To ask what happens if you don't home school?

[Chalkcheese]

What does happen if you don't homeschool during lockdown? Is it mandatory? Is it enforceable? Could someone be reported to education welfare or social services? Or is it voluntary?

@Greenknees legal obligation to provide each child with an education. yes the school have to provide it, legally the children do not have to complete any work.

My husband is a senior education manager in a LA and has attendance team under him. Just asked him about fines for non attendance for remote learning and he said he isn't aware of anything like that and thinks it will get laughed out of court if it was attempted. I would be just having an open and honest conversation with your school about your capacity / child's difficulties.

We've been asked to inform school if children won't be signing in for home learning for any reason E.g. Sickness, as they still need to keep attendance records. But they've also said not to worry if we can't do all the work due to wfh or sharing devices.

My friend is sending her dc to childminder 2 days per week as she's working from home and told school her dc won't be online those days and they said that wasn't a problem.

My primary aged dd is refusing to do most of the work. Every day her motivation becomes less. I doubt she'll be doing anything soon. I'm a sahm, she has a laptop and all she needs. I'd happily sit with her but she refuses to do it.

My child’s class has 2 zoom calls morning and afternoon my child has not attended any calls as 1 they hate zoom and 2 the calls are not convenient when I’m working.

We have done some work but not all work the school have sent through as I’m trying to work myself and my child needs help with a lot of the work. No work has been handed in and no one has called us or messaged us.

yr8 DS says about 10 kids are missing from each class.

If parents aren’t communicating with school then welfare concerns will be raised. The Education Welfare Officer may be used.

If your child isn’t engaged with school work you need to communicate with school

I asked our ( primary) school if I would be penalised if the work doesn't get done and they told my of course not. I told them I can only hone school on my two non working days and they don't seem to have a issue with this so far. In regards to devices I didn't have enough either but school have lent me a laptop

I think parents at least have a duty of care to engage with the school and do some school work or their child will fall further behind with their education.

I wouldn't expect a child to be doing on line learning from 9-3 as being behind a screen for that length of time is wrong but some engagement each day should be happening .

This is amazing to me. Or actually not. As a teacher for over 30 years I guess I knew we could never do right. Last lockdown, having been told to suspend the curriculum, we got bashed for not doing enough (although many schools did loads). This time we’re doing more and now it’s all too much and nobody needs to make their children engage because it’s not the law they have to.

Our reception class have registration at 9.15 via zoom and now cameras have to be on so each child can wave when the teacher says hello to each child in turn.! We have 3 pieces of work a day, Phonics, maths and topic which is arts/crafts based on a the theme for that week. The activities themselves are really enjoyable but trying to get a 5 year old focused when you have two younger siblings and one of those is a toddler is nigh on impossible and 1-1 is non existent. The teacher had said if children don’t attend registration there will be a welfare check and I think the reason they want cameras on now is to make sure it isn’t just the parent sitting there watching 😊

DS is yr 8 and had a meltdown during form time this morning and don’t sign back on until the final lesson, even that was stressful.
DS has SEN and can have a place at school but will still be doing remote learning with group TA supervision. He needs a 1-1 and for his work to be differentiated so being in school with the current arrangement won’t work.

DSs lack of attendance today and lack of engagement over the last couple of weeks are due to the fact they aren’t following his EHCP. I doubt they are going to kick up a fuss as they need to need to made big changes to help DS.

There's a huge difference between not attending and not being in contact with school at all and not attending but having dialogue with school and keeping the school in the loop. If it's access to technology then many schools have things in place to help, my school have given out dongles and tablets as well as paper packs. If its because the child has Send or other children have needs and you can't do both then other things could be put in place. I have some students who I know can't attend during school time but are watching the recorded sessions and completing the work in the evening instead.

We have registers for each lesson, non attenders are contacted and I had a 50% increase in the attendance of one of my class today compared to last week because phone calls were made to parents / carers. Some student also thought they could log in to register and leave straight away but the software records that info so those students have been chased up too.

Ultimately though, your child will end up behind their classmates. Last time it didn't really matter too much as we were instructed not to cover new material. This time we have to so we've amended all of our assessments etc to be carried out online and we won't have time to go over these concepts again when schools go back as we have to maintain the pace of the curriculum.

It's treated the same as non attendance

Also your child(ren) will be behind - which should be enough of a motivator imo

Well, presumably you believe education is good for your DC? I get that people are struggling right now and there is so much more support required but it's your kid that suffers if you just dont want to engage rather than not being able to?

My local parents groups are full of parents boasting about not doing anything at all (for Primary). Pretty sure NOTHING happens.

I am more curious what will happen after the pandemic.

Yes, teachers are used to deal with various levels, but realistically, is the class going to move forward and some children be behind, or will the whole class have to repeat the main concepts and half the class waste their time and be bored to death?

You know have teachers teaching half their class, 10-15 kids instead of 30 who benefit massively from a more personal approach, whilst the other half is at home, some of them doing nothing. Not such a big deal for a month or so, but if schools don't really open until Easter ,that will be pretty much a full year!

@cardibach

This is amazing to me. Or actually not. As a teacher for over 30 years I guess I knew we could never do right. Last lockdown, having been told to suspend the curriculum, we got bashed for not doing enough (although many schools did loads). This time we’re doing more and now it’s all too much and nobody needs to make their children engage because it’s not the law they have to.

Some schools did next to nothing last year and it was a shamble for many. I don't agree with that.

I am all in favour of the school year carrying on, even at home, but it's a valid question, what happens for the children who do absolutely nothing? There's no register or anything in my kids primary school.

I have 5 DC and I make sure my three primary aged DC do all of their work every single day, they usually do extra on top of the work provided by the teacher’s. I am fortunate to have a device for each child plus one of my own and a printer, crafts, plenty of books and stationary and a garden so I do realise how privileged we are. What I don’t accept, however, is using the amount of children somebody has as an excuse. I’m absolutely knackered but I’m making sure they’re educated to a decent standard because they need it.

My DC have a zoom meeting every day with the teacher to catch up, there’s usually at least 10 pupils missing from said meeting (the ones in school sit with the teacher). We have to like the timetable post every day and that acts as a register. We’re also expected to upload proof of their work every day. No idea how many are adhering to it but I should hope all are.

It’s nothing like the last lockdown when everything was sort of thrown out of the window and we were mostly asked to exercise and bake banana bread. The teacher’s are setting work every day, parents should respect their effort and put some in themselves.

It's a bit unfair to look down at parents struggling with homeschooling when so many families are abusing the "keyworker" card to put their kids to school only because they can't be arsed with homeschooling!

We've had emails saying that remote learning is NOT optional and calls will be made to advise/support.

We're trying but it's hard. We're using Seesaw.

Children not engaging with the work is understandable and to be expected.

Parents being rude, defensive and not communicating with the school is not acceptable.

It's obviously a difficult time and schools will offer advice and help, but they can't do that if parents don't communicate.

Well my DC has been "invited" to return to school as he can only attend zoom classes with camera off as he is autistic. As a result he probably won't engage in anything now or go to school (y5) as all DC in years 4-6 have to wear masks at all times. I'm working full time in patient facing role and we have done a piece of work a day which takes about 2 hours. School can jog on (and read their copy of the Equality Act).

@formerbabe

My primary aged dd is refusing to do most of the work. Every day her motivation becomes less. I doubt she'll be doing anything soon. I'm a sahm, she has a laptop and all she needs. I'd happily sit with her but she refuses to do it.

feel for you, i had this last week, year 6!! had accidental minor meltdown and the school have been very supportive, i wanst expecting it tbh. have you told the school the problems you're having? they might come up trumps for you

EWO here. Schools don't issue fines, local authority does, and home learning is not legally enforceable. No one is going to get fined.

There’s always going to be inequality between kids in school and kids at home though, and this should be recognised. Kids at school have a teacher / TA on hand to answer questions, help, advise, and they probably get a much better experience than usual with the small class sizes. Kids at home don’t get actual teaching (not in our primary anyway), they get resources, but no one to actually teach the new material. They have to guess, submit, and wait ages for comments. But there’s no one to actually deliver the new material, or help in real time.

Very unfair to compare the two, and berate parents trying to do the right thing by keeping their kids home. It comes across that the parents with kids in school enjoy the small classes and individual attention their kids are getting. Then they get annoyed at the prospect of the homeschoolers returning, and needing the teachers time to help them catch up.