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?

@Ihatemyseleffordoingthis

When you look at the millions of threads on here, and newspaper articles, twitter feeds etc, about how hard grown adults are finding working from home - missing the incidental social interactions, esprit de corps, collaborative working, spontaneity, ability to focus and the craic - I think is is extraordinarily unreasonable that young kids are supposed to just knuckle down to online content, for hours, often unsupervised.

The your kids will fall behind lot also don't know much about pedagogy, or mapping educational progress.

Heyho at least the poxy pointless SATs are cancelled.

I have

a very sad and demotivated GCSE year teen - who is finding it a slog, and worse slog than it would have been in class, where he thrives, gets great grades and participates.

100% agree with all this

The teacher’s are setting work every day, parents should respect their effort and put some in themselves.

We are. Which now means spending 5 hours a day trying to get DS to do something, anything, that his teacher has sent and we both also need to work as well. And unlike the first lockdown I am now expected to do my full hours. I also cannot be furloughed.

And you’re happy with the teachers wasting time trying to get through to you, when they could be doing more useful things

No my response was in direct response to the OP which was about the local authority enforcing fines and making it mandatory and calling to check compliance. Nothing to do with avoiding teachers although perhaps I wasn’t clear.

I have secondary school children home alone with one device because we are at work all day, out on the road, both working in transport / logistics so cannot answer our phones except for emergencies. There is literally nobody here to help them as we are working to keep our home. The school and teachers are fully up to speed with our situation.

The idea that all schools are the same, can provide lap tops, are demanding all children attend is rubbish. Every school is different.

Well we have no live lessons. No way of uploading work and no way for the teachers to check in.
So I can’t see how it can be enforceable!

This ridiculous obsession with full-time live lessons baffles me.
The DfE have said it's not mandatory, nor even desirable in many cases, but could be used in some circumstances where relevant.

Our (primary) parents (in a relatively affluent area) have overwhelmingly fed back to the Head that they do not want live lessons. We set work each day, but with a window to submit it until the end of the weekend, if that suits people's routines better. There is a wide mix of delivery methods in terms of teaching styles and a wide range of tasks set. There's Eng/Maths/Topic set each day, and the recommended weekly hours bumped up with reading, spelling and tables practice, daily exercise and so forth. The key is flexibility and the Head has made it clear to parents not to stress about it but to do what they are able, when they are able and we will help wherever we can.

This ridiculous obsession with full-time live lessons baffles me.

some kids respond a lot better to their teacher.

As a working parent, live lessons are a godsend for me. I appreciate it might not be as easy for the teacher, but whilst my kids are on a live lesson, I can get stuff done! I'd happily sign in for a school with a full school day right now! Much better for them, better for me.

It's an absolute disgrace that some kids are at school, taught by their teacher but in a smaller group than normal, whilst the rest of the class is home and just thrown a few links and documents to get on with.

@cabbageking

There must be some safeguarding follow up if a child does not log on within a certain time frame. Some attendance mark must be taken for online learning even if once a day. School should be following up with checks and home visits to check the child is safe.

Lot of home visits there then 🤔You are inferring that if a child for whatever reason doesn't engage with online learning. And there are plenty of reasons that they are not why, no Internet, may have no equipment. What an utterly ridiculous sweeping statement. Sure schools are aware of vulnerable children. Offensive statement to parent's for whatever reason are struggling.

@Iknowwhatudidlastsummer, With respect, the purpose of live lessons is not to facilitate you getting on with something else.

In a lot of schools kids are just doing remote learning but from school IYSWIM. I don't think they are getting lots of extra help or anything, and they are sharing that teacher with all the other kids with learning and behaviour issues, often mixed age groups. I don't think they are getting this wonderful head start, and that a lot of them will be behind to start with. I think they are managing a lot of very anxious kids. Just like parents are at home.

@spanieleyes is your local authority unaware that the law is currently suspended? Fines cannot be issued currently, nor can prosecutions be undertaken.