To think this is unfair to my DD14 (school work)

[PurpleThistles84]

I had a call last night from my daughters teacher to ask why my DS has not joined a google classroom for one of her subjects. Long story short, she had been missed off the invitation email to join the classroom and so she wasn’t aware there was even a classroom on it.

Her teacher confirmed she had been missed off the email invitation but followed it up with ‘she could have asked’ and now expects her to complete any missed work and assignments over the summer holidays.

My DD has really struggled with online learning and has problems with depression (pre lockdown), she is awaiting an assessment from the child mental health services team. She is going to be devastated, as she was so relieved to reach the summer holidays.

This teacher is the same teacher for one of her other classes and acknowledged that she had been doing all her work for that class. I don’t understand what took him nearly 6 weeks to phone me and let me know about this.

My DD moved from S2 to S3 whilst in lockdown and they have only just been given their new timetables despite S3 classes starting online 6 weeks ago. This class is one of the new ones from moving into S3.

She is going to have to do the work as I don’t want her to be behind once school resumes but AIBU to think that this should have been picked up way before now and to feel the teacher is passing the blame onto my daughter a bit? He also said that the children can’t get hold of him by email, only by private comment in the classroom for their class, so I’m not sure how he thinks ‘she could have asked?’

[ArgumentativeAardvaark]

@Piggywaspushed

Oh, and also when you are in a physical school someone actually produces your classlists for you on SIMs or similar to mark a proper register... it's very easy to fly under the radar.

I don’t know what SIMS is but don’t you still have full admin support producing class lists for you? Either in the school office since school is open, or working remotely?

[PinkyU]

She picked 6-8 subjects, she knew she was only receiving work for 5-7 classes, plus there is no way that her year group weren’t in touch with each other to check which teacher they got for which subjects and if they were in the same class as each other.

Your dd should have checked, she knew she was missing a subject.

[DishRanAwayWithTheSpoon]

I think the DD could have noticed she was missing a science subject. And it doesnt sound like the school are blaming her

Summer holidays are 6 weeks long. I doubt one class is 6 weeks of work. Find out how much work there is. Give your DD a 2 week break, then sit down with her and work through the work.

The work is for your DDs benefit, schools dont set work to be dicks. If she doesnt do it she will have to work harder in september to catch up, and will be behind which I imagine will be harder.

She has had a whole class less of work to do than her peers, so has had the additional time over the last few months than her peers have had. The time the work will take her is time that she has had off from work in the last few months.

[GetUpAgain]

Can't believe how heartless some people are.

OP this is not your DDs fault, or yours. The schools mistake means that there is more pressure on your DD at the worst time, I'm so sorry for you and her, and yes I'd be pissed off about it.

Things that are hard:
Having depression
Having migraines
Being a teenager
Lock down
Home school
Crap weather
Falling behind with lessons

I really do feel for you. Keep doing the best you can, it won't always be like this.

[Piggywaspushed]

aardvark ; nope! I know, mad..

We usually would. We are like OP's school in that we get new classes in the summer term.

We get spreadsheets with names which we then transfer to Google Classroom ourselves. There is no such thing a s google classroom/ google meet register. You would think the IT boffin development types would have thought of this!

[VividImagination]

Can I just say that as a parent of two adult sons (one with ADHD and mental health problems) and a new S3 awaiting assessment for ADHD/ASD/Anxiety this is not a big deal. I completely understand why it feels this way but whether she does this work over the holidays or as homework once back at school it will not affect her long term goals.

You know your daughter best. Do what is best for her mental health. Ds3 still has some work to finish which we will do if we can but I’m not going to stress over it and neither is he.

I spent so much time worrying about what the older two were or weren’t doing, speaking to teachers, some great some useless, and chasing things up without much success. They have both now successfully completed their degrees (in a bit of a round about way) and both earn more than me!

Do what you feel is best for your daughter.

[SeasonFinale]

To be fair despite her MH problems if the DD knew that science comprised of physics, chemistry and biology she must have realised that physics was missing. The email seems quite polite and if she has no other lessons an hour a day or 2 full days will go by quite quickly.

[Purpletigers]

Your daughter is not at fault here . It is entirely the teacher’s fault for not noticing she wasn’t invited to the google classroom. I would have a look through the work and choose what you think would be useful . Perhaps take a day and sit with her to complete it . Do it together ?
My daughter is third year and starting her GCSEs in September. I gave her my permission not to complete any French work set during lockdown as she’s not studying it for gcse . Your daughters mh is the most important factor here . I hope she is ok .

[Janek]

I am a teacher and a parent of a hard-working 14 year old. I would be absolutely gutted if when her holidays start next week someone revealed that she had a whole subject she needed to catch up on. We have no issues like depression, although something like this could easily push her over the edge.

If I were you, I would look at her stream on google classroom and see just exactly what she has to do. I might also go back to the head of department and ask what is crucial and what will be gone over again, given the fact that she is behind through no fault of her own, and her fragile mental state. I would also check that everyone else in the class has actually completed the work so she is actually behind. I teach a bottom set year 10 and I fully intend to go over again everything that they should have done during lockdown. So thirteen weeks of work, not six. In an ideal world this would just be revision, but for over half of them it will not be. But I have time in the scheme of work to do this, a higher set with more content to cover would not.

Re google classroom, as a teacher I can archive last year's classes, so I would have thought that a student could do that too - could you google how to do this so you can 'tidy' her classroom for her? But the stream is the right place to have been looking for her assignments, I guess you should have noticed that she wasn't being set any work for that subject, but the teacher should have noticed he/she was not receiving any work from her far sooner.

I have completely taken on the 'secretarial' aspect of my dd's work - making sure she is on the right bit on Seneca, helping her mark things she has the answers for, photographing and submitting her work etc. After she has done a minimum of five hours work each day, I really don't see why she should have to spend even more time submitting it, so I do it for her!

[Phineyj]

I think this was pretty lax of the teacher. We've been required to report any absentees from each Teams lesson and they're chased up once a week. However it could be the teacher did report the absences and they weren't chased. Anyway, not much point stressing over it now, but ask him for essential topics and to recommend a good textbook and/or revision guide if she hasn't already got one. You could spin this as 'research shows students can forget number based subjects over the summer, so Mr X suggested we did half an hour a day to keep it fresh'.

[LolaSmiles]

ArgumentativeAardvaark
We have our class lists on SIMS,which is the information management system, and then they're either auto-imported into various online platforms, or our IT team does for us.
I don't think that's the case for every school though.

Rainbringsjoytome
The things is the HoD who was emailing might not know the OP's daughter's difficulties.
At my school, and most others I've worked at, information that's very personal to students is shared on a need to know basis.
For example, it might be mentioned in a pastoral meeting that Sarah Smith in Y10 is finding it hard to keep on top of homework due to home circumstances, but then teachers of Lucy Blogs would be spoken to separately to say that she's having a CAMHS referral for X and this is what the pastoral member of SLT is advising we do in the short term.

[PurpleThistles84]

It’s possible @Phineyj however the school was very quick to contact me when my DD didn’t register for two days. This was at the beginning of home schooling and she thought she didn’t need to register because she was submitting work so they would know. Once she knew the register needed done regardless she then did it every day.

I’m not going to do anything about this. It’s done now and it won’t change anything. Once DD is feeling stronger I will help her catch up. I will also look into seeing whether the old S2 class rooms can be removed to clean up her main google classroom screen.

Thanks to all for replies. I’m going to leave this thread now as there really isn’t anything to add to what’s already been said.

[VeganCow]

teacher needs to own this, and apologise to your daughter, rather than gloss over their failure, I would be pissed off.

[Hearhoovesthinkzebras]

@VeganCow

teacher needs to own this, and apologise to your daughter, rather than gloss over their failure, I would be pissed off.

We don't know it was the teacher's fault, do we? Maybe the DD was omitted from the class register so the teacher didn't know she was meant to be in the class.

What's done is done. Isn't it more important to rectify it rather than to point fingers? It won't change what's happened

[larrygrylls]

'teacher needs to own this, and apologise to your daughter, rather than gloss over their failure, I would be pissed off.'

The teacher does 'own' it and needs to apologise to the head of science for their mistake. Teachers do not report to pupils (or parents). This is a common mistake.

A good teacher will, appropriately, apologise to a pupil if they have made a mistake, but it is not for a pupil or parent to harangue a school over every small mistake, especially in very tough circumstances.

[RedskyAtnight]

It's not necessarily the teacher's fault. It might have been an admin person that loaded the class lists, and teacher didn't even realise that OP's DD was meant to be in his class.

[ToBBQorNotToBBQ]

Say she isn't doing it end of.

[TheStuffedPenguin]

@ToBBQorNotToBBQ

Say she isn't doing it end of.

That's useful for her future learning ....

[SeasonFinale]

who loses by her not doing it TobbqornottoBBQ? Not the school just the DD

[Porridgeoat]

I would approach the school with concerns and ask them to provide a solution which enables your dad to have a break and catch up without google classrooms. Give them the problem.

[WombatChocolate]

Interesting attitudes on here.
Some people have the education of the girl and her progress most in mind, whilst others are more interested in looking at blame and don't really seem interested in what will enable the girl to move forward most effectively.

Personally, I think all children have experienced less education than normal during Covid. The degree to which this is true varies, and all schools and teachers have found themselves in very difficult situations, with some handling it better than others, but none have been able to deliver the normal school experience. At this stage and in a situation of Covid, I think we need to accept that there will have been cracks appearing of a new nature, because schooling was so different. And the key thing is what happens next, not blame and finger pointing.

Things that won't help the girl include;
-fixation on the individual teacher and looking to blame or demanding apologies

• refusal to do the work, if health permits the work to be done.
  

Yes, it was pretty crap that she was missed off for 6 weeks and it wasn't picked up on (although has been eventually) although it was also pretty crap for a 14 year old to either not notice they weren't getting any work for a subject or not speak up to school or parents about it. It's happened, so now the big Q is what can be done to have DD in the strongest position for the new term.

School can learn some lessons in case there is another lockdown, and DD can learn some lessons too. We've probably all learned some lessons about doing things a bit differently during lockdown and might do some things a bit differently if it has to happen again.

Move on.

[WombatChocolate]

And I'm quite interested in the section of MN posters who are very keen on demanding apologies left right and centre from anyone they encounter in their lives. Why exactly do some people feel the need to demand these apologies, especially on the basis of incomplete information?

Often on MN, we have a report of something which has happened. Usually the information is incomplete - often the OP doesn't know the full story themselves and those reading certainly don't. But instead of recommending the OP clarify and find out a bit more (in a non-confrontational, information gathering way) lots of people are quick to assert blame and insist people must apologise, or be disciplined or be sacked.

What is the reason behind these knee-jerk reactions that instantly blame someone and think strong action is needed? Why isn't there a more measured approach and information gathering first?

I can only conclude that some people always feel under attack - they attribute bad motives to most of the other people they come into contact with in life and see all their relationships as some kind of conflict or battle. Perhaps that's because that's what their real life relationships have been like or a lack of ability to see nuance and grey areas in situations, but I always think it must be so exhausting to go through life seeing negative intent in most people and feeling a need to have conflict or demand apologies all the time from what are often just very minor incidents and part of the day-to-day interactions we have which are not always entirely smooth, but rarely cause for the huge stress and over-reaction which is often advised.

Confident people find a minor problem and think about finding out more about what has happened and look for constructive ways to move forward. They expect that a solution can be found and to move on from it.

[Porridgeoat]

Interesting attitudes on here.
Some people have the education of the girl and her progress most in mind, whilst others are more interested in looking at blame and don't really seem interested in what will enable the girl to move forward most effectively.

^ and sensible people have the girls mental health as priority.

[SnuggyBuggy]

It needs to be a balance between her getting stressed from overwork and stressed from being behind.

[HowLongCanICallitBabyWeight]

Poor form from the teacher for missing her off the list, the head of dept has apogised for that. DD has had a break from that lesson and now it's time to catch up, she's not being made to do extra, her peers have already been doing more than she has up to this point. Honestly a 14 year old should know they're missing a subject, physics isn't an option it's a core subject. If she said she didn't know she was meant to be doing maths/English would you feel the same way? If she's been struggling it's also more your responsibility to help her keep track, again it's a core subject so I'm not sure why you thought she wouldn't have to do any work for it for three months.