessary.
They can do their job, and let me do mine

I agree @formerbabe but the idea of one parent qualifying was to avoid a situation where a key worker resigned rather than work as they had a high earning partner which is often the case in the SE and London. The gov wanted key workers to work not resign. It is too expensive and slowto find out who is telling the truth!

Been for a coffee with a friend, she has had a letter from her DD’s school that SATS will go ahead next year. My friend has said not a chance that her DD is going to be doing them after no schooling for more than a term and with the ridiculous pressure the schools put on the children regarding SATS . Never seen her so angry.

This article sums up exactly how I feel
www.bbc.com/news/education-53224324
“To be physically present for our children but not emotionally available - shooing them away while on work calls, sending them downstairs to play while we work upstairs - sends them a very definite message: you're in the way.
They feel a deep sense of rejection from what is, to them, a very visible representation that work comes before them”

They feel a deep sense of rejection from what is, to them, a very visible representation that work comes before them

It’s dreadful that we’ve been forced to put children through this.

Then telling us it’s our fault if they fall behind us just the icing on the cake.

I have 3 children, 1 with complex medical and SEN (who on top of requiring differentiated learning also has daily therapies and online appointments with specialist nurses and consultants, on top of a daily medication regime) an elderly, frail and medically vulnerable parent who requires full time medical and personal care (feeding, washing, changing stoma and pad etc) care who lives with me, I study full time OU and have also volunteered delivering food parcels, I have a partner who is a key worker currently doing 14-16 hour days so isn’t available to help at home at all.

So yeah, I’m pretty busy, so please don’t attempt to tell me your struggles working full time at home are just too insurmountable, or suggest that I must have a much easier time than you.

How about teachers do proper online lessons instead, pre recorded if necessary.

www.thenational.academy/
Daily online lessons, funded by the government.

So pinky has not been in a position where she’s had to hold down a full time job while caring for children, dependents and home schooling.

Colour me surprised that she doesn’t get it in the slightest.

(That should say multiple appointments, not inferring daily appointments)

Working from home would be a delightful break from studying a joint degree, full time on top of all the other things I’d have to be doing - plus I’d actually be getting paid and perhaps able to afford the extra continence pads, wipes, and a plethora of other things that stress me the fuck out as to how I’m going to be able to provide them.

But yeah we’ll ignore all of that so you can feel better.