In September will the kids who have done homelearning have to sit bored at school while works repeated for the ones that haven't. Or will they start there new' year ' work as normal. Either way it's

[947EliseChalotte]

It's not fair either way. The bright kids who have done their homelearning will be held back while it's repeated for the ones which were unable too .....or if it's a new year start with work as normal the ones who didn't do homelearning will have missed work and won't understand. So either is unfair to either groups. So what are the plans for education for September? Repeating work missed from march or new work from sept? Which group will be disavantsged the ones who have done work or haven't ?

Why are people getting so uppity?
The people who are being like this are the ones who didn’t do home learning. Of course there were disadvantaged children whose circumstances didn’t allow it, sadly these children are at a disadvantage even in school by not having parents who can prioritise schoolwork.
However, there are many parents who couldn’t be bothered to take on the task of home schooling and claimed they were not doing anything as their children’s mental health was more important and so on. I know some of these and it was a mix of too much effort/couldn’t be bothered/not their job to teach attitude.

DS1 is very bright but has SpLDs. He doesn't sit in a neat box with his abilities/ challenges.
Getting back into school after 5+ months off and little socialisation will be interesting enough.
Home learning has been a challenge and we've gone for little and often rather than crash and burn.

There is no neat answer.

There will be shifts within the range of ability in the class. Some may have regressed. Probably fewer progressing on a meaningful way as far as the curriculum goes. Teachers are used to variations in the ranges of a class.

It's more awkward for the upper range of secondary with clear end-points of the curriculum with GCSEs and A-levels.
Younger years have more time and more openess in settling back and covering the usual range of knowledge and skills. The actual topics vary anyway.

@Sittingontheveranda

You do realise that teachers already differentiate work to allow for the fact that ability is a broad spectrum, and children have different homelives?

They don’t in my kid’s very mediocre primary school. They are all taught as one class in every subject except English. My DC was frequently bored in school. I have moved to the following year at home with him and he is more than able for it. I am worried that he will be bored further in school now. While I don’t think he will be disruptive, I think he will stop making any effort.
I know half of his class will have been working hard at home and many of those have parents who are teachers. Another quarter will have done the minimum and a quarter (the most disruptive and the ones who needed to do the work) will have done nothing at all and think that is fine because the school itself has very very low expectations.

The swots are usually in the higher band classes. There are no words for this level of attitude towards education.

I hope they do separate the children into groups. That would solve many problems but I know already the primary school does not have the resources and staff to do this.

Being taught in the same class at primary doesn't mean they are doing the same work, I've worked in primary schools with 6 different ability levels and so 6 differentiated tasks.

They’ll probably ask the “bright” kids to teach the others

I've seen that happen. It's not always teaching them but explaining something which consolidates their own understanding. Either way, it should not be done as a replacement for extending the learning of the more able children in that particular subject.

There are always top middle and bottom in classes,

I wish people would stop saying this. This isn’t the case in all primary schools. There are always top, middle and bottom students not sets!

The teachers will differentiate like they always do.
In a state primary the academic ability range is huge, and varies by subject. Some are great at Creative writing others at Maths or facts or reading. Some of the “brightest” are rubbish at resilience or persistence.

Being taught in the same class at primary doesn't mean they are doing the same work, I've worked in primary schools with 6 different ability levels and so 6 differentiated tasks.

And again this simply isn’t true for all schools. My DC’s school does NOT do this.

We are doing brand new units of work and adapting ones we would have taught into a new lesson scheme. What on earth would be the point in repeating content during lockdown?

My kids are bright and from an affluent background and they won’t have done as much quality home learning as some others in their class. It’s not about how bright a child is or how “good” their parents are. We’ve been working our normal jobs throughout this period with three kids at home (one toddler). We have had no support from school and very little time to commit to education. But we’ve worked our socks off to do our absolute best for them.

There will be a huge mixture going back for a huge variety of reasons. In most cases it’s no one’s fault if their child is behind, or ahead. It’s up to the school to differentiate and catch up the kids who’ve fallen behind whilst making sure the kids who’ve had great opportunities at home are still stimulated. It shouldn’t be any different really to what they normally do - normally there is a spread of abilities and therefore attainment across a class. The difference in September will be that the spread in attainment won’t be due to ability, it will be based on the opportunities they’ve had or not had during lockdown.

As PP have said your academic ability doesnt neccessarily equate to whether you have done any work at home.

Also some very able kids might have done very little but still be able to catch up, others might have done a lot at home but without additional support at home, might still struggle.
I think all kids are going to have a period of adjustment just being in a schoool/learning environment for 6 hours a day with structured teaching.
One of the most intelligent people I know is also pretty lazy and has no common sense when he was at school he did very minimal revision but still passed all his exams with flying colours and got a 1st from Cambridge.

My Ds13 is bright, very capable, but lazy. I have been lucky enough to be working at home throughout this so have been on hand to oversee his studying. He only does about 4 hours a day but he has been given lots of work so hasn't always completed every single piece in time. If I hadn't made up a daily schedule for him, he'd be on his playstation all day. I would ease off on the homelearning if I though he would do something more constructive but he doesn't so lessons it is!
His German teacher has commented that they won't have time to go over stuff once they go back in year 9

Ds secondary school have done gap tests for next year. Online learning at that age isn't as effective and in school learning.

I doubt that missing a single term of school has made a huge difference really (apart from perhaps in reception and year one). Innate ability is unchanged. Parental support for education is unchanged. The only thing that has varied during this time is the amount children have actually done. In reality, bright children will catch up easily if they haven't done much work, the ones who will struggle will be those whose parents didn't care anyway, and have spent the whole time in front of a screen.
Hopefully those children who have not done any school work have spent time reading for pleasure or drawing/painting or gardening outside or something interesting, rather than just watching tv all day.

Even if the curriculum was suspended and the school only set consolidation work, obviously the kids who have spent 6 months doing no formal learning will be disadvantaged. Their skills will have deteriorate through lack of practice and it will take them a while to get back into the swing of things.

Teachers are, however, used to teaching classes where some kids are good at things and others are not. That the names of the kids who are good at things and those who are not have switched around a little won’t matter.

My friend has two DS’s - aged seven and eight. Both bright and intelligent- probably pre March at the higher end range of their class. They’ve done no school work since March as both parents are working very long hours from home with little or no breaks. They have suffered socially and educationally over the last few months but hopefully when back at school in September the syllabus they have missed will be covered.

@Lemons1571 DS has had new content for every subject except Maths.
He's Year 10 though and many teachers said they've had to do new stuff to cover the curriculum.
Science teacher for example taught the entire Space topic for Physics and said that they'd only have 2 hours in school when they're back to bring it up to classroom taught standard. They've just done the end of topic tests and 10 of the kids in the class haven't done it. One asked online whether they'd be retaught the topic in school and she said she's spending 2 hours on it, that's it. They have to go back and do the work that she's set throughout lockdown themselves like everyone else.
His science teacher has been great throughout, she's one of the ones who have gone above and beyond... Always there when you need her, she was the first to do the online lessons, she communicates everything so well. No excuse for those kids to have not done the work and for others to suffer when they return.

Loving the assumption that most dc were given any home learning at all! Only in the last 2 weeks has one dc been given anything at all.

The other has been left to coast with power points.

Because they will have to be taught in smaller groups anyway I'm guessing that they will be able to make these groups work to account for any divides between the ones who have and the ones who haven't been able to keep up at home. It will be a challenge but not insurmountable - children are quick to learn and I'm sure the gap will close pretty quickly.

It is far too simplistic to say “the bright kids” will have been doing home learning. DS3 who is just 9 (year4) is profoundly dyslexic and was reading and writing at an age 2 - 21/2 years below his chronological age before lockdown. He has really benefited from the 1:1 that my DH (self employed and his work has just disappeared) was able to give him. DS is not perceived at school as one if the “bright kids” (although he is talented at art and very able in science). But the teacher has acknowledged that DS has made significant progress during lockdown.

These past 3 months will have seen some children stride ahead and some fall behind. But don’t assume who those children will be on the basis of past indicators.

Much will depend not on whether they are “bright” but on what they were able to do at home with parental support.

Had I or dh been furloughed and been able to homeschool adequately, rather than struggle to hold down our jobs in back to back conference calls, ds would have been going back to school in the top half of the class due to the one to one attention he would have received from us. As it is we've struggled through to just about stay on top of his maths (which comes naturally to him) and struggled immensely getting him to do structured English - an area he was already slightly behind in. Our ds is not 'not bright'. He just happens to have parents who have had to continue to work while unfortunately not having been able to spend the time with him to 1. Learn concepts ourselves first and then 2. Impart this knowledge to him in any meaningful way.

We have enough devices, what he hasn't had is any virtual online teaching. He's struggled through, trying his hardest - as have we.

I don't know what the answer will be. Most probably, those who can afford it will need to pay for private tuition. Ds's education has been the single most stressful thing to deal with throughout.

@PollyPelargonium52

The swots are usually in the higher band classes.

Swots? Really? How old are you?

We have enough devices, what he hasn't had is any virtual online teaching.

www.thenational.academy/

The DfE spent loads on this, it’s baffling that it hasn’t been more widely advertised.

*Being taught in the same class at primary doesn't mean they are doing the same work, I've worked in primary schools with 6 different ability levels and so 6 differentiated tasks.

And again this simply isn’t true for all schools. My DC’s school does NOT do this*

How do you actually know that? Perhaps the learning is differentiated by outcome? Even if the children have been given the same task, it doesn't mean they are doing the exact same learning. Some will be stretched and challenged verbally by the teacher or given targets to include certain things in their work. Others will be supported with resources, teacher or assistant support.

*Being taught in the same class at primary doesn't mean they are doing the same work, I've worked in primary schools with 6 different ability levels and so 6 differentiated tasks.

And again this simply isn’t true for all schools. My DC’s school does NOT do this*

How do you actually know that? Perhaps the learning is differentiated by outcome? Even if the children have been given the same task, it doesn't mean they are doing the exact same learning. Some will be stretched and challenged verbally by the teacher or given targets to include certain things in their work. Others will be supported with resources, teacher or assistant support.

We have gone to great lengths to keep our primary school children progressing. Whilst some parents with similar work situations From their classes have simply proclaimed things like “oh he doesn’t want to do it and I want this to be a happy family time so we aren’t doing any home learning”. So yeah I will be a bit pissed off if my children have to sit bored repeating work from the previous year. I really hope the school will find a way that Accommodates all children.

@947EliseChalotte

In secondary there are different bands but primary ? My kids haven't done any home learning but I know the bright kids will be bored re learning work from march and because they are bored will effect their behaviour and disrupt the class so will effect the ones who haven't done work.

so because you were too lazy to homeschool your child/ren, you are now worried about them being disrupted by the children whose parents could?