Teachers and the current status quo

[Lifeisabeach09]

Maybe a teacher bashing thread or not, I can't decide.

My experience of this current lockdown is that my DD's teachers are streaming live or pre-recorded sessions from their homes. Support staff and teacher rotation are dealing with the kids in school. Learning is the same-school or home, it's streaming on Ipads, so the children are being treated fairly.

Surely, not have to deal with 30 unruly kids, not having to discipline, and being able to pre-record lessons or even livestream from home has made life easier (lovelier??) for some teachers. Obviously, each school is different and teachers situations are different (own kids, etc).

Any teachers enjoying the new status quo or AIBU?

The discipline thing is a red herring. Sure some classes are easier than others in that regard, but it’s January, we are a term in and I wouldn’t be dealing with discipline issues in school if we were face to face. I am primary and by this time you have established your relationship with your class.

My role is a bit different as I’m SLT and class based half of the time. I’m a literacy specialist and just teach that in a few different year groups. It’s really hard to teach good writing without the drama that comes before it, bouncing ideas off each other, shared writing, looking over their shoulders as they write. I don’t like feeling like I’m not doing as well at my job, and that is what it is like constantly at the moment.

I suppose one of the “lovelier” parts of the job is dealing with grieving vulnerable children with dead family members (from covid) while simultaneously teaching full time in school and teaching the children at home.

@Lifeisabeach09

It would have been less open to teacher-bashing accusations if you’d asked a general -interest question about people’s jobs at the moment, ie...

Has lockdown made your job lovelier than normal?

As for my job, silver-lining is I am not a risk of losing it and I work out of the home so I get to go out.

But I work in a care home where most of my residents are covid positive, some have died, and the home is closed to admissions so I have fewer people to look after so you tell me....is it lovelier?!

I wasn’t really asking you about your job, I was wondering why your thread title wasn’t...

Has lockdown made your job lovelier?

Why focus specifically on teachers?

I was actually thinking how much more work it must be. Multiple questions about how to work the tech, having to follow up when things haven't been submitted and children haven't attended registration. Making pre recorded video, live lessons etc.

Positives of teaching at home:

• 30 mins more sleep in the morning... But I stay up later foolishly
• I get to use my lovely teabags rather than the ones in the staffroom
• I actually get work in more effeciently and promptly online...

- feedback to pupils is well organised online and can be viewed by the parents if they wish.

• I quite enjoy techy stuff and being creative with online lesson plans.

Negatives of teaching online:

• my creative lessons take about 3 hours to plan, video, upload, edit and tweak.
• I am on zoom for individual support aswell as uploading prerecorded video instructions...so pupils can work at their own pace. Double the workload
• certain pupils dont come on to zoom and then get most of the work wrong and you can't help or guide them if they don't engage.
• online meetings and lessons for 8 hours a day have given me constant headaches and eye strain.

Lots of other things but I want to stop using my screen now and sit in a darkened room.... After I upload one more video AND check if my own kids actually did any of their online work today 🤔

DH is a teacher and I’ve also almost done a teacher bashing thread because I can’t stand him being home. Whilst he doesn’t seem to do much all the time, he’s incredibly stressed, he has so much admin, his technology sucks, he is constantly emailing and he’s in school 2 days for live teaching (safeguarding so not allowed at home). He has to just wait for people to do work so has nothing to do in between. He’s dying for schools to go back as he hates Teams.

@slothpaw

I suppose one of the “lovelier” parts of the job is dealing with grieving vulnerable children with dead family members (from covid) while simultaneously teaching full time in school and teaching the children at home.

This.

@year5teacher

That’s a great assumption based on what is going on in your own school. I have 20 children in who I am teaching full time. I am also doing Zoom with my kids who are at home daily. The only difference is 10 less books to mark per lesson. It is, by the way, absolutely shit. I also have some children from other classes in with me and they are quite challenging.

The way I feel about it is that it’s not different enough to have any kind of novelty about it to make it enjoyable, and it’s basically the same as always except not with my whole usual class who I love and miss a lot. It’s also much harder to plan because I have to plan for a lesson to be delivered at school and accessed at home - more materials to create etc.

Literally every school is different.

I noted that in my OP about schools being different. I am curious about other teaching experiences. I also note that the majority, from this thread, hate teaching online and find things harder. A very small few have said otherwise.

It is really difficult to explain how much harder teaching online really is. Let me explain what the last few days have been like, and you can judge from that. Also, I only teach year 10, 11, 12, 13. Also,I have 2 children that I barely see right now,and DP is also a teacher.

Last Wednesday; worked for 13 hours. Was in school Thursday and Friday supervising vulnerable students so had to have 8 lessons planned and online before this. I was also live teaching 2 classes and marking work from 2 classes. Thursday and Friday I was supervising literally all day, but also responding to students in my previously set lessons. I've counted 68 emails messages on Thursday and 51 on Friday. All replied to, many the start of a conversation. I marked some A level on Thursday night once home from an SLT meeting that was 4pm-6pm, so I stayed at school and used Teams there.

The weekend; I planned Monday and Tuesday. Probably 8 hours total, plus some marking.
Monday; 4 live lessons. The best engagement I had was 40% and that was year 13 chemistry. Once I've finished live teaching I catch up with emails and messages, including a parent complaining that their kid missed the zoom. I email a link to a recording of it but mum wants me to phone home to explain some calculations, but it is now after 6pm and I am not doing any more as I'd like to see my own kids.

Today; 2 online lessons. I've spent most of today chasing students who are not engaging with their work. Some of them are BTEC students who are not completing assignments, and if they do not do this they will fail outright. By the end of today I had phone nearly 40 parents, 11 answered. I've spent an hour on Teams with our attendance officer and pastoral lead to arrange home visits as some students are MIA so they will both spend all day driving around Manchester trying to locate numerous students. Whilst they do this I will spend most of the day marking and planning my Thursday/Friday again.

I feel really lucky compared to a lot of teachers on here. If we are in school with KW kids, we do not provide online learning on that day.
Our HT asks for all our work for the week to be uploaded ready to go live on Monday morning so pupils can work through it in any order they choose. No live or recorded lessons.

Our teacher is in the classroom and our TA (older lady) is at home. I suspect this is the arrangement to protect the TA.

Because half of the children are physically in the classroom, our teacher is live-streaming a lesson to the children at home whilst also keeping the children at school in order. Occasionally she has another adult in the classroom to help out (the children are 7 years old), but sometimes she’s completely alone. The TA helps out a little online, but unfortunately isn’t able to contribute that much.

So YABU. Our teacher is a complete star and is definitely is working harder than ever before.

DD's teachers are doing video lessons which means one teacher does the same lesson for the whole year. Hopefully this is saving them some time to make up for the extra planning, schools are 3 and 4 form entry.

From a parent perspective though I can see how tricky it is when they are not getting the feedback, even if it is bored faces or blank faces - DD cried today because maths was too easy and then she cried again because English was too hard! I assume both of these situations would have been avoided in the classroom where the teachers can see if it's being pitched correctly.

I suppose the positive I can glean from all of this is that when I caught covid from school I was only really ill for three weeks although still have lingering symptoms six weeks later. But of the six cases in my class we are all recovered.
But standing at the side of the road yesterday, at my 42 year old teacher friends funeral after an outbreak in her college, makes that really hard to stomach.
I just don’t get the purpose of this thread at all op but am thankful for all those posts that get how tough this is for everyone right now.

I always wonder how teacher's cope with their own children when Parents want them online for hours

Live streaming teaching sucks the life force out of you.

It is easy to build energy in person. Building and holding energy via microsoft teams takes years off your life. I can't wait to get back in the classroom.

You are crazy unreasonable. Seriously, madly, unreasonable.

@Lifeisabeach09 how on earth can you not see that by asking "Has lockdown made your job lovelier than normal?" And directing it towards teachers you have reinforced all of the awful things that have been directed towards teachers in the last few months??

You work in care - there is absolutely NO way that I would allow anyone to denigrate you as another critical worker, let alone open up speculation in terms of how your job might be "lovelier".

Seriously? Can you not see this?

The constant messages and emails answering questions that you have already explained (I do understand how it's missed when stressed/busy) is not the relaxing day you imagine. We are all in school too, spinning the remote and present learners. I've never felt so tired or fed up.

Secondary school. Year 10. Live lessons not happening each time. For example, science is 2 times a week. Live lesson is once a week, 30 mins max, when it was a 2 hour double lesson in school. What's happening ??

@RudbeckiaGoldstrum

Live streaming teaching sucks the life force out of you.

It is easy to build energy in person. Building and holding energy via microsoft teams takes years off your life. I can't wait to get back in the classroom.

You are crazy unreasonable. Seriously, madly, unreasonable.

I am indeed.

@Port1aCastis

I always wonder how teacher's cope with their own children when Parents want them online for hours

We are a two teacher household and our three year old can’t go to nursery as he is CEV. Both of us teach live from home and go in on the rota (on different days).

It’s a massive juggling act but no different to other working parents with children at home. It’s not forever.

I just wondered if there was a silver-lining to working from home for some

I came on here to say I can't think of a single thing that is lovelier. Way more work, constantly changing goalposts, constant negative feedback from parents whatever you do, impossible to persuade disengaged students to log in (and yes it does come down to me to engage them, thanks slt).

But then I haven't been told to fuck off since 18th December. I've not been spat at, or had things thrown at me. So yeah. That's lovelier. But the rest is a fucking shower of shite.

@starrynight19

I suppose the positive I can glean from all of this is that when I caught covid from school I was only really ill for three weeks although still have lingering symptoms six weeks later. But of the six cases in my class we are all recovered. But standing at the side of the road yesterday, at my 42 year old teacher friends funeral after an outbreak in her college, makes that really hard to stomach. I just don’t get the purpose of this thread at all op but am thankful for all those posts that get how tough this is for everyone right now.

I don’t really get the point of it either.

What I do know though, is that however much I miss my lovely class and how hard it is teaching remotely, I know it won’t be a good idea to open the schools up fully yet for some time yet.

to everyone who is finding stuff hard at the moment.

It’s really shit. I miss my children so much and all the fun we have. Online learning isn’t much fun. I had 130 separate emailed submitted pieces of work in a day. When do I get a chance to mark them and email back in between 3 hours of live lessons and then another 5 hours creating the next day’s lessons? Plus staff meetings, team meetings, weekly phone calls to vulnerable children and fortnightly calls to everyone else. I’m also (not) home schooling my own children.

Yesterday a parent stopped me mid sentence to say that she couldn’t see me anymore. Once I’d confirmed that the other 45 children could still see me, she expected me to work out why she couldn’t. Whilst 45 children waited. I had to boot her out in the end as she just kept unmuting and saying she couldn’t see me still and asking for more suggestions. My job is 1000 times shitter than it ever was because I haven’t got the one thing I do my job for, the children.

I taught 5 lessons in school today to year 8s, 11s, 13s, 9s and 10s. Spent all day trying to teach 2 simultaneous lessons as we've got to deliver the same content to the students in my classroom as at home, whilst trying to solve all tech issues the students at home have and make sure they do the work. I much prefer having my classes in front of me to be honest, the multi tasking is much less intense.

YABU, but you know that really.