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?’

Good opportunity for your daughter to learn that adults aren't infallible and that she has personal responsibility not to expect everyone to chase her up

I'd ask her if she'd noticed that she wasn't on the group and if it was a yes then she could have asked what was going on. You know at 14 that you have lessons in a, b, c, X, y and z so if you're getting instruction for 5/6 you know something's wrong. If she couldn't face going to the teacher by herself she should have come to you for help

I'd ask her how she would like to resolve the issue (ignore it and be behind at the start of next term, do the bare minimum, cram for 4 weeks/rest for 2) and talk through the outcomes.

If you get mad at the school that's fine, the teacher was a bit of a dopey git. If you take the opportunity to guide your kid though the problem then that's something that'll give her the tools to sail through a levels/degree and first job confidently.

HE teacher here so not sure how much this applies, but if I had made a serious mistake like missing a student off the email list and then not even noticed they weren't in the classroom, then I would not be qualifying my apology with any "but you should have"- I would just have apologised. My students may not be 5, but neither am I.

@haralaz, welcome to mumsnet. That is 5 times you've recommended that tutor this morning 🤦🏻‍♀️

cory
We don't know that it was the teacher's mistake. It was a new class and he may not have had anything to do with the admin side (and OP's DD may not have appeared on his list either).
The email was from the Head of Department, so not from the teacher.

Fair enough, Redsky, that may well be the case.

I still would not have held a student responsible for an error caused at our end. I would apologise in the name of my institution. And then present the further work that needed to be done as a way of putting things right and making sure they did not suffer, suggesting ways in which I could (within reason) offer support. Model how to make an apology.

Bit disingenuous to say sensible people have the girl's MH as a priority. Maybe she will have worse MH issues if she doesn't do the physics work and finds she is behind all her peers in September and has to catch up then.

Thus the easiest way to ensure she doesn't suffer is to either do a few days catch up and all over and done with or a little bit every day until caught up. There will be far fewer stresses doing it that way than alongside a full September workload and without the added stress of having to catch up in a subject too.

Update: DD made the decision to do the work, she took the rest of last week to herself first with the plan to start today.

We sat down together and worked through a little of it this morning. Her migraine lasted a full week before I decided to take her off a new med she had been taking and it cleared up, so hopefully there won’t be any more of that. Unfortunately the same med was to help her extremely low moods in the second part of her monthly cycle but we will work something else out.

I’m proud of her for making the right decision herself and I think lessons have been learned by both her and myself. Hopefully whoever missed her off the list too, but it’s done with now.

Sounds like a good outcome in a shitty situation 👍

Good news Op. I hope she gets through it quickly and is then able to enjoy the summer.
Hope the migraines and low mood also get sorted out and something found to help each of them.

Great update. I am sure in the long run she will be grateful that she has it knocked on the head sooner rather than later.

Well done OP and DD.

This happened to a colleagues' sons, too. Fortunately they noticed a bit sooner that they'd missed a whole chunk of work, so it didn't end up being a whole term's worth.

Hope your dd gets over the migraines OP and there isn't a recurrence.